Several blogs have reported that Marines at the US embassy in Egypt weren’t permitted to carry live ammo.
Makes sense. It’s not like they’re the Social Security Administration.
Several blogs have reported that Marines at the US embassy in Egypt weren’t permitted to carry live ammo.
Makes sense. It’s not like they’re the Social Security Administration.
I do have a recollection of embassy guards not having live ammo going back to 1990 at least. If this has been going on since then, shame on all the administrations who have allowed it.
Well, it’s not like we have any precedence of any of our embassies being taken over by Islamists in the past. I’m sure Former Hostage will agree.
President Obama: Holy underwear! Ambassador murdered! Embassy blown to bits! Marines without bullets! We have to protect our phony baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph! ~ Excerpt from the movie…Blazing Incompetence.
Ambassador Chris Stevens was not simply killed. He was sodomized, murdered and his body was dragged through the streets.
Maybe Americans should have a “peaceful demonstration” outside the Libyan Embassy in the US.
I’m a Canadian citizen and this makes my blood boil.
You’d think the President of the United States could at least feign a bit of anger instead of going to a fundraiser in Las Vegas.
@#3…”Hey! I didn’t get a harrumph outta that guy!”
@#4…Obama was so moved that he went to another place where they sodomize, murder and drag bodies out in the street…oh, wait, he didn’t go back to Chicago, he went to Vegas.
My mistake. Never mind.
And he never will Bunkerhillbilly…he never will.
Obama is all worked up about this. Really.
See? He does care.
Not to let truth get in the way of a good whipping, but none of this is true. From the USMC congressional liaison:
“Egypt:
-The Ambassador did not impose restrictions on weapons or weapons status on the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG) detachment. The MCESG Marines in Cairo were allowed to have live ammunition in their weapons. The Ambassador and Regional Security Officer have been completely and appropriately engaged with the security situation. Reports of Marines not being able to have their weapons loaded per direction from the Ambassador are not accurate.”
This story has been largely discredited: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/09/the-marine-corps-involvement-in-egypt-and-libya.php
Calliing Former Hostage for his take on all of this. I believe that he has a little experience with embassy defense.
And, jospf, I don’t know. Until I see a big ole pile of dead bodies (Egyptian ones) outside the embassy I am going to assume that the Marines were ordered to not defend the embassy. I think that we should push the perimeter out about 100 meters and make it into a “no man’s land.” Anyone inside of that perimeter without permission can be assumed to have volunteered for live-fire target practice. It would keep our Marines sharp.
“The Ambassador did not impose restrictions on weapons or weapons status”…Just sounds to me like political speak for someone ELSE imposed those restrictions….just sayin’
T Rich: I think Former Hostage can attest to why it’s not a good idea for a dozen or so Marines to fire into a raging crowd. He is around after all. I’m sure if would feel great to fire into a crowd of foreigners, but it sounds like cooler heads prevailed. Ammo or not, Marines are there for internal security and classified material destruction. A FAST platoon is more prepared for riot suppression; but even then no competent leader is going to have them fire on civilians, no matter what jack-assery is going on.
Or the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Agriculture. We all know how many agents packing we have checking on those violent abusive cows.
Jospf, gotta side with CTC on this…while the Marine Security Detail respects the GS rating/rank of an ambassador (assimilated Colonelcy or Brigadier), orders concerning live ammo would, as I recall, come down from a military chain-of-command. To wit: C in C or Pentagon-level authority which would dictate ROE for all embassy security. Clearly, in the instances of the most recent attacks, no field-grade officers took it upon themselves to supercede any standing orders…had this been done (as it should’ve been done) the Ambassador would still be drawing breath and unsodomized by attackers, the flag would still be flying, and the Islamists would be stacked like cordwood-never having been allowed to even climb upon the perimeter walls.
