US ambassador 'killed in Libya'

US Marines on their way to Libya, drones already aloft over Benghazi.

Meanwhile Benghazi citizens (Benghazians?) already donating money to rebuild US Embassy.

Consider that it requires a degree of both for them to resort to violence. If you think that beliefs have no influence at all on behavior, then you're not worth listening to.

One doesn't need organized religion to form beliefs.You being an atheist I thought that would be the one thing I wouldn't have to explain. And I really could give two shits on whether or not you think I'm worth listening to.

What? I didn't say that one needed organised religion to have beliefs.

The point is that our beliefs influence our actions, and certain beliefs dispose us toward violence moreso than if we held other beliefs.

That's a trivial observation that it shouldn't be necessary to point out. But somehow you have seen fit to deny it.

That's a bold as fuck claim.

Unless I'm totally misunderstanding you.

You mad, bro?

Bet you can't explain this without recourse to religion.

In fact, I'll bet you can't explain it at all.

Obama offers praise to the Libyan government. Fucking bullshit. Obama has helped create another enemy worse than the last. Who thinks this shit would have happened under Colonel Qaddafi's watch? I don't think it would have.
Obama is going to support Islam no matter what.

Well thank you, Captain Obvious. So what would you have us do? Send them a strongly worded letter? Stick daisies in their gun barrels? Invite them over to play hackie sack?

The key to dealing with thugs and bullies is not to appear helpless, obsequious, and ingratiate yourself to them. It is to be strong and if they try to start something, pay them back with a level of pain that will make them never ever ever want to fuck with you or yours again. Jimmy Carter didn't get that and the fledgling Iranian theocracy held our diplomats hostage for over a year. Ronald Reagan fixed that. Subsequent Presidents--yes, even Clinton--did their bit.

And even though Obama managed to get bin Ladin, he has, in less than four years, managed to, with his policy of appeasement and groveling to anyone who will let him bow to them, undo over 30 years of foreign policy progress.

Shit, Dubya got Khaddafi, THE preeminent sponsor of terrorism and boogieman of the mid-1980s to dismantle his WMD programs. Then Obama helped kill him. Now our Libyan allies are killing our diplomats.

Embassies have a Marine Security Guard detachment. This is around 7 Marines. They are able to deal with relatively routine things like an assassin or a small terrorist attack or something like that. But if you've got hundreds or thousands of people, climbing over the fences, they aren't remotely set up for that. The embassies rely on the host nation for that kind of security.

If things are going to shit slowly enough and there's a MEU(SOC) in the area and the ambassador sends up the white star cluster and the President concurs, they can have a plan in place within six hours to launch support for the embassy. How long it takes to get there depends on how far away the ships of the ARG are.

This never would've happened if Khaddafi was still in power.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/poli...ving-photos-pro-american-rallies-libya/56803/

A step in the right direction. If the so-called "peaceful" muslims would do a better job of policing their own, then I wouldn't have an issue with them. But far too often they are the silent majority who sit complacent while their brethren carry out acts of terrorism and violence. If the 99% stood up as one to denounce these acts, I'd look on Islam more favorably.


But then people in hell want ice water, too.

The Libyan government and a few citizens helped fight off the attackers and help carry the ambassador and others to safety so they deserved that praise.

This was simply a Timothy McVeigh sort of incident, and not indicative of the the Libyans in general.

I'm loving the way some conservatives in this thread are now praising Kaddhafi. It's hilarious, but also quite sad.

[YT="they have forgotten..."]5dqn9Hwf-H0[/YT]

Good for them because I don't give a flying fuck about them either.

[?=An image of the Libyans caught in the act of killing an embassy worker]
The victim was quoted as exclaiming "Great Scott!"[/?]

Probably not, but that doesn't effect me in the slightest.

How is that working out?

Mixed emotions? No to insulting Islam, yet no to terrorism also. Pick an ideology and go with it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thqGFCinOPs

You mean like the liberals loved to praise Saddam?

The situation to me is exactly the same. The US went on a stupid adventure in Iraq and now Iran has nuclear weapons because there is no Saddam around to keep them in check.

The US went on a crazy adventure in Libya to remove a ruthless dictator, and now the whole area is going to hell.

Way to go Obama.

That gets a huge, HUGE, what, the fuck, are you talking about?

Oh, now I see, many liberals saw that it was a stupid adventure before it happened, which means we liked Sadam? You have a singularly delusional view of history. Saddam hadn't had the ability to keep Iran in check since around 1990-91, btw.

Off hand, I'd rather a somewhat less stable Libya where dangerous things might happen internally, than one that is controlled by a ruthless dictator who might turn on a dime and start supporting external terrorism again. The reason not to take on Saddam was that it required too big and complex a commitment of U.S. resources, not that he wasn't somebody worth eliminating.

Probably. The claim is that both bad character and religious motive are factors in such violence.

Did you take some pills that you shouldn't?

If by "such violence" you mean "religiously motivated violence", then yeah....that kinda goes without saying. However, absent religion, I think it's safe to say that "such" people would probably be just as co-motivated by something else...idiological or otherwise.

No, it's not safe to say that. There are people who are violent because of religion who wouldn't be violent otherwise. Beliefs have consequences, they aren't simply enablers for pre-existing pathologies.

I mean, I don't go round killing people. But if I were inducted into some David Koresh type cult, I might. And that wouldn't be simply I'd have been doing anyway.

I could say the same thing to your dumbass comment about conservatives praising Kaddhafi.