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1. No large protests occur in Egypt without someone high in the food chain's permission, if not active guidance. In this case, I believe they were cleared by the elected Egyptian leadership via the Muslim Brotherhood. My personal belief is that they did it on 9/11 for a reason, using the movie as a cover for action, with the intent of extorting more protection, I mean, aid money. This is supposedly also a show of force between the MB and the Salafists. The MB leadership had to let it go, or risk appearing a toadie of the Americans. Interestingly, the easiest way to have handled this would have been to let the Army mow the protestors down, then blame the military leadership and sack them. Unfortunately, the MB had already replaced all of the leadership recently with their own boys.
2. "Protestors" with automatic weapons and RPGs attacking at night are not protestors, they are enemy combatants.
3. The murders of the Ambassador and three additional Embassy personnel in Libya appears to have been an inside job, perhaps an AQ team. One of the victims posted earlier in the day that they were being photographed and surveilled by their own Libyan security team, and allegedly, the security team pointed out to the assassins where the safe house was (and the Embassy personnel were hiding). Another 9/11 coincidence?
4. Any response that is not quick and powerful will invite more of these attacks in the very near future. We should be building our PTK list right now and going after the assassins and terrorists with all means at our disposal. Libyan airspace should be very crowded over the next few days. I am stunned that we appear to be willing to deny Constitutional rights of American citizens in order to placate foreigners who wish us harm, regardless of how much we try to make them love us. These are people we helped liberate their country. Better to be respected.
5. Host nations need to be told that we will hold their security forces and leadership responsible for any hostile acts against our diplomatic personnel in their country. We stayed at it till we got Saddam and Osama. They are not beyond our reach as well. Full application of diplomatic, informational, economic, and yes, military power should be considered and applied as necessary. For example, take half the remaining US aid off the table for every attack. No point in rewarding our enemies while we take on new debt. I think we explained this before to them properly, back in 1815 or so.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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