FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

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Showing posts with label al-Qaeda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label al-Qaeda. Show all posts

Sunday, September 22, 2013

'They think they are terrorists' -Gripping CCTV mobile phone video captures harrowing initial moments of stunned store customers as screams and gunshots ring out at Westgate Mall as team of al-Shabaab terrorists methodically take over Nairobi shopping mall, killing 68, injuring 175 and taking 30 hostage; #Kenya, #Westgate


CCTV Africa mobile phone video shows the initial confusion and shock as shoppers at Nairobi's Westgate Mall tried to decide what to do as they heard more and more gunshots that only got louder and closer to them. http://youtu.be/Zi7Kkot67oA
See this video and analysis of video at Sky News website:
http://news.sky.com/story/1145131/kenya-dramatic-video-shows-moment-of-attack

Related article: 
The Daily Mail
Shouts, screams... and then a sprint for their lives: Raw video footage shows full terror of moment Muslim terrorists struck at Nairobi mall
CCTV Africa reporter filmed clip at Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi
Video shows people running or cowering behind shelves and boxes
Man heard saying on his mobile phone: 'They think they are terrorists'
By MARK DUELL
PUBLISHED: 14:31 EST, 22 September 2013 
UPDATED: 14:39 EST, 22 September 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2429431/Kenya-mall-attack-Gunshots-shouts-screams-heard-terrifying-video-filmed-inside-Nairobi-shopping-centre.html





























In my opinion, this video was the definitive TV news segment on what happened Saturday morning.















As of 6:30 tonight EDT Sunday, the Kenya Red Cross has is still reporting that 58 people were killed and 175 have been injured, confirming reports early this morning from Reuters. As of this afternoon, the second floor of the five-storey Westgate Mall was thought to be the only floor that has not been secured by Kenyan Army Special Forces or Kenyan Police, who are now both above and below the 15 terrorists and what officials believe are approximately 30 hostages. Electricity to the ground floor has been cut-off but there are still fears that more terrorists are holed-up in the large Nakumatt supermarket. 







British, American and Israeli according to reports. Three Britons already known dead, many feared held hostage.

Reminder: Nairobi is 7 hours ahead of Miami and Eastern Daylight Time in the U.S. & Canada. 

 Watch Sky News LIVE thru the day for regular updates on the harrowing situation in Nairobi at 
http://news.sky.com/templates/watch-live

 BBC is streaming reports with lots of details on the standoff here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24193284
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Saturday, August 17, 2013

Obama's passivity in U.S. foreign policy, esp. in Egypt, is setting-off alarms in D.C. Old Conventional Wisdom: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. CW for 2013: Obama golfs while Egypt burns. Even while majority within pro-Obama U.S. Mainstream Media continue giving him a free pass, many at The Washington Post and other D.C. foreign policy centers are VERY ANXIOUS about Obama's lack of concern or influence, witness WaPo's Jackson Diehl's devastating column, "Obama’s Dangerous Passivity on Egypt and Syria on Display." Consider this but a taste: "Obama looks like a president in full flight from a world that looks nothing like what he imagined when he took office." Diehl is 100% correct!





Obama's passivity in U.S. foreign policy, esp. in Egypt, is setting-off alarms in D.C. Old Conventional Wisdom: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. CW for 2013: Obama golfs while Egypt burns. Even while majority within pro-Obama U.S. Mainstream Media continue giving him a free pass, many at The Washington Post and other D.C. foreign policy centers are VERY ANXIOUS about Obama's lack of concern or influence, witness WaPo's Jackson Diehl's devastating column, "Obama’s Dangerous Passivity on Egypt and Syria on Display."
Consider this but a taste: "Obama looks like a president in full flight from a world that looks nothing like what he imagined when he took office." Diehl is 100% correct!


