US Embassy Staffs in Tunis and Khartoum Are Evacuating Non-Essential Personnel

[tomahawk6]

Families and non-essential personnel are being withdrawn from Tunisia and Sudan. I would pull everyone out of Sudan since they wont allow more Marines to guard the embassy.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-orders...tunis-211016280.html

WASHINGTON/KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The United States ordered non-essential staff to leave its embassies in Tunisia and Sudan on Saturday after both diplomatic posts were attacked and Khartoum rejected a U.S. request to send a platoon of Marines to bolster security at its mission there.

"Given the security situation in Tunis and Khartoum, the U.S. State Department has ordered the departure of all family members and non-emergency personnel from both posts, and issued parallel travel warnings to American citizens," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

The U.S. embassies in Tunis and Khartoum were attacked on Friday by protesters infuriated by a widely disseminated anti-Islamic film, made in the United States, that insults the Prophet Mohammad and has provoked a violent reaction across the Muslim world.

Four people were killed and 46 injured in the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, according to a hospital official in the city.

In Khartoum, around 5,000 people protesting against the film stormed the German embassy before breaking into the U.S. mission on Friday. They also attacked the British embassy and at least two people were killed in clashes with police, according to state media.

A U.S. official told Reuters on Friday that Washington would send Marines to Sudan to improve security at the embassy, which is located outside Khartoum for security reasons.

But Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti told the state news agency SUNA, "Sudan is able to protect the diplomatic missions in Khartoum and the state is committed to protecting its guests in the diplomatic corps."

The top security body in the Khartoum region said that "the surveillance and protection of embassy, mission and foreign residential buildings has been stepped up to prevent any dangers," said the state-linked Sudanese Media Center.

Sudanese and U.S. officials said on Saturday that the Marines had already set off for Khartoum but had been called back pending further discussions with Sudan.

The United States had "requested additional security precautions as a result of yesterday's damage to our embassy," said Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman. "We are continuing to monitor the situation closely to ensure we have what we need to protect our people and facility."

A riot police truck was parked in front of the deserted German embassy, which protesters had set on fire. But an Islamic flag raised by the crowd was still flying.

More than 20 police officers were sitting in front of the U.S. embassy.

Sudan has also criticized Germany for allowing a protest last month by right-wing activists carrying caricatures of Mohammad, and for Chancellor Angela Merkel's award in 2010 to a Danish cartoonist who had depicted the prophet, triggering unrest across the Islamic world.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been under pressure from Islamists who feel the government has given up the religious values of his 1989 Islamist coup.

The Sudanese government had called for protests against the film, but peaceful ones. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration said it had nothing to do with the movie, which is little more than an amateurish video clip and appears to have been made in California.

 

[OldSolduer]

I'd evacuate the whole bloody continent and never return.

Yes I have had a couple and my cynical self is appearing.

 

[Maxadia]

:goodpost:

 

[aesop081]

I'd evacuate the whole bloody continent and never return.

Yup, and next time they ask for help the answer should be "Sorry you're on your own".

 

[OldSolduer]

Yup, and next time they ask for help the answer should be "Sorry you're on your own".

Concur. Cynical Jim is here.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I've said all alone we should stay 100% clear.

The Arab countries can deal with their own problem(s).

Saudi Arabia doesn't like what is going on in - Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, where ever, they have a sizable, modern force to deal with it themselves.

Hopefully, someday, they all go to war against themselves, and we can sit back until the dust settles.

There's no need for us to be involved at all.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I've said all alone we should stay 100% clear.

The Arab countries can deal with their own problem(s).

Saudi Arabia doesn't like what is going on in - Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, where ever, they have a sizable, modern force to deal with it themselves.

Hopefully, someday, they all go to war against themselves, and we can sit back until the dust settles.

There's no need for us to be involved at all.

