Is Anyone Awake at the State Department?

Just in case you were dead or otherwise indisposed last week, Iran plotted to kill Saudi Arabia‘s ambassador to the U.S. The plot, which Iran denies, was uncovered when an undercover informant posing as an associate of a Mexican drug cartel was approached by Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Arbabsiar and the undercover informant discussed using explosives to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador. The informant said his price was $1.5 million. Arbabsiar sent a $100,000 down payment, telling the informant his “cousin” had deep pockets.

Mohammad Khazaee, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, said late Tuesday that he was “shocked to hear such a big lie.” He continued in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, accusing the United States’ “warmongering and propaganda machine against Iran,” which he said threatened stability and peace in the Persian Gulf.

Two days later (October 14, 2011), the State Department, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, granted 4,453 “Diversity Visa” applications to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. State Department defines state sponsors of terrorism as follows: “Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism ….” Let’s see, does Iran ring a bell?

So you know, “diversity visas” are designed to encourage immigration from countries that do not otherwise send significant numbers of immigrants to the United States, which include the State Sponsors of Terrorism.. The State Department, in 2011, awarded 2,427 Diversity Visas – 1,842 for Iran; 553 for Sudan; and 32 for Syria. In 2012, it plans to award visas to 4,453 applicants from Iran, 292 from Cuba, 757 from Sudan, and 160 from Syria.

In a related move, President Obama froze the 2011 Visa Security Program (VSP) budget, despite the fact that only 14 of the 57 U.S. consulates identified as being at “high risk” for potentially providing visas to terrorists received anything from VSP. VSP, established by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, places Department of Homeland Security officials at U.S. consulates to vet the backgrounds of people applying for U.S. visas.

And I’ll wager that ALL of the diversity visa recipients from Iran, Syria, and Cuba would never spy on us, will not receive any kind of indoctrination, and will always have our best interests at heart, just like the 19 “pilots” to which we were rudely introduced on September 11, 2001. I’ve heard of “compartmentalization,” but this is ridiculous.

But that’s just my opinion.