Marine blogs say U.S. embassy did not authorize service members to carry ammo

U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were not permitted by the State Department to carry live ammunition, limiting their ability to respond to attacks like those this week on the U.S. consulate in Cairo.

Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson “did not permit U.S. Marine guards to carry live ammunition,” according to multiple reports on U.S. Marine Corps blogs spotted by Nightwatch. “She neutralized any U.S. military capability that was dedicated to preserve her life and protect the US Embassy.”

Time magazine’s Battleland blog reported Thursday that “senior U.S. officials late Wednesday declined to discuss in detail the security at either Cairo or Benghazi, so answers may be slow in coming.”

Source

What is going on??? Does anyone have a way to confirm this with someone in the Marine Corps? It's hard to believe....but then the National Guard in US Airports immediately after 9/11 had empty magazines in their rifles too....as did the base guards at the Marine Barracks in Beirut if I recall correctly.

This is insanity, if true?

If this is true, then it is a conspiracy worthy of the whole 9/11 inside job thing. Why allow the guardians of an embassy to be defenseless unless you want to let something bad happen?

The only cause for doubt I have with this, is I don't see how any Marine charged with defense of an embassy would allow themselves to work without arms.

I hope this gets investigated further.

Wouldn't surprise me for the state dept of a democratic administration;
Ms. clinton in particular was notorious for looking down on the military staffers during her tenure in the white house. "State" gives money and technology to foreign govt.s all the time. Its easy to see: "loaded weapons might injure a host country protestor" and cause an international incident. Having dealt with a few in the(distant) past: "State dept" people tend to be "clueless Peaceniks".

Some of the security people are true professionals (mostly the ex- military) but the politicallyappointed ambassador is "Lord God on station". If he/she doesn't like guns or figures the Marines job is to "die for their country"; Its entirely possible(no ammunition in the weapons anyway; perhaps it was secured in the armory.)...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Already posted bro.

ATS Thread

ETA: Also read my posts in the thread which were mostly ignored. It'll make sense.

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Sir Winston Churchill

The Beirut Bombing occurred on October 23, 1983. The act was a terrorist attack against the United States Marine Headquarters during the Lebanese Civil War...
...Shiite Muslim suicide bomber, encountered unarmed marines and detonated his truck with 12,000 pounds of TNT, creating the largest non-nuclear explosion ever seen by the FBI.

www.u-s-history.com...

Apparently we learned nothing in the last 29 years.

reply to post by RedmoonMWC

Indeed.. That is exactly what crossed my mind and why it really caught my attention. That is what I'd recalled reading about the Marines in Beirut when they got the truck bomb that destroyed the barracks building.

I know they weren't permitted broad spectrum transmitters/jammers to trigger remote control bombs before getting that far for fear it might blow out the local apartments. How sad a thing is that? Richard Marcinko (Red Cell was the book) wrote about the original Seal 6 when it really was still just a numbered Team doing something special and not a group unto itself in size, having done security assessments on the Embassies in Beirut and that was a concern of local sensitivity with the diplomatic people. We got two Embassies blown up there, too.

We're going to P.C. ourselves right to death, literally, when the people we're trying to impress with all this don't care what show the State Department puts on either way.

(Sorry for not catching the Double guys.... ) I'd searched New topics but didn't use the right word in the ctrl-f. Lazy today..I hadn't manually read down. Bad on me.

This shows lack of the support for the military from our government.
That sickens me. It's like they're saying "here, go protect me and my rich ass without ammo. We'll try not to piss anyone off while you're there but we can't guarantee anything... Good luck!"

Here is an article saying that this story is incorrect.

www.motherjones.com...

Update, 2:30pmPDT: Mother Jones has obtained a memorandum from the Marine Corps' congressional liaison confirming that the Marine guards at the embassy in Egypt were in fact armed with live ammunition, contrary to the anti-Obama conspiracy theory du jour:


The Ambassador did not impose restrictions on weapons or weapons status on the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG) detachment. The MCESG Marines in Cairo were allowed to have live ammunition in their weapons. The Ambassador and Regional Security Officer have been completely and appropriately engaged with the security situation. Reports of Marines not being able to have their weapons loaded per direction from the Ambassador are not accurate.

I personally did not believe this when I first heard it. I'm not sure how much power the Ambassador has over their rules of engagment and such but it just did not sound plausible to me. We used to get live ammo issued for normal gaurd duty on US bases within the CONUS. There would have been no reason for them not to have ammo that I can see. I can't think of any Marine in a command position letting that fly either. When we had duty they would tell us to keep our weapons in condition 3. (No round in chamber). Any infantryman will tell you that a condition thre weapon is a dangerous weapon in a hectic situation so we would always be locked and loaded and condition one when we had ammo.

whether they were armed or not,

do you think the admin would confirm it.

if they did, the maniacs would storm every embassy in every country, knowing they were unarmed.

Marines aren't there to protect the embassy anyway

a reply to: Wrabbit2000
I committed mutiny the day after, October 24 1983 after 6 years in the USMC. My TOW missile unit was already loaded to replace the Marines in Beirut and we all took it really hard. I made the public charge, "The Marine Corps just murdered 300 of its own men!" I was ordered back into formation and I told the CO to go # himself. We killed our own Marines to spark a war of vengeance, the only reason America's public ever asks for war. America's public asked instead, "what were we doing there?" We had no mission statement, unloaded weapons, ROE required phone call to Caspar Weinberger for permission to return fire, that took about 15 min.
*snip*
They refused to court martial me due to official record, I was given unlawful OTH with no charges. I have 3 DD214's and 2 Honorable discharges.
VA still says Beirut was not a combat zone....My unit landed in Granada while I was being discharged, my shot record was for Beirut, not Caribbean so that was WAG THE DOG time

a reply to: Shamrock6
not true, after an angry mob took over embassy in Iran the laws changed to place senior Marine in charge when ever a US Embassy comes under attack. Prior to Iran the Ambassador remained in charge.

a reply to: thegimprider

Absolutely true. Marines are stationed at embassies to protect classified materials and documents.

Embassy grounds and personnel are entirely secondary to that mission. The safety of the staff is the responsibility of the diplomatic security service attached to the embassy.

a reply to: Shamrock6
Live ammo restriction was direct result of Kent State shootings, from that time on national guard was no longer issued ammo for riot control. Not a good time to be in National guard. This thinking flowed into all national security thinking. Any deeply embarrassing incidence damages America's public image. Propagana is 100% image.