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July 10, 2004
Regarding Embassies
A comment was made a bit back in re the "attack" on the Embassy in Amman:
In the future it's highly likely the US will purchase large plots of country land on the outskirts of foreign capitols and develop embassies that have the look of a small liberal arts college campus or magisterial walled estate.
The reason is twofold. Urban landscapes are too prone to creating, as we saw in the Oklahoma city and in Beirut bombings, a perfect environment for shaped charges. The distance of the embassy proper from the outer perimeter negates that possibility ( assuming the terrorists don't drive up with the equivalent of a small nuke) Secondly, we can put more of the damn thing underground and more effectively control access without aggravating the locals.
Zenpundit
I have to say, it's rather besides the point.
First, the Castle in Amman was already done on that basis. It's a monster with set back fortress like walls (the side facing the main street has doubled stone walls, with a five meter dead zone, and then the main, and yes, campus like complex set back again. It is, by design, a fortress. And likely subterranean I would image. When built, it was indeed far from the city, the city grew out to meet it.
The already fortress like nature evidently still does not stop concern, for after the truck bomb incidents, the entire city blocks around the monster were blocked off (cutting off some main thoroughfares I may add).
The proposed line of action in my opinion is futile - unless a vast swath of land even beyond the site is condemned (I suppose a few venal governments might actually opt for that option).
Further, the Fortress America model, is in my opinion, an utter waste. Isolating American diplomats in an inaccessible castle, far from the action of the capitol in which they are located utterly defeats the purpose of having them in the bloody country. Already I can see that with the new security restrictions on them, and the American prediliction to comfort, these guys barely understand their environment. Little getting out and about, and then only under controlled circumstances, little interaction, and by this, little understanding of what they are in effect there to do.
Recipe for yet more pitifully incompetent engagement. Might as well fucking close the fucking embassies then.
At a certain point one either accepts a risk and works with it, or one engages in a fruitless quest for security through ever more self-defeated measures.
Posted by The Lounsbury at July 10, 2004 01:05 AM
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Jan-Jul 2004
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