Ivory Coast leader captured

After months of refusing to step down and thousands of people left dead, forces loyal to Ivory Coast president-elect, Alassane Ouattara, besieged a bunker where Laurent Gbagbo was in hiding and arrested him.

This marks an end to 10 years of rule by the Ivorian dictator and nearly five months of Ouattara trying to run the country since winning the election in November. Up until now, the country had been on the brink of facing, yet another civil war.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling this arrest as an indicator to other dictators who refuse to step down from power, will face serious consequences from the international community.

Because Gbagbo used military and security forces on his own people, there is considerable possibility that he shall likely be tried in the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, I'm sure the rest of the dictators in Africa and abroad are shaking in their boots and afraid of an upcoming unrest and overthrow of their governments. The events in the Middle East obviously show the Muslim Brotherhood's goal to start a Caliphate and the real possibility of something similar spreading throughout Africa should be in question.

Contradictory issues on Libya

Well, so far, it looks like Libya has already been mismanaged from the top down. The United Nations imposed a "no fly zone" this weekend, and then backtracked saying air strikes were not necessary. President Obama, right before his vacation to South America, supported the air strikes and engaged military intervention without Congressional approval. Something that Congressman Dennis Kucinich calls an impeachable offense.

However, nothing is more mismanaged on Libya then this breathtaking contradictory statement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While President Obama was hoping all over South America, Secretary of State Clinton was in Tunis, Tunisia and told ABC News in an interview "The UN Security Council resolution was very broad but explicit about what was legally authorized by the international community. There is nothing in there about getting rid of anybody."

So why is Secretary Clinton and President Obama going on and on for the last week and a half that Moammar Gaddafi must leave immediately?

If the UN Security Council specifically says nothing about removing Gaddafi from power, then it seems necessary to perhaps call this action on Libya nothing more than a war crime. Wow! Obama and Clinton are war criminals, just like Bush and Cheney. I guess history does repeat itself.

Of course, Secretary Clinton calls this as nothing more than an act to protect civilians. Yet, the role of the so-called "Rebel allies" in Libya has not even been clearly identified. Gaddafi is no cake walk, everyone can attest to that. However one has to ask themselves about how democracy can be established in the Middle East. We already saw what happened in Iraq. Free the people. Well, Iraq is probably just as much of a disaster area now, as it was under the reign of Saddam Hussein.

If Gaddafi leaves power or is killed in the war, most likely the entire country will become more of a mess than it already is. Something I'm sure, the Muslim Brotherhood is waiting silently for.

U.N. imposes no fly zone on Libya

Well, after weeks and weeks of talking, and talking, and talking, about imposing a no-fly zone on Libya, the United Nations finally decided to go ahead with it which they hope will prevent the Moammar Gaddafi regime from attacking its own people.

Meanwhile, Libya offered an immediate cease fire as a strategy to prevent international military intervention into the country. However that really doesn't seem to be the case. The kind of subterfuge that exists in any dictatorship, is to give the impression that you're going to stop attacking your people when its clearly the other way around.

Maybe he is standing by his promises? After all, Gaddafi said he would die fighting to the end and showing no signs of retreating.  As we speak, the regime is bombing Misurata and Adjadbiya.

The U.N. Security Resolution to call for the no-fly zone also included military action from Britain, France and Italy. The United States has not really identified its role, but it is more than likely that if anything goes wrong in Libya, the U.S. will be held responsible.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that this is the first goal of international action to end the violence in Libya. Ever wonder that she acts more like the President of the United States than the puppet we have in there right now?

Of course, reading through the lines, this is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants. Get international intervention in Libya, overthrow Gaddafi, once the intervention leaves, impose Shariah Law on the Libyan people.

Protests in Egypt continue to grow

It does not seem that the protests in Egypt will go away anytime soon. Of the many North African and Middle Eastern nations protesting for the removal of their dictatorial leaders, Egypt seems to be the most tense. While protesters are calling for a million people to take to the streets demanding President Mubarak's removal, thus far, it seems that little is deterring him.

Last week, as the protesters grew into large crowds onto the streets on Cairo, President Mubarak removed his entire cabinet, hoping to calm down the tone, but it did nothing. Instead members of Egypt's own police force, actually sided with the protesters and its army actually called the protests 'legitimate'. That's saying quite a bit for a country that represses freedom of expression.

Now it is very likely that Mubarak may eventually resign, as the pressure is mounting and today he did call for a new government and even shoved the Interior Minister aside, which is the head of the nation's security forces that has been battling the upheaval since it began.

