Showing posts with label Arab Spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab Spring. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Obama's bad foreign policy from the start shows little sign of improving, as Washington Post Editorial Board lashes out Sunday : "Mr. Kerry’s empty words on Syria": "So what does the Obama administration propose to do to stop this barbarism? The simple answer is: nothing, other than issue strongly worded statements..."; #stonecoldfacts, @washingtonpost

Obama's bad foreign policy from the start shows little sign of improving, as Washington Post Editorial Board lashes out Sunday : "Mr. Kerry’s empty words on Syria" 
In case you were still on your summer hibernation when this happened a few weeks ago, the only time that President Obama has brought the country together this year on a policy is when nearly the entire country stood-up in opposition to his ill-considered ideas, plans and policies over Syria, one of his major weaknesses since coming into office in January of 2009.
That hasn't changed.
Think about that for a minute.

The Washington Post
Washington Post Editorial: Mr. Kerry’s empty words on Syria
By Editorial Board
Published October 28, 2013
ACCORDING TO Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad now is waging “a war of starvation” against his own people. In a robustly worded op-ed column posted Friday on ForeignPolicy.com, Mr. Kerry denounced what he said was “the systematic denial of medical assistance, food supplies and other humanitarian aid to huge proportions of the population.” The regime’s tactics, he said, “threaten to take a humanitarian disaster into the abyss.” They are “intolerable,” and “the world must act quickly.”
So what does the Obama administration propose to do to stop this barbarism? The simple answer is: nothing, other than issue strongly worded statements. 
Read the rest of the editorial at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-kerrys-empty-words-on-syria/2013/10/28/d422b6c4-3feb-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

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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Friday, September 28, 2012

Newt Gingrich on President Obama's curious choices and what they mean -placing more importance on meeting the hosts of ABC's 'The View' than practicing traditional U.S. statecraft and actually meeting other countries' leaders -like Netanyahu- at the U.N. And even elements of the MSM are upset

Video at: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1861429922001/

Fox News Channel video: Gingrich's take: Obama at UN, snubs, 'bumps' and more.
Newt Gingrich appeared on Greta Van Sustern's "On the Record" TV show on Tuesday night, September 25th, and opined on all manner of things, most notably, Obama's curious speech before the United Nations General Assembly, his continued use of "the video" as an excuse for what happened to four Americans being murdered in Libya, inc. our Ambassador, his public snub of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and what Mitt Romney needs to do for the rest of the 2012 campaign. 

Long story short: Newt Gingrich and many other Americans believe that actions STILL speak louder than words, so using that as your guide, President Obama has decided that running for re-election as president and appearing on various TV chat shows where he will get softballs lobbed at him, is more important than actually acting doing the duties expected of a U.S. president. 
He is not going to worry what high-minded people think, he's going after the yentas!

Which is why he is the first sitting U.S. president in over twenty years to come to the U.N. for this annual event and NOT actually meet any representatives from other countries. 
He's left that task to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Monday, September 17, 2012

re Fouad Ajami's Washington Post essay: Why is the Muslim world so easily offended?; What Muslim "moderates"?; Målmo as the European canary-in-the-coal-mine doesn't auger well for the success of Muslim "moderates" or assimilation efforts; #MUSLIMRAGE


IkoIko video: A 2006 Fox News Channel segment by reporter Steve Harrigan on immigration strife in Sweden and ethnic violence caused in the Rosengård area of Målmo by Muslim immigrants. Uploaded April 17, 2006. http://youtu.be/whWgCOE56K8

Despite all the changes that have taken place since it first came out, Prof. Fouad Ajami's 1982 book, The Arab Predicament, which I first read in school, still remains a go-to
book for those who need to make sense of the current Mid-East reality and how we got to this point, for better and worse, as well as an insightful look at Arab sensitivities and sensibilities (and ultra-sensitivities) to being seen as the outlier. My comments follow the essay.

The Washington Post
Why is the Muslim world so easily offended?
By Fouad Ajami
Published: September 14, 2012
Modernity requires the willingness to be offended. And as anti-American violence across the Middle East and beyond shows, that willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks.
Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in search of greater opportunities in the Western world, modernity — with its sometimes distasteful but ultimately benign criticism of Islam — has sparked fatal protests. To understand why violence keeps erupting and to seek to prevent it, we must discern what fuels this sense of grievance.

