RIP John Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya
 

Apparently they were evacuating the Ambassador in one of his vehicles when it was hit with a complex ambush. Al-Sharef said Stevens died of suffocation, while two U.S. Marines sent to Benghazi when the clash erupted were shot and killed by well-armed protesters. It was not immediately clear whether the Marines were part of Stevens' security detail. The American whose death was confirmed on Tuesday also died of a gunshot wound.

RIP Ambassador Stevens and the warriors. I have no words to express my outrage and frustration.

Rest In Peace Ambassador Stevens.

Just look at the lunacy of these Arabs they were assaulting an embassy over a movie because it insulted their pedophile prophet.I'd love to see the a-holes who were responsible for this with two rounds in their sternum.

RIP, Marines. RIP, Ambassador Stevens.

By all accounts, brave men.

deleted - double post, my bad.

Killing an ambassador is an act of war, no?

You would think but with news saying he may have died from smoke I see this admission say different.

God bless you Ambassador Stevens thank you for your service. Prays to your family and friends

And the Administration apologized for this.. What a travesty..

RIP Ambassador Stevens



EDIT: He apologized for Egypt and condemned Libya.. I misread..

RIP

thank you for your service to this great nation

According to this CBS report, the Ambassador was killed after Libyan security forces 'protecting' the consulate revealed his location to the mob. In addition, they are claiming two US marines were killed.

RIP- Mr Stevens, thank you for your service. My family's prayers are with you, your family and friends.

Rest in Peace Ambasador Stevens, Sean Smith and the two Marine Warriors. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty". JFK

It’s time to start opposing our foes more aggressively.:mad:

Blue

edited to remove my feelings as to the ambassador and his enabling of those very people who killed him.

I am sad to see some good Marines got killed - that's the tragedy.

It is entirely plausible that Amb. Stevens was killed in a coordinated attacked, in retaliation for the killing of Saeed al-Shihri, AQ#2 in Yemen. No doubt, an act of war, which will be ignored by the current administration.

An act of war carried out by who? Do you really think we're going to" ignore" this and sit on our thumbs? I know it's an election year, but can we keep domestic politics references out of anything these days?

The security situation should be improving fast with the deployment of http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...8eb_story.html

Same shit
 

From what I'm seeing it looks like this was a planned attack that happened to coincide with the release of the video/movie. 9/11, coordinated attack with small arms and RPGs... does not sound like a rabble grabbing things out of their vehicles.
My two cents.

The Carter administration did.

History always repeats itself.

Just in time, too.

Although the Carter administration's efforts to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis proved mostly ineffective, I think it is historically inaccurate to say that his administration did "nothing." First, the Carter administration engaged in a multifaceted diplomatic effort to secure the release of the hostages. Second, Carter increasingly isolated himself in the White House as the crisis dragged on--an unprecedented (and foolish) act of political symbolism. Third, he publicly discussed the crisis frequently and at great length (approximately 151 times). Fourth, by authorizing EAGLE CLAW, Carter took arguably the greatest political risk of the post-Vietnam era--especially given the fact that he was a Democrat and the divergent views on matters of war and peace among members of his cabinet <<LINK>>.
Does history repeat itself or does it only seem that way because Americans do not value historiography?

IMO, the issue is not one Democratic president "repeating" the mistakes of an equally inept predecessor. The issue is the long standing dynamic in which post World War II presidents--with the notable exception of Eisenhower--take a crisis-to-crisis approach to national security affairs rather than one that is grounded in grand strategy.*

Add to this trend the unresolved issues of decolonization (which date back to World War I), the spheres of interest/collective security conundrum with which America has wrestled since Washington was in office, the strategic choices America made during the U.S.-Soviet rivalry, the looming shadow of Orientalism, the non-debate over GWOT, and the effacement of American navalism,**I think any president, regardless of party, would be facing some tough choices in the Middle East today.

My $0.02.
_______________________________________
* I am disagreeing with John Lewis Gaddis's contention that Bush the Younger's approach to GWOT represented a "sweeping change" to American grand strategy.
**Counter-factually speaking, if ODYSSEY DAWN had included the participation of American battleships with rail guns, I aver that asshats in Libya and Egypt would have thought thrice before violating American sovereignty.

Sigabo, Valid 0.02!

