Welcome! Jesus Christ is my LORD and Savior! Romans 10:9-10,13; John 3:16

[For EU visitors, I do not personally use cookies, but Google or any clickable link (if you choose to click on it) might. This is in compliance with mandatory EU notification]

I am a Natural Born United States Citizen with NO allegiance or citizenship to any nation but my own, and will use this site as a hobby place of sorts to present my own political and religious viewpoints, as a genuine Constitutional Conservative and a genuine Christian Conservative.

Thank you for coming.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Year of our LORD Jesus Christ
2024
The New World Order Globalists (Satanists / Devil Worshipers, if you will) have successfully overthrown the Constitutional Government of the United States with willing Deep State & Shadow Government traitors to the United States Constitution & this Republic, having committed a Coup D'Etat by not just a vote count corruption and foreign electronic voting manipulation, but by control of Mossad (Epstein Island) pedophile very top judicial & executive & legislative branch compromised actors, so that they have literally stolen a Presidential Election, placing an extremely corrupt US politician pedophile completely owned & controlled by the Communist Chinese Government, who will step down & hand his position to an illegal to run or be in office (anchor baby of 2 alien citizens), who also is Chinese Communist Party owned for all practical political purposes.


It is likely that the entries to this blog will be less frequent than in years past. I do intend to keep this blog active as long as it passes under the mass censorship radar of extreme hostility & vindictiveness now underway, and I do intend to offer insightful information and/or opinion (and sometimes humor and/or entertainment on occasion) when I do post.
We shall see what the future holds.

Peace and Liberty. Semper Fidelis.










Thursday, September 27, 2012

Netanyahu addresses the United Nations, September 27, 2012






It’s a pleasure to see the General Assembly presided by the Ambassador from Israel, and it’s good to see all of you, distinguished delegates.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Three thousand years ago, King David reigned over the Jewish state in our eternal capital, Jerusalem. I say that to all those who proclaim that the Jewish state has no roots in our region and that it will soon disappear.

Throughout our history, the Jewish people have overcome all the tyrants who have sought our destruction. It’s their ideologies that have been discarded by history.

The people of Israel live on. We say in Hebrew Am Yisrael Chai, and the Jewish state will live forever.

The Jewish people have lived in the land of Israel for thousands of years. Even after most of our people were exiled from it, Jews continued to live in the land of Israel throughout the ages. The masses of our people never gave up the dreamed of returning to our ancient homeland.

Defying the laws of history, we did just that. We ingathered the exiles, restored our independence and rebuilt our national life. The Jewish people have come home. We will never be uprooted again.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.
Every year, for over three millennia, we have come together on this day of reflection and atonement. We take stock of our past. We pray for our future. We remember the sorrows of our persecution; we remember the great travails of our dispersion; we mourn the extermination of a third of our people, six million, in the Holocaust.
But at the end of Yom Kippur, we celebrate.

We celebrate the rebirth of Israel. We celebrate the heroism of our young men and women who have defended our people with the indomitable courage of Joshua, David, and the Maccabees of old. We celebrate the marvel of the flourishing modern Jewish state.
In Israel, we walk the same paths tread by our patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But we blaze new trails in science, technology, medicine, agriculture.

In Israel, the past and the future find common ground.
Unfortunately, that is not the case in many other countries. For today, a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval.

The forces of modernity seek a bright future in which the rights of all are protected, in which an ever-expanding digital library is available in the palm of every child, in which every life is sacred.
The forces of medievalism seek a world in which women and minorities are subjugated, in which knowledge is suppressed, in which not life but death is glorified.

These forces clash around the globe, but nowhere more starkly than in the Middle East.

Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the rights of all our citizens:  men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians – all are equal before the law.

Israel is also making the world a better place: our scientists win Nobel Prizes. Our know-how is in every cell-phone and computer that you’re using. We prevent hunger by irrigating arid lands in Africa and Asia.

Recently, I was deeply moved when I visited Technion, one of our technological institutes in Haifa, and I saw a man paralyzed from the waist down climb up a flight of stairs, quite easily, with the aid of an Israeli invention.

