Tag Archives: terrorism

International news

Deal reached to release Nigerian girls?

OK, I’m officially holding my breath over the news that 219 girls will be released from captivity by the terrorists who captured them.

Nigerian officials announced a cease-fire with Boko Haram, which then agreed to release their captives.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nigeria-deal-agreed-to-return-kidnapped-girls/ar-BB9BVoM

This could be one very bright spot in the middle of a torrent of very bad news of late.

You’ll recall this story, I presume. The world became tied up in knots over Boko Haram’s capture of the girls at gunpoint in April from a school in Chibok, Nigeria. The United Nations tried to pressure the terrorists to release them. Celebrities sprang forth from every corner of the globe to proclaim their dismay over the capture and treatment of the children.

Then the story faded from the public consciousness, as it often does when “big stories” are overtaken by other big stories.

Well, now there’s a glimmer of hope that the captives will be set free.

The deal reportedly includes the release of extremists being held by the Nigerian government.

Sure, this is going to be tough for some folks to swallow. Me? I have no particular problem with the deal that’s apparently been brokered.

If it returns those girls to their loved ones, then that’s reason enough to cheer.

national news, political news

No 'terror link' in beheading

This finding from the FBI is going to get the chatterers going great guns.

The FBI says it has found “no terror link” to Alton Nolen, who beheaded a female co-worker in an apparent act of rage in Moore, Okla.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/219342-no-terrorist-link-to-oklahoma-suspect-authorities-say

OK, I’ve heard some discussion on conservative talk TV — Fox News, to be specific — that debunk this notion. The talking heads and the experts say the act by itself constitutes a terrorist act. The FBI says otherwise, that it is a “workplace incident.”

Of course, let’s introduce the Muslim element here. Nolen had converted to Islam, so that makes him a terrorist — yes?

Of course not.

The FBI reportedly has gone through several electronic devices in Nolen’s possession and can find no apparent link to known terrorist groups. That’s why it is declining to define the hideous murder as a terrorist act.

According to The Hill newspaper: “Officials have said the Oklahoma attack at Vaughan Foods was likely triggered after Nolen was suspended from the job for making a remark disparaging white people. After learning that he was suspended, officials said, he went to his home to pick up a kitchen knife and returned to the plant.”

Does that sequence sound like an act of terrorism, or is it the action of someone with a serious mental disorder?

I’m open to some discussion on this one.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Take ownership of this failure, Mr. President

It pains me to say this, but President Obama’s response to the question of how the U.S. got “surprised” by the rise of the Islamic State is disappointing — to say the very least.

I’ve noted before how the president likes to use the first-person singular pronoun references to his presidency. He’s particularly fond of using it when they involved success.

When Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” asked him the other day how he could have been surprised by ISIL’s emergence, the president said: “Well I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

There it is: “they underestimated …”

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/isis-sweep-into-iraq-was-no-surprise-to-anyone-paying-attention.html/

I’m not going to join the right-wing mainstream media chorus in saying Barack Obama has thrown Clapper “under the bus.” But as the blog from the Dallas Morning News notes correctly, ISIL’s emergence wasn’t a surprise to those intelligence officials who were paying attention.

Furthermore, as commander in chief, the chief executive of one branch of the U.S. government, the head of state and government, it falls directly on the president of the United States to be aware fully of these matters in real time, as they are happening.

The president did receive a letter signed by senators from both parties that warned him about ISIL. It was sent to the White House nearly 11 months ago, long before those gruesome beheadings captured the nation’s attention. Now we know what’s stake, yes?

Well, apparently, some legislators had more than an inkling nearly a year ago and warned the White House of the impending danger.

As the Morning News’s Tod Robberson notes in his blog: “Okay, let’s assume that Obama disregarded the letter as partisan hyperbole from the same ol’ critics, namely McCain and Graham. That doesn’t account for the contribution from Levin and Menendez. Let’s assume that Obama was reluctant to react because he didn’t trust the mercurial whims of al-Maliki. How does any of that explain his failure to respond when ISIS clearly was sweeping into Iraq’s Anbar Province in January?”

Well, the president is responding now. I’m grateful for that.

I do wish, though, he would take as much ownership of the setbacks as he does of the triumphs.

International news, national news, political news, State news

Immigration crisis to re-emerge

Am I the only one who wonders how certain compelling crises get pushed so easily off the front burner when other compelling crises emerge?

The refugee crisis on our southern border is an example. Remember that one?

Thousands of young people were fleeing into the United States to escape human traffickers in their home country. We were rounding them up, putting them in detention camps and wondering out loud what we were going to do with those children.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/09/15/cuellar-immigration-changes-likely-coming-later-ye/

Then the crisis in Iraq and Syria erupted with a vengeance.

