Via the NYT:
The barriers are there for a reason: Stevens’s death attests to that, as do those of Americans in Beirut, Baghdad and other violent places. But the reaction to the attack in Benghazi crystallized a sense among many diplomats that risks are less acceptable in Washington than they once were, that the mantra of “security” will only grow louder. As a result, some of the country’s most distinguished former ambassadors are now asking anew what diplomacy can achieve at such a remove.
“No one has sat back to say, ‘What are our objectives?’ ” said Prudence Bushnell, who was ambassador to Kenya when the Qaeda bombing took place there in 1998, killing more than 200 people and injuring 4,000. “The model has become, we will go to dangerous places and transform them, and we will do it from secure fortresses. And it doesn’t work.”
Read in full here.
-DS
Related articles
- Christopher Stevens and the Problem of American Diplomacy (nytimes.com)
- Protecting Diplomats Post-Embassy Attacks: More Fortresses or Rethinking Fortresses? (diplopundit.net)
- As Libyan attack probe opens, past practice shows wide blame assessed when US missions hit (vancouverdesi.com)