I agree with you, but other don't, as explained in this opinion piece which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/node/21562914?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/murderinlibya

Murder in Libya
The world’s policeman must not retreat from the world’s most dangerous region; indeed America should do more

Sep 15th 2012

FOR many Americans the killing of Christopher Stevens, their ambassador to Libya, this week crystallised everything they have come to expect from the Arab world. In a country where the West only last year helped depose a murderous tyrant, a Salafist mob attacked the American consulate in Benghazi, killing Mr Stevens and three colleagues. The trigger for this murder, the riots in neighbouring Egypt and the storming of the American embassy in Yemen? A tacky amateur video about the Prophet Muhammad that the Obama administration had already condemned. Why on earth, many Americans are asking, should the United States try to police a region, when all it gets in return is mindless abuse, blame for things it cannot control, and mob violence?

The slaying of Mr Stevens is hardly the only recent example of Arab dysfunction. Just to take the seven days prior to the killing: in Iraq scores of people were killed in bombings on one day and the vice-president was sentenced to death in absentia for alleged murder; in Yemen the defence minister survived an assassination attempt; in the Gaza Strip Israel killed six militants; in Tunisia extremist Salafists smashed up a bar that serves alcohol to the town where the Arab spring began; and most graphically of all, in Syria the death toll in the gruesome civil war continued to rise exponentially—to over 25,000.

On the campaign trail Mitt Romney has been clobbering Barack Obama for being too keen on the Arab awakening. Many conservative Americans associate it with hostile Islamists, like the Muslim Brothers and their friends who now run Egypt and Tunisia, and see it as a threat to America’s ally, Israel. Americans of all sorts are nervous about being dragged into Syria and worried about Iran getting the bomb. They are fed up with being described as anti-Islam when their country is in fact far more welcoming to Shia Muslims than, say, Sunni Saudi Arabia is. With their troops now mercifully out of Iraq, their efforts to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process going nowhere and shale gas reducing their dependence on Arab oil, surely it is time for them to leave the world’s least grateful people to make a mess of their lives by themselves?

This is a seductive narrative—and no doubt it will play even better on the campaign trail after Mr Stevens’s death (see Lexington). But it is deeply wrong in both its analysis and its conclusions. Many parts of the Arab world are in fact heading in the right direction. And in the parts that are not, notably Syria, the United States is more needed than ever.

From one lunatic to another

Begin with the killing of Mr Stevens. Armed jihadists were involved, but other aspects seem more accidental than symptomatic. One misguided extremist in America made the video, and another lot of misguided extremists in the Arab world picked on it. Far from encouraging the violence, the Libyan government deplored Mr Stevens’s murder (though Egypt was less clear) and Libyans mourned a popular ambassador.

This underscores a much bigger point. The Arab spring, for all its messiness, is still broadly moving in the right direction. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya tyrants have been replaced with democratic governments. These are more hostile to Israel than some of the dictators were, but just as in Turkey greater sympathy for the Palestinians reflects popular opinion (as democracies tend to). The Muslim Brothers hold unpalatable views on women, education and much else, but in government they have had to temper them because voters want jobs and bread on the table more than they want sharia law.

It will take many years, but these democracies promise eventually to embrace a style of government that is more like Turkey’s moderate, democratic Islamism than Iran’s harsh theocracy. At that point America would be spared its outsized role: Turkey and Egypt could emerge as effective regional powers and the Arabs could take more “ownership” of their problems.

But until then, America will remain essential to progress. Libya’s relative success, despite the murder of the ambassador, was largely thanks to American firepower at the start of the campaign against the Qaddafi regime. It was the State Department, in effect, that told Hosni Mubarak’s people that the game was up in Egypt. America is needed to put more pressure on the Gulf monarchies it supports to loosen up their political systems. And in the nascent Arab democracies, it can give vital economic support. Unemployment is rising in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, as governments struggle to replace the crony capitalism of the dictators. Small amounts of aid, especially if it is contingent on economic reform, could make a huge difference. If the Arab economies fail, the cost to the world of ever more angry young men being turfed out of work could be immense.