And Israel’s exceptional creativity is matched by our people’s remarkable compassion. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world – in Haiti, Japan, India, Turkey Indonesia and elsewhere – Israeli doctors are among the first on the scene, performing life-saving surgeries.

In the past year, I lost both my father and my father-in-law. In the same hospital wards where they were treated, Israeli doctors were treating Palestinian Arabs. In fact, every year, thousands of Arabs from the Palestinian territories and Arabs from throughout the Middle East come to Israel to be treated in Israeli hospitals by Israeli doctors.

I know you’re not going to hear that from speakers around this podium, but that’s the truth. It’s important that you are aware of this truth. It’s because Israel cherishes life, that Israel cherishes peace and seeks peace.  We seek to preserve our historic ties and our historic peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. We seek to forge a durable peace with the Palestinians.

President Abbas just spoke here. I say to him and I say to you:
We won’t solve our conflict with libelous speeches at the UN. That’s not the way to solve it. We won’t solve our conflict with unilateral declarations of statehood. We have to sit together, negotiate together, and reach a mutual compromise, in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the one and only Jewish State.

Israel wants to see a Middle East of progress and peace. We want to see the three great religions that sprang forth from our region – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – coexist in peace and in mutual respect. 

Yet the medieval forces of radical Islam, whom you just saw storming the American embassies throughout the Middle East, they oppose this.They seek supremacy over all Muslims. They are bent on world conquest. They want to destroy Israel, Europe, America. They want to extinguish freedom. They want to end the modern world.

Militant Islam has many branches – from the rulers of Iran with their Revolutionary Guards to Al Qaeda terrorists to the radical cells lurking in every part of the globe. But despite their differences, they are all rooted in the same bitter soil of intolerance. That intolerance is directed first at their fellow Muslims, and then to Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, secular people, anyone who doesn’t submit to their unforgiving creed.  They want to drag humanity back to an age of unquestioning dogma and unrelenting conflict.

I am sure of one thing. Ultimately they will fail. Ultimately, light will penetrate the darkness. We’ve seen that happen before.
Some five hundred years ago, the printing press helped pry a cloistered Europe out of a dark age. Eventually, ignorance gave way to enlightenment. So too, a cloistered Middle East will eventually yield to the irresistible power of freedom and technology. When this happens, our region will be guided not by fanaticism and conspiracy, but by reason and curiosity.
I think the relevant question is this: it’s not whether this fanaticism will be defeated. It’s how many lives will be lost before it’s defeated.

We’ve seen that happen before too. Some 70 years ago, the world saw another fanatic ideology bent on world conquest. It went down in flames. But not before it took millions of people with it. Those who opposed that fanaticism waited too long to act. In the end they triumphed, but at an horrific cost. My friends, we cannot let that happen again.

At stake is not merely the future of my own country. At stake is the future of the world. Nothing could imperil our common future more than the arming of Iran with nuclear weapons. To understand what the world would be like with a nuclear-armed Iran, just imagine the world with a nuclear-armed Al-Qaeda. 

It makes no difference whether these lethal weapons are in the hands of the world’s most dangerous terrorist regime or the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization. They’re both fired by the same hatred; they’re both driven by the same lust for violence.
Just look at what the Iranian regime has done up till now, without nuclear weapons. 

In 2009, they brutally put down mass protests for democracy in their own country. Today, their henchmen are participating in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians, including thousands of children, directly participating in this murder.
They abetted the killing of American soldiers in Iraq and continue to do so in Afghanistan. Before that, Iranian proxies killed hundreds of American troops in Beirut and in Saudi Arabia. They’ve turned Lebanon and Gaza into terror strongholds, embedding nearly 100,000 missiles and rockets in civilian areas. Thousands of these rockets and missiles have already been fired at Israeli communities by their terrorist proxies.

In the last year, they’ve spread their international terror networks to two dozen countries across five continents – from India and Thailand to Kenya and Bulgaria. They’ve even plotted to blow up a restaurant a few blocks from the White House in order to kill a diplomat.

