Holy live cartridges, Batman!
Barack Hussein Obama’s hand-picked ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, allowed her pacifistic tendencies to dictate policy when she prohibited the Marines guarding the US embassy in Cairo from carrying ammunition on their persons!
Oh, Anne Patterson is a quite a peach:
NightWatch Special Comment: Ambassador Anne Patterson’s April Glaspie moment.
Ambassador Anne Patterson, the US Ambassador to Egypt, experienced her ‘April Glaspie’ moment yesterday when she blamed Americans instead of Egyptians for attacking, storming and desecrating the US Embassy in Cairo and the US Flag.
Old hands will remember, April Glaspie, who was a rising star in the State Department’s constellation of diplomats. Her notorious conversation with Saddam Hussein in early 1990 led Saddam to believe that the US encouraged and condoned an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Having worked closely with US officials for a decade in the struggle and war against Iran, Saddam understood that everything after the Glaspie talk was plausible deniability by US President Bush, 41.
Glaspie misunderstood and misjudged the Iraqi leadership and the situation in Iraq. Patterson’s operations at the US Embassy in Cairo bespeak a comparable misjudgment of the Egyptian Arab situation, its volatility and the depth of anti-American sentiment.
She did not permit US Marine guards to carry live ammunition, according to USMC blogs. Thus she neutralized any US military capability that was dedicated to preserve her life and protect the US Embassy.
In this respect, she did not defend US sovereign territory and betrayed her oath of office. She neutered the Marines posted to defend the embassy, trusting the Egyptians over the Marines.
She apparently judges that Egyptian President Mursi spearheads a democracy and a new civil order, despite the mounting evidence that Mursi disregards US interests, cavorts with US enemies, is a budding authoritarian ruler who disdains parliament and does not honor the basic obligations of diplomatic agreements and the Geneva conventions.
Readers, by definition, whenever an embassy of any country is overrun by locals in any country, everyone knows that the ambassador and senior staff must be replaced.
Free Beacon is also covering it:
U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were not permitted by the State Department to carry live ammunition, limiting their ability to respond to attacks like those this week on the U.S. consulate in Cairo.
Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson “did not permit U.S. Marine guards to carry live ammunition,” according to multiple reports on U.S. Marine Corps blogs spotted by Nightwatch. “She neutralized any U.S. military capability that was dedicated to preserve her life and protect the US Embassy.”
… The U.S. ambassador to any nation ultimately decides whether Marines are authorized to carry ammunition, according to a GOP national security adviser knowledgeable about American embassy protocols.
“In the end, the ambassador of any country has the final call on what to do in a country,” the source said. “The buck stops with you. You make every decision.”
Security procedures are subjective and subject to change depending on locale, the source said.
Each ambassador, in consultation with their Regional Security Officer (RSO), sets the policy regarding the rules of engagement, according to the adviser. The RSO is responsible for coordinating all security measures and reports directly to the ambassador in any given nation.
“A decision or order to set rules of engagement that you can’t carry live ammunition and can’t engage violent crowds climbing over your walls and tearing down your flag stems from direct orders from the Chief of Mission and possibly whoever the Chief of Mission reports to,” the source explained…
If the Marines (God bless them all!) can’t carry ammo, why are they even there at all? More importantly, if the Chief of Mission is unwilling to defend the small piece of sovereign US territory, (or his own life, and the US citizens there) who needs him? Pretending it can’t happen here is NOT a plan. Denial has no survival value!
Because if there are no Marines there, she won’t have someone in a uniform saluting her and otherwise making her feel important.
But actually have them ARMED? To maybe do VIOLENCE when the embassy is attacked? The horrors!