From Tehran to Damascus

Helping the Arabs sort themselves out is not naive do-goodery; it is rooted in Kissingerian realpolitik. The Middle East is still the crucible of Islam: so much that affects American diplomacy around the rest of the world, from Pakistan to Indonesia, Nigeria, and even the suburbs of Paris, has its starting point here. It is the world’s energy centre: the Middle East still sets the price at America’s petrol stations (something that could be rapidly proved if Israel attacks Iran). And the region is home to many of America’s most committed enemies, including Iran.

In general, America should do more in the Middle East, not less. Two issues look especially neglected because of American domestic politics. One inevitably is the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The Palestinians are themselves divided; but America should vigorously point out that each new (illegal) settlement that Israel builds in the West Bank makes it harder to make peace between Jews and Arabs. The conflict still enrages much of the region. Mr Romney’s electioneering on this, as on bombing Iran, has been especially crude.

The other issue is Syria. The number of dead is rising by as many as 200 a day, as fast as in the worst period in Iraq. So long as Bashar Assad remains free to kill with impunity, the slaughter will devour Syria and its people, sectarian hatred will eviscerate the country and its institutions and Syria’s poison will spread across the Middle East. Even now Jordan and Lebanon are under threat.

As our briefing this week makes clear, there is an alternative: to protect the Syrian people by enforcing a no-fly zone over their country. It is far from an easy decision, but depriving Mr Assad of his aircraft and helicopter gunships could save many thousands of lives. Bringing a swifter end to the fighting could yet give Syria a chance to emerge as a nation at peace with itself and its neighbours.

In the week of Mr Stevens’s killing, the idea of intervening in yet another Muslim country might seem far-fetched to many Americans. But if they think that today’s Libya is dangerous and violent, imagine what it would have been like were battle still raging (see article). The humanitarian and strategic costs of standing back from Syria would be even higher.

So it is with the entire Middle East. Ultimately, anti-American violence thrives under the tyrants and the dictators. Because the Arab spring promises to put the Middle East into the hands of the people for the first time, it offers a better future. There are no guarantees, but America has everything to gain from being at the heart of this great awakening.

Now, I agree with the Economist that helping the Arabs sort themselves out is not naive do-goodery; it is rooted in Kissingerian realpolitik," but not for all the reasons with article enumerates and not in the ways it suggests.

  + The Middle East is still the crucible of Islam: so much that affects American diplomacy around the rest of the world, from Pakistan to Indonesia, Nigeria, and even the suburbs of Paris, has its starting point here.
      ✔ - very true and the aim should be to focus on the peripheries, like Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, to reduce Arab/Persian influence.
  + It is the world’s energy centre: the Middle East still sets the price at America’s petrol stations (something that could be rapidly proved if Israel attacks Iran).
      ✘ - not proven and, in my unlikely. Of course a disruption of supply will drive up prices, the law of supply and demand is immutable, but a rise in prices will, thanks to the same law, promote new supplies, reducing the Middle East's importance in the oil markets.
  + And the region is home to many of America’s most committed enemies, including Iran.
    ✔ - very true and the aim should be to impede their abilities to do harm on the aforementioned peripheries.

The Economist promotes two interventionist actions America should take:

1. Oppose illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine - harmless, in and of itself, since even the Israeli government opposes illegal settlements but a policy that will have zero ROI in the Arab world; and

2. Further engagement - specifically a no fly zone - in Syria. In my opinion an action with more mid and long term disadvantages than it has short term advantages.

America, and the West at large, can make big gains against radical Islam in places like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines where robust American led help will both do good and be appreciated.

 

[Edward Campbell]

To illustrate my last point I offer this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Straits Times:

http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/anti-us-protests-middle-east/story/philippine-rebels-will-not-attack-us-over-islam-fil

Philippine rebels 'will not attack US over Islam film'

Published on Sep 16, 2012

MANILA (AFP) - The Philippines' largest Muslim insurgent group on Sunday rejected Al-Qaeda calls to attack United States (US) targets over an anti-Islam film that has sparked protests around the world.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf) has instructed its 12,000 members to observe a ceasefire pact with the government, and will not attack US targets in the country, the Milf's chief political officer Ghazali Jaafar said.

