Monday, May 12, 2014

BEYOND THE HASHTAG: BOKO HARAM AND THE FAILURE OF OBAMA'S COUNTER-TERRORISM STRATEGY

No mention of Islam in Michelle Obama’s radio address about the Armed African Girl-Rapers of Unknown Motive


◼ Boko Haram and the Jihad in Africa - The Other McCain
◼ 'In these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters': Michelle Obama demands justice for Boko Haram kidnap girls in White House's weekly radio address - Daily Mail [UK]
◼ All Tweet, No Action - William Kristol/Weekly Standard
◼ Stop making excuses for Islamist extremist monsters - New York Post


◼ Paraded by a blood-crazed fanatic, the terrified schoolgirl captives: Boko Haram release chilling videos of missing Nigerian girls as they reveal they have all been forced to convert to Islam - Daily Mail [UK]
◼ Some of the schoolgirls captured by extremist group Boko Haram on April 14 have been paraded on video
◼ More than 200 girls were abducted by the Islamist militants from a village in the north-east of Nigeria
◼ Boko Harum leader has said that he will release the captured girls in return for militant prisoners being freed
◼ The Nigerian government has reportedly rejected this offer and has two army divisions hunting for the seized girls
◼ Governor of state where they were seized - Borno - claims to know where they are
◼ Kashim Shettima said he'd received reports of sightings of the girls and had passed this information to the military
◼ Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, calls for negotiations with the terrorist group, which he says is 'merciless'
◼ VIDEO: Nigerian captors convert hostage girls to Islam - CNN
The girls sit quietly on the ground, dressed in traditional Islamic garb, barely moving, clearly scared.
"Praise be to Allah, the lord of the world," they chant.
The video, released by French news agency Agence France-Presse, purports to show about 100 of the 276 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram fighters nearly a month ago. It's the first time they've been seen since their abduction April 14.

In separate shots included in the 27-minute video, a man says he will release the girls only after imprisoned members of Boko Haram are freed, according to AFP.

The man identifies himself as Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. Nigerian officials disputed that claim on Monday, arguing that Shekau is dead. Other experts say the notorious terror group leader is still alive.
◼ Boko Haram offers swap

◼ George Will, Brit Hume Blast #BringBackOurGirls: ‘Exercise in Self-Esteem’ - Mediaite
On Fox News Sunday this morning, Fox News contributors George Will and Brit Hume mocked the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, a piece of Twitter activism intended to increase pressure on the Nigerian government and international community to more actively seek the return of over 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, arguing the campaign was intended solely to soothe the consciouses of those tweeting.
◼ Boko Haram’s Bin Laden Connection - Eli Lake/Daily Beast
Some intelligence analysts believe that Osama bin Laden provided everything from seed money to strategic direction to the now-infamous Nigerian terror group.
◼ Nigeria abducted girls: More heartbreak and tears, but little progress - CNN
◼ U.S. needs tougher foreign policy than ‘hashtags and selfies’ - Washington Times
◼ Thousands of women and girls flee Boko Haram zealots in Nigeria - Sunday Express [UK]
◼ Don't forget that Boko Haram targets boys as well as girls - BBC News [UK]
◼ Beyond the hashtag - New York Post/Editorial
It’s now been four weeks since nearly 300 schoolgirls in the Nigerian village of Chibok were kidnapped from their school by the radical jihadist group Boko Haram.

Precious time was lost almost from the start. The Nigerian military was slow to respond to warnings from Boko Haram that it was planning an attack because girls were trying to get an education. Even after the April 14 kidnapping, it took more than two weeks for the world at large to wake to the horror of this incident.
◼ BOKO HARAM AND THE FAILURE OF OBAMA'S COUNTER-TERRORISM STRATEGY - Breitbart´s Big Peace
During Hillary Clinton’s tenure, the State Department failed to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organization, in spite of the fact that Boko Haram had become second only to the Taliban as the deadliest terrorist organization. Clinton will rightly have to bear blame for that, but the lack of a designation also reflects the much deeper problem of the Obama administration’s overall approach to Islamic extremism. It is an approach that has led to bad policies, not only with regard to Boko Haram, but also to Iran, the Syrian rebels, Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Benghazi.

The heart of the problem is that President Barack Obama and many of his top counter-terrorism advisers see Islamic extremism from the leftist perspective of social movement theory....
◼ Hillary Clinton failed Nigerian girls - Boston Herald
◼ State Department compared Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis to religious minorities in United States - Joel Gehrke/Washington Examiner @joelmentum



◼ #BringBackOurBalls - MARK STEYN (image: Pamela Gellar)



◼ ‘Reality slap’ photo puts first lady’s hashtag activism in brutal perspective [pic] - Twitchy

#hashtagswillnotbringyourgirlsback #highlytrainedoperatorswill #rangerup
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