Before I go any further, I want to make one thing very clear: I do not blame the Marines for what happened. In fact, I commend them for handling a very bad situation with the kind of professionalism and dedication to duty that we have come to expect from the Corps. Sometimes, being a good Marine means doing things that are really, really hard to do. The doing of these acts is what gives men honor. At the end of the day, those Marines on the ground merely did what they were supposed to do: follow the orders of their political masters. I put the blame for this debacle squarely on the Department of State.
This whole situation is absolutely bizarre. The government of Yemen fell apart on January 22nd in a military coup, and was replaced with a regime that every sane person knows is completely hostile to the US. Everyone knew that an evacuation was imminent. So why the Chicken Little “the sky is falling!” act in February?
How is it possible that more than two years after the attack on the Benghazi consulate, that the best plan that the Department of State could come up for evacuating their personnel involved destroying or abandoning facilities, weapons, vehicles, and equipment? Were the diplomatic pouches not big enough or something? And at the end of the day, aren’t you the one standing there holding all the guns, and accompanied by a hundred Marines who know how to use them? Doesn’t that make YOU in charge at the scene? What the hell, State?
Allegedly, the Marines had to leave their weapons behind because they flew out on a commercial airliner. OK, well that’s a problem right there (what, we don’t have an Air Force?), but I can tell you I’ve personally flown with military-grade weapons on commercial airlines, and so have a lot of other people. And I haven’t been to a Middle Eastern country yet where a little baksheesh didn’t go a long way towards handling sticky situations.
What’s more disconcerting though is the risk to personnel. The evacuation is happening because Yemen is not safe for Americans anymore, right? So after the Marines handed over their weapons, what was to keep the locals from seizing all of the US personnel there and making them the next group of “infidels” to get buried, beheaded, or burned alive? And if the Embassy did have “trusted agents” to cover their departure after the Marines no longer had weapons, why could those agents not be trusted to hold onto the weapons until the USG could arrange for their transportation out of the country?
State Department “spox” Jen Psaki flatly denied that the Department of State ordered the Marines to destroy their weapons. While this follows the State Department’s recent tradition of trying to deflect criticism onto the military, I wager she is 100% telling the truth. I expect we’ll eventually learn that State didn’t tell the Marines to destroy their weapons, they just told them that they had to get on the plane NOW, and their weapons couldn’t come with them. The Marines probably didn’t have time to work out any other plan than to systematically destroy their weapons, something that no doubt caused them great personal anguish.
This whole situation is symptomatic of how utterly incompetent the Department of State has become since John Kerry become Secretary. After all, this is the same Secretary of State who wanted to take “unbelievably small” military action in Syria and who brought a has-been entertainer from the 1970s with him to France to make up for the Administration’s no-show for the Charlie Hebdo unity march.
However the State Department and the Marine Corps try to spin this, this is a huge propaganda coup for the Houthi rebels, their Iranian masters, and the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS. It shows that America is weak, that it will not stand up for its allies, and its fighting men can be pushed around at will. It’s disgusting. Worse, it’s dangerous; these types of reactions to threats to our forces in the Middle East is exactly what encouraged Al Qaeda to attack us at home. Show weakness in one area, and your enemies will be emboldened to attack you in others.
The Marines on that mission didn’t just leave their weapons behind in Yemen, they left behind their dignity as well. Part of the Marine Corps’ Rifleman’s Creed reads “My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless.” I’d wager that many of those Marines came home feeling pretty useless.
They shouldn’t.
I salute the Marines who successfully carried out their evacuation mission. They returned with honor. I’ll also say to them that if I would have been in your shoes, knowing what I know right now I would have done the same thing. This isn’t on you. The Department of State, however, has some serious explaining to do.
I have worked with the Department of State in the past; there are things that they do well. This was not one of them. State has some great people working in it; maybe they need to be the ones in charge of embassy security. Regardless, something significant needs to be done. International embarrassment, poor decision-making, and taking unnecessary risks with the lives of diplomats and security personnel has become a habit in the State Department; perhaps a house cleaning is in order.
Η ΤΑΝ Η ΕΠΙ ΤΑΣ (Ḕ tā̀n ḕ epì tâs): “Come back with your shield, or on it.” Or, if you’re the Department of State, just leave it (and America’s honor) behind when you run away. ἰχθὺς ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς ὄζειν ἄρχεται (Ikhthỳs ek tês kephalês ózein árkhetai): “A fish starts to stink from its head.” On this Presidents Day, I sincerely hope that someone in power in American politics recognizes the reek emanating from the Department of State and finally starts doing something about it.
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