Partial Media News & Editorials
Brussels, Belgium, August 25 — After yelling “Allahu akbar” and wounding a Belgium soldier during a violent knife attack the suspect in Friday’s terrorist attack was shot dead.
Belgian authorities reported the soldier was “slightly” wounded and noted that attack was likely work of a “lone wolf” extremist.
Two shots took out the perpetrator.
Source: Telegraph UK
San Francisco, California, August 25 — Two days ago Senator Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave an interview to San Francisco television station’s Pam Moore. The interview took a Constitutional nose-dive seconds after it began with absolutely dire, inexplicable and appalling remarks made by the senator.
The actual video interview and the link to the original article published by Mr. David French of National Review is down below in the sources section — we highly recommend everyone to watch this interview for themselves.
Pam Moore asked the senator to weigh in regarding the possible issuing of a permit to an “alt-right group” by the National Parks Service to which the senator Pelosi replied:
My hope is that parks service would not allow these elements to use a national park to spew forth their venom. I will have a conversation later today with the director – I don’t know what word will I receive but I have encouraged the park service to take a serious look at their capability of protecting people – that’s their first responsibility.
How could the park service justify denying that organization their free speech rights? — pressed Ms. Moore
Because the Constitution does not say that a person can shout [wo], shout, yell wolf in a crowded theater. If you are endangering people then you don’t have a constitutional right to do that.
Mr. French of National Review wrote an excellent article breaking down the interview, please visit his article in the link below.
Source: National Review by Mr. David French
P|M Weighs In:
It is a devastating era in the United States. A time in which hate speech is anything other than what is “deemed appropriate” by one sociopolitical group.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
PBS reported that the “alt-right” group Patriot Prayer was indeed issued the permit by the National Parks Service. The park service said that denying Patriot Prayer a permit would violate the organization’s free speech rights. (Full article link below).
Source: PBS.org
Havana, Cuba, August 24 — Are sonic attack weapons responsible for injuring US and Canadian consulate diplomats in Cuba?
Hearing loss, brain and central nervous system damage, balance problems, nausea, headaches among other symptoms show medical reports from many victims.
CNN reported that in an internal communications the US removed two Cuban diplomats as a result of this attack.
Cuban government strongly denies the accusation it is behind the attacks.
CNN reports that investigation is ongoing and looking at the possibility another nation is involved.
Sources: CNN, Huffington Post
Turkey, Ankara, August 22 — Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a speech at the Turkish Presidential Palace discussing the ongoing problems with the possible formation of the Kurdish state in northern Syria.
“I believe that my Kurdish brothers would never allow such a formation in northern Syria and southern Turkey. We are one nation within our country in a unitary structure. We are one nation with 80 million people. We have one flag, one homeland and one state. [We have] a homeland of 780,000 square kilometers. We will send those who want to break this nation apart to the grave,” said the president, report from Hurriyet Daily News.
The president continued to discuss his concern with the US and Russian funding and supplying of PKK and PYG forces with military weapons.
“The U.S. tells us, ‘We have the serial numbers of all these armored vehicles. We will take them back when the Raqqa operation is over.’ But I told the U.S. generals and Trump this: ‘That was said to us before regarding northern Iraq, but now we see the U.S. and Russia from the weapons we confiscate from the PKK in northern Iraq. The same thing will happen here tomorrow. Even if we pay you wouldn’t give us these weapons, but you supply [the YPG] with them for free.’ Unfortunately we must keep talking about these things,” says the president.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
P|M Weighs In:
US supports Kurdish forces who are fighting ISIL. This poses a serious problem for Turkey which identifies PKK as a terrorist organization. (PKK is also identified as a terrorist organization by US DHS) – but the issues (among many) is that PKK also has many off-shoots with many ulterior motives other than fighting ISIL forces.
Historically arming one group to fight another group in an extremely complex war zone does not workout well for anyone.
This issue is not going to go away any time soon.
Changi Naval Base, Republic of Singapore, August 22 — Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift reported today that recovery divers have discovered remains of some of the sailors missing after the earlier guided-destroyer collision.
Royal Malaysian Navy has reported the discovery of another missing sailor as well.
The search efforts are on-going.
Source: Commander, US 7th Fleet, US Navy
South China Sea, August 21 — US Defense News is reporting 10 sailors missing and 5 injured after a merchant ship Alnic MC collided with the US guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG-56).
The incident occurred near Straits of Malacca and Singapore. The US ship is part of the US 7th Fleet.
The 7th Fleet reports hull damage to the destroyer with flooding into troop berthing, communications and machinery rooms. Crew on board took required actions to stop the flooding.
CNO orders global operation pause for US Naval fleets to review operational safety guidelines and procedures.
Source: US Defense News, US 7th Fleet, Military.com
P|M Weighs In:
This incident will be investigated thoroughly. This comes on heels of the previous ship strike incident involving USS Fitzgerald. Just days ago the US Navy has concluded its investigation into that incident and has relieve of command the ship commander Cmdr. Bryce Benson and the executive officer Cmdr. Sean Babbitt for “[loss of] trust and confidence in their ability to lead”.
In another, lesser known incident that occurred in January of this year when guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground near Japan dumping a large amount of oil into the water – its commander Capt. Joseph Carrigan was also relieved after investigation cited “judgement and decision making [errors]” – as per NavyTimes and Military.com.
This is a monumentally serious issue – these ships are guided-missile destroyers. With all the crew, advanced weaponry and technology on-board these ships one would think a collision of this nature should be impossible.
The question to be asked is who is in charge and in control of these vessels?
Deir ez-Zor (near), Syria, August 21 — Russian Defense Ministry reporting over 200 ISIL/ISIS militants killed and substantial amount of equipment destroyed in a column headed to the city of Deir ez-Zor where the last of the ISIL forces are preparing for the last defensive position in the area.
Simultaneously, the US-led coalition forces conducted multiple missions in the on going Operation Inherent Resolve. For the detailed list of destroyed ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria see the source links below.
Source: RT, Defense.gov
Turku, Finland, August 18 — In what appears to be a terrorist knife attack involving multiple individuals in Puutori-Market Square in city of Turku one suspect has been wounded by police and taken into custody.
Local authorities claim other suspects maybe still at large.
Several people are reported to have been stabbed.
Spain, August 18 — Five suspected jihadist terrorists have been killed by Spanish authorities in another terrorist attack in town of Cambrils that was planned along side the Barcelona van attack.
The prime suspect at large remain Moussa Oukabir. BBC reports he is thought to be a 17 year old driver of the van who killed the people in Las Ramblas yesterday.
Source: BBC
Barcelona, Spain, August 17 — Earlier today an individual drove a van into a crowd of pedestrians in Barcelona’s tourist district of Las Ramblas.
Update: The local authorities have apprehended one of the individuals involved in the savage terrorist attack but there appears to be a horrible case of mis-identification.
Update 2: Not surprisingly the ISIL/ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.
It now appears the incident is a vehicular terrorist attack. Current reports state as many as 32 people are injured and 13 are deceased. These figures have not yet been confirmed by official authorities.
Fox News and BBC both reporting the driver of the van has fled after hiding in one of the restaurants.
We ask for patience because these events typically carry wildly inaccurate information.
P|M Weighs In:
Our hearts and prayers are with the deceased and injured. Regardless of the motives of the perpetrator(s) we hope the individual(s) responsible will be apprehended swiftly and brought to the fullest extent of justice.