Bunker – that’s completely wrong. MSG falls under Title 22 vice Title 10 as far as funding, CoC, and everything else. ROE deviating from the norm would be at the discretion of the ambassador at the advisement of his regional security officer (RSO). Not the DoD. And ambassadors aren’t GS. They are senior foreign service, almost the same as SES. Also, the deceased ambassador was at a consulate, not the embassy, no Marines ‘not carrying ammo’.
Jospf–granting, broadly, the possibility of your point (despite the hunch that it may be pulled from your khaki trouser seat), you then have placed the responsibility for this rank, shameful show of cowardice squarely on the shoulders of the ambassador at the Libyan consulate, as well as upon the staff of the Cairo embassy. This seems highly improbable…that not one Marine, granting your dubious pont of their possessing ammo, touched off one round, dropped one of the hoard making incursions upon sovreign US soil. Not one of the well-trained Marine riflemen, possessing loaded weapons, killed anyone in this act of war waged upon the US. Do I have this right, Jospf, Mr. Title 22? And why are you popping up with these appeasing excuses?
Also, I do believe you misread me in your rush to get lost in the governmental weeds…in using “GS” I was intending “Government Supergrade” (which ambassadors are), having an affected/assimilated/equivalency military rank-but not actually being in any military chain of command. The quote you cited was pure buck-passing GovSpeak. Further, in military matters the ambassador is not the final say…that does come from Pentagon or C in C levels.
So, you make a specious claim that armed Marines did nothing to defend the Cairo Embassy or the consulate in Libya on the say-so of an ambassador or embassy staff facing a mob of murderous Islamists.
Let’s see you double down on that.
Anytime you have Marines tasked to protect and defend American soil at an embassy, base or consulate they should have ammunition in their weapons. Why, on the other hand, are they there? For show? Seriously, no amount of double talk, governmental gibberish or elitist jibber-jabber makes it acceptable to put military personnel in harms way without the means to defend themselves. It’s just common decency and common sense but we’re talking about Obama and his band of cutthroats and thieves so all bets are off.
Look, gents. I get my tone comes off as hostile, but thats only because I hate it when people get this wrong because they wish it were a certain way (I know, I know –someone on the internet is WRONG!). From my khaki back pocket (only on casual Friday’s), the fact of the matter is Marines fall under the Chief of Mission, ie, the ambassador, and not the combatant commander (CENTCOM/AFRICOM in these cases). I think the misunderstanding here is what Marine Security Guards do. Per the Vienna conventions, the host nation is responsible for security up to the embassy walls, between the walls and diplomatic buildings is the responsibility of locally contracted security (yes, even in the Middle East). INTERNAL (inside the buildings, past Post One) security is handled by the Marines Security Guard.
The reason no one has fired shots in Cairo, Jordan, Sudan, et. al is because they are following the rules that have been around for decades. Additionally, they are thinking like good Marines of second and third order effects. We don’t want to turn an embassy, full of civilians, into the Alamo. So defense of American soil, yada yada, sounds great in a John Wayne movie, but in reality defense of State personnel and secrets up to when an evacuation is needed is what the Marines were doing.
So while some walls were breached, a flag raised, they never came close to where Marines were stationed. If that were to happen, don’t worry, shots would be fired. Libya, as a small consulate, is a different matter. We didn’t have the intel in time to know that this would happen. No doubt a FAST platoon would have helped, but not an MSG detachment. It sounds as though the Ambassador had contracted security with him. I am sure the RSO is devastated and is going over and over again what to do.
Bunker, as far as GS goes, sorry for being pedantic. I always thought that it meant General Service, and supergrade was just the levels above it.
Jospf, thanks for your well-informed rebuttals to all of my statements. I was looking for FH’s input for exactly the reasons that you gave. I think that the conflicting points in my mind are that once the bad guys are where the Marines are allowed to engage them, it would seem the assault is already at the point in the Alamo movie where Davy Crockett is holding his gun by the barrel and using it as a club. Perhaps those Vienna rules are for a situation where the embassy is not under siege. It would seem that once you have given up the perimeter walls that the situation is almost beyond control. However, you clearly know the regs better than I ever will – and you, no doubt, learned them in a way that garners you my eternal respect and gratitude.