The Washington Post
Obama’s dangerous passivity on Egypt and Syria on display 
By Jackson Diehl
August 15, 2013 
There was hope a few months ago that mounting chaos in the Middle East, and a revamping of President Obama’s national security team, would prompt the president to snap out of what looked like a deepening torpor in foreign policy.  
Instead, this president’s extraordinary passivity in the face of crisis may have achieved its apotheosis this week. On Wednesday, as Egyptian security forces gunned down hundreds of civilians in the streets of Cairo, an unperturbed Obama shot another round of golf at Martha’s Vineyard. His deputy press secretary was left to explain to reporters that the administration remained firmly committed to not deciding whether what had happened in Egypt was a coup.
Read the rest of the column here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-obamas-dangerous-passivity-on-egypt-on-display/2013/08/15/69d085fc-0522-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

 @JacksonDiehl https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

 Jackson Diehl archives at Washington Post: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html







The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
Egypt erupts as security forces attack Morsi supporters
August 14, 2013

 The Post's powerful mince-no-words editorial includes this passage;
This refusal to take a firm stand against massive violations of human rights is as self-defeating for the United States as it is unconscionable. Continued U.S. support for the Egyptian military is helping to push the country toward a new dictatorship rather than a restored democracy. Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, the coup leader, increasingly is styling himself as a national savior in the mode of such former dictators asGamal Abdel Nasser;
Read the rest of the editorial at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/egypt-erupts-as-security-forces-attack-morsi-supporters/2013/08/14/f230a080-04fa-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html



















When one of the most-dependable and prominent Obama supporters in the Washington new media, Eugene Robinson, an actual Pulitzer Prize winner, takes him to task and personally attacks his morality and lack of backbone, that's more than just news within the Beltway. 

 The Washington Post
A lack of spine on Egypt
By Eugene Robinson
August 15, 2013
There may be little the United States can do to end the savage bloodletting in Egypt, but at least our nation can be loyal to its ideals by bearing witness and telling the truth. In this, President Obama has failed.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-a-lack-of-spine-on-egypt/2013/08/15/33a7bc80-05df-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html













Christian Science Monitor
Why Mahmoud Badr is pro-Army, anti-Muslim Brotherhood
Interview: Mahmoud Badr, the activist whose online campaign helped to bring down Egypt's president, now supports the army attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood. Why?
By Yasmine Saleh, Reuters
August 17, 2013
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0817/Why-Mahmoud-Badr-is-pro-Army-anti-Muslim-Brotherhood

More at: http://www.csmonitor.com/content/search?SearchText=Egypt



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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Why are we not surprised? The Miami Herald had nothing VISIBLE on their homepage about the Al Qaeda security threat on Sunday, even while it was the number-one story in the U.S. The biggest threat since 9/11, global travel alert, closure of U.S. embassies in Mid-East, etc. But nothing visible on Herald website. But that's no surprise to those of us who've been paying close attention for years to their downward slope towards irrelevance. Just saying...



  Breaking News
  |
  Celebrity News
  |
  More ABC News Videos

ABC News: Senior U.S. Official: Intercepted Al Qaeda Communications Indicate Planned Attack ‘Big,’ ‘Strategically Significant’
By Martha Raddatz and Jonathan Karl
August 4, 2013 9:00am
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/senior-u-s-official-intercepted-al-qaeda-communications-indicate-planned-attack-big-strategically-significant

 Meanwhile, that same day in South Florida, all Sunday afternoon, hours after the ABC News telecast above, the Miami Herald has had nothing VISIBLE on their homepage about the al-Qaeda security threat.
Really. 
Not that this is surprising given how far they've fallen over past 15 years... 

 Here's a screen capture of the homepage when I checked it for one of the last times late Sunday afternoon, little changed from what It'd been in the morning and after Noon.
The proof is in the pudding, since more often than not over the past few years, the Miami Herald reads like the weekly community newspaper of a suburb of Tulsa or Des Moines.
http://www.miamiherald.com/



Fox News video: William Kristol: A Year Ago Obama Said Al Qaeda Is On The Run, "And Now We Seem To Be On The Run" August 4, 2013.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/08/04/kristol_a_year_ago_obama_said_al_qaeda_is_on_the_run_and_now_we_seem_to_be_on_the_run.html
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Friday, October 19, 2012

