Tag: Hostages

Yes! We Have A Deal

Since it is the day before T’giving I will only post once today….I have prep work to do since I do the heavy lift on the cooking and Sue has a house to get ready for the family to show up….which is good for the next three days will probably be slow here on IST with cooking eating and shopping by the blogosphere.

Now for the good news…..

After all the Middle East fighting and death and destruction hostages have been taken and the world has been demanding a ceasefire and a release of those hostages. After round upon round of talks and negotiations it appears that the final leg of this process would be the Israeli Knesset’s approval of any deal.

And it appears we have a deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the approval of his Cabinet early Wednesday for a deal that would exchange prisoners in Israel for hostages in Gaza, the AP reports. In a televised address Tuesday night, Netanyahu had assured his nation that the war against Hamas will go on either way. “Tonight we stand before a difficult decision, but it is the right decision. All security organizations support it fully,” he said of the proposal. Israeli officials said the tentative deal calls for Hamas to release 50 women and children, while about 150 Palestinian women and teenagers being held in Israeli prisons would be freed, the New York Times reports. Hamas took about 240 hostages in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The Cabinet debated the exchange proposal into early Wednesday. The fighting would be stopped for several days under the terms; Netanyahu told his ministers that the break was only tactical and that the offensive against Hamas in Gaza would resume. “We are at war, and we will continue the war,” he said. “We will continue until we achieve all our goals.” The exchange probably wouldn’t take place before Thursday to allow for judicial review in Israel. Netanyahu’s government has faced pressure from the hostages’ families to reach a deal for their release.

According to Axios, the first phase of the deal will involve Hamas releasing about 50 Israeli women and children, while Israel is expected to release about 150 Palestinian women and children. The releases will take place during the four-day pause.

Israel will also allow 300 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza from Egypt during the pause and for some fuel to be delivered. In a potential second phase of the deal, Hamas could release dozens of more hostages in exchange for an extension of the ceasefire by several days.

An Israeli official said that over the next 24 hours, the names of the Palestinian prisoners who will be released will be made public. This will be done to give Israelis the opportunity to appeal their release, signaling their freedom is not guaranteed.

The deal with Hamas received support from most ministers within the Israeli government except three members of the extremist Jewish Power Party. Ahead of the cabinet vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the war would continue after the short ceasefire.

(antiwar.com)

Keep in mind this is the Middle East if something can go wrong with this deal….It Will!

Hopefully this deal is a good sign for the region.

I am glad to hear that families on both sides of this conflict can be reunited with their loved ones….hopefully this is just the beginning.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and has many things to be thankful for in the lives.

Be Well….And Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Operation Eagle Claw

Time for one of the old professor’s infamous history lessons…..

40 years ago today a disastrous rescue attempt was launched to save the hostages in Iran…..and it went terribly wrong…..

A U.S. effort to rescue American hostages in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran ended in failure on April 24, 1980. The Army Special Forces unit tasked with the mission was to rescue 53 hostages being detained by Iran.

The secret mission was complicated, involving the movement of the ground force element – known as Delta Force – landing in three MC-130 fixed-wing aircraft at a location called Desert One. The rendezvous location was located southeast of Tehran. At this first location the ground force would link up with eight RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters flown by Marine pilots that took off from a Navy carrier (Nimitz) in the Arabian Sea. Once the choppers refueled the ground force (Delta) would board the helicopters and fly to new locations closer to Tehran.

During the second night the rescue party would then enter Iran’s capital city, storm the embassy compound, free the hostages, and then move them to a nearby soccer stadium. From there the hostages would be transported to a seized airstrip outside Tehran where fixed-wing aircraft would evacuate them out of the country.

Two small teams had previously entered Iran to conduct a recon of the rendezvous site in the desert, the hide sites used for the second night, the embassy, and other locations. These teams also set up a network for the transport of men, equipment, and hostages in and around the city.

The primary assault force was Delta. A unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment would provide security at Desert One. An Army Special Forces team from Det A (Berlin) – specially trained in mountain operations – would assault the foreign ministry where three diplomats were being held. There was also a small Air Force combat control team to coordinate movements on the desert landing strip.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hostage-rescue-mission-ends-in-disaster

The sad part about this failed attempt is that if it had succeeded then Reagan would be just another also ran for Carter would have most assuredly won re-election.

This is part of out history that is seldom brought up in class only when they want to blame Carter for the failure….