Responses to the Ajami essay, which I sent out via email early on Saturday evening, consisted largely of "Maybe because the lunatic religious fanatics are running the show?" and even a link to Google Maps of the Middle East and questions about where are those Moderate Muslims that the Mainstream Media so adores, anyway?
Where are they hiding, exactly?

Well, actually, they're not hiding, per se, rather it's just that a disproportionate number of them live far from the field of battle and the negotiating table, living as so many of them do in New York, London, Paris and Berlin among many other places, which is why reporters there have no problem finding them - THERE.

This, of course, is a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense in that having so many educated "moderates" in Western cities -a problem the MSM never sees or brings up- means that there's less actual resistance to tenets of radicalism in those countries.
Radicalism fills the vacuum, not reasonableness.

As for the rest of his essay, I do have an important correction for those of you who will perhaps not see it yourselves, and it actually touches on a subject that I've been wanting to write about and update since my last post on it, which netted me many interesting emails, though not all positive, since there's always someone who prefers butt-kissing to honesty.

In the middle of his essay, Prof. Ajami says something that with just a slight bit of word substitution could just as easily be said is true of large swaths of current-day Miami, "You can live in Stockholm and be sustained by a diet of al-Jazeera television."
(Just substitute "Spanish-language programming"for al-Jazeera.)

While that is factually true about Stockholm as much as it is true of dozens of other large and dynamic Western cities, as I've stated previously here on the blog, a better yet more troubling example of what he speaks about is in Målmo, on Sweden's west coast, opposite Denmark's capital, Copenhagen.

See my January 6, 2011 post titled, 
Uh-oh! Upcoming BBC World Service 'Open Eyes' segment on racial tensions in Malmö. Hmm-m...; Swedish immigration policy costs borne by local residents

Unfortunately for Målmo, owing to both past immigration patterns, geography, and familial ties, it's now home to not only an area that soon will be 50% Muslim, but also home to a large percentage of Muslim immigrants in the Rosengård area who, in many cases, make little effort to even try to assimilate Swedish values and norms.


No, Malmö, despite an avalanche of internal and external Political Correctness regularly sprinkled on the city and its inhabitants by a very PC and often patronizing national and European news media, is also the home to what all reasonable parties acknowledge is a very big long-term problem: a large percentage of all the Muslim immigrants in Sweden who fail to fully appreciate Sweden's freedoms, liberties and culture and incorporate that into their daily lives, people who actively fight assimilation, live right there

And many of the people who don't feel they should need to change are cocky and uncivil and don't care what you think about them being so publicly ungrateful.
And they aren't afraid of using violence, either, as the video at the top makes clear.

When you attack firemen trying to put out a fire in YOUR neighborhood... you DON'T get the benefit of the doubt.


But it's a lot more than just a PR problem to be solved, since the things that have happened there the past ten years have ranged from very negative to extremely dangerous and even deadly, and have been well-documented by the Swedish news media.
Everyone knows what has happened there.
Because of this extensive coverage, the rest of the country has largely started to develop negative feelings about Målmo as a whole because of what they view, essentially, as a policy of appeasement.

No, even worse from the point of view of Swedes who don't like what they see with a small but not insignificant number of immigrants taking advantage of their good nature and willingness to help, they see far too many people who won't even pretend that they're trying to assimilate, which, if you didn't know, is the one thing that educated Swedes of all political persuasions DO rather INSIST upon -immigrants actually trying to assimilate.

And that includes learning enough Swedish to at least get by, not consciously going out of your way to cause offense by intentionally NOT speaking Swedish in public or govt. interactions, just to make others uncomfortable.

That tension and anger felt by a majority of Swedes is largely due to not only the natural resentment of knowing that you're being taken advantage of by others, but also, frankly,  knowing for a fact that there are many more would-be immigrants in other countries who would only be too happy to do what little is expected of them if they could legally move to Sweden.
People who'd be happy to try their best to fit in without having to be asked or reminded, and who would contribute something positive to society.
That's who they want more of!


There are some positive things going on in Rosengård, thanks to the hard work of some very dedicated people who want to show Sweden and the rest of the world that there are lots of immigrants who are, indeed, grateful for their new lives in Sweden, and the myriad opportunities that they and their families now have.

