Having to reschedule your visa interview is hardly bringing the west to its knees. Embassies close all the time for holidays and the like. It’s not a huge deal.
I am beginning to suspect some people here are disappointed that there (hopefully) wont be a set of embassy attacks. It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, to have a real failure to pin on Obama? Something a bit more substantial than Benghazi?
If you could have evacuated the Benghazi consulate before the attack, you would have. If you could have evacuated the World Trade Center before the attacks, you would have. The idea that anyone would “stand strong” in the face of a specific threat is absurd, and I’m not buying that any of you would think this is wrong if it weren’t for partisan bellyaching.
Hmmm - ranking Republican in the highly partisan House Republican caucus supporting a security decision by the President. It’s almost as if he knows something we don’t know, maybe even has seen the intel? Naaah.
Just the fact that he had to say “Al Q Central” shows that one needs to engage in a complex semantic exercise before trying to explain a simple concept such as a terrorist organization.
As I mentioned earlier, Al Q does not exist in the same sense as IRA or Hamas, all semantic permutations notwithstanding.
The point is this - if al-Qaeda has assets in Tel Aviv capable of carrying out an attack, us Tel Avivians would like to know about it. The U.S. Embassy isn’t the only high-quality target here.
How could you forget about “the hallmark of Al Qaeda”, the ultimate phrase in 21st century Newspeak when it comes to stuff hinted, insinuated or suggested.
Gee whiz, a Democrat who is willing to say “Look at the elephant” that the whole SDMB can’t seem to notice.
Obama didn’t act on previous threats to our embassies, people died, and it took a fuck of a lot of spin to get him thru the election without admitting it. To give him credit, he seems at long last to have wised up. OK, better late than never.
[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
Hmmm - ranking Republican in the highly partisan House Republican caucus supporting a security decision by the President. It’s almost as if he knows something we don’t know, maybe even has seen the intel? Naaah.
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Everybody knows the eeeeeevil Republicans are automatically opposed to everything Obama does, no matter what, even if it hurts the country. Only, not.
You don’t get to cite a person to back up your point, have that cited person write an article correcting an inaccurate reading of what he said (and then have him go on to say that the point you were trying to make is wrong anyway), and then you go and use his correction as evidence that he is wrong and you were right to cite him in the first place because your misreading of him is more accurate than what he was actually saying.
That, sir, is total bullshit.
And by the way, which IRA are you referring to? The IRA which disbanded just after World War I? The Provisional IRA? The Real IRA? The Continuity IRA? If the IRA disbanded decades ago, and today the Real IRA carries out attacks, can you please explain to me how that is so different than core Al Qaeda being put on the ropes, and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula becoming more active?
Why do you think a bunch of other countries also closed embassies?
In other words, he doesn’t agree with you. “Some experts say” is not the assertion you made either.
That’s a comment on how the bombs were designed, not a statement that the guys were members of Al Qaeda. And the statement about the design is disputed by nobody as far as I can tell.
The UK also has its snooping problems and just like with the Iraq ‘intelligence’ others take on trust what those with the resources are telling them. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s just hand-waving to scare few Senators into not curtailing NSA activities.
Both the US and UK governments deliberately lied about Iraq. Unless and until I see some solid evidence to the contrary my default position is ‘they are lying now’, particualrly when it comes at such a politically opportune time.
Gee, I seem to recall a lot of countries disputing intelligence on Iraq. Am I to assume France and Germany and Norway and all these other countries also have “snooping problems” I wasn’t aware of? Despite the “nuh-uh!”-ing going on here, it looks like a lot of countries felt something serious was going on here.
Considering the dismal track record of America’s interference in Somalia during the Clinton Admin, I don’t think any officer would (or should) do anything there without checking first with the President.
They closed them because of an interpol alert. Annd if all this ‘chatter’ comes from intercept then Interpol is just acting on the US political scaremongering.