US closes embassies

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a thread about this already.  Now, by and large I'm skeptical of conspiracy theories and the like, but this whole episode so far screams setup to me.

On the basis of intercepts from the controversial NSA intelligence gathering program, we've closed facilities in twenty-four countries, and still have them closed through the end of this week in nineteen more.  All of this based on vague threats that Al-Qaida wants to cause us harm and would really like to do it during Ramadan.  Now anyone who hasn't known the former for at least the past twelve years is either a complete idiot or has been living under a rock.  The latter likely isn't as obvious to the general public, but is also no surprise to anyone familiar with the situation.  So even if we've managed to avoid some shedding of innocent blood, something we'll never be able to know for certain, we've also definitely handed Al-Qaida a PR victory.

Wake up sheeple! The reason for doing this is blatantly obvious. This is the Obama administration's underhanded way of implementing some sequester cuts without appearing to do so.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Apologies for missing your thread deadman, but it was three days old and had generated no responses.

Wake up sheeple! The reason for doing this is blatantly obvious. This is the Obama administration's underhanded way of implementing some sequester cuts without appearing to do so.

I have no idea if you're serious or not so not really sure how to respond.

Semi-serious.  Given what preceded the above, it should be fairly obvious that I think this is a manufactured crisis intended to show that we need the NSA doing its electronic eavesdropping.  But I wanted a little humor, so I went off on a tangent.

Thing is if this was supposed to show that we need the NSA snooping on everybody, it isn't doing the trick.  It shouldn't have taken NSA snooping to get the bureaucrats in Washington to realize that there was a high risk of something happening this Ramadan.  There has been a high risk of that every Ramadan for some years now.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And yet, what has been accomplished?  We've already handed Al-Qaida a PR victory, and do you really think they'll be too upset at having to wait an extra week to carry out the attack?  The only thing closing the embassies did was to give the bureaucrats and Obama a chance to cover their asses.  Unfortunately, the heat that has accompanied Benghazi has led to the State Department having an "abundance of caution" instead of an abundance of good sense.

I don't disagree too much with issuing a warning and reviewing security measures, but closing the embassies was a mistake, and other than covering their asses, the only other reason for doing it was to hype up the importance of the NSA intercepts.  Of course, in doing so, they've pulled a Snowden and reminded the bad guys we can listen in, so it would be better to use non-electronic methods of communication.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I like it. We should have more bases here and close ones overseas if we're not using them.

Do you know the difference between an embassy and a military base?

The difference isn't as clear cut as it once was.