With Embassy Closures, the U.S. Errs on the
Side of Caution
August 5, 2013 |
"With Embassy Closures, the U.S.
Errs on the Side of Caution is
republished with permission of Stratfor."
Yemeni soldiers search a car at a checkpoint on a street leading
to the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa on Aug. 4.
(MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Global, nonspecific threats such as those that prompted recent
U.S. embassy closures and travel warnings have rarely proved credible. These
precautionary measures appear to be the result of two separate threats, one
attack against an unspecified U.S. embassy and another against travel
infrastructure -- presumably an airliner. In response to the embassy threat,
the U.S. government announced Aug. 4 that it had extended the closure of
several embassies in the Middle East until Aug. 10 and that African posts would
now be among the embassies closed. In response to the airline threat,
Washington issued a global travel alert running from Aug. 2 to Aug. 31. The
travel warning and the closures have commanded the media's attention and have
led to much speculation about the source and the credibility of the threats,
but more often than not these threats fail to materialize.
Analysis
Most attacks against embassies have involved a large vehicle
bomb, an armed assault or a combination of a vehicle bomb and armed assault.
Such was the case with the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, in September 2008.
To mitigate the impact of a perceived threat, the United States will close an
embassy, increase security and request that the host country bolster its
security presence at the compound.
Many of the posts that were closed in response to the August
threats happen to have very good physical security measures in place due to
their locations in the Middle East, which poses higher threat levels to U.S.
facilities. For example, the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa was built in accordance with
the security standards established by the Inman Commission.
Therefore, it is designed to withstand bomb attacks and armed assaults. Still,
even well constructed buildings are vulnerable to mob attacks like the one directed against the U.S. Embassy in Tunis in September
2012. Only the host country security forces can provide protection
against such threats.
The threat to embassies has been a persistent feature of the age
of modern terrorism, and so has the threat to airliners and travelers. As
for the threat to aviation, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a history of
failed attacks against commercial and cargo airliners using cleverly disguised explosive
devices. While these devices have failed in the past, it is likely that the
group's bombmaker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, has been able to solve the problems that
afflicted his past designs. In fact, in a thwarted underwear bomb plot in May
2012, the alleged suicide bomber turned his device over to Saudi officials, and
the device was reportedly of a different design from the one used in the failed
Christmas 2009 attempt.
Threats to embassy buildings and airliners have
been a persistent feature of the age of modern terrorism. While the tactics and tradecraft used to attack these targets have
changed in response to
evolving security procedures, diplomatic facilities and airliners have
nonetheless remained desirable targets. Jihadists will continue to be drawn to
them even as the jihadist threat continues to shift from one posed by the al
Qaeda core to one centered on regional militant groups that have adopted the al
Qaeda brand name, such as al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula and al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb.
Not Another Benghazi
As the threat persists, however, that fact remains that many
warnings are issued for threats that never actually materialize.
Warnings can be invalidated by bad information, deliberate disinformation or
postponed or canceled plots. This is especially true of global, non-specific
warnings, such as those against U.S. embassies in the Middle East and Asia in
mid-2001.
In the post-Benghazi political environment, warnings issued by
the U.S. government are likely evidence that Washington is acting out of an
overabundance of caution -- no politician or bureaucrat wants to experience
another Benghazi. Overreacting is seen as preferable to the risks of
failing to warn at all. It is also important to remember that practically, the
threat is more acute in places where al Qaeda franchise groups are active, such
as Yemen and Libya, than it is globally.
Terrorism is an enduring reality. There were
people planning attacks against U.S. embassies and international aviation
before these alerts were issued, and there will continue to be people planning
attacks well after the warning expires on August 31. The U.S. State Department
has maintained a "worldwide caution" since 2001 that is updated every
six months or so. This means that people must not allow themselves to be caught
up in the hype that surrounds such warnings. Rather they should keep terrorism in perspective and practice prudent situational awareness.
Would that life would be more along the lines of keeping all things to the beauty in life of things and music that we can all share and enjoy.
But alas, there are issues of alarm which may lead to great unrest, an unrest fomented and orchestrated by Obama against the United States and its citizens AGAINST our security interests, and to great harm to the citizens of the United States. Vigilance requires we at least sound the watch alarm to its good probability or likelihood because the danger signs are there.