No, not every immigrant has a chip on their shoulder -or a rock in their hand.
Some DO take pride in their area, and are well-adjusted, including the kids shown in this mittomrade video, which got posted to YouTube last week.


mittomrade video: Sophästen på Rosengård. Ivan Varga of "Ivan's Wagon Trail" and his horse, Bango, paid a trip recently to the Rosengård area of Malmö and proved an instant hit. Uploaded September 14, 2012. http://youtu.be/gAw1r4DJ_6Y

http://www.mittomrade.nu

http://www.aventyrsarken.se/


I didn't mention it before but among the many aspects of the failed immigration policy that causes people heartburn is the not-insignificant matter of all that taxpayer money being spent on all these social programs and activities, which contrary to what you may think in the U.S., actually comes more from local government, not from the national government.
Which means that something locally that might've done some good, was not funded because something for immigrants was. 

A majority of people in Sweden feel that thru not only their words and actions but also thru their willingness to put their money where their mouths are, and bankroll a humanitarian process that makes it easy for newcomers to become part of the dynamic modern world that is Team Sweden, they don't think it's unreasonable for the newcomers to act more civilized and think before acting, not throw-down at the smallest sign of a slight, like where they came from.

Taxpayers feel like they've shown their good intentions, and think it's not unreasonable for more immigrants to show more effort and gratitude, NOT act like they're still living in their old Mid-East country, and act publicly and privately in ways that are contrary to Sweden's customs and culture.

Yes, unfortunately for the people of Malmö, many Muslim immigrants in their part of the country have really mastered the art of bending-over-backwards to be seen publicly as the sullen "other," the outlier, and to get media attention for that.
The foreigner who publicly takes advantage of Swedish hospitality and who won't get with the program.
Is it because that's how they really feel, or because they thought they could get away with it and know that it gets them more attention? 
Probably both, but then the outlier never tells, do they?

The thing is, despite all their democratic freedoms, Sweden, like Japan, is a consensus-driven and still-largely homogeneous country, and one that does NOT like people trying to consciously go against the grain and undermine Swedish society or customs simply for the sake of doing so; as opposed to doing so because of some larger, well-intentioned principle or policy.

You can be a thirty-SOMETHING college-educated female that thinks that teenage girls in Sweden vying to be selected as the Lucia in their hometown, school or church is pretty silly in the 21st Century, and write about it on your too-cool-for-school political or fashion blog.
But that's very different than verbally attacking the teenage girls in public, or you publicly saying that the tradition should stop merely because you and your hip pals are not enthusiastic about it.






The photos above are December 13, 2010 screenshots I took of Amanda Römmesmo Diaz (as Lucia) from the 7 a.m. St. Lucia concert at Kungsholms Church in Stockholm that was nationally broadcast LIVE by SVT -and to me here in South Florida via SVT Playin an event that was officially titled, Luciamorgon i Kungsholms kyrka. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Nobody is forcing you or your hung-over pals to get up early on December 13th and watch the national TV broadcast of the candlelight and music ceremony from some well-known church,  while you all sit on your sofa thinking and saying disparaging thoughts about people you don't even know, while eating hot crossed buns or cold pizza pulled from the fridge.
Sleep-in, it's all the same to everyone else
It's freedom of choice.

But denying others the choice to make their own personal decisions, well, that's the problem in a nutshell isn't it for the Muslim in Muslim-dominated countries today?
He or she is part of a religious culture that continues to deny personal choices and freedoms and micro-manage all aspects of someone's life.

That sort of attitude is anathema to most Swedes, who, thanks to several well-chronicled exploits of several Muslim troublemakers, have in many cases largely given up on the idea that most future Muslim immigrants will do the right thing and assimilate.
Which, logically, is why some ask, Why not just turn off the faucet to the Middle East?

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Meanwhile, over at Romesnsko.com...

NEWSWEEK’S #MUSLIMRAGE = BIG #FAIL
http://jimromenesko.com/2012/09/17/newsweeks-muslimrage-big-fail/ 

Friday, September 14, 2012

Mounting public anger & criticism of Obama & Hillary's dithering foreign policy failures in aftermath of Cairo & Benghazi attacks; Facts finally starting to penetrate MSM's pro-Obama narrative and defense shield on this story even while ABC's "World News With Diane Sawyer" lays one egg-after-another


publiusforum video: CNN's Nic Robertson Interviews Brother of Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in Cairo on September 10, 2011. Uploaded September 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/tPszLCEyu-I
Story at: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/13/Cairo-Riots-Were-Not-Over-Offensive-American-Movie-Freedom-of-Blind-Sheik-The-Goal

*FYI: CIA Director David Petraeus will be meeting with House Intelligence Committee members this morning*


Though it's the newscast that I always watch and prefer, Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" was one of the worst in quite some time, more noteworthy for what they neglected to say than anything they actually reported -never a good sign.

