Libya - Benghazi Assault & Murder & Mumbi Attack

ꕤ Article SOURCE as marked Article Title:  "Ambassador Stevens Was Raped Before His Murder, Reports Claim" Author:  Wolff Bachner re:  Ambassador to Libya -- J. Christopher Stevens Other: EXTRACT - Mumbai Attack "Pakistani Muslim terrorists attacked the Chabad Jewish center during the devastating terror attacks in Mumbai, India, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were both tortured and raped, and their bodies were desecrated.  According to the Mumbai Police, the Rabbi was castrated while still alive. “Even the Rabbi and his wife at Nariman House were sexually assaulted and their genitalia mutilated,” said a senior officer of the investigating team." http://www.inquisitr.com/330504/ambassador-stevens-was-raped-before-his-murder-reports-claim/ Note:  the woman victim was 6 months pregnant [source:  DailyMail - here] Article Benghazi: Obama's Actions Amount To A Shameful Dereliction Of Duty Peter Ferrara Oct 25, 2012 @ 09:19 AM "...  Benghazi murders of Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 others, including two Marines ..." "The Obama Administration received requests for additional security from the Embassy and the Ambassador himself as early as February.  An embassy cable on June 25 expressed fear of rising Islamic extremism in eastern Libya around Benghazi, and noted that the black flag of Al-Qaeda “has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities.” "On August 2, Ambassador Stevens sent a cable requesting 11 additional body guards, noting “Host nation security support is lacking and cannot be depended on to provide a safe and secure environment for the diplomatic mission of outreach.” "But these requests for additional security were repeatedly denied ..." "Obama and his allies did not want a show of American force in the country that would offend Muslim sensibilities.  They wanted to rely instead on the host country’s security that the embassy was telling them was inadequate and could not be depended upon." "... the day of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, September 11, the White House situation room starts receiving emails at about 1 pm that the mission is under hostile surveillance.  The only response was that the Pentagon sends a drone armed with a video camera so that everyone in Washington can see what transpires in real time, as it happens, at the White House, at the State Department, at the Pentagon, at the CIA." "The drone documents no crowds protesting any video.  But at 4 pm Washington receives an email from the Benghazi mission that it is under military style attack." "The attack was then fed to all of them, the White House, the Pentagon, the State Dept., the CIA, through live video feed.  A later email that day reported, “Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.”  The feed showed no protest of any supposedly offensive You Tube video." "Just one hour flight time away were U.S. Air Force bases that could have been rousted in minutes to send fighter planes and attack helicopters that could have routed the attackers in minutes of fighting." Obama & Hillary Clinton: "...  likely knew [correction: they surely knew] the attack on our Benghazi consulate the day before was organized by terrorists.  They knew because they were privy to a flurry of emails among administration officials discussing the attack in real time.  Yet they said nothing about what they knew and, worse, had done nothing to mount a rescue despite American forces being less than an hour away during the seven hour blitz." " The United States Ambassador to Libya, the personal representative of President Barack Obama, had been tortured, sodomized, dragged bloody through the streets of Benghazi, and murdered.  Chris Stevens, along with the two Marines and another who were murdered along with him, had volunteered to serve his country.  But under the leadership of Barack Obama, that is how his service ended." "The Truth-Challenged President But the saga did not end there for the American people.  The rest of us had to endure the President, Secretary of State Clinton, and UN Ambassador “explaining” to us that what really happened was that those irascible Muslims were all incited out of their minds by a previously unseen, unheard of You Tube video trailer by an unknown American immigrant, a movie that was never made outside the trailer advertising it, in Fool on the Hill style.  Their protest had just got out of hand, you see. Except they all knew when they were saying these very words that they were untrue.  They were precisely calculated to deceive and to mislead.  Yet there was our President Obama telling this mendacious fairy tale to the entire world at the U.N.  And there was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice telling the American people the same concocted fairy tale.  Typical Progressives, they were so certain that they could easily buffalo a majority of their countrymen, no smarter than the representative Homer Simpson." http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/10/25/benghazi-obamas-actions-amount-to-a-shameful-dereliction-of-duty/ ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT A photo of a guy I suspected had been tortured was going around, but I wasn't sure that's what I was looking at, and I didn't know who it was. It was only after the photo was passed around with a message that it was the US Ambassador being tortured, that it did really look like it was a torture victim.  It also looked like someone may have been holding a cattle prod or something like that (which I didn't spot on initial viewing, when I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at). Once I had an idea of who it might be, I Googled for information. Some site on the internet denies it was him, but when I keyed in about torture the Forbes article and others came up. I wasn't aware that the people in the Mumbai attacks were sexually assaulted and tortured (that's come just by chance within one of the Benghazi articles). I also wasn't aware that the US Ambassador was sexually assaulted and tortured, and  I think I'd remember having seen something about this in the (admittedly few) Benghazi articles I may have looked at.  I'm shocked and sort of freaked out by that.  It's very disturbing.   Probably moreso because I'd spent some of today looking at Islamic history and getting into listening to associated music. Islamic history isn't as appealing after reading these couple of articles.  I still feel sick.  It's a numb and sick feeling, but I'm not sure why I find it as disturbing as I do.  I think it might be the sexual assault savagery combined with torture savagery and helplessness of the victims that does my head in.  It's both disgusting and incomprehensibly cruel. It's unbelievable that they denied the embassy additional security, when more security was sought.  And it's beyond comprehension that they watched this man get tortured and dragged around Benghazi without doing anything to help. This was in 2012, so they'd already taken down Gaddafi in 2011 and Libya was presumably in a state of civil war. Why would you even have an embassy in the country under those circumstances? Regarding both stories, Daily Mail has left out the gruesome parts, although I think the public ought to know exactly what's happened.   I know I'd rather know, even if it is horrible and disturbing. ꕤ