And of course, Iran’s rulers repeatedly deny the Holocaust and call for Israel’s destruction almost on a daily basis, as they did again this week from the United Nations.

So I ask you, given this record of Iranian aggression without nuclear weapons, just imagine Iranian aggression with nuclear weapons. Imagine their long range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads, their terror networks armed with atomic bombs.
Who among you would feel safe in the Middle East? Who would be safe in Europe? Who would be safe in America? Who would be safe anywhere?

There are those who believe that a nuclear-armed Iran can be deterred like the Soviet Union. That’s a very dangerous assumption.
Militant Jihadists behave very differently from secular Marxists. There were no Soviet suicide bombers. Yet Iran produces hordes of them.

Deterrence worked with the Soviets, because every time the Soviets faced a choice between their ideology and their survival, they chose their survival. But deterrence may not work with the Iranians once they get nuclear weapons.

There’s a great scholar of the Middle East, Prof. Bernard Lewis, who put it best. He said that for the Ayatollahs of Iran, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent, it’s an inducement.

Iran’s apocalyptic leaders believe that a medieval holy man will reappear in the wake of a devastating Holy War, thereby ensuring that their brand of radical Islam will rule the earth.

That’s not just what they believe. That’s what is actually guiding their policies and their actions. Just listen to Ayatollah Rafsanjani who said, I quote:  ”The use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything, however it would only harm the Islamic world.”
Rafsanjani said: “It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”
Not irrational…
And that’s coming from one of the so-called moderates of Iran.
 

Shockingly, some people have begun to peddle the absurd notion that a nuclear-armed Iran would actually stabilize the Middle East.
Yeah, right… That’s like saying a nuclear-armed Al-Qaeda would usher in an era of universal peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve been speaking about the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons for over 15 years.
I spoke about it in my first term in office as Prime Minister, and then I spoke about it when I left office. I spoke about it when it was fashionable, and I spoke about it when it wasn’t fashionable.
I speak about it now because the hour is getting late, very late. I speak about it now because the Iranian nuclear calendar doesn’t take time out for anyone or for anything. I speak about it now because when it comes to the survival of my country, it’s not only my right to speak; it’s my duty to speak. And I believe that this is the duty of every responsible leader who wants to preserve world peace.

For nearly a decade, the international community has tried to stop the Iranian nuclear program with diplomacy.  That hasn’t worked.
Iran uses diplomatic negotiations as a means to buy time to advance its nuclear program.  For over seven years, the international community has tried sanctions with Iran. Under the leadership of President Obama, the international community has passed some of the strongest sanctions to date.

I want to thank the governments represented here that have joined in this effort. It’s had an effect. Oil exports have been curbed and the Iranian economy has been hit hard.

It’s had an effect on the economy, but we must face the truth. Sanctions have not stopped Iran’s nuclear program either.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, during the last year alone, Iran has doubled the number of centrifuges in its underground nuclear facility in Qom.

At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs. That’s by placing a clear red line on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Red lines don’t lead to war; red lines prevent war.

Look at NATO’s charter: it made clear that an attack on one member country would be considered an attack on all.  NATO’s red line helped keep the peace in Europe for nearly half a century.
President Kennedy set a red line during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That red line also prevented war and helped preserve the peace for decades.

In fact, it’s the failure to place red lines that has often invited aggression.  If the Western powers had drawn clear red lines during the 1930s, I believe they would have stopped Nazi aggression and World War II might have been avoided.

In 1990, if Saddam Hussein had been clearly told that his conquest of Kuwait would cross a red line, the first Gulf War might have been avoided.  Clear red lines have also worked with Iran.

Earlier this year, Iran threatened to close the Straits of Hormouz. The United States drew a clear red line and Iran backed off.
Red lines could be drawn in different parts of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But to be credible, a red line must be drawn first and foremost in one vital part of their program: on Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium. 

Now let me explain why:
Basically, any bomb consists of explosive material and a mechanism to ignite it.  The simplest example is gunpowder and a fuse. That is, you light the fuse and set off the gunpowder.
In the case of Iran’s plans to build a nuclear weapon, the gunpowder is enriched uranium. The fuse is a nuclear detonator.
For Iran, amassing enough enriched uranium is far more difficult than producing the nuclear fuse.