"We do not live in the dark ages, there are rules and laws that need to be followed," Jaafar told AFP by telephone from the Milf's southern headquarters.

"We have an existing ceasefire with the Philippines, and we will not violate that." He branded the killing of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans at the US consulate in Benghazi a "senseless act of violence".

"Even in war, there are international norms that need to be accepted, including the protection of diplomats and embassies," he said, while condemning those behind the amateur film produced in the United States that sparked the violence.

Jaafar said the Milf would monitor other Muslim groups in the mainly Catholic Philippines, adding: "We will inform government negotiators of any impending terror attacks."

A Muslim rebellion has raged in the southern Philippines since the early 1970s, leaving some 150,000 dead. The Milf has dropped its bid for an independent state in the south, and is negotiating a peace pact with Manila to create an autonomous region.

The Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group also operates in the country.

We, the Western allies should reward both the Philippines government and the Milf (unfortunate acronym): the former with increased financial support the latter with some gentle pressure on Manila to make some provisions for local self autonomy. The aim is displace Cairo, Islamabad, Riyadh and Tehran as the "friends" of Muslims in East Asia.

 

[Nemo888]

Nothing like reading MILF ATTACKS in the Philippine papers.
The MILF and NPA are merely power brokers for disenfranchised groups. I can't really blame them in such a corrupt system. Both the Muslims and the commmies there have been very amenable to monetary incentives lately. Providing them with an ability to legally tax the local poulace and more importantly tax exploitative outsiders would easily make them become active politically and put down their arms.

 

[a_majoor]

The United States responds in a manner more befitting of a middle eastern dictatorship than as the defender of free speech. A different blogger contrasted the treatment of the filmmaker to how Margaret Thatcher responded to rioting and death threats against Salman Rushdie (via Instapundit):

Compare Margaret Thatcher and Rushdie to Obama and Nakoula.

When Salman Rushdie had a death fatwa pronounced on him for a novel considered insulting to Islam, Margaret Thatcher immediately ordered a protective detail to be sent to Rushdie, who took him to an undisclosed secure location. They have been protecting him ever since. Bear in mind that Rushdie had been a severe and vocal critic and political opponent of Thatcher.

Compare and contrast to Obama and Holder’s treatment of Nakoula.

I will also note that the reaction to Britain in the Middle East was not noticeably worse than the reaction the USA is getting despite Obama’s apologies.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/15/media-endangers-entire-neighborhood-to-pursue-thoughtcrime-suspect/

Media endangers entire neighborhood to pursue thoughtcrime suspect
posted at 4:01 pm on September 15, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash after a high-speed race through the streets of Paris with paparazzi, her family understandably claimed that the media had killed the mother of the future King of the UK.  At the time, I considered that a little hyperbolic, although hardly unwarranted hyperbole, as the actual proximate causes of death were a driver under the influence making a rash decision to outrun photographers and a decision not to use seatbelts. But over the last couple of days, I wonder whether the American media may get someone killed — and perhaps more than a few people — with their irresponsible stakeout of “Sam Bacile.”

First, let me introduce you to my hometown of Cerritos, California.  My family moved there in 1970, just a few years past its unincorporated status of Dairy Valley.  At the time, we had a few operating dairies within the city, as well as at least one small horse facility, along with new retail and residential building.  I graduated from Cerritos High in 1980, five years after the facility had opened, and we still had a dairy or two operating, although they were on their way out.  The incongruous exurban outpost in the Los Angeles metro area soon transformed into a pricy center for retail and the arts.