I will expand on my post just slightly. Looking at a bigger picture, and if you understand that I am not trying to lay a cookie cutter reference of the current Administration to the Carter Administration, I will say this: both issues that became the center of our Nations Foreign Policy during the elections could be viewed as a weak and negligible Foreign Policy. It is too easy for me, BLUE02HD, to relate the current events to those of the 1979 era, IE the Iranian Hostage situation. (which actually lasted well over a year, but the time frame may or may not be relevant)

I do not subscribe to the theory that this (AMB Stevens murder) was a random and spontaneous event. History will record the assassination of a US Ambassador. These BOLD attacks are extremely rare, despite all the Tom Clancy novels. As many of the participants here on this forum understand, violent attacks (in Afghanistan for example) usually spike during a change of responsibility or command. During times of uncertainty and transition. Without trying to forecast how the current election process will conclude, you cannot dismiss that our National Leadership is less likely to make strong, bold, overt acts globally while they are focused internally. (Think our Israeli allies may agree?) Our enemy historically and predictably attack in the seams of our Nations Authority. Pretty sure they teach that somewhere,, SWC maybe??

This is what I meant when I termed the phrase "History always repeats itself".

I love this quote: "The enemy will invariably attack at two moments. When they are ready, and when you are not."

As for my other comment which I believe you disagree with, I can only affirm my initial response. My POV of the Carter Administrations handling of the Iranian Hostage situation does not change. Buy outs and bribes do not equate to an appropriate National response. Military responses of the time were ineffective, and our Global image was very weak with respect to any aspect you could choose to discuss. (Politically, economically, and militarily) In effect, those attempts created NO traction prior to President Reagan's change of Leadership. The elections DID have an effect though, whether legitimate or not, the cards were perceived to be shuffled.

Please show me how history is not repeating itself, and how our current Foreign Policy direction is NOT like that of the late 1970's. I KNOW you will be able to make many valid points at the micro level, but the greater society does not live in the micro. (Sig, the majority of society simply is not as well educated as you. Ex: Your reference to decolonization and Oriental-ism left me with a blank look on my face. I went to State College, so please forgive me. ) I point to those who are so easily agitated in the Islamic world by a cartoon, book, or crappy You Tube video.

I am talking the Macro. Where most of the voting population in the US and around the world can be found.

V/R

BLUE

We WILL ignore this. How many embassies of ours have been attacked with no consequence? We lost the sovereignty of our embassies in 1979 when we didn't bend Iran over for what transpired. If you remember, that same year, our embassy in Libya was also burned.

The only thing we have shown our enemy is that there is no sequella to attack our land and kill our diplomats.

imho the killing of U.S. diplomats, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was a deliberate attack. It was done under the disguise of a demonstration against an anti-Muslim movie, it was not a protest about a film.
It was an attack by Muslim radicals with a plan. They used rocket-propelled grenades and had the discipline to follow with an attack at a second location. The attack was executed on Sept. 11 - indicates this was not an accident.

Of course it was. So, being that it was, it was an act of war; killing a diplomat and waging war on sovereign soil. What are we going to do about it? Not a damn thing.

We were perceived as weak in 79, hence the Iran hostage crisis, we are again perceived to be weak under our current administration, hence what took place yesterday. History does repeat itself in one form or another. At the very least the perpetrators’ of this act are comfortable in the fact that they have a sympathetic ear in the White House, the POTUS is going to have to look tough and talk tough but in the end will he actually do anything to punish the guilty parties? The magnitude of what took place yesterday will be lost on most folks but it scares the hell out of me. The world is watching.

@blue02hd--

Thank you for your reply.

To me, the biggest difference between the current POTUS and President Carter is that Carter sought to position his approach to national security as something new, different, and better than the policy preferences of his immediate predecessors. (Scholars often refer to Carter as "the first post-Cold War president.") By contrast, the current president has attempted to position the policy preferences of his administration as a return to the "best practices" of some of his predecessors--specifically Truman and Clinton and implicitly (and ironically) Reagan. To me, this effort is valid only in respect to the objectives of maintaining a "preponderance of power" and nonproliferation of WMDs. Thus, while Carter was forward thinking in that he wanted Americans to imagine a world in which the Cold War did not overshadow every aspect of international relations, the current president wants to role back the clock to the 1990s.

A second key difference is that the current president is attempting to capitalize politically on the positive state of civil military relations whereas Carter intentionally contributed to the widespread dogpiling on the American armed forces that was rampant during the 1970s. To be clear, the current president's efforts ring hollow to me as a civilian but this difference is still significant.

From the perspective of the administrations of Reagan, Bush the Elder, and, to a much lesser degree, Bush the Younger, I agree that the differences outlined above can appear imperceptible. And given the outcome--acts of mass anti-American violence in the Middle East, these differences are even less noticeable.

