Didn’t you just know that the moment the news arrived that some Americans had been taken hostage by an Al Qaeda-linked group in Algeria that Fox News scrambled to figure out a way to blame the Obama administration? Well, in a neat twofer, they got the job done by suggesting Fox’s favorite faux scandal of the year, Benghazi, was the cause. Never mind that even Fox News has reported that the terrorist attack was in retaliation for France's military action in Mali.
On America's Newsroom this morning, host Martha MacCallum set up a discussion with Fox contributor John Bolton by saying:
A spate of recent terror attacks raising serious concerns over whether terrorists are emboldened after the lack of reaction to the attack in Benghazi. Four Americans were murdered on September 11, including our U.S. Ambassador. Not one suspect has been charged in this case. The one that was, was released.
She went on to play a clip of Charles Krauthammer suggesting the same thing on Special Report the night before.
Bolton acknowledged, “We don’t know the specifics about this hostage-taking in Algeria and whether in fact it’s a direct response to the French intervention in Mali.” But that didn’t stop him from going on to point a finger of blame at Obama anyway.
I think the fact that it’s been now over four months since the attack on Benghazi, four Americans murdered, no visible America response, has to say to people, given everything else that President Obama has said for four years about his view of the Muslim world and the war on terror, that (Islamic extremists) are much safer, much more likely to decide to use force to take hostages than in previous years. I think we’re seeing the evidence of it right now.
“Yeah,” MacCallum agreed. Even though her show airs during what Fox calls its “objective” news lineup.
As the New York Times reported - but MacCallum didn't bother, at least not in this segment - there were good reasons to suspect that French military action in Mali, rather than Benghazi brazenness, was at the heart of the hostage taking:
The attackers seemed particularly incensed that Algeria’s government had permitted the French to use Algerian airspace to fly warplanes and military equipment into Mali, according to their statement, which may explain why they chose Algeria for retaliation. Some Algerian military experts said the Algerian public also was unhappy about the government’s decision.
“The setting in motion of a military machine in north Mali was going to have definite repercussions in Algeria,” said Mohamed Chafik Mesbah, a former Algerian Army officer and political scientist, adding, . “There are going to be much worse consequences. There will be more attacks.”
UPDATE: Even Fox News is saying that the terrorist attack was all about France:
At least 20 gunmen attacked and took over the vast complex early Wednesday in retaliation for France's military intervention against Al Qaeda-linked rebels in neighboring Mali. Militants phoned Mauritanian media to say one of its affiliates had carried out the operation and that France should end its intervention in Mali to ensure the safety of the hostages.
But have no fear, Fox fans. I feel confident the "fair and balanced" network will figure out a way to blame that on the Obama administration, too.
President Obama: Good Morning, folks!
FNC: What’s so good about it?
Only rumors so far as I know, but fruit for thought nonetheless: I remember well how everybody fell off their collective stools when the off-shore oil deposits in Equatorial Guinea were “discovered” well after the big companies (backed by their respective countries) had already divided up the pie.
Hey, if anybody knows about giving aid and comfort to foreign terrorists, it’s the Talking Toilet Brush:
Bolton has long spoken in favor of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK), “an armed Islamic group with Marxist leanings” which has long been on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. According to the State Department, the MEK “[f]ollow[s] a philosophy that mixes Marxism and Islam.” In the 1970s, MEK members, who “had been trained by the Soviet Union in guerilla warfare and supported Khomeini . . . assassinated U.S. military officers then working in Iran. MEK members actively took part in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, according to a U.S. government report.”
On January 25, 2011, Bolton drew a standing ovation at a Brussels conference in support of the MEK, giving a speech in which he “backed MEK’s legitimacy, and the notion of removing it from the list of terrorist organizations.” Georgetown law professor David D. Cole has pointed out that “the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support [including] engag[ing] in public advocacy to challenge a group’s ‘terrorist’ designation,” under the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R.Bolton#People.27s_Mujahedin_ofIran
I continue to ask: why isn’t this POS sitting in Gitmo wearing an orange jumpsuit?
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Cool, by their logic, I get to blame every American hostage taken with the expressed motive of ransoming against action in the middle east on Bush.
When does the trial for all the ones they killed start?
But it is a large producer of gold*, at least as of 2006 (the intervening years of rebellion have probably put a large damper on the production), the country produced more than 85,000 kilograms of gold (not really sure how much that comes to in “tons of gold” since an ounce of gold is based on the Troy system rather than the standard/avoirdupois system—85000 kg of gold translates to nearly 3000000 standard ounces or to about 2750000 Troy ounces—and the Troy system wasn’t designed for weights over a pound which, in the Troy system, only has 12 ounces).
*And, as we all know, if there’s anything the right-wingers like more than oil, it’s gold.