Not too many famous people came from my little corner of the world.  Our biggest celebrity is probably Lela Rochon, who graduated a couple of years after me.  Lela started her career as a Spuds MacKenzie girl and went on to star in movies such as Waiting to Exhale, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Any Given Sunday, and an especially delightful role in Harlem Nights with Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy.  I didn’t know Lela in high school, but I did know Lee Marvin’s biographer, Dwayne Epstein, who also went to Cerritos High and whose book Point Blank will come out early next year.  Mike Allen of Politico also hails from Cerritos, and then you have Yours Truly, which shows how little star power the old hometown really has.

In fact, the most notoriety our town ever had was for a horrible tragedy, the Aero Mexico plane crash of 1986.  I had moved out of Cerritos by that time, but by chance happened to be at our then-family home when the crash occurred.  It killed 67 people in the air and another 15 on the ground, in a neighborhood that looked as though it had been bombed.

Why bring that up?  It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this report from local TV station KTLA in the media’s pursuit of “Sam Bacile,” the man behind the YouTube video that provided an excuse for rioting in a number of countries:

Take a look at just the first minute or so of this report.  Look at all of the media trucks in this sleepy little neighborhood, and not just KTLA’s.  If anyone interested in taking revenge on Nakoula Besseley Nakoula wanted to know where to find him, it wouldn’t take long in this small city, especially with some media reports noting Nakoula’s distinctive front door.  And while some people wouldn’t care about Nakoula’s fate, the kind of people looking to take revenge on him aren’t really known for their precision attacks and avoidance of collateral damage.  This media swarm puts that entire neighborhood at risk, now and probably for a very long time.

And for what?  Is Nakoula a serial killer? A child molester?  No, he’s a man with poor taste who made a video that insulted some people who can’t deal with criticism, even the laughably inane and inept criticism of this 14-minute cheesefest that makes Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Citizen Kane.  However, in the US, making really bad movies and engaging in even inept theological and historical commentary isn’t a crime at all.  The media are undermining the same guarantees of free speech that allow them to operate without government interference, and they’re putting people’s lives at risk while doing so.  They’re not going to be happy until there’s another crater in Cerritos.

Meanwhile, while the media provides moment-to-moment coverage of Thoughtcrime Enemy #1 this week, the feds are interrogating him as to whether his filmmaking might violate his probation on unrelated matters:

    A man purported to be a filmmaker involved with the anti-Islam video sparking violent unrest in the Middle East and North Africa was escorted by deputies from his Cerritos, Calif., home shortly after midnight Saturday morning, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

    Media and law enforcement had been staking out the home at the end of a cul de sac in the Southern California city for about 48 hours when Nakoula Besseley Nakoula emerged wearing a coat, hat, scarf and glasses.

    L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore confirmed to NBCLA that Nakoula, 55, was taken to the Cerritos sheriff’s station for interviewing by federal probation officers aimed at determining whether he violated the terms of his 5-year probation by uploading a video to the Internet.

    “We are in an assist mode,” he said.

Nakoula is no saint, as the report makes clear:

    A federal grand jury indictment in February 2009 charged Nakoula in an alleged bank fraud conspiracy. The indictment accused him and others of fraudulently obtaining the identities and Social Security numbers of bank customers at Wells Fargo and withdrawing $860 from bank branches in Cerritos, Artesia and Norwalk.

    Nakoula pleaded no contest in 2010 and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison, but was released early. The terms of his parole included being barred from assuming aliases and using computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer. …

    Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons confirmed that Nakoula also served a year in jail after pleading guilty to possession of meth with the intent to manufacture in 1997.

Here’s the question: would any of these people care about Nakoula’s probation status had the video not purportedly caused riots?  If so, isn’t this pursuit more about the kind of speech in which Nakoula engaged than in what kind of activity he may have conducted with computers and the Internet? This is dangerous ground for free speech, and the media is making Cerritos into dangerous ground in a much more literal sense.

Update: Commenters rightly argue with an assumption I didn’t mean to make in my last paragraph. I don’t think a six-month old video “caused” the riots, either. It was just a pretext. I’ve added “purportedly” to make clear I’m arguing the current claim rather than the reality.