State Dept to Build US Embassy in Hezbollahland

They have done lost their minds folks. I think the U.S. should designate the State Department a terrorist entity.

U.S. Plans to Build Embassy in Hezbollah Area of Beirut  ABC News

Despite protests from the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon, the State Department is pushing ahead with plans to build a new embassy in a part of Beirut city controlled by the anti-U.S. Hezbollah group.

A U.S. official tells the Blotter on ABCNEWS.com that Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, in a May 31, 2007 classified cable to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, registered his strong objections, saying his staff "unanimously opposes construction" of the embassy on the proposed site.

Hezbollah is believed to be behind two attacks on the U.S. Embassy and an embassy annex in 1983 and 1984 that led to the deaths of 87 people, including eight CIA employees.

Let us not forget the 241  Marines murdered back in 1983  by Hezbollah by order of Iran.

Last week, the National Intelligence Estimate on threats to national security cited Hezbollah, closely aligned with Iran, as a group that could potentially attack the United States.

U.S. officials say the proposed embassy site is just a few hundred yards from the scene of fierce fighting last summer between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

"It boggles the mind," says former State Department security official Tony Diebler. "Any reasonable person that looks at that site, does their homework and sees who controls the area would determine that it's a foolish, dangerous idea to build the embassy there," Diebler said in an interview to be broadcast on ABC News'

UPDATE: The Blotter has learned that plans for a controversial new U.S. Embassy in Beirut have been put on hold indefinitely, and effectively killed according to a U.S. State Department spokesperson. More here 

It's dead, thank Gd. That it was contemplated boggles the rational mind.

Comments

[Fausta]

Considering how the Lebanese government has been shelling the area, how will they get it built?

[Miluimnik]

[Those who are easily offended, push the "back" button NOW]

In these difficult and historic times we must demonstrate our support for our valued Allies in the war against the Jewish Entity.
(Anyway, the Muslims have oil, and the Jews have nothing much other than Intellect, Innovation, and Culture. What's Einstein, Freud, Rand, Salk and Dylan compared to the Jihad and 9-11?)

President George W. Bush followed the precedent of his predecessor and invoked a national security waiver to postpone moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The law allowing the waiver requires the issue to be revisited every six months.

By invoking the waiver contained in the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which called for the embassy to have been moved by May 31, 1999, Bush allows the administration to avoid financial penalties for not complying with the law.

[Miluimnik]

And what sort of a dumb-ass decided that the first Middle-Eastern CIA post since the closure of the Beirut office in 1984, should be in Gaza City??

The takeover of the Gaza CIA post, with it's data intact is perhaps the most significant, not to mention dangerous, intelligence disaster in US history.

[makapala]

Who did the US buy the land from to build the new embassy? I heard we paid 22 million. Anybody know? I would like to know. thanks