[Txsleuth]

I know what you mean...but, I don't think there is anything we can do about it.

BTW..this woman, American, that Greta is talking to...is very bitter, that the South Africans and Italians' embassies have gotten their people out..but the Americans haven't done anything.

She said they went to the US Embassy, but no Americans working there...even though the State Dept. put out a memo, instructing Americans to go to the embassy and register.

Now..she did say they went a couple of days ago...probably LONG before the US was ready take the names, and give them instructions..but, it is crazy that all of the other countries seem to have made arrangements and are getting their people out...but we haven't.

Whoever is running the State Dept. from Washington is not doing this very quickly.

[RasterMaster]

Maybe she was too busy calling Greta when instructions were given. She sounded pretty dense if you ask me.

[defconw]

Yes, but the problem is, that we are not cleared to go into Syria. The other countries are. So we have to take our people right through the middle of the free fire zone. Tricky. People will go ballistic if our citizens get killed in our custody, by trying to get them out. Most likely Israel is trying to bomb around the Americans that are there.Thus the registration.

[Pox]

I'm thinking that we're not in too much of a rush right now because they are expecting this to wind down shortly.

After seeing the quote from the Israeli government encouraging Lebanon to deploy their armed forces on the border to keep hezbollah off of the border I'm thinking that Israel is looking for a cease fire if certain conditions are met.

It remains to be seen if Lebanon actually is capable of keeping the militants back and can get them to stop firing on Israel. If this 'possibility' doesn't pan out, I'd say that Israel may go ahead and commit their ground attack. At that point, we would be really scrambling to get out the U.S. citizens who want to leave.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Sleuth, our State Department is broken, I thought it still had to many Clintonista's, but I'm wondering if it's even worse with a lot of old, worn out, Carter-era holdouts. Joel Maybry's book on the State Department is very informative.