Chris
Stevens, out for a stroll with an Islamic friend - and no armed guards.
Are Americans capable of honoring Ambassador Stevens for the courageous, loving man he was?
Or must we enact the All-American compulsion to return evil for evil?
To perpetuate The Law of Talion?
***
If we wish to honor the memory of
Ambassador Chris Stevens, American conservatives should be ashamed of
themselves for abusing his memory.
Abuse?
What abuse?
Were it not
for this year's presidential election, the tragic events that took place in Libya
last month would be largely forgotten now - by liberals and conservatives
alike. (Ah! The selectivity of memory. Do you recall when Ronald Reagan cut and
ran after 241 American GI's were killed by Lebanese terrorists? http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/terrorist-attack-on-us-ambassador-chris.html)
But...
Next week's
third-and-final presidential debate is on foreign policy and Libya is "all
the GOP has got."
There's not
a trump card in Romney's deck.
By any
measured analysis, Obama has guided American foreign policy deftly and well.
Without a
card in their hand, The Republican Party trots out trumpery, perpetuates its
self-terrorized view of the world and -- always feeling itself beleaguered by
panic -- prepares for trench warfare.
This palette
of perpetual paranoia paints a proper portrait of Republicans.
This is who
they are. This is how they behave.
The mirror
image of jihad.
Tune in
Fatso.
Wallow in
the bilge.
***
Excerpt: "After Libyan rebels launched their revolution against the country's dictator, Moammar Khadafy, Stevens served as U.S. special representative to the insurrectionists."
***
Libyan ambassador kept 'human touch'
John Wildermuth, Justin Berton and Will Kane
September 13, 2012
In this photo posted on the U.S. Embassy Tripoli Facebook page on Aug. 27, 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, left, walks with an unidentified translator during a tour of Assaraya al-Hamra, or the Red Castle in Tripoli, Libya.Photo: U. S. Embassy Tripoli, Associated Press / SF
Anyone who talked to J. Christopher Stevens instantly became the center of his world.
Stevens, 52, the American ambassador to Libya killed during an attack by militants Tuesday in the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, was a natural diplomat, from his youth in Piedmont to his undergraduate years at UC Berkeley and studies at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, friends and colleagues said.
His violent death was doubly shocking, coming in a country in which he took a personal interest and whose revolution he had strived to help and understand, acquaintances said.
"Chris was one of those people who was very inclusive of everyone," said Amy Moorhead, whose older brother was a close friend of Stevens' in high school and college. "He was a people person. He was genuinely interested in me, even though I was younger. But it was not just me - he was genuinely interested in everybody.
"If he met someone, he wanted to know about them," Moorhead said.
Kept the human touch
Stevens grew up in a leafy, quiet neighborhood in Piedmont and kept a home in the East Bay hills enclave after being named U.S. ambassador to Libya in April.
Harry Johnson, 69, who lived next to Stevens when the future diplomat was a boy, said Stevens had kept in contact after graduating from Piedmont High School in 1978, through college and after he moved to Morocco for a stint with the Peace Corps before law school.
"He was so intelligent, but never lost the human touch," Johnson said. "He could make anyone feel comfortable and make them a part of his world because he fit into theirs."
Even when he returned home from important assignments across the Middle East, Stevens wanted to focus on his friends and family.
"He had been to all these glamorous places, and we wanted to hear about them and he always wanted to talk about things like, 'How's your son doing?' " said Paul Feist, a childhood friend and former editor at The Chronicle who asked Stevens to be best man at his wedding 25 years ago.
Stevens was the son of retired Marin Symphony cellist Mary Commanday and stepson of San Francisco Classical Voice magazine founder Robert Commanday, a former music critic for The Chronicle.
Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Mary Commanday to offer their condolences Wednesday.
Obama "spoke to her at great length," Robert Commanday said. "They talked about the tragic irony of a man who has given all of his career and his life for these people and then they murder him."
Making a difference
Stevens' desire for making a difference was evident from an early age. Above his senior portrait in his Piedmont High yearbook, Stevens chose a quote from the essayist Logan Pearsall Smith: "What a bore it is, waking up in the morning always the same person. I wish I were unflinching and emphatic, and had big, bushy eyebrows and a Message for the Age."
In college, Stevens knew he wanted to join the State Department and work in the Middle East, said Steve Tovani, a fellow member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at UC Berkeley.
He could often be found practicing his Arabic, studying Middle Eastern history or rehearsing lines for musicals at Cal - in which he often played characters with a maturity beyond his years, said Austin Tichenor, a childhood friend and Berkeley classmate.
"He had a gravitas about him, which suited him well in the foreign service, I suspect," Tichenor said. "It always tickled me to see him do official State Department speeches because he's so serious, he has his ambassador face on. But when you got him one-on-one, he was just funny."
Stevens earned his undergraduate degree in 1982 and graduated with a law degree from Hastings in 1989. In 2010, he earned a master's degree from the National War College in Washington, D.C.
Emily Gottreich, vice chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley, said, "He had the kind of local knowledge that ambassadors don't always have. He spoke Arabic, he was deeply engaged in the process of creating a new and better Libya, and he's exactly the kind of person you don't want to lose. It's just a tragedy."
In a May video that the State Department made to introduce Stevens to the Libyan people, he said, "Growing up in California, I didn't know much about the Arab world."
'He loved the people'
But Stevens spent two years in Morocco with the Peace Corps teaching English before returning to California for law school. After a few years as an international trade attorney, Stevens decided to enter the Foreign Service. He spent more than two decades as an envoy to countries in the Middle East, including Syria, Egypt and Israel.
By the time Stevens was named ambassador to Libya in April, he was seen as one of the pre-eminent American diplomats, friends said.
"He loved that part of the world, he loved the people, he spoke the languages and he really loved his job," Tichenor said.
After Libyan rebels launched their revolution against the country's dictator, Moammar Khadafy, Stevens served as U.S. special representative to the insurrectionists.
"It was amazing, the stress he was under," Feist said. "There was a car-bomb attack outside the hotel he was stationed in. I can only imagine how stressful it was."
Johnson, the neighbor, said he had attended a gathering in the spring at Stevens' parents' home in Oakland to celebrate their son's appointment as ambassador. The mood was upbeat, he said, yet not without concern.
"Chris knew the hazards," he said. "He was a smart guy. But there was also a feeling that Chris was the right guy because of his genuine affection for people in that part of the world."
Killed in service
J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was killed Tuesday in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. According to the State Department Office of the Historian, five U.S. ambassadors have been killed by terrorists:
Adolph Dubs: In Afghanistan, 1979
Francis E. Meloy Jr.: In Lebanon, 1976
Rodger P. Davies: In Cyprus, 1974
Cleo A. Noel Jr.: In Sudan, 1973
John Gordon Mein: In Guatemala, 1968
Two U.S. ambassadors died in plane crashes:
Arnold L. Raphel: In Pakistan, 1988
Laurence A. Steinhardt: In Canada, 1950
Source: Associated Press
San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Vivian Ho, Ellen Huet, Demian Bulwa, Carla Marinucci and Henry K. Lee contributed to this report. John Wildermuth, Justin Berton and Will Kane are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com, jberton@sfchronicle.com, wkane@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@justinberton, @WillKane
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Libyan-ambassador-kept-human-touch-3859504.php#ixzz29erMPnG6
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