It’s displaced everything else we deemed critical: the kidnapping of those girls in Nigeria, Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The refugee crisis is still boiling. It’s going to return to the public’s eye soon, says U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

It will return in the form of a continuing budget resolution, Cuellar said, according to the Texas Tribune: “Cuellar said Friday during a border legislative conference that the issue would not be part of the debate on a continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded. That resolution is expected to be passed this month.” Instead, he said, it’ll come up later. “When the omnibus bill comes up in December, hopefully we can sit down and work something out on that particular aspect,” Cuellar said.

OK, but isn’t the refugee matter still a critical concern? Of course it is.

Let’s intermingle the Islamic State crisis with it as well, given that critics of President Obama’s anti-ISIL strategy keep suggesting that the terrorists are going to infiltrate the United States along its “porous” and “unprotected” southern border.

Multi-tasking is taking on a new meaning in Washington, D.C., and in Austin. Our elected leaders in both places had better stay sharp. Or else.

Uncategorized

9/11 videos get tougher to watch

There’s a lot of remembering occurring today.

Where were we when we heard the news about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. 2001? What did we feel? What went through our minds?

I remember where I was and what I was doing. I was at my job, working at the Amarillo Globe-News. A colleague stuck his head in my office and asked, “Did you hear? Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center?” My response: “What’s the weather like in New York?” “Beautiful,” he said. “What kind of moron would do that?” I asked in disgust.

I turned on the TV and watched the second plane fly into the second WTC tower.

The rest is history.

Today I’ve been watching MSNBC replay the events of that terrible day. I cannot watch any more video of the towers burning. I know what comes next. They crash to the ground. My anger boils up all over again.

On this 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I am filled once again with the dread that filled me that day. It is fear that someone will hit us again. We’ve been saying it ever since the 9/11 attacks: It’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.”

So far so good. We haven’t been hit like that since.

But watching the video of that horrific moment just gets harder with each passing year.

It might be the realization that the terrorists were destined to pull this kind of attack on us all along. Our national security team knew it was possible. The terrorists just have elevated that concern to the top of our national consciousness. It’s still there, which is where it belongs.

And as long as the threat remains at the top of our minds, we’ll remain ever-vigilant.

That’s my hope, at least.

International news, national news, political news

President gets it … finally: 'Optics' matter

It took a little while, but President Obama has acknowledged something many of us out here knew already.

Visual images — the “optics,” if you please — matter to those who are watching the commander in chief’s every move.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/07/politics/obama-golfing-optics/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Obama said on Meet the Press this past Sunday that he should anticipated how the image would look as he headed for the golf course immediately after making a heartfelt statement condemning the gruesome assassination of an American journalist by Syrian terrorists.

The White House defended the juxtaposition of those events as it happened. It turns out the president has had some second thoughts about the sequence of events and their proximity to each other.

Obama told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd that James Foley’s murder moved nearly to tears as he spoke with the young man’s family. I believe him when he acknowledges how these events affect him emotionally. “I think everybody who knows me — including, I suspect, the press — understands that … you take this stuff in. And it’s serious business. And you care about it deeply,” he said.

He added that he understands that “optics” is important. “It matters. And I’m mindful of that.”

As a matter of substance, these things ought not to matter. However, the cliché about “perception becoming reality” in the eyes of those who see things also is important. His teeing off immediately after delivering such a statement offered the perception of a president who doesn’t care. He said that’s untrue and likely unfair.

Perhaps this brief tempest will have delivered a lesson to a president who’s trying right now to manage several international crises. Be mindful, Mr. President, of how your every move is being watched by the public — for whom you work.

 

 

 

International news, political news

What's this? Ted Cruz is right about something?

2 Comments

Imagine my shock and horror when I read something that came out of Sen. Ted Cruz’s mouth that I found agreeable.

The Texas Republican says the United States should revoke the citizenship of any American known to have taken up arms with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Being a fair-minded guy, I want to stipulate that not every loathsome politician is utterly devoid of a good idea once in a while.

Cruz’s notion, as I understand it, is perfectly OK with me.

“There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt … to re-enter our country and carry further attacks on American civilians,” Cruz said.

Amen to that.

I’d like to take that point a step or two further.

First, we should revoke the citizenship of any American known to associate with any terrorist organization. Let’s not limit it to ISIL membership. Al-Qaeda has done terrible things to Americans, as we all know; it, too, has boasted of American-born members, some of whom have been killed by U.S. forces in the on-going war against international terror.

