Former Ambassador Ryan Crocker was on NPR this morning, at was actually a segment taped at a banquet sometime in the last week, and said much the same as Chefguy. I think the point that diplomats aren’t safe and can’t be safe is worth repeating. They are taking risks, hopefully calculated and thought out risks, but risks all the same.
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/15/165186976/we-didnt-know-how-well-al-qaida-was-organized-in-libya
And then explain how you plan to pay for it.
If you’re Republicans, you don’t pay for it.
This will likely be laid at the feet of the CIA’s in-country team as an intelligence failure. They usually do their best - as does the political officer for the embassy and the Diplomatic Security people - to identify terrorist cells and activity that could threaten Americans. But identifying them and predicting what they will do are two different problems.
Most embassies of any size have what is called a “country team”, which is a response team of local police/soldiers under the control of the Regional Security Officer. I don’t know if Tripoli has such a team, but they would not, of course, been able to respond to something happening 400 miles away. Diplomats who believe in what they are doing may take considerable risks when they travel away from the embassy proper. While there are things like armored vehicles and armed guards, a determined force such as that at Benghazi has a better than even chance at succeeding in their mission, at least to some degree. Quite often they just manage to blow up some real estate, but once in awhile they get lucky. I doubt they really thought they would take down an ambassador in their attack, and were likely as surprised as anyone that it happened.
The additional security requested by the embassy was likely for the embassy itself and the ambassador’s residence. Just speculation, of course, as it could also have been for the consulate. Since the ambassador died of smoke inhalation, a larger armed force at the consulate would likely not have made any difference.
Not until some Democrat gets elected, anyway …
Did you folks catch the vid of McCain going into melt down? He held a “press conference thingy” to demand meetings to get to the bottom of the Benghazi scandal coverup conspiracy (whatever). It was SO imporrtant that he had to SKIP the Benghazi meeting in order to demand meetings. When someone asked him about that he lost his mind 
I suspect McCain has spent more time in the “Meet the Press” studio the last four years than on the Hill.
How would being in the briefing, learning about the attack, assist the Republicans in their plan to impeach Obama?
Couldn’t be. No fucking way. Not crazy enough, not stupid enough to think they can impeach. Now, I know I’ve said this before, that they are not stupid enough nor crazy enough to try and get away with something like this. And I’ve been occasionally wrong. Frequently. Pretty much every time.
But this time its different!
It’s understandable. The out-of-context sound bite of Obama referring to the attack as “not optimal” on the Daily Show filled him with so much faux outrage, he needs a place to channel it or he’s going to overfill his diaper.
FOX News pushing the changed talking points.
Might I jump the gun here and say that even if the White House did indeed change them, that it doesn’t necessarily mean it was purely a cynical, political move on their part? That in fact it might make perfect sense that the references to Al Qaeda were taken out, simply to prevent the terrorist organization from knowing that we are onto them?
That’s funny, seeing as we have multiple sources confirming that Al Qaeda was not behind this one.
Okay, al Qaeda-linked terrorists.
What value of “linked” are we using, here? Takes marching orders from, or knows somebody’s brother in law?
We sure dodged a bullet when we voted him down.
We have good intelligence that a guy named “Mohammed” was involved somehow. Possibly not the one from the movie trailer.
Al Qaeda, al Qaeda-linked, whatever. The point is that there are legitimate reasons, that I suspect you won’t hear much about from the likes of FOX News, that the talking points were left purposefully vague.
Well, there’s that one point that went by more or less in passing, about guys bragging on their cell phones about their success in this raid. That says one of two things to me, mostly. First, that these guys had nothing to do with it, and are trying to act like big shots. Or the other, that they are the responsible parties but are incredibly dumb. Talking on the phone is whispering in The Man’s ear…
Either way, it would be dumb to let them know what you know, and how you found out.
Is there a link where this can be seen?
Never mind; it’s on Huffpo.