Ambassador Ryan Crocker was featured on NPR's morning edition Thursday morning. It was a sober look at what happened in Libya from a career diplomat who is concerned Congress' Benghazi Probe Could Send Wrong Message. It's a clarifying counter to the hysteria the Republicans are deliberately stirring up for no good purpose.
You can listen to the audio of Crocker speaking with Steve Inskeep or read the transcript. It will give you a far better appreciation of why our people ran the risks they did, why it's happened before, and probably will happen again. I'll put one small excerpt here, but I strongly urge everyone to check out the entire piece.
INSKEEP: Are you saying that a lesson for a layman like me, is that diplomacy is a risk; that if you're doing it properly - as he seemed to do it - you need to be prepared to take risks, and we need to be prepared for the occasional loss of a life?
CROCKER: Steve, that's exactly what I'm saying. Look, we're the Foreign Service - foreign because 75 to 80 percent of us are deployed abroad, any given day. And we're a service, just as our brothers and sisters who wear the uniform of the United States. Indeed, we swear the same oath that they do; to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That doesn't mean in the cafes of Paris, and the patisseries of Belgium.
emphasis added
While the know-nothings who've never stuck their noses farther than their own mud patch blather on, let us all be thankful that we have people willing to put themselves in harms way to advocate for our interests with the tools of words, trust, and personal contact. And let us also be thankful that the fools and scoundrels who are using the sacrifice of our diplomats in Libya as grist for a partisan agenda are NOT currently in charge of our foreign relations.