But there is still some strange contradictions going on here in the United States and the response to Egypt's protest movement. Vice President Joe Biden stated that President Mubarak was not a dictator and should not step down, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on ABC's Sunday morning news show This Week with Christiane Amanpour stating that there "needs to be reform". Meanwhile, President Obama called for the same reform and that "the United States is committed to working with the Egyptian government and the Egyptian people, from all quarters to achieve it, and around the world governments have an obligation to respond to their citizens..."

Oh is that right? The Federal Government gave no response to the American people when they called for an end of corruption under President Bush and now under your tenure Mr. President, but I digress...

The single most important factor that this Administration is failing to consider is that if and when President Mubarak is removed, regardless of his authoritarian rule in Egypt, this means there could be a very good possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood could take control, thus causing the Middle Eastern region to become destabilized.

Egypt as one of the United States' closest allies in that region of the world, has helped us protect Israel and against al-Qaeda terrorists. The last thing we need right now is for Egypt to collapse and bring that portion of the world one step closer to taking Israel out.

There is great admiration from the protesters in Egypt who want a freer society without an authoritarian rule, as it struggles with poverty, inflation, unemployment and shortages. However, could the Middle East be any better if Mubarak steps aside?

Regardless of the looting, destruction and death that has occurred throughout Egypt in the last week, the protesters are vowing to not stop, until Mubarak is out.

Worse than Watergate, Saudis financing Terrorism

What has to be worse than Watergate and the secrets uncovered during the Bush Administration over the War in Iraq, another released U.S. diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks indicates that Saudi Arabia is the world's largest financier of radical Islamic terrorism groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Incredible.

In one of the memos from December 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that "more needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Hamas which probably raises millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources... Saudi Arabia constitutes the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide..."

This is a country that is supposed to be the United States' ally in the Middle East. I'm curious as to how long Mrs. Clinton was going to fool the American people by going on propagating this charade of pretending to be friendly to Saudi Arabia, even though she had direct knowledge in these secret cables that the country was financing terrorism this entire time.

Here's just a side of advice for the Madam Secretary... resign!

The cable does indicate that Saudi Arabia has been attempting to block financing to terrorist networks in the Middle East, and also went to cite Arabia's bordering country, tiny little Qatar, another ally, as being the "worst in the region" concerning its counter-terrorism relationship with the United  States.

Perhaps Qatar, even though as small of a country as it is with the billions of dollars it has in resources as a kingdom, has the capabilities to deal with terrorist threats. But perhaps it is resistant to do so, because of Saudi Arabia's now leaked relationship in financing millions of dollars to these terrorist organizations that are committed to destroying Israel and the United States.

I'd suspect and would not be entirely surprised that the Middle Eastern region is nearly on the verge of breaking out into a massive war. Iraq is a disaster area, U.S. troops have been unsuccessful in their attempts to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Iran has a nuclear program bent on whipping Israel off the face of the Earth and now Saudi Arabia one of few Middle East allies of the U.S. is financing terrorism throughout the entire region, while Secretary Clinton feels it was necessary to keep all of this completely secret from the American people.

It is just disgraceful.



 
 

U.S. documents leaked

On Sunday,  an online whistle blowing organization known as WikiLeaks, were able to get their hands on hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. State Department secret memos and documents which detailed relationships and diplomacy, particularly in the Middle East.

The details of some of these secret documents centered around countries such as Saudi Arabia,  apparently trying to pressure the U.S. to take action against Iran and its nuclear program; additionally, there was also major concern to get the U.S. to move on problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan, centering around al-Qaeda; as well as growing discontent in North Korea. WikiLeaks went on to say that they were quite surprised by the level of espionage that the U.S. is engaging in, after analyzing the documents in full.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated in a press conference this afternoon, that the U.S. would take 'aggressive steps' in finding those responsible for leaking the documents.

To be quite frank, I'm actually glad that Wikileaks released the documents which they claim more than half were unclassified anyway. Whether or not they actually where does not really concern me, but rather the U.S. Government continued ability to remain secretive about issues when it comes to foreign policy. Americans are already angry and fed up with things they're not supposed to know anything about,  so Americans knowing some of these so called 'classified' memos would be more comforting, rather than finding out later on that these things were kept behind closed doors and kept away from the American people which would make everyone, probably twice as angry.

Do we need to re-analyze the Bush Administration's policies that were kept from the American people?

The release of these documents are an embarrassment to the Obama Administration, and rightfully so. This President campaigned on the objective that he would provide more openness and transparency in Government and set up a stronger dialogue with the American people. 

I think a majority of Americans now realize that was obviously a false pretense, and he can add this to his list that has exposed him as nothing more than a pathological liar.