Vacillating Obama: Washington Post's Jackson Diehl zeroes-in on fundamental weakness of Obama's dithering Mid-East policy and multilateralism: Obama’s greatest failure - "His miscalculations on Syria have led to a wider war" that threatens to bring in more dangerous players and more unpredictability, NOT more stability and democracy; @JacksonDiehl, #syria


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 I've been wanting to post this excellent analysis by The Washington Post's veteran foreign policy hand Jackson Diehl since reading it online early, early Sunday morning, while listening to some hard news online via the BBC.
Soon thereafter, I sent it out to a couple dozen well-informed friends and acquaintances across the country and around the world, who follow U.S. foreign policy as closely as I do, and who also like me, shake their head at what President Obama is doing. 

 Though we all disagreed on lots of matters whenever we were together, we're all in agreement about this Diehl column -it's spot-on analysis from the get-go about Barack Obama's unwillingness to stop digging the foreign policy hole he has put the United States in.
He just keeps digging, utterly convinced that he's right and that everyone else is wrong.

 I suspect that in about a dozen years or so, people who voted for Obama in 2008 will actually shake their head in wonder that they ever allowed themselves to willfully ignore his inexperience and weaknesses and elect someone as president who was foolish enough to convince himself -and them- that his carefully-constructed personal/media narrative would somehow allow him to solve longstanding problems.
It hasn't and it doesn't and it won't.

 Despite all the accumulated evidence on U.S. foreign policy that shows he has made already bad situations worse, sometimes, much worse, Obama still remains utterly convinced that the sheer star power of his personality will lead to positive results.
It's the ultimate act of -and sign of- his amazing hubris.


The Washington Post
How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution
By Jackson Diehl
October 14, 2012
Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. mission in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.
The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-how-obama-bungled-the-syrian-revolution/2012/10/14/13c492d2-13b2-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html
Read previous Diehl columns at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html
I subscribe to his RSS feed and get his columns as sson as they go online.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/linksets/opinions/jackson-diehl

 Also see his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

 The National Journal
Obama’s Quagmire: Syria and the Islamist Arc, Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.
By Michael Hirsh
Updated: September 21, 2012  1:55 p.m., 
September 21, 2012  1:07 p.m.
U.S. and Western diplomats are concerned that the longer Bashar al-Assad hangs on to his failing regime in Damascus, the more likely it is that the aftermath of the Syrian rebellion will be dominated by Islamist elements, completing an arc of newly empowered radical groups along the southern half of the Mediterranean from Libya to Syria. 
Read the rest of the column at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/obama-s-quagmire-syria-and-the-islamist-arc-20120921?mrefid=site_search

 As I've noted here several times over the past two years with videos of him speaking forthrightly about Syria, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been much more realistic than Hillary Clinton's dog-chasing-its-tail State Dept. on the reality of what has been going on the Middle East and what is likely to happen if President Obama's dithering foreign policy is given four more years to make things worse.

 And seriously, how does U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice still even have a job? 
Is there no penalty for her abject failure, serial lying to the American public and Congress and her calculated and willful ignorance?
Rice's performance the past month has validated all the criticism of her as nothing more than a political hack with foreign policy pretensions, not a serious foreign policy professional, no matter what her actual experience is.
Susan Rice is the female version of Rahm Emanuel -a fixer.
And a Grade B fixer at that.

 How can we reasonably expect representatives of other countries to trust her and take her seriously if average Americans have learned from watching her for themselves, after paying attention to her own words and actions, NOT to trust her?


SenatorMarcoRubio video: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Foreign Aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan and what America and American taxpayers have a right to expect from these countries in exchange for U.S. dollars. Uploaded September 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/SFOBW7xkz7g Reminder, this video is a month old.

 Articles and columns on Syria in The Washington Post, in chron order:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html

By the way, if anyone reading this post knows anyone at Foreign Policy magazine, tell them that their YouTube Channel is the very picture of irrelevant.
One original video in the past nine months during a presidential election year?
That's embarrassing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignPolicyTV
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