Obama is having a shut down in at least 10 Middle Eastern Countries and claiming a specific threat of specificity of an attack as imminent. Impitible poppycock! Obama is both intentionally giving the appearance of the U.S. turning chicken sh*t before Islam, in order to help motivate and escalate outside attacks on the United States so he will have excuse to capitulate more. And in fact, Obama with his Muslim Brotherhood insiders of the West Wing
slated to meet with the ousted representatives of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt during this shut down
are knowingly acting with Al Qaeda In Arabia on how to encourage and recruit in order to launch more terror attacks in the unknown future . In Egypt, Al Qaeda In Arabia states that Morsi's failed terrorist government "disproves western democracy in Islamic States" (or a summary translation to this effect).
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/the-return-of-al-qaeda-and-jihad/
The meet between Obama was obviously set up so that Obama and the co-conspirator terrorists could brainstorm ideas of strategy so that he can diplomatically create withdrawals and help remove more U.S. credibility of strength, promote the concept of weakness, and embolden the Middle East to rise up as one and do damage to the United States Government and its people both there, and eventually make the U.S. suffer a terror onslaught like the Muslim Brotherhood and others did to Israel in the 1990s, with the goal of making Americans either capitulate to Islam, or suffer "justice" (as Obama warpedly perceives the term) for not submitting to it and him.
We've walked down this path of flowers and red rose glasses last year, just before 9/11/2012's Ben Ghazi terror assault which Obama is STILL covering up.
Embassy News
Remarks by Ambassador Chris Stevens at the Reopening of the Consular Section
August 26, 2012
Ambassador Chris Stevens (R) and MFA
Director of the Americas Desk Abdurrahman al-Gannas (L) cut the ribbon
to mark the opening of the new Consular section.
Good morning everybody. Sabaah al-kheir. Welcome to the Embassy. I know it's hot and you're in the sun, so I promise my remarks will be short and to the point.
Today is a great day for U.S.-Libyan relations. I'm so glad that you were all able to join us here to mark the reopening of our Consular section. Since returning to Libya as Ambassador in May, there's one question I've heard almost every day from Libyans: "When are you going to start issuing visas again?" Now, at last, you have your answer: Tomorrow.
I'm happy -- (applause) I'm happy to announce that starting on Monday, August 27, we are ready to offer a full range of consular services to Libyans. This means non-immigrant visas, as well as assistance to Americans residing in, or visiting, Libya.
I congratulate our new Consul, Jenny Cordell (applause), and her fine Libyan staff, for their hard work getting ready for this day, and for the even harder work they will be doing starting tomorrow.
The reopening of our consular section will cre - will create new opportunities for deepening ties between our two countries. For example, we are working with the Minister of High - Higher Education to expand English-language and university-level opportunities for Libyans, both here and in the United States. This year we are sending hundreds of Libyans to visit the U.S. on academic and professional exchange programs. In fact, last Thursday a group of exceptional teenagers left for a Youth Leadership Program in the United States. And on Friday, a group of Libyan journalists traveled to America for a program on Journalism in Transitional Countries.
We're also supporting travel and exchanges between Libyans and Americans in other areas, such as the development of civil society and the promotion of trade.
Relationships between governments are important, but relationships between people are the real foundation of mutual understanding. That's why the reopening of our Consular section is such an important milestone in relations between our two countries.
So, my message to Libyans today is ahlan wasahlan bikum. You are welcome to visit America, and there's the door! Thank you. (applause)
The next phase, as we see by the "Open door" utterance of the late Ambassador Stevens, is to have Obama instruct U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson to issue mass visas to the terrorists of Egypt. And why should she in any way object? Egyptians themselves view her as an honorary member of the Morsi Muslim Brotherhood because (they say) U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson was allegedly and almost certainly having sexually relations with a particular leader of the Brotherhood when she regularly visited for hours at a time in his own home, allegedly without aides and security when she went inside. For what other reason than sex (ask many Egyptians who demand her ouster)?