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

American Citizen In Detention

Closing Thought–04Mar19

Our president is always going on and on about the “hostages” he has helped release from countries like North Korea…..and yet an American citizen is being held in Saudi Arabia and he is silent and prefers to deal with it with inaction……


A US citizen has been detained and tortured in Saudi Arabia and may be on his last leg, sources tell the New York Times. Walid Fitaihi was apparently held against his will in November 2017 at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, where guards blindfolded, stripped, slapped, and bound him, then shocked him with electricity for about an hour. A friend says the Harvard-trained doctor was whipped so badly he couldn’t sleep on his wounded back for days. “It is believed that Dr. Fitaihi has been and is tortured at least psychologically during his imprisonment,” his attorney Howard Cooper wrote the State Department in January, per CNN. Cooper described his client as “physically deteriorated” and “emotionally broken.” Now American friends of Fitaihi, 54, are pressing Washington to address his case and criticizing President Trump’s inaction.


And Fitaihi isn’t alone: The dual American-Saudi citizen is one of hundreds of eminent Saudis detained, and at times apparently tortured, in a 2017 crackdown led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Fitaihi’s friend says he was likely tortured for information about Adel Fakeih, a relative by marriage and an ex-senior aide to the crown prince. Al Jazeera notes that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, himself a murder victim of Saudi agents, tweeted about Fitaihi in 2018: “What has happened to us?” he wrote in Arabic. “How can someone like Dr. Walid Fitaihi be arrested and what are the justifications for it?” Meanwhile, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the crown prince this week, but it seems Fitaihi’s imprisonment wasn’t discussed. Trump says he has successfully extricated 20 US citizens held abroad.

Once again we can see how this president puts personal gain over the lives of his fellow countrymen……

Operation Eagle Claw

I will wait a moment for all those too young to remember anything past the release of the first Apple phone to dash to Goggle and get the answers they search….

Times up!

Yep it was an attempt to rescue the hostages held by Iran….the Right loves to belittle Carter for this failed attempt making him out as some sort of wimp…..well nothing could be further from the truth…

The meeting began with Jimmy Carter’s announcement: “Gentlemen, I want you to know that I am seriously considering an attempt to rescue the hostages.”

Hamilton Jordan, the White House chief of staff, knew immediately that the president had made a decision. Planning and practice for a rescue mission had been going on in secret for five months, but it had always been regarded as the last resort, and ever since the November 4 embassy takeover, the White House had made every effort to avoid it. As the president launched into a list of detailed questions about how it was to be done, his aides knew he had mentally crossed a line.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/05/the-desert-one-debacle/304803/

If one would like a more detailed description of this operation then this is a good source…..

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2006/3tri06/kampseng.html

Jimmy Carter has been made a failed presidency by so many on the Right over the past decades…..but if he had won his re-election there would have been a good chance that a peace could have been negotiated between Israel and Palestine….but the election of Reagan crapped on his attempt at a peace.

Personally, the world would have been a better place if he won re-election.

Your history lesson is complete…..for today…there is so much more to come….

Closing Thought–10May18

My doctors visit was just awful….I was scolded for taking 2 pills too many…..now they want me to give up wine….that may be a request too far…chuq

I watched the landing of the plane carrying the North Korean hostages home……it was a great photo op……

A proud moment for President Trump: Trump, accompanied by Melania Trump, Mike Pence, and Karen Pence, was on hand to welcome three former prisoners back from North Korea at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington early Thursday, the AP reports. Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak Song, and Kim Sang Duk were released Wednesday after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with North Korean officials. The three men arrived at the base at 2:42am on a Boeing C-40 equipped with medical facilities and were taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for evaluation. “This is a special night for these three really great people,” Trump said as he stood on the tarmac with them. He thanked Kim Jong Un and said the North Korean leader “really wants to do something” about denuclearization.

The men “appear to be in good condition and were all able to walk on the plane without assistance,” the State Department said in a statement after the release. When the plane stopped to refuel in Alaska, the three men released a statement thanking the US government, Trump, Pompeo, “and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return,” adding: “God bless America, the greatest nation in the world.” All three men had been serving sentences of at least a decade in labor camps, Newsweek reports. Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song are university professors who were arrested a year ago and accused of trying to subvert the regime. Kim Dong Chul, a pastor, had been detained since October 2015. In 2016, he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for espionage.

Now that they are safely home I would like to ask……what the Hell were they doing in North Korea?  I thought there was a travel ban for North Korea.  Did they wake up one morning and decide to press their luck and venture into North Korea knowing full well what would most likely happen to them?  I mean we have plenty of examples of the sentence for foreigners in North Korea.

Again what the Hell were they doing there?  Is there any consequence for failing to observe the ban?  Please let’s not call them “heroes”…I am weary of that title being a catch all for every situation…this is not one of those situations.

