Wednesday, September 12, 2012

US Ambassador To Libya Killed


Via NBC News:
The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed after protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad stormed the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. 
"I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens," President Barack Obama said Wednesday in a statement. "Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers." 
Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador killed during an assignment since Adolph Dubs was slain in an exchange of gunfire during a kidnapping attempt in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1979. 
Earlier, three Libyan officials told The Associated Press that Stevens was killed Tuesday night when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff. The protesters were firing gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades. 
While some reports (like this one from NBC) are saying these attacks were in response to a film ridiculing Muhammad because the protests outside US embassies Libya and Egypt were to protest the film, I find that as the justification of the attacks to be rather ludicrous. As Reason 24/7 editor Ed Krayewski pointed out on Twitter this morning:
"At the DNC Obama said 'from Burma to Libya to South Sudan, we have advanced the rights and dignity of all human beings.' He said this even though Col. Qaddafi was caught by rebels with U.S. air support, abused, sodomized, then shot in the head. The U.S. laughed at Qaddafi's death, then realized that was not appropriate, and lightly condemned it, but pushed no investigation. Yesterday, the US Ambassador in Libya was killed by militants assaulting the Embassy. What are the chances Libya will bring these killers to justice when it knows the US doesn't really mind extrajudicial killings?"
What Krayewski seems to be implying is that this attack had more to do with retribution for the unlawful killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, which makes a great deal more sense than outrage over a movie.

There is a lesson to be learned here. It's the same lesson that should have been learned from 9/11 as well as countless of other events in history, and it is one the US government will ignore: The foreign policy of global hegemony the US government employs will always create a level of blow back which will be targeted toward Americans.

Whether it is putting troops in Saudi Arabia, toppling the Shah in Iran, or "installing democracy" in Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, these actions have consequences to them. The US government cannot run roughshod over whomever they want whenever they want, no matter how much they want to.

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