ICYMI: Islamists Take Over US Embassy in Tripoli, Throw Pool Party for Allah

Yesterday's news, but in case you didn't see it.

To be clear, the Islamists didn't drive US personnel out, not exactly. US personnel deserted the compound when the local circumstances became too dangerous... primarily because of Islamist militias.

But now the Islamist militias say they've "secured" the compound -- on our behalves, thank the dears -- and heck, if you're kindly securing US sovereign territory for the US government, who can begrudge you a little pool party?

An Associated Press journalist walked through the U.S. Embassy compound Sunday after the Dawn of Libya, an umbrella group for Islamist militias, invited onlookers inside. Some windows at the compound had been broken, but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched. The journalist saw treadmills, food, televisions and computers still inside.

A commander for the Dawn of Libya group, Moussa Abu-Zaqia, told the AP that his forces had entered and been in control of the compound since last week, a day after it has seized control of the capital and its international airport after weeks of fighting with a rival militia. Abu-Zaqia said the rival militia was in the compound before his troops took it over.

...

They shot a video of the pool party and posted it on YouTube.

In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy's residential annex, though she said she couldn’t "say definitively" since she wasn’t there.

"To my knowledge & per recent photos the US Embassy Tripoli chancery & compound is now being safeguarded and has not been ransacked," she wrote on Twitter. She did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate. State Department officials in Washington also declined to immediately comment.

Note there is some question about who we left guarding the Embassy in our absence -- was it US troops, or hired locals? And how were those guards ejected?

It's possible this Dawn of Libya actually is safeguarding the embassy, more or less. (Or at least it's possible it's safer in their hands than other hands.)

But it's pretty incredible that a US embassy has been taken over by militias, in a country the US fought a war limited full-spectrum kinetic action to "liberate."

And it's pretty incredible that the US response is to pretend these things away, once again giving the press the "Nothing to see here, folks, move on" treatment.

They are not interested in managing foreign policy -- they only care about managing domestic news.

posted by Ace at 11:46 AM

| Access Comments