These are questions that seem to slip everyone’s mind at times like this…..

On a Final Note:  Trump has told the world where and when the Korean summit will be held……

The time and date are set: President Trump will meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12. “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!

Oh goody……more photo ops and Twitter fodder…..the MSM will have a field day with speculation……this meeting should produce nothing but media ratings.

Hostages Rescued!

More good news…..hostages held by Islamic extremist in Pakistan were rescued by the Pakistani army….the couple have been held for 5 years after their capture in Afghanistan…..

An American woman, her Canadian husband, and their three children born during five years in Taliban captivity are finally free. Caitlan Coleman and Josh Boyle, both in their 30s, and their three children were rescued by Pakistani security forces shortly after the family crossed into the country on Wednesday, Pakistan’s army says, per CNN. Coleman and Boyle were abducted by the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani Network while touring Afghanistan in 2012, when Coleman was seven months pregnant, reports Fox News. They were last seen with two children in hostage videos, believed to have been filmed in December 2016, in which the pair asked their respective governments to secure their release. “My children have seen their mother defiled,” said Coleman, who has since given birth to a third child.

The US government was tracking the family and alerted Pakistani officials when they crossed into Pakistan on Wednesday, reports Fox. Pakistani security forces then intervened. “All hostages were recovered safe and sound and are being repatriated to the country of their origin,” the army says. A US official tells NBC News the family is with US Embassy officials in Pakistan. President Trump appeared to hint at the rescue in Coleman’s home state of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, per ABC News. “Something happened today, where a country that totally disrespected us called with some very, very important news,” he said. “And one of my generals came in. They said, ‘You know, I have to tell you, a year ago they would’ve never done that.’ … This is a country that did not respect us. This is a country that respects us now.”

I have few thoughts…..this reminds me of an incident about 6 years ago when some contractors in Iraq went for a hike and wound up in Iran and were captured and charged with espionage.  I though back then….what makes these people decide to go to a region, in a war zone and with NO marked borders and go for a stroll?

Now these people….as the story goes they decided to go for a hike in an area that was known to be a hot bed of Taleban activity….again what part of this story makes sense?

Were these people just ignorant or was there another reason for these “incursions”?

Finally, Trump’s comments….they were more about him and his “supposed” policies not the intel that was given to the Pakistanis so they could rescue the couple and their children.  Again a platform so that he, Trump, can pat himself on the back.

Welcome home….have a burger and some fire and a pie a la mode……hopefully you may find some normalcy in your lives now.

Kurds To The Rescue

The Kurds!  There has been much in the news for the last 15 years about the Kurds….they are a long time ally of the US…..they are enemies to the Turks…..and they fight against ISIS tooth and nail……and that is as short of a synopsis as I can give without boring you to a coma…..

But the Kurds made news for something different…..they rescued a Swedish girl held by ISIS……

A Swedish girl has been freed from the clutches of the Islamic State in Iraq. Kurdish special forces rescued the 16-year-old Wednesday during a raid near Mosul, report Reuters and the AP. The teen—whom BuzzFeed identifies as Marlin Stivani Nivarlain—was “misled” by an ISIS member in Sweden and first traveled to Syria from the Swedish town of Boras, the Kurdish government says, adding Swedish authorities and family asked for help in rescuing her. Officials say she’ll be “transferred to Swedish authorities to return home once necessary arrangements” are made.

Sorry not much info right now about the girl or the operation……

But I want to address the girl……she went under false pretenses to Iraq to be with ISIS and now she is going home after her rescue…..

May I suggest that she be held for observation……she very well could be a ticking time bomb……ever hear of the Stockholm Syndrome?

In case your memory is a bit fuzzy…….

Stockholm syndrome is considered a complex reaction to a frightening situation, and experts do not agree completely on all of its characteristic features or on the factors that make some people more susceptible than others to developing it. One reason for the disagreement is that it would be unethical to test theories about the syndrome by experimenting on human beings. The data for understanding the syndrome are derived from actual hostage situations since 1973 that differ considerably from one another in terms of location, number of people involved, and time frame. Another source of disagreement concerns the extent to which the syndrome can be used to explain other historical phenomena or more commonplace types of abusive relationships. Many researchers believe that Stockholm syndrome helps to explain certain behaviors of survivors of World War II concentration camps; members of religious cults; battered wives; incest survivors; and physically or emotionally abused children as well as persons taken hostage by criminals or terrorists.
Most experts, however, agree that Stockholm syndrome has three central characteristics:
  • The hostages have negative feelings about the police or other authorities.
  • The hostages have positive feelings toward their captor(s).
  • The captors develop positive feelings toward the hostages.

