Buried deep in the report of the Accountability Review Board convened by outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to examine the tragic events that took place this fall in Benghazi, Libya is the answer to why the U.S. ambassador was there in the first place. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who lost his life in Benghazi, was there "to open an American Corner at a local school and to reconnect with local contacts."

An investigation into the State Department's preparations for and management of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has concluded that "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" within the department played a major role in the devastation that took place there last September.

The murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three colleagues in Benghazi highlights the dangers and hardships our Foreign Service personnel face every day as America’s first line of defense. Our nation’s diplomatic and development personnel are present overseas before the U.S. military is deployed, supports them if they are engaged in combat, and remains in place when the military returns to the United States.

During the September 11 riots outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, a staffer's sarcastic response to a tweet from the Muslim Brotherhood led to an exchange that was widely covered by the mainstream media. The tweets came on the heels of a controversial statement that the embassy published on its website shortly after an Egyptian salafi television show broadcast The Innocence of the Muslims, a crude U.S.-produced YouTube video that portrayed the prophet Mohamed as a womanizer and charlatan.

The sun had risen over a hazy Benghazi about an hour earlier, and as he grabbed the wheel of his militia’s beaten-up white Toyota pickup, 42-year-old Ibn Febrayir (not his real name) groused to himself that this was no way to treat an ambassador, especially U.S. envoy Christopher Stevens. He had heard war tales about the lanky, good-natured Californian.

The family of the late ambassador had requested that CNN not issue any reports based on the journal — or even reference its existence — before the family consented. CNN agreed to abide by the family’s wishes, according to Philippe Reines, a State Department spokesman who listened in on a conference call between a CNN executive and a representative of the Stevens family.

The recent killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, along with three other Americans at the mission in Benghazi, now appears to have been a premeditated assault, not merely collateral damage from yet another anti-American protest.

“The death of U.S. public diplomacy” was how one Twitter user last Tuesday described the now-infamous apology from the U.S. embassy in Cairo for the ill-conceived movie Innocence of Muslims. Strong words, but there is no doubt about it: The need for American public diplomacy in the Middle East needs to be rebooted and rethought. But how?