This Arab Spring isn’t turning out very well in north Africa
Even as Obama administration officials vowed to hunt down the hostage-takers in Algeria, they faced the added challenge of a dauntingly complex jihadist landscape across North Africa that belies the easy label of “Al Qaeda,” with multiple factions operating among overlapping ethnic groups, clans and criminal networks.
Efforts to identify and punish those responsible for the attack in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed in September, have bogged down amid similar confusion. The independent review panel investigating the Benghazi attack faulted American spy agencies as failing to understand the region’s “many militias, which are constantly dissolving, splitting apart and reforming.”
Although there have been hints of cross-border alliances among the militants, such links appear to be fleeting. And their targets are often those of opportunity, as they appear to have been in Benghazi and at the gas facility in Algeria.
In the longer term, the Obama administration and many analysts are divided about what kind of threat the explosion of Islamist militancy across North Africa poses to the United States. Some have called for a more active American role, noting that the hostage-taking in Algeria demonstrates how hard it can be to avoid entanglement.
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NO “seriously?”
Why it is almost like Slo Joe Biden was allowed to tell an overt lie on Iran’s intermediate rocket capbility, and you refused to report on Barack’s African failures on purpose KNOWING it was a weakness.
You got your guy Al-NYT you proved you can still elect a sack of fertilizer through willful omission, so take your bow and take my earned hate like men.
I will pray every day you are dismantled.
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 1:55 PM
Oh and FYI, as in Libya we armed the terrorists in Mali, if only some organization of people dedicated to investigation and sharing found data existed….
what would they be called?
I hate you journalists and hope you all burn in hell.
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 1:56 PM
Here’s NBC’s Richard Engel saying the Middle East is in Collapse. This is from a guy who’s job is to report on the pulse of the Middle East.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/01/20/NBC-Reporter-Smacks-Down-Axelrod-Obama-Focused-On-trivial-issues-While-AlQ-Is-Coming-Back?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
reddevil on January 20, 2013 at 1:57 PM
RedDevil,
his bosses will not report on it when AQ finally makes it a bright and sunny day in some US port at 2am…..
we are past the event horizon and in a brave new world.
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 2:02 PM
Can someone please tell me what exactly thall of these Factions, Ethnic Groups, Clans and Criminal Networks all have in common?
I seem to have lost my cognitive ability somewhere along they way!
Anyone?
Bueller, Bueller, Beuller?
D-fusit on January 20, 2013 at 2:04 PM
Is it turning out well anywhere????
BallisticBob on January 20, 2013 at 2:04 PM
I’m sure Obama will come out and say it’s all because Israel won’t make peace with the Palestinians….
Wethal on January 20, 2013 at 2:05 PM
That Glenn Beck sure is crazy talking about a Caliphate. I mean who in their right mind would read what the Muslims have written, listened to what they say publicly and seen their actions and think that they aren’t a peace loving people?
Flange on January 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM
Heckuva job Obama..seriously have done great work in uniting the jihadists all over the world..they can’t thank you enough
sadsushi on January 20, 2013 at 2:14 PM
I thought they were dead.
Dusty on January 20, 2013 at 2:17 PM
That would be the hostages, and their direct captors.
Ogabe is so deeply concerned he may skip an episode of homeland.
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 2:19 PM
Why do we care that the jihadists have an easy “‘Al Qaeda’ label” other than as a pretext for Obama doing nothing?
Dusty on January 20, 2013 at 2:20 PM
Um, that would be the hostage-takers. Anyone that didn’t take the hostages is not a hostage-taker, they’d be ringleaders or something.
Dusty on January 20, 2013 at 2:24 PM
Islam is an imperialistic totalitarian ideology that seeks a global theocratic gulag.
Until our “leaders” grasp and admit this truth we are doomed to these continuing suicidally-stupid follies everywhere.
profitsbeard on January 20, 2013 at 2:26 PM
No not necessarily.
Hostage-taker is involved in taking control of a group’s area of operations, or the actual capture/subdual of a hostage. We have no proof that the people who were involved in the first phase of the op were retired by the munitions demo.
This is one of the flaws of the Obarky model, as we get further and further away from the Bush era sense of purpose and analysis PoV that was not defaulted to be pro-Islamist to the degree that is in Vogue with command right now we were able to be more critical of the schisms and flaws amongst the opfor and bystanders let alone theoretically “friendly” forces such as has been on the rise in ‘ghani in the surge in green on blue violence.
Simply put Obammy seems to think arming people at random, and them trustting that they will fell loyalty to us for arming them is worse than stupid.
I am known here as a rather hard hawk, but I will say that despite the fact it will impact my family’s finances hard directly since my spouse is close to retirement I’d rather the cuts to DoD were so draconian that Choom King were no longer able to misuse our Intel and Forces to undermine the lessons earned in blood and treasure that we are not to be trifled with. One can be forgiven for suspecting that the opfor will not understand that the American people are largely going uninformed of how resurgent radical Islam is as it would hurt the “Sun king” and as such they are getting a warped view of US capabilities.
If the American people cannot be trusted to elect leadership that takes foreign policy and the perception of US power seriously it is perhaps best that we do not let them play with such mighty toys.
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 2:35 PM
FIFY.
Rebar on January 20, 2013 at 2:35 PM
Even Muslims know you are stupid.
BL@KBIRD on January 20, 2013 at 2:36 PM
The ones not in power count on it, the ones in power and not our overt enemy are terrified of it, and the ones in power our enemy revel in it.
Ogabe 12-because “why not?”
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 2:38 PM
[profitsbeard on January 20, 2013 at 2:26 PM]
Agreed. This isn’t all Obama’s fault, though his cavalier attitude towards the strategic issues in this war exacerbates the problem, moreso than Bush, but at least Bush was serious about it.
Dusty on January 20, 2013 at 2:47 PM
[harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 2:35 PM]
WTF?
Dusty on January 20, 2013 at 2:47 PM
Is the White House that difficult to find?
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on January 20, 2013 at 2:50 PM
Obama owns it.
Schadenfreude on January 20, 2013 at 2:52 PM
we may have killed patsies or b-stringers…
I doubt we laid eyes on the perps, had any idea what networks were at play…you know what never mind I hear Michelle Dorn-Obama has bangs.
It’s all good bra, no dange no dange as a valley dude who worked for me used to say.
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 3:17 PM
No, no zapping OBL was all Choom but this this is Bush’s….
harlekwin15 on January 20, 2013 at 3:17 PM
Obama always helps his brothers.
Schadenfreude on January 20, 2013 at 4:13 PM