Consulate Security in Libya was a Casualty of the Liberal Worldview

RUSH: Here's Eric Nordstrom, he was one of the first witnesses from the State Department before the congressional committee today, and right here, folks, is the problem with the liberal worldview.

NORDSTROM: Our long-term security plan in Libya was to deploy an armed, locally hired Libyan body guard unit. Due to Libyan political sensitivities, armed private security companies were not allowed to operate in Libya. That was the case under Khadafy and that was the case under the free Libya.

RUSH: So we simply said, "Okay, cool, we're not allowed to have any armed American personnel protecting our ambassador at our consulate? Cool. We understand that. We'll hire one of your people. We'll hire a bodyguard for the ambassador." And that's what they did. And you know the story now, don't you? There was a safe house. This is part of the plan. If ever there is a threat or some unrest aimed at people in our consulate, there's a safe house location. There's an escape route, escape plan, and you take all the important personnel at the embassy or consulate to the safe house, which happened. The problem is that this bodyguard that we hired told the mob where they took the ambassador.

The Libyan bodyguard or series of them that we hired then told the mob how to go find the ambassador, which they did, and what they did to him was not pretty. He wasn't just killed. He was raped and tortured.

Well, what is this private security business? Why not the Marines? What are you talking about Blackwater for? Why can't you just go out and position some Marines there? It was okay for the US to send in US pilots to help Libya get rid of Khadafy. This is absurd. This is right there, one of the myriad problems, the liberal worldview. "Oh, you don't want us to have any? Oh, okay. Okay." Here's Elizabeth Palmer, CBS This Morning. This is a portion of her report about the State Department saying there was no protest before the attack.

PALMER: The ambassador and another American took refuge in the sleeping quarters of the main building which lay behind a heavy steel door that was double locked with barred windows all around. The attackers entered the building, and unable to get past the gate, sprayed diesel fluid all around and lit a fire. Thick smoke inside the main building forced the Americans to try to leave. First, the security agent, probably through this window with the bars by then removed. The other two, including the ambassador, didn't follow. But at that stage the smoke was so dense, the agent couldn't return. Later, other security personnel did try, but failed to find Chris Stevens. And it was only hours later that his body was pulled out of that same window by a crowd.

RUSH: The security agent she refers to there is the bodyguard that Eric Nordstrom just talked about, "the security agent." The mob knew where they all were. That's the story.

Let’s cut to the chase.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries. It specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. This forms the legal basis for diplomatic immunity.

Article 22. The premises of a diplomatic mission, such as an embassy, are inviolate and must not be entered by the host country except by permission of the head of the mission. Furthermore, the host country must protect the mission from intrusion or damage.

Article 29. Diplomats (and diplomatic personnel excluding local employees) must not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. They are immune from civil or criminal prosecution

Importantly: Concerning compulsory settlement of disputes. Disputes arising from the interpretation of this treaty may be brought before the International Court of Justice.

So what does all this mean?

If the US chooses to do so, its authorized detachment of US Marines may be armed with all sorts of weaponry. If the host nation fails to protect our embassy and its grounds from intrusion, these US Marines may be ordered by the ambassador or head of mission to defend the embassy and its grounds with lethal force.

The US State Department is usually horrified with this idea, on the grounds that it “would offend the host nation.”

Nonsense.

The host country has *failed* in its treaty *obligations* to defend our embassy from *their* people. If they are truly upset that our US Marines have used belt-fed heavy machine guns to hose a crowd of violent demonstrators invading our embassy grounds, then that nation can *sue* the US in the International Court of Justice, if they like.

The US Marines can set up a perimeter around the heavy, reinforced embassy, that would be extremely hard for anyone without tanks, artillery, or combat aircraft to penetrate.

In the First Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, aka “Blackhawk Down”, 160 US military personnel with little or no planned defensive positions, engaged some 5,000 or so armed Somalis in the middle of a random urban area. The US military personnel suffered some 18 killed and 73 wounded. But in the process killed some 1,500 to 3,000 Somalis.

Now imagine half a squad of heavily armed US Marines defending a reinforced embassy from a mob of several thousand rioters, from within an elevated and reinforced defensive position in the embassy.

After killing a few hundred such rioters, I imagine the rest would lose their taste for the fight. Then our embassy could subcontract with a local company to haul the earthly remains of the rioters back into their own country for disposal by the host country that failed to protect our embassy.

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