Second, revoking U.S. citizenship of known terrorists removes them from any effort to exempt them from becoming victims of military strikes. I’ve said already that I have no difficulty with American forces killing Americans who’ve taken up arms against their country. Others have questioned the correctness of killing U.S. citizens without giving them “due process.” By my way of thinking, those citizens gave up their rights to due process the moment they suited up in enemy colors.

These so-called Americans have all but renounced their citizenship. Ted Cruz’s idea takes that renunciation a key step further.

Now that I’ve said something in agreement with Ted Cruz, I’ll need some smelling salts.

Still, his idea is on point.

 

International news, national news

How do you 'manage' these monsters?

Barack Obama is mistaken if he thinks the Islamic State and the Levant can be reduced to a “manageable problem.”

Yet that’s what the president of the United States said today in a news conference at the start of a NATO meeting in Estonia.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/mitch-mcconnell-isil-110566.html?hp=l4

Uh, Mr. President? ISIL needs to be destroyed. Wiped out. Eliminated. Obliterated. Exterminated.

I’m sure I can find some more active verbs here, but you get the point.

Should we go to war, as in a ground war, with troops, tanks and trucks? No. Air power, and lots of it, is needed here. We have it. We should use it.

ISIL has shown that it cannot be “managed.” It cannot be contained and made insignificant. It is a well-funded, well-armed, sophisticated, media savvy organization that must be dealt with in the harshest manner possible — with extreme prejudice.

I get why the president won’t commit to a ground war in Syria and/or Iraq to fight these monsters. We’ve installed a government in Iraq that now must defend itself. As for Syria, fighting ISIL house to house would in effect put us shoulder to shoulder with troops loyal to another bad seed, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator who’s gassed his own people.

The president’s rhetoric, though, today took a startling turn toward the bland.

He’d declared the U.S. intention to destroy ISIL after it beheaded Stephen Sotloff. Today, he talked of reducing ISIL to a manageable size.

Destruction, Mr. President, is the only option.

International news

Terrorists give Islam a horrid name

This is no big flash, I’m sure you’ll agree … but the hideous monsters who call themselves the Islamic State and The Levant are giving a great religion a terrible name.

Consider this brief exchange this morning at the place where I work part time.

Colleague No. 1: “What’s in the news today? More bad stuff? Any more beheadings?”

Me: (Silence.)

Colleague No. 2, as he’s walking quickly past us: “Yeah, beheadings. It’s a peaceful religion. all right.”

ISIL has murdered another American journalist. Its goons are vowing to kill more Americans if we continue to bomb ISIL targets in Iraq. President Obama has called them what they are: murderers, cowards.

They claim to be doing this in the name of Islam.

In the process, they have defamed the very religion they claim to represent.

ISIL represents nothing but evil. It is no more faithful to Islam than al-Qaeda is faithful to it. The murderers have been described appropriately as an “apocalyptic” organization with an “end of the world view.” That is not in keeping with any mainstream religion with which I am familiar.

Are there comparisons between ISIL and other extremists? I won’t go so far as to suggest any direct comparison, given this group’s utterly bloodthirsty quest for vengeance. However, Islam isn’t the only religion known to foster extremist elements.

Zionists have been known to commit violent acts in the name of Judaism. The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty with the Palestine Liberation Organization and then was murdered by a Zionist extremist.

Christianity isn’t immune, either, from heinous acts committed in the name of Jesus Christ. Abortion providers have been murdered in their homes by zealots acting in Jesus’s name.

Do mainstream Jews and Christians embrace these acts? Maybe some do. I, however, do not.

What’s happening in Syria and Iraq as ISIL continues its rampage is not at all about Islam. It is about terror.

Terrorists are the enemy, not the religion they purport to represent.

 

national news, political news, State news

Time for 'new president'?

“If the president doesn’t have a strategy, maybe it’s time for a new president.”

You know who said that? U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in remarks at a Dallas ballroom after speaking at an Americans for Progress meeting.

http://news.msn.com/us/perry-paul-bash-obama-for-no-strategy-on-Syria

Pretty darn profound, don’t you think?

He’s talking about President Obama’s declaration that he doesn’t yet have a strategy to deal forcefully with ISIL, the hideous terrorist organization seeking to overrun governments in Syria and Iraq.

Paul has joined a number of other critics who’ve hit the president hard for not having such a strategy.

It’s the “maybe it’s time for a new president” comment that makes me chuckle.

Let’s see: We’re nearly halfway through Barack Obama’s second term as president. We’ll be getting a new president in January 2017, which is just around the corner.

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids Obama from seeking a third term. So he’s out of the campaign game.

Yeah, it’ll be time for a new president … in due course.