However, I would argue that there is a big difference between the inchoate foreign policy in a time of global change (Carter) and the inarticulate (if not also incoherent) foreign policy of the current president. The bottom line is that there is no issue that the current president faces that his immediate predecessors did not wrestle with. Yet, because of his profound ignorance, he acts like he can reinvent the wheel. This is to say that while the current president references the past to make his policies politically acceptable, his understanding of that past is impoverished. Thus, while Carter could--and did-- learned from his mistakes (albeit belatedly), the incumbent is, IMO, significantly less capable of changing course. And before asshat journalists and popular historians start throwing around the word tragedy, I think they should remember that tragedy requires hubris, which, in turn requires a trait the current president never had--greatness.

A third key difference--and this point is going to be controversial--is that I believe that President Carter genuinely cared about America. His failings were that he privileged his vision of America over that of the citizens he sought to govern; he crossed the line from managing a public debate over America's role in the world to manipulating that conversation; and his reach greatly exceeded his grasp.

By contrast, I have never for a second believed that the current POTUS gives a care for America in a way that is acceptable for a sitting president--especially in a time of global war. For me, a bottom line question is this: will the president vaporize tens of millions of people on the other side of the planet if that is the only choice he has to protect America's interests? For all of his many flaws, I do not doubt that Mr. Carter could make this decision. (And I hold the same view of the Clintons.) I cannot say the same for the incumbent (nor of former Vice President Gore or Senator Kerry when they ran for the job).

A fourth key difference is the state of the American mind in the post-Cold War world. The fall of Communism in Europe has, IMO, unleashed a variety of forces that have greatly altered American civilization (for worse, better, and TBD). The challenge that America's political leadership continues to face is finding ways to harness those forces in a way that empowers individual Americans to reach a consensus on core issues. The ongoing failure to meet this challenge is, IMO, at the core of the growing sense of political, social, and cultural alienation that many Americans are feeling today.

Finally, a brief point about history repeating itself. IMO, history does not repeat itself because of the unceasing flux of individual and group motivation. Only the mentally unstable do the same things over and again for the same reasons. For the rest of us, even our most routine behaviors are governed by a "constellation of motivational factors" that are ultimately unknowable. Because this constellation is always in flux and cannot be pinned down, behaviors and outcomes that appear the same are actually different events.

Picture of Amb. Stevens, possibly after the attack??
 

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...-rocket-attack

Comparison photo

http://www.newsday.com/news/world/u-...hers-1.3994462

The first picture has been removed from the web; the first picture shows the Amb. being removed/scene/ from the vehicle, dazed, and alive, being handled by locals.
It is interesting that in a matter of seconds the first picture was remove from the web.

Picture of Amb. Stevens, possibly after the attack??
 

Picture

This sickens me. Makes me really angry. :mad:


RIP Ambassador Stevens and staff members. My thanks to them, and all of you willing to serve in these volatile places.

Ansar al-Sharia
 

Interesting that the Newsday article Penn posted says that Ansar al-Sharia claims they are not responsible, yet CBS is reporting they have claimed responsibility.



http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-...ens/?tag=stack

Let see, a pitched gun battle for hours on end moving from building to building, a mob with RPG's and mortar fire not to mention other reports let alone what has not come out yet....Hope that little group sees the men that come to take them out, not just the clicking of realigning tail fins...

RIP Marine Warriors, State Department personnel and Ambassador, you will not be forgotten...

Rest In God's Peace Ambassador Stevens. Thank you for your service, and your sacrifice.

and now the Yemen embassy breached..

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...88C0AM20120913

Things are only going to get worse until our President makes a stand IMHO Sir.

US warships steam towards Libya coast
 

He did. He said yesterday.
From Al Jazeera today.IMO, the president has to get this right and Governor Romney needs to take a step back and let the POTUS do his job.

I definitely agree that Governor Romney needs to keep his mouth shut and allow the President to handle these issues right now. Perhaps suspend the campaign for a week like they did in 2008 during the financial crisis?

IMO, absolutely not.

American politicians have conducted presidential campaigns during times of even greater crisis than we currently face today. The challenge for Gov. Romney is to find the right balance between articulating his vision of American national security policy without undermining the POTUS's freedom of action IRT the Middle East or inadvertently boxing himself if he gets the job.

Just my two cents.

Rest in Peace All...............

RIP Ambassador, Marines & State Commo Man!

Washington times is running a unconfirmed story that the Ambassador Stevens was raped before being killed.

May just be propaganda being the source is Tayyar.org

here is the Washington times piece;

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/...libya-reporte/


If this is true we need bold action and now, IMHO.


RIP Ambassador Stevens and staff. By all accounts it appears to me you tried to bring some good to a region where there is very little.

I heard on the radio this morning on the drive in that he was missing for 12 hours. Seems like a long time between missing to surfacing... not sure where the picture of him being dragged and at hospital trying to resuscitated fits into the timetable.

Most importantly at this time, I would like to express my condolences to those left behind and pay my respects to those lost while serving this country. I pray justice is done.