Rand Paul Blasts State Dept Denying Libyan Embassy Plane Access While Funding Vienna Embassy With $100K To “Green Up”

Freedom Outpost

VERBATIM

On Sunday’s “Newsmakers” on C-SPAN Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said that the U.S. embassy in Libya was denied use of a DC-3 plane and then just four days later the State Department approved $100,000 to “green up” the Vienna U.S. embassy. Paul also asked why the sixteen person security team assigned to Ambassador Chris Stevens was removed from Libya in August when they “specifically requested to stay.”

The Kentucky Senator said, “I would hate to be the person who’s sitting there today who made the decision when it was requested that a security team stay in one of the most dangerous countries in the world that— would you like to be the bureaucrat in the State Department who said, ‘Oh, no. We don’t have the money. You need to come home.’”
“The same with the DC3,” he continued.

“What I’ve been pounding home is four days after that DC-3 was removed in May of 2012, they approved $100,000 to green up the embassy in Vienna, to spend some money on electrical charging stations for electric cars that cost the taxpayer $250,000 per car in subsidies.”

“This is a political statement that we’re making at the Vienna embassy,” Senator Paul said. “They want to show off for the Europeans to say, ‘Hey, we’re as European as you are, but yet, we don’t have money to provide for the basic security of an embassy. That to me is inexcusable, and whoever made those decisions, and they already know that. You don’t need a congressional investigation. Whoever made those decisions ought to be fired.”
According to the Vienna embassy’s website back in May of this year:

The U.S. Embassy Vienna opened the doors to Ambassador Eacho’s “green” residence with a gala dinner event, an exhibit by green-technology companies and an electric car and motorcycle show. The Embassy used the makeover to highlight U.S. government commitment to climate change solutions, and to successfully demonstrate the use of innovative clean energy technologies. Gerry Braun, director of the Davis Energy Institute, University of California, was the guest speaker at the Gala and gave a keynote speech at the Green World Forum the next day. Nobel Prize Laureate Betty Williams, the president of the Green World Forum, was a guest of honor at the Embassy gala.

It appears the Obama State Department were more interested in being “green” than protecting American citizens.