For a country like Iran, it takes many, many years to enrich uranium for a bomb. That requires thousands of centrifuges spinning in tandem in very big industrial plants. Those Iranian plants are visible and they’re still vulnerable.

In contrast, Iran could produce the nuclear detonator – the fuse – in a lot less time, maybe under a year, maybe only a few months.
The detonator can be made in a small workshop the size of a classroom. It may be very difficult to find and target that workshop, especially in Iran. That’s a country that’s bigger than France, Germany, Italy and Britain combined.

The same is true for the small facility in which they could assemble a warhead or a nuclear device that could be placed in a container ship. Chances are you won’t find that facility either.

So in fact the only way that you can credibly prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, is to prevent Iran from amassing enough enriched uranium for a bomb.

So, how much enriched uranium do you need for a bomb? And how close is Iran to getting it?

Let me show you. I brought a diagram for you. Here’s the diagram.

This is a bomb; this is a fuse.

In the case of Iran’s nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled with enough enriched uranium. And Iran has to go through three stages.

The first stage: they have to enrich enough of low enriched uranium.  The second stage: they have to enrich enough medium enriched uranium.  And the third stage and final stage: they have to enrich enough high enriched uranium for the first bomb.
Where’s Iran? Iran’s completed the first stage. It took them many years, but they completed it and they’re 70% of the way there.
Now they are well into the second stage. By next spring, at most by next summer at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage.
From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.


Ladies and Gentlemen, What I told you now is not based on secret information. It’s not based on military intelligence. It’s based on public reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Anybody can read them. They’re online.
So if these are the facts, and they are, where should the red line be drawn?  The red line should be drawn right here…………..

 http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c60bf53ef017c322fa703970b-pi


 Before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment necessary to make a bomb.

Before Iran gets to a point where it’s a few months away or a few weeks away from amassing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.

Each day, that point is getting closer. That’s why I speak today with such a sense of urgency. And that’s why everyone should have a sense of urgency.  Some who claim that even if Iran completes the enrichment process, even if it crosses that red line that I just drew, our intelligence agencies will know when and where Iran will make the fuse, assemble the bomb, and prepare the warhead.


Look, no one appreciates our intelligence agencies more than the Prime Minister of Israel. All these leading intelligence agencies are superb, including ours. They’ve foiled many attacks. They’ve saved many lives.  But they are not foolproof.  For over two years, our intelligence agencies didn’t know that Iran was building a huge nuclear enrichment plant under a mountain.

Do we want to risk the security of the world on the assumption that we would find in time a small workshop in a country half the size of Europe?

Ladies and Gentlemen, The relevant question is not when Iran will get the bomb. The relevant question is at what stage can we no longer stop Iran from getting the bomb.  The red line must be drawn on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program because these enrichment facilities are the only nuclear installations that we can definitely see and credibly target.

I believe that faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down.
This will give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to convince Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons program altogether.
Two days ago, from this podium, President Obama reiterated that the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran cannot be contained.

I very much appreciate the President’s position as does everyone in my country. We share the goal of stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program. This goal unites the people of Israel.  It unites Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike and it is shared by important leaders throughout the world.

What I have said today will help ensure that this common goal is achieved.  Israel is in discussions with the United States over this issue, and I am confident that we can chart a path forward together.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The clash between modernity and medievalism need not be a clash between progress and tradition.
The traditions of the Jewish people go back thousands of years.  They are the source of our collective values and the foundation of our national strength.

At the same time, the Jewish people have always looked towards the future. Throughout history, we have been at the forefront of efforts to expand liberty, promote equality, and advance human rights.  We champion these principles not despite of our traditions but because of them.

We heed the words of the Jewish prophets Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah to treat all with dignity and compassion, to pursue justice and cherish life and to pray and strive for peace. These are the timeless values of my people and these are the Jewish people’s greatest gift to mankind.