This case of collective hysterical amnesia at the alphabet network seemed especially curious in light of interesting news reports that emerged over the course of the day that only gathered steam as the day went on, as they made even more preposterous many of the Mainstream Media's claims of the day before and that morning's daily newspapers.

The facts simply wouldn't cooperate and fit their assumptions. 

These were all "facts" that that you reasonably expected to see mentioned at some point in a national newscast when the subject of the riots and murder in Benghazi and Cairo came up

and yet...

Yes, sometimes even when Diane Sawyer is standing right there in the middle of it, the absence of evidence is evidence itself, and so is the refusal of her news program to mention these inconvenient facts when it goes against the Mainstream Media narrative of that morning.

Here's just a small list of what WASN'T mentioned on Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyerhttp://abcnews.go.com/WN/


1.) Libyan government announced that organized and heavily-armed groups used the so-called film protests as a cover to stage coordinated attacks.

Yes, the rocket-propelled grenades are always a tip-off that civic discourse is not at the top of someone's agenda.

[And why so much reluctance by ABC News and the rest of the Mainstream Media in the U.S. to mention how often variations of "Osama, we are with you" was heard a week at the protests one week  after the DNC mentioned Osama Bin Laden 21 times with respect to their famous hunter Obama practically killing Bin Laden himself. 


TV and print reporters in other countries who speak Arabic and who are there on the ground are mentioning it, so why aren't U.S. reporters mentioning how often the words "Osama" and "Obama" are mentioned in the same sentence, and not in a positive light?

Speaking of speaking the language of the place you are reporting from, how's Barbara Raddatz's Arabic? 
Perhaps Paul Ryan will ask her at the October 11th Vice-Presidential debate she is moderating. 


No need to do that, I can answer that question for you.

ABC News reporter Barbara Raddatz, like so many other American A-list reporters routinely go to countries where they don't speak the language -like Arabic- and have to be totally dependent on others to explain what in the hell is going on. 
So, why do we need to hear from her then? 
Good question.

But ABC News doesn't care that she doesn't actually understand what is being said all around here while she is supposed to be reporting. 

To them, the most important thing is that she's there -is showing the ABC flag.
That's NOT the most-important thing to me -facts are. 
(She was in washington on Thursday night)


2.) Why nothing at all about this f-ed up situation with Larry Schwartz at the U.S. embassy in Cairo? Guess they were too busy trying to find another Republican in DC to criticize Romney.
Anonymously, of course.

Foreign Policy magazine

The Cable blog
Inside the public relations disaster at the Cairo embassy
Posted By Josh Rogin
September 12, 2012 - 8:48 p.m.
One staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was responsible for the statement and tweets Tuesday that have become grist for the presidential campaign, and that staffer ignored explicit State Department instructions not to issue the statement, one U.S. official close to the issue told The Cable.
Two additional administration officials confirmed the details of this account when contacted late Wednesday by The Cable.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/12/inside_the_public_relations_disaster_at_the_cairo_embassy

3.) All Thursday morning and afternoon, credible reports emerged that despite what President Obama said about the Libyan security forces helping transport Ambassador Christopher Stevens to another building per their protocol, credible stories that members of the Libyan security forces had in fact signaled to the armed organized groups that were there to storm the consulate that the move was taking place.
The groups already knew that Stevens would be moved, they just weren't sure where.
Once they knew, it was easy to fire their rockets right at him.

It was literally like he was herded into the scene of his death.
This was not mentioned at all on ABC's newscast 

Uh-oh! Mira!
Here's something finally penetrating the MSM's invisible force field
Notice that this is being given a 6:45 am time stamp, even though I heard this yesterday before 1 p.m.

CBS News

September 14, 2012 5:23 AM
Official: Libyan insiders may have aided assault
Updated 6:45 a.m. ET


(CBA/AP) BENGHAZI, Libya — Heavily armed militants used a protest of an anti-Islam film as a cover and may have had help from inside Libyan security in their deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate, a senior Libyan official said Thursday.
As Libya announced the first four arrests, the clearest picture yet emerged of a two-pronged assault, with militants screaming "God is great!" as they scaled the consulate's outer walls and descended on the compound's main building.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57512847/official-libyan-insiders-may-have-aided-assault/



4.) Surprise! Reports throughout the day emerged that U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson wouldn't allow U.S. Marines guarding the embassy compound to carry live ammunition.
http://nation.time.com/2012/09/13/whats-worse-no-marines-or-possibly-unarmed-marines/

With all their resources and personnel, how is ABC News unable to either confirm or deny this story by 6:30 p.m. Eastern? 