On August 8, 2013, Obama went to Camp Pendleton in
California and after closing 19 embassies - consulates (and perhaps diplomatic missions as well) in some 10 or so Middle Eastern
countries based on a generalized terror threat, and showed that the United
States was cowardly across an entire region. A proper response to trouble in Yemen should have been to merely restrict hours of access or temporarily close just the one embassy in Yemen and perhaps whatever other consulate and mission locations in immediate danger in Yemen were needed for a day or several days, as each location's threat assessment required. Obama told the U.S. Military as his captive audience at Camp Pendleton that:
“For these extremists, here’s what those who would
cowardly attack our civilians don’t get: The United States is never going to
retreat from the world. We don’t get terrorized,”
Really? What was the visual and moral effect of shutting down 9 other unaffected countries besides that of Yemen's security problems? There was Middle East wide uprisings and demonstrations. An entire friggin' Middle East regional shut down was based on a "prank" that a group of Al Qaeda In Arabia used in which, knowing the NSA is listening in, they clutter up phony terror attack traffic using key words provided in the Snowden-NSA-Obama scandal, and hook it into a single country's (Yemen's) crisis event.
Again, only one country, in a state of unrest, may have needed closure, and as of Sunday August 11, 2013, the other 18 besides Yemen will finally reopen
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-reopen-18-diplomatic-missions-after-threat-0
as they should have always STAYED open.
For more than an entire week, 18 embassies that did NOT meet a proper threshold for closure, were closed by order of Obama, who showed the haters of the West in the Middle East, that just a little phone chatter can make the U.S. turn tail and run under Obama. Phone chatter. Good grief!
In effect, days after closing down embassies based on a generalized threat, Obama, now (please excuse the crass but appropriate) aka. "President Chicken-Sh*t," has resumed his stance that we have Al Qaeda on the run.
The only problem with the cartoon, is that he's missing the wet stain on the upper inner pant leg where he urinates on himself, and the defecation droppings running down his pants onto his shoes and trailing him behind.
Some claim Obama is so smart, that he must be doing some grand tactic to lure Islam while really being one of us Americans as patriotic. Really? There are second graders in Elementary Schools in the Southeast United States who are more geographically proficient than Obama, who is so radical as this Leftist alleged ex-drug abuser, that he doesn't have a grasp on basic United States geography in states near to where he is supposed to be home based at. That is, his academic proficiency in the most basic U.S. geography is that of someone still on illegal drugs.
Hat Tip to:
OBAMA: I don’t know. As you know, for the
last three years, I’ve said, let’s work together. Let’s find a
financing mechanism and let’s go ahead and fix our bridges, fix our
roads, sewer systems, our ports. You know, the Panama Canal is being
widened so that these big supertankers can come in. Now, that will be
finished in 2015.
If we don’t deepen our ports all along the Gulf —
places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia, or
Jacksonville, Florida — if we don’t do that, those ships are going to go
someplace else. And we’ll lose jobs. Businesses won’t locate here.
Charleston,
South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia,
Jacksonville, Florida
are all on the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean,
NOT the Gulf of Mexico.
So what we have here, is Obama, as if dumber than a 2nd grader in U.S. Geography. And this guy is supposed to be "smarter" than Sarah Palin or Dan Quayle? Maybe as a radical terrorist and foreign national who subverted U.S. Laws and captured the White House, but not in the knowledge we would normally expect for someone in the U.S. Presidency...at least a legal presidency, anyway.
This Atlantic Seaboard cities are mythically through Obama now Gulf of Mexico cities, ranks up there with his notion that the United States had 57 States while he first illegally ran for President in 2008. Snopes.com blows it off and says that Obama meant that he visited all 57 Islamic Nation states of the world
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/57states.asp
with just one left to go,with the last 2 Muslim nation states being, "wink, wink" the states of the United States, Alaska and Hawaii. Really? Is that the best Snopes can come up with...that Obama is an Islamic zealot who got confused with his lies? Uh huh. Yup.
But then, this is the same guy who, while off teleprompter in the State of Hawaii, calls it Asia.
When is the Mainstream Corporate Media going to give America a glimpse of the real Barack Obama? A guy who clearly had someone else take and pass his college and university entrance exams for him, if his off-teleprompter gaffes are any measure of the man.
That's my input.
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