Let us commit ourselves today to defend these values so that we can defend our freedom and protect our common civilization.
Thank you.

[Updated with diagrams and picture -- re:  http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/09/nukes-for-dummies.html
at 2:18 am Pacific 09/28/2012]

Guest Blog: Diplomatic Security in Light of Benghazi


"Diplomatic Security in Light of Benghazi is republished with permission of Stratfor."


http://www.stratfor.com/sites/default/files/main/images/Libya_benghazi_us_consolate.jpg

Analysis
A group of 20 armed men attacked the U.S. Consulate late Sept. 11 in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. U.S. President Barack Obama confirmed Sept. 12 that four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the attack. According to media reports, after local security forces reportedly fled, the assailants were seen shooting in the air before making their way into the facility, which reportedly was occupied by 10 consulate employees. Gunshots and explosions were heard, according to several reports. Libyan officials said the attackers then staged another raid, prompting the U.S. ambassador to try to escape. As he fled the attack with three other staff members, Stevens' vehicle was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from an area nearby.  ...  The attack will raise several questions for the new government in Tripoli and for the U.S.-Libya relationship. Chief among these will be just how can the central authority contain the jihadist presence in Benghazi and surrounding areas and how those efforts -- or lack thereof -- will shape U.S.-Libya ties moving forward.

 


Diplomatic Security in Light of Benghazi

September 27, 2012 | 0902 GMT

By Scott Stewart
It has been more than two weeks since the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, yet the attack remains front-page news. One reason is that it has become unusual for a U.S. ambassador to be killed. After the 1968 assassination of John Mein in Guatemala -- the first ever U.S. ambassador to be assassinated -- several others were killed in the 1970s: Cleo Noel Jr. in Sudan in 1973, Rodger Davies in Cyprus in 1974, Francis Meloy Jr. in Lebanon in 1976 and Adolph Dubs in Afghanistan in 1979. However, following improvements in diplomatic security during the 1980s, no U.S. ambassador has died as a result of a hostile action since Ambassador Arnold Raphel, who was killed in the plane crash used to assassinate Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in August 1988.
Another reason for the continued publicity is that it is an election year. Since foreign policy is an area where Republicans believe President Barack Obama is vulnerable, Stevens' death has become highly politicized. In any event, the Benghazi attack remains in the headlines. Unfortunately, as one goes beyond those headlines, there are many misunderstandings that have persisted in both the media coverage and the public discussions of the incident. There simply are not many people who understand how diplomatic facilities work and how they are protected. 


With that in mind, and because other U.S. diplomatic facilities remain in harm's way due to the protests occurring throughout the Muslim world, it is an opportune time to again discuss diplomatic security.


Responsibilities

First, whenever discussing the security of diplomatic facilities, it must be understood that, by treaty, the responsibility for the security of diplomatic facilities lies with the host government. This clear responsibility was codified in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which took effect in 1964.
This is generally not a problem in a developed, friendly country. There is little doubt that the Australian government will take the appropriate steps to ensure that the U.S. Embassy and the British High Commission in Canberra remain safe. The problems with the responsibilities outlined in the Vienna Convention occur when a diplomatic facility is located in a country that is either unable or unwilling to provide adequate security.


The U.S. government has learned this lesson the hard way. For example, in 1979, the U.S. embassies in Tehran and Islamabad were overrun. In both cases, the host governments could have taken action to stop the mobs attacking the embassies but chose not to. A few years later in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy and Embassy Annex were targeted in massive bombing attacks in 1983 and 1984, respectively. In these attacks, it was weakness that prevented the Lebanese government, which had been exhausted by civil war, from providing adequate protection for the facilities.


The situation in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, very much resembled the one in Lebanon at the time of the embassy bombings. The Libyan central government has very little authority outside of Tripoli, the capital, and heavily armed tribal and regional militias control many parts of the country. Some of this has changed since locals angry at Ansar al-Sharia, a group believed to have participated in the Benghazi attack, stormed the compounds of some Islamist militias in the Benghazi area, evicting them and turning the compounds over to the government. Nevertheless, the militias left with most of their weapons and will continue to be a threat in the future.


