August 08, 2013 12:20 AM
By Michael Young
The Daily Star

STORY SUMMARY

Today, with U.S. embassies in the region closed because electronic “chatter” suggested an attack was imminent, terrorists know this by listening to American officials.

The news that the U.S. discovered that Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had ordered the organization’s franchise in the Arabian Peninsula to carry out an unspecified military operation is useful to President Barack Obama.

Nineteen embassies in the Arab world were closed for a week, American and British citizens left Yemen hurriedly, and the United States looked as if it had lost its nerve.

The dangers to the United States and other Western countries are real and should be taken seriously.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. rightly concluded that the best way to combat terrorism was to show that Americans could go on with their lives as if nothing had happened.

The U.S. has not conducted its “war on terror” in an ideal way.

Even if legislation to defund the surveillance programs was defeated, there will be other ways to bring the programs back into line with what Congress originally intended in the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

However, the administration’s case was much weaker under Protocol 1, which the U.S. never ratified.

The U.S. embassies in the region should have tightened security and remained open.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2013/Aug-08/226666-the-embassies-should-have-stayed-open.ashx#ixzz2ba6t8n7j
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)