Just saying that she needs extensive observation in case she has been turned and at the appropriate time becomes a weapon…..a weapon for terrorism.

Better Late Than Never!

You know whenever conservs talk about Jimmy Carter it always a mention of a wimp or worse and it always comes back to the Iranian hostages and the failed rescue attempt……it always the fault of him being a ….wait for it…..a liberal.

Speaking of the hostages….I read a report during the Christmas break about these people……

Survivors of the Iranian hostage crisis will be awarded up to $4.4 million each, more than three decades after their 444 days in captivity. The terms are laid out in a spending bill President Obama signed into law last week, which also includes reparation for victims of other terrorist attacks, including the 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa, reports the New York Times. The 1981 agreement that secured the release of those taken hostage at the US Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, barred them from seeking amends. Legal appeals were later blocked, though renewed pleas for compensation followed the release of 2012’s Argo. Finally, when bank BNP Paribas was forced to pay $9 billion for violating sanctions against Iran, Sudan, and Cuba, this year, Congress moved to set aside $1 billion for terrorism victims.

The 37 surviving hostages will receive up to $10,000 per day of captivity, while spouses and children can receive a lump sum of up to $600,000, per the Times. The money should be awarded within a year. “The money can’t bring back family members, or the 444 days of their lives. But it would bring some closure and some justice,” Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson tells the Telegraph. “I had to pull over to the side of the road, and I basically cried,” a former embassy security guard says of hearing the news, noting it took “36 years, one month, 14 days” for Iran to be held accountable. “I don’t believe that they will ever, ever apologize,” he adds. “They don’t believe that they did anything wrong.” Officials note many of the hostages were tortured and continue to suffer, including from PTSD. The law signed Friday also designates $2.8 billion for victims of the 9/11 attacks and their families.

After I read this I had a thought…..what can we expect from a country that treats its veterans so shabbily or the treatment that the 9/11 first respondents have had to endure…..why would the Iranian hostages get some sort of expedient justice?

Nothing says love or thank you like being screwed for 35 years.  But hey…that is just what we do when people out use their usefulness.

I am sick and tired of our politicians trying to appear to care…they do NOT and NEVER have!  And I am beginning to think badly of the American people as well……

The Cowards Are Dead!

Some good news from France…….the bastards that murdered their way around Paris are D-E-A-D! (May their souls rot in the deepest part of the Netherworld!)  And all the hostages are safe and secure!

Reports out of France say the brothers sought in this week’s deadly Paris massacre have been killed in a police raid, reports the BBC. Security forces launched an assault on the building where Said and Cherif Kouachi were holed up outside Paris and reportedly freed the hostage they were holding. Police also stormed a kosher market in Paris where allies of the brothers were holding hostages, and that siege appears to be over, too. Police were seen leading hostages from the market, though no details were out on the hostage-taker or on casualties.

And the same for the Kosher market stand-off.  GIGN stormed the market rescued hostages and killed the kidnapper…..reported in the French press.

 

Pirates, Pirates Everywhere!

A lot of news has been generated lately by the pirates operating off Somalia.  But what about their captives?

“They are fine,” a pirate calling himself Daybad said by phone from the ship in the Gulf of Aden. “They are allowed to contact their families. The crew are not prisoners, they can move from place to place, wherever they want to, they can even sleep on their usual beds and they have their own keys. The only thing they are missing is their freedom to leave the ship.”

Two Britons – Peter French, from County Durham, and James Grady, from Renfrewshire – are among the crew, and there were local reports yesterday that the ransom had been reduced to $15m (£9.9m) as the hostage situation entered its 10th day. The ship’s cargo of crude oil is worth $100m.

“I would say there is not a reason for complaint,” said Marek Nishky, the ship’s captain, speaking under the scrutiny of the pirates. “We were given already the opportunity to talk to our families and today I was negotiating with a gentleman here [about] another such possibility. I am promised it will be soon, today or tomorrow, my crew will again be allowed to talk to their families. As you can realise, these are the most important things for us now.”

So they are treating their captives pretty huh?  Well not always.

Five Indian sailors who were among the crew of a Japanese-owned cargo ship hijacked by pirates and held for two months before a ransom was paid said Monday their captivity was “total desperation.”

“I wish that no one else ever has to go through this — (hijackers) are not human but rather animals,” said Alister Fernandes, one of the sailors, at a news conference in Mumbai, India.

Oh well you decide.