The U.S. government learned from the incidents of the 1970s and 1980s that host governments cannot always be expected to provide security adequate to counter all threats in a country. In response to this reality and the increased attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz set up a commission in 1984 to study the problem and find ways to increase security at U.S. facilities abroad. The panel, headed by Adm. Bobby Inman, was formally called the Advisory Panel on Overseas Security but is widely referred to as the Inman Commission. In addition to recommending a more robust cadre of agents to protect facilities, the Inman Commission made recommendations on physical and procedural security standards for diplomatic facilities. Embassies and consulates constructed in accordance with these physical security standards are often referred to as Inman facilities.


Based on the findings of the Inman Commission, the Department of State's Office of Security was expanded to become the Diplomatic Security Service in 1985. The U.S. Congress codified and funded these changes in the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986. 


Funding Issues

However, as we've previously noted, funding for diplomatic security follows a notable boom and bust cycle. The influx of funding for diplomatic security provided by the 1986 Omnibus Act quickly evaporated. By the early 1990s, security budgets were being severely squeezed again. This budget crunch affected physical security upgrades at embassies as well as the hiring of new Diplomatic Security Service agents and forced cuts in things such as local guard program budgets. The Crowe Commission, which was appointed to investigate the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in August 1998, concluded that these funding cuts had severely hampered efforts to increase security at U.S. facilities abroad.
While there was a spike in funding for diplomatic security (along with security more generally) after the 9/11 attacks, security funding has declined over the past decade. This issue has been complicated by the incredible strain placed on the system by the huge diplomatic facilities in Iraq as well as the large diplomatic presence and severe threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Providing security to these posts has also stretched Diplomatic Security Service personnel thin. The two Diplomatic Security Service special agents injured in the Benghazi attack were on their first tours and had been borrowed from domestic field offices in the United States for a temporary duty assignment protecting Stevens in Libya. The personnel situation is not looking much better for the future. With the agents hired after the Inman Commission in the mid-to-late 1980s retiring at a rapid rate, and with others leaving due to strain placed on their families by multiple tours in places in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 100 new special agents the Diplomatic Security Service is slated to hire this year will not be enough to replace those leaving the service. 


Into this dynamic we introduce the Arab Spring and the revolution in Libya. The United States had re-established diplomatic ties with Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's regime renounced terrorism and its nuclear ambitions. In 2004, a U.S. interests section was opened in Tripoli, and in 2006, the United States opened a full embassy. In 2009, the United States opened a new embassy building in Tripoli that was built to meet the department's security standards and provide a safe working environment for American diplomats in the Libyan capital. This building, however, was abandoned in February 2011 when the U.S. government severed diplomatic ties with the Gadhafi government and withdrew U.S. diplomats from Tripoli.


At this time it is worth noting that embassy buildings are intended to protect their occupants from terrorist attacks, but they are not immune to prolonged attacks by angry mobs. Even good physical security measures can be breached by a mob with tools and time. This is what happened in Tripoli in May 2011. The new U.S. Embassy building was ransacked, looted and badly damaged by Gadhafi security forces and a gang of Gadhafi supporters, rendering it uninhabitable. As a result, after the fall of the Gadhafi regime, the U.S. Embassy staff had to move into a temporary facility until the former embassy building could be repaired or a new facility could be constructed. They are still in this temporary facility. 


One reality of Libya after the revolution is that, as noted above, the country is very divided and the central government has little authority outside of Tripoli. There has also been a long history of an east-west divide in Libya, with Tripoli and Benghazi as the opposing centers of power. Because of this, it makes a great deal of sense for the United States to want to open an office in Benghazi to take the pulse of eastern Libya. The United States also intervened on behalf of the rebels, who were originally based in Benghazi, and U.S. diplomats, led by Stevens, established an office there in early April 2011 to coordinate U.S. aid for the rebels, eventually moving into the villa that was attacked.
Benghazi and Darnah also have long been hotbeds of jihadism in Libya, so having an office in eastern Libya is a logical step in support of efforts to monitor these groups. Additionally, with the vast quantities of weapons that were looted from arms depots in the Benghazi area, including large numbers of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, Benghazi is a good place to base efforts to monitor the flow of such weapons or even to stage programs to recover and destroy them. 