We would not want Americans to open fire on Foreign attackers.
Jospf–A nice, smooth skitter around some still unaddressed points.
Those points being: 1) IF said MSF was in reality(concerned with) defense of State personnel and secrets up to when an evacuation is needed…AND (per your claim) in possession of loaded weapons…how then did the ambassador wind up sodomized and killed at the hands of said invading rabble?
2) Sovreign American soil was invaded by an armed (grenades, RPGs, rifles) rabble intent on destruction and death…this is a clear instance of exigent circumstances superceding standing orders of Vienese/Genevan Convention agreements. Yet nothing, evidently took place by way of defensive action from said armed contract security or MSG. (Unless said conventions mandate full-tilt p*ss!fied reactions to acts of war.) BTW..hell YES there should’ve been some John Wayne/Alamo-grade shoot-em-up action going on…THAT is the DUTY of American armed forces: to BREAK things and KILL the ENEMY. (The Islamists breaching the walls of the embassy and the consulate hardly being in a shake-hands-let’s-have-a-pepsi-and-some-grins mindset, right?)
You provide nice, distracting, if not overtly condescending pseudoexplanations which still do not diverge from the insinuation of your initial claim: Marines had loaded weapons->Said loaded weapons (if fired at all) possessed by said MSG did nothing to save the lives of those killed by said invading rabble–>Military incompetence.
This insinuation is a nice, subtle digression from the direct culpability of the White House and State Dept…a digression which insults those Marines tasked with such security responsibilities and which should not be aloowed to stand unaddressed.
Bunker, you’re mixing up the ‘no ammo at Cairo’ nonissue with the death of the Ambassador to Libya. Simply put, the foreign service personnel were killed because they were at a place that had no Marine Security Guards. They aren’t at every location, in particular a consulate. I have no doubt MSG would have protected the ambassador and others to the death with bullets, K-bar’s, and bare hands if they were there. But they weren’t. So as to question one and two, it’s not even an issue. They weren’t there. Just the former SEAL security personnel, which we don’t know at this point how much of a fight was had.
As to Cairo, Yemen, and other locations, the Marines were at their post, a highly defensible choke point inside the diplomatic buildings. To leave it to shoot at protesters beyond the perimeter fence line would be a dereliction of duty. Here’s a link to a satellite picture of the Cairo compound: http://goo.gl/9RBCv. It takes up a whole ‘triangle’ city block. See the big tall building in the middle? There is quite a bit to get through before you reach there. The Marines were doing what they are suppose to do. Even if they didn’t have ammo, which is ridiculous, it would not be an issue.
Jospf–No mix-up or conflation of any sort. I am addressing both instances. The ambassador was in Libya, apparently under private security protection, DipStaff was in Cairo. Backchannel, semi-processed HUMINT, and full HUMINT/ELINT (all of which have been disregarded by the White House in PDBs) are pointing to coordination of attacks. In both cases you have incursions which should have been repelled…given the fact that there were former spec ops and riflemen comprising the respective security forces.
That there were physical incursions, destruction, and deaths by an invading rabble upon US soil IS a major issue.
As concerns Cairo-and the potential lack of ammo…the MSG are, first and foremost, riflemen, no? Had they actually had ammo, it stands to reason that several of those Marines would be detailed to a high position and effect tributes to Carlos Hathcock. NONE of that occured…our flag was lowered-and burned, our embassy trashed. With NO immediate consequences for these invasive acts of war.
Short of having a ranking and decorated Marine step to the mics and, unequivocally, state that the MSG were, to a leathernecked one, armed to the fangs…I remain fully doubtful that they possessed rounds for their weapons and commited to the belief that no amount of tap-dancing can distract from the weighty culpability which falls on the spindly, rounded shoulders of Obama and the greasy-haired head of Hillary Clinton.
Stet.