Obama and Clinton NOT protecting our consulate FAIL.

Consulate tweets on day of FAIL.

Dead ambassador FAIL.

Weak response FAIL.

Sending $2 billion to Egypt so they can buy submarines from Germany FAIL.

This whole episode has been a foreign affairs embarrassment for Romney and his response was totally inappropriate.

I'm a former MSG and what oeneus said is more or less correct. The top of our list is "Destroy the following shiat in the event of an embassy breach". Moving beyond that our goal is to support the State Department in their goals long term diplomatic goals, not mow down crowds with .50 caliber fire. Mass killings tend to put a chill a diplomacy and create long term problems. Had Marine Security Guards been there they likely would have been busy destroying stuff, fighting fires, and moving staff to safe rooms. There really isn't an "empty the armory and kill hundreds of people" page in the security guard book. The State Department is pissed about the dead staff, they'd be even more pissed had the locals been massacred. Sometimes your the unit that gets to be the first ashore (read: 90% causality rate) and sometimes your the State Department worker who buys the farm for being in a hostile environment. No one likes to admit it, but sometimes a platoon or two of dead Americans are better than the alternative in the long run.

For that matter the 50 person team that is getting dropped off is likely laden down with LRADs, Tear Gas, and all kinds of fun non lethal toys. They'll likely sandbag in some weapons like 40mm grenade launchers or the like as kind of a visible do not fark with us symbol (and you can fire all kinds of fun nonlethal shiat from the 40mm). However the real security will be the Libyan military, paramilitary, or riot police units that get are setting up camp around an embassy. If the locals heads have to be cracked, you want locals doing the cracking, much less of a backlash that way. 10 Libyan security guards died defending the embassy. The real difference is today there are a shiatload more Libyan security guards out front. In general the Marines tend to lie low in hostile environments as American troops tend to upset the already hostile locals. It's much harder to incite the locals to kill a bunch of their neighbors who happen to guard the embassy gates for a job than it is to incite the locals some evil infidel Americans at the gates.

If say Saturday the Libyans come over the all, the Marines orders likely are to use nonlethal methods to buy time and either move everyone to safe rooms or evac them via APCs/helicopters/etc.

Honestly the Egyptian embassy was handled perfectly. People saw it coming and got the fark out of the way. The protesters tore down a flag, chanted a bit, and got it out of their system. No one died and al-Qaeda had no martyrs. All the staff were either in secure areas of the compound or out of there completely. Libya wasn't handled badly considering what a shiatty they hand were dealt. Reports are suggesting the ambassador suffocated to death and for that matter a second group of Libyans came in and tried to carry him to the hospital. It wasn't like security was so bad someone walked into his office and shot him in the head. Dead people is never good, but as far as bad situations go it wasn't made worse by American actions (based on reports so far). Had MSGs been there then maybe one of them might have dragged the Ambassador to safety, a medic might have saved him, but that's all just speculation. Basically the Libyan Embassy did have functional security in that the local security guards stood their ground and died for their loyalty. They didn't just bail and leave the doors open. Nothing short of parking a massive military force would have broken up that mob and if we'd done that from Day 1 it would have created bad blood and increased the odds of confrontation. You don't always want your embassy to be the massively secure compound that showcases American military might, that just tends to increase the odds someone tries to fark with you in an effort to create martyrs.