Lessons in Security and Diplomacy 25 Years After the US Embassy Bombings

Deep Dish revisits the haunting morning of August 7, 1998, when al-Qaeda struck US embassies in Kenya that claimed over 200 lives and left thousands wounded. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell, who was present during the attacks, and former foreign service officer Mietek Boduszyński, who served in Libya when US facilities in Benghazi were attacked, reflect on how the US government should balance diplomacy and danger, whether the right lessons were learned, and what challenge face US diplomats in today's risky world. 

 

Reading List: 

• Terrorism, Betrayal, and Resilience: My Story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings, Prudence Bushnell, Potomac Books, October 1, 2018 

• Public Diplomacy and the American Fortress Embassy, Mietek Boduszyński, Pacific Council on International Policy, February 13, 2019  

• Diplomacy Doesn’t Work in a Zero-risk World, Elizabeth Shackelford, Chicago Tribune, November 4, 2021