So while it is understandable that the U.S. government would want to base diplomats and intelligence personnel in Benghazi, it encountered a problem: It simply did not have a facility in the city that met security standards. Instead, the personnel had to occupy a temporary facility until a suitable building could be funded and then constructed. While the U.S. State Department has adopted a modular design program that has made this process a little easier, the construction of a new office building is nonetheless an expensive undertaking and something that the department cannot do under its current operating budget without the U.S. Congress allocating funds to pay for the construction project. Anyone who has dealt with the U.S. government should not be surprised, then, that the 11 months since the fall of the Gadhafi regime were not enough for Congress to fund, and the State Department to build, a new secure facility to house the consulate in Benghazi.


Risk and Reward

It is difficult for a large bureaucracy like the U.S. government to adapt to rapidly changing events -- even events it is largely responsible for, such as forcing the Gadhafi regime from power.
During such times of transition, there will always be some tension between the need to get the job done and the need to do it safely. Working and living in an environment such as Benghazi where there are heavily armed Islamist militias is dangerous, but there are simply some things that cannot be done without personnel on the ground. Someone somewhere made the decision that the benefits of having U.S. personnel in Benghazi outweighed the risk of housing them in a building that did not meet security standards, and a waiver was granted for the Benghazi facility.


The presence of a U.S. ambassador at a post with a security waiver located in such a volatile environment on the 9/11 anniversary is another issue, especially given the previous attacks against the U.S. Consulate and the British ambassador's motorcade in the city. The situation is even worse if the rumor that Stevens was on a jihadist hit list proves to be true. Former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering will chair the accountability review board that has been established to investigate the attack in Benghazi. In addition to reviewing the physical security of the facility, the board will certainly be reviewing the rationale behind the decision to allow the ambassador to travel to Benghazi and whether that decision was made at the local level or in Washington. 


But the issue of temporary facilities is not just confined to Tripoli and Benghazi. It comes up frequently when there is a rapid change in a nation, or even in the case of a natural disaster. For example, the U.S. recognition of the new nation of South Sudan in July 2011 necessitated the rapid establishment of an embassy in the country's capital, Juba. If the environment continues to improve in Somalia, it is possible that the United States will increase its presence in Mogadishu, and establishing an embassy in Mogadishu will also pose a problem until a secure facility can be constructed.


The issue of temporary facilities is also not a new problem. The December 1972 earthquake that shattered Managua, Nicaragua, destroyed the U.S. Embassy there. Following the earthquake, the embassy was housed in a temporary prefabricated facility -- essentially a large mobile home -- until a new embassy building was completed in 2007. (Much of this delay was due to tensions with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and its desire to keep the U.S. Embassy insecure.)


The diplomatic missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue to consume substantial portions of the U.S. overseas security budget and the shrinking cadre of Diplomatic Security Service special agents for the foreseeable future. This means that smaller posts seen as less important, like Benghazi, will remain vulnerable -- especially against a prolonged attack by a large and heavily armed force. U.S. authorities will have to continue to make uncomfortable decisions regarding the risks and benefits of having such outposts.

----------------------------


An Addendum by Brianroy

CNN entered into the unprotected U.S. Consulate


A desk inside the burnt U.S. Consulate building in Benghazi, Libya, on Thursday, September 13, two days after an attack on the building in which the U.S. ambassador and three other U.S. nationals were killed. -- CNN

and obtained the personal journal of U.S. Ambassador Stevens, and used it for exclusive "news tips" for more than a week, before disclosing that they had classified U.S. material in their possession.  


And oddly enough, why aren't Americans more angrily asking why it is that America got a better News Media coverage by looking to Great Britain over the Internet than to its own Cable News Media? 
Even the print Media in Britain -- for example, the UK Daily Mail -- "initially" gave a more "you are there" coverage than the U.S. "Mainstream" Media, even though it spun the story somewhat.