Peru vs Chile Spy Row

PERU / CHILE - SPY ROW Michelle Bachelet President Chile Since: March 2014 - won 62% of vote Socialist Party Served as President 2006–2010 --- LatAm Peru Peru withdraws ambassador to Chile / protest alleged espionage http://news.asiaone.com/news/world/peru-withdraws-ambassador-chile-espionage-row LatAm Peru military members allegedly paid by Chile to spy b/w 2005-2012 Chile ambass to Lima, Roberto Ibarra, to stay to respond LatAm Peru: Ambassador won't return to Chile until spying spat resolved x3 Peru navy NCOs passing info http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/agencia-efe/150307/peru-ambassador-wont-return-chile-until-spying-spat-resolved One of x3 NCOs accused of treason identified a Chilean lieutenant commander as one of recipients of classified info Peru Foreign Minister Chile Heraldo Muñoz said Chile:   "does not accept, carry out or support acts of espionage in other countries nor our own" COMMENT Spy row.  Cool.  Not much information at the moment.  Complaint by Peru.  Denial by Chile.  Investigation by Chile to take place.  Chile ambassador therefore in place for next few days to deal with allegations.  That's it so far.  Like this sort of news. NCO = non-commissioned officer/s

Hillarious John Tefft appointment as US Ambassador to Russia

NEW US AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA John F. Tefft ... is a career U.S. Foreign Service Officer since 1972. He was confirmed as the United States Ambassador to Russia on July 31, 2014. He has previously served as the United States' ambassador to Ukraine, Georgia, and Lithuania, as well as chargé d'affaires [diplomat in charge of matters] of the Embassy of the United States in Moscow, Russia. He joined the United States Foreign Service in 1972 and has served in Jerusalem, Budapest, Rome, Moscow, Vilnius and Tbilisi. 2009 President Viktor Yushchenko accepted Teffts credentials of Ambassador .... Tefft delivered his speech in Ukrainian. 2013 President Obama nominated Geoffrey R. Pyatt to succeed Tefft as Ambassador of the United States to Ukraine. 2014 President Obama nominated Tefft as the United States Ambassador to Russia in Moscow, after receiving Russia's approval. [Wikipedia]

Newsweek Article (May 2014) Ambassador Tefft Would Upset Russia, and That's the Point By Lynnley Browning / May 14, 2014 6:23 AM EDT When the man most likely to be America’s next ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, moves into the stately Spaso House embassy in Moscow, he will dwell there amid the iciest relations between the Kremlin and Washington since the dark days of the Iron Curtain. ... In early April, the burly Tefft made a behind-the-scenes round of analysts in Moscow to gauge the Kremlin’s increasingly anti-American mood, according to private sector sources with whom he met. Currently the executive director of the Rand Business Leaders Forum, a clubby lobbying group focused on strategic issues involving Russia, the U.S. and Europe, Tefft declined to speak with a reporter, citing the diplomatic approval process now in process. A White House spokeswoman also declined to comment. ... Tefft’s imminent appointment comes after years of American neglect of Russia as a force to contend with. President Barack Obama’s move in 2009 to push a reset button aimed at gaining cooperation from the Kremlin on strategic issues such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and, later, Syria, got off to a famously bad start when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, still in his job under Putin, with a red button that said not “reset” but peregruzka (“overload”). ... Tefft is widely regarded as a “traditional” diplomat who operates with old-school, low-key professionalism, “a huge asset in Moscow, and perhaps the only style that can work in this situation,” says the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Trenin. McFaul, the most recent ambassador to Russia—known for his prolific Twitter feed of Russia news and tidbits, from a broken finger sustained while shooting hoops to support of hot-button Kremlin issues like gay rights and meetings with Russian opposition figures—simply pissed off the Kremlin. ... (An official State Department Twitter feed packed with anti-Kremlin tweets is unlikely to help Tefft. In one zinger, on April 24, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki tweeted, “The world stands #UnitedforUkraine. Let’s hope that the #Kremlin & @mfa_russia”—Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry—“will live by the promise of hashtag.”) Amid the “hashtag diplomacy,” the Kremlin tightened control over the online activities of Russian pundits and activists on May 5. Tefft knows how to push some of the right emotional buttons. In a 2013 exit interview in his post as ambassador to Ukraine with the Ukrainian newspaper The Day, he said that if he were a Ukrainian reading the 19th century poetry of Taras Shevchenko, the nation’s Shakespeare, “I’d cry every time” because “it just captures the essence of what it means to be Ukrainian.” “Diplomacy certainly still does matter to Putin, but he just happens to have different terms of reference to the West and a disrespect for many of the niceties,” Mark Galeotti, a Russia specialist at New York University who is teaching at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, tells Newsweek. “But this means that the next U.S. ambassador’s character, remit and approach will be crucial. Putin seems to have come to believe that the USA is hypocritical and weak-willed.” Extracts only ... Full @ Source - Newsweek - May 2014 - here.

COMMENT

This is hilarious.
USA's sending over a guy who was all misty-eyed and rallying Ukraine nationalism.
And the dude's been hanging at some arm of Rand Corporation.

I'm new to watching politics, but this strikes me as hilarious and pointless.

Tefft will have zero influence.

But that's probably the case for all ambassadors for all I know.  Not sure how it works.

Just strikes me as the most improbable dude to send.