“Because of ongoing instability and violence…”
Eight short months after the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the John Kerry-led Department of State has issued a travel advisory to all United States citizens intent on visiting the violence wracked North African nation, as reported by Eliana Johnson of the National Review:
Well, it seems that mall security could have done a better job protecting our compound in Benghazi. According to Kerry Picket, who recently made her move to Breitbart News, “a source with personal knowledge of the security situation in Benghazi … were shocked to learn State Department security personnel agents were not immediately armed. Additionally, agents separated from Ambassador Chris Stevens left to retrieve their M4 weapons in a separate building. Only one returned to protect the Ambassador, while the other two hunkered down in the barracks, the source relayed.” Continue reading
In case you missed it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in Dublin on December 3 about the need to support positive change in Syria.
The United States stands with the Syrian people in insisting that any transition process result in a unified, democratic Syria in which all citizens are represented – Sunni, Alawi, Christians, Kurds, Druze, men, women. Every Syrian must be included,” Clinton told reporters. “And a future of this kind cannot possibly include Assad.”
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Continue reading
Mighty Syrian freighter Lady Rasha
Inevitably, Iran and Syria are gaming international maritime communications. Both nations are under sanctions. Both appear to be faking registry in Tanzania. And Iran is transmitting false signals to hide the operations of Syrian cargo ships.
The fakery by the two countries’ merchant fleets has Tanzania in common – apparently as a victim – but it also has Libya. Twenty years of peace dividends for the West, combined with the Arab Spring of 2011, have changed the security picture on Africa’s perimeter, and the direction in some segments of it is backward, to an age of little surveillance and expanding lawlessness. Libya’s coast is one such segment. Even if the surveillance forces of NATO are watching in the central Mediterranean, it’s not clear that the focus is there to ensure useful intelligence collection, or that there’s an organized will to do much about tankers or cargo vessels that head, on the sly, into and out of Libya.
And so, this fall, Iranian ships have been transmitting fake signals Continue reading