Why?  Because they are not beholden to be part of pumping up Obama's positive image so that he might be re-elected (even though unconstitutional and unqualified to be President) in November 2012.   

There should have been more questions, more accountability demanded at the time.  






And despite the White House knowing for a fact within 24 hours that the Libya Attack was a terrorist attack  (I say coordinated by Obama surrogates to create a rallying to increase his poll numbers),

 

 the Obama Administration consistently, and still to this day, refers to the event as sparked by what may later prove to be an Obama "insiders" (reporting directly to or one person removed from Obama personally)  initiated internet-video movie on Mohammed for this express purpose of incitement that only those pre-coordinated in the Department of State knew about (which is why only the Department of State in Egypt issued its Obama justification of Muslims to attack us as if it were 'fatwa', if you will; a type of 'fatwa" which the White House and Obama has continuously affirmed more often than not, since).   By playing both affirmation and denial, Obama plays deceiver to a willing Media begging to be deceived, and begging any excuse to believe and hang onto in order to justify their deification of Obama as the "son of promise" and the fulfillment of why we even had a Civil Rights movement (or some such emotional idiocy -- contrary to what the Republication Dr. Martin Luther King advocated in "content of character, NOT the color of skin"), no matter how irrational or ridiculous.

When it come to Third World radicals and extremists, Obama isn't one of us...he's one of them. He was reared as a third world outsider BEFORE he was cognizant of our Constitution and our Republic. Obama made it his mission in life in the 1990's to hang out with their Islamist Fundamentalist intellectuals and sympathize with them.  Obama pre-9/11 was with them BEFORE he was publicly with us in the United States in patriotic sympathy with us.  We as a nation should be sure to never forget that fact.  Obama is not a United States Natural Born Citizen, and without a U.S. Citizen father, he never was.  The framers of our Constitution added that clause requirement for good reason.  America egregiously forgot it in allowing Obama to run and win.  He will make damn sure we PAY for our national stupidity in a very bad way.  You can count on that just as sure as banks will always charge interest on their loans to we common folk of society.  



[[[[[Update 9:35 pm 09/28/2012

Breitbart.com posted a Foxnews report of the ever changing Libya Narrative.  



See also the Reuters article:



Meanwhile, the State department Scrubbed its fantasy-world memo of "Let's not worry about 9/11", posted the Department of State website on 9/6/2012 or  5 days prior to 9/11/2012, and remaining up after knowing 48 hours later and 3 days before 9/11/2012 of a credible attack threat was in the works.  (It has since been scrubbed...but not before it was screen shot documented at gatewaypundit.com). 




"
The OSAC memo said:


Terrorism and Important Dates
Global
9/6/2012
OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa’ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September 11. However, constituents often have concerns around important dates, holidays, and major events, Often times, these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence of a terrorist plot."

And with the attacks on the U.S. Embassies around the world,
 it is apparent that the latest stratagem is that Obama wants to use the now Obama induced and Obama morally supported Muslim riots against our embassies (be it Thailand, India, Egypt, or wherever) as an excuse to abandon a United States Global presence and abandon other embassies as we have done in Libya (not a single FBI investigator, and a virtual total abandonment of the facility with just a locked gate "protecting" it, rather than overwhelming armed U.S. Marine Corp. rebuilding presence). 

 In fact, Obama wants to REWARD the scumbag Islamic Hamas run Egyptian Government with an additional $450 million dollars in direct aid and an additional $435 million dollars in other funding.

Egypt under Hamas is now in open league with Iran with Morsi's recent trip there
and of note is that a former Indian Ambassador to the USA, Lalit Mansingh, also expressed hostility to the United States, stating “This is India’s signal to Iran that we are ...not entirely in America’s camp,”) 

It's time America tells the terrorists and Obama to go F**K THEMSELVES, and we can ALL do that by voting Mitt Romney when WE THE PEOPLE  cast our ballots, be it absentee or in November  on Election Day at the polls.      --- End of Update   9:35 pm  09/28/2012]]]]]