Or mention that she was in Washington at the time?
Really, how can that be?

If it turns out to be true, like you, I can hardly wait to hear the future interviews with the Marines and their leaders back in Washington on the fact that the very people most-responsible for the safety of U.S. personnel were reduced to playing the role of Barney Fife, who, lovable as he was, famously, wasn't allowed to have a loaded gun while he was on-duty in Mayberry.

And as if I even have to mention it, Ambassador Ann Patterson's name was never spoken on-air Thursday. Again.
Hmm-m...

Honestly, what is it about female U.S. Ambassadors posted to the creepy patriarchal Middle East, and their own feelings of protocol and or inadequacy, that actually cause them to threaten U.S.lives thru their queer policy pronouncements?


If true, unfortunately, Anne Patterson's bad decision-making will remind many of us that after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodineimposed all sorts of rules on the U.S. officials sent to investigate the bombing that took place on her watch.

She seemed to be the very stereotype of a spiteful feminist who wanted to keep men at a distance even though they were the ones who had any power on the block she lived on.
Instead of letting common sense prevail, she said that allowing so many FBI and CIA agents -read assertive men- would send the 'wrong signals' about who really ran U.S. foreign policy.

She forgot that it wasn't her. 

She was the worker bee who works for us, not the other way around.

In case you forgot or never knew the exact details, Bodine was the stick-up-her-ass PC U.S. Ambassador to Yemen who tried to thwart the Cole investigation and famously took steps to revoke the visa of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill, the FBI's leading expert on al Qaeda and on-scene commander in Yemen after he arrived from New York with his team of counter-terrorism agents.
Yes, really.

Among so many other things that seem contrary to U.S. interests, Bodine famously intervened and prevented his re-entry into Yemen after he'd flown back to New York for Thanksgiving 2000. 
O'Neill, of course, died ten months later in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers

See PBS's Frontline "The Man Who Knew" 



PBS FRONTLINE: The Man Who Knew - Parts 5 of 8
http://youtu.be/s7T5gAD1SSI


Here is what PBS says on their Frontline website about that situation in October of 2000.
I usually would not put so much of that here, but it's important that you see what part of her decision-making rings familiar today, considering Patterson's orders.
Arriving in Yemen, O'Neill finds challenging field conditions. His agents confront 102-degree heat and a cramped, unsecured hotel for their quarters. O'Neill soon finds himself clashing with Barbara Bodine, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, who is concerned about the number of FBI agents and military personnel flooding into the country after the bombing. O'Neill argues that the FBI needs resources to thoroughly investigate the attack. Bodine has different priorities, including maintaining good relations with Yemen. "I had to act as a cultural interpreter. They have endured first British colonialism, and then the Soviets. These people have only had foreigners telling them what to do. Now O'Neill and his men were coming in, doing essentially the same thing," Bodine later told Britain's The Sunday Times.
As relations between the two sour, the number of topics they disagree on multiplies. O'Neill wants a heavily-armed security presence; Bodine wants the agents to be unarmed. O'Neill wants to have direct access to Yemeni officials; Bodine feels she should supervise encounters. As O'Neill starts to seek support from Barry Mawn and other FBI officials back in the U.S., the cables sent by Bodine to the State Department become increasingly critical of O'Neill. It reaches the point where Louis Freeh and Janet Reno become personally involved in the dispute.
Meanwhile...
CNN IGNORES REAL GOAL OF CAIRO RIOTS: FREEDOM OF BLIND SHEIK
by WARNER TODD HUSTON  
14 Sep 2012, 2:47 AM PDT

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Saturday, June 2, 2012

V for Verdict: Ex-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak finally gets his due -LIFE- for his role in deaths of unarmed Egyptian protesters last year at Tahrir Square, but, curiously, skates on the corruption charges, leading to chants of outrage in courtroom from indignant Egyptians




Telegraph TV video:Ex-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak finally gets his due -LIFE- for his role in deaths of unarmed Egyptian protesters last year at  Tahrir Square, but, curiously, skates on the corruption charges, leading to chants of outrage in courtroom from indignant Egyptians. June 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/VTZbDc0ma9o



CAIRO — An Egyptian judge on Saturday sentenced former President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for the killing of unarmed demonstrators during protests that ended his rule. It was the first verdict of an Arab ruler brought before the law by a popular revolt and for many Egyptians it may be the greatest achievement so far of the uprising that ended his rule.

Read the rest of the article at:


New York Times

Egyptian Court Sentences Mubarak to Life in Prison
By David D. Kirkpatrick
Published: June 2, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/world/middleeast/egypt-hosni-mubarak-life-sentence-prison.html


Meanwhile, somewhere in Broward County, someone -perhaps you- is likely to be heard saying the following while walking the aisles of Home Depot after first hearing this news on their car radio about the no-go on the corruption charges that seemed like a slam dunk:
"I didn't know that Mike Satz had a cousin in Egypt who was also a prosecutor."


Meanwhile, in other news around the Broward County courthouse... 
http://jaablog.jaablaw.com/2012/05/31/thursday-notes.aspx


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http://www.youtube.com/user/telegraphtv/

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Senator Marco Rubio wows crowd at The Ronald Reagan Library, Simi Valley (CA); later appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel show


Florida's U.S. Senator Marco Rubio wows crowd at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA. August 23, 2011.
The proper role of government, the singular objective of economic public policy, should be the growth and the creation of jobs and opportunity.

Best part come from 10:18 on... and when he gets rolling, about 16:05, and eventually talks about his Cuban-born, cigar-smoking grandfather, born in 1899 and a lover of history, forget about it, the crowd is putty in his hand.
It's a story that resonates with anyone who really knows their American history.

Rubio sounded just like this when I saw him in Hallandale Beach in June of 2009, talking about the proper role of government, the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers' principles.
Of course, that's when all the experts in the Sunshine State, especially the local ones in the South Florida news media, the same ones who write about him today, were saying that he was destined to lose to the 2010 Republican nomination to then-Governor Charlie Crist.
The very same people who still daily under-estimate in their articles, columns and TV news reports, the logical appeal of Tea Party principles in this chaotic, poorly-run and myopic state.
Rubio ardently cares about ideas more than any other politician in Florida -by far.
It's not an act, it's who he is, which is why he is so unpopular among liberal Democrats in this state, who hate that his logic and reason so easily demolishes their longstanding house-of-cards.
It's why I knew after seeing him that warm 2009 night in-person that I would vote for him and that he would win come 2010.
I never doubted it and said so at the time.

You see even in South Florida, some of us still care about the ideas and dynamic principles that make this country unique.

Fox News Channel video: Sen. Marco Rubio speaks with Sean Hannity on "Hannity. August 23, 2011. http://youtu.be/hKF4VkjFPRY

Below are some of my Marco Rubio photos from his June 23, 2009 appearance in Hallandale Beach at the Southeast Broward Republican Club meeting, which I went to thanks to my friend, Arturo O'Neill, and my February 26, 2011 blog post titled, The show is Jeopardy! and the question is: "Can I have 'Midterms' for $2,000", http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/show-is-jeopardy-and-question-is-can-i.html.



That's Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the table.


Hallandale Beach Blog 1, Media Experts 0
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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

What's old is new again: NY Times film critic A.O. Scott on the Arab Spring of 2011 and David Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia'

NY Times video: Critics' Picks with A.O. Scott: Lawrence of Arabia (1962 Best Film) by David Lean.

Aqaba!!!

I have seen this film, one of the ten-best films ever made, conservatively, about sixty times, including a couple of times at an old-fashioned giant screen at the Uptown Theater in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., one of the great remaining theaters in the country, and located not far from The National Zoo.
Going to see a new film on that big screen and then walking around the zoo was a frequent pastime of yours truly and my pals on weekends.

To my mind, you simply can not consider yourself a well-educated and sophisticated person without having seen this film a few times and come to understand the brilliance of Lean's depiction of the simple and complex stories running parallel to one another throughout it, along with the myriad complexities and conundrums that puzzle us to this day.
There's always something new you see in it with every showing, and a lesson or allusion you can draw in comparing some aspect of it to something else.

I consider myself a bit of a David Lean buff since I have seen just about every film he's been associated with. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000180/


Original Trailer - Lawrence of Arabia (1962)


Path to Aqaba

Maurice Jarre's genius with this score never fails to impress, no matter how many hundreds of times you've heard it. (I've seen it so many times that I know which scene goes with which part of the score.) Three years later, Jarre wins the Oscar again for Dr. Zhivago, the second of his three Oscars.


Maurice Jarre conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1992 performing his Oscar-winning score.

The next showing of Lawrence of Arabia on Turner Classic Movies, DirecTV Channel 256, is Tuesday July 12th at 8 p.m. Eastern.