Western Hostages Taken in Algeria

For confronting those spreading hatred with half truths here?

 

Well that is obviously not the case in the 'real world' today though, is it?

Come on...just LOOK.

 

Yes it does!

This is not an accurate report of what the BBC said: The BBC was saying last night that although they had thought the original statement of 35 hostages dead an overstatement, their views were changing - there was a suggestion there could be as many as 20 Brits alone dead - but it was also possible these people had gone missing for some other reason.. You have spiced it up with your suggestion of 20 Brits alone dead, as I pointed out. The BBC never stated anything about 20 Brits dead.

It doesn't really matter but this illustrates very clearly that you cannot see your own spin being so cocksure of yourself.

 

Why not just wait to see what the actual and real confirmed figure is?

 

For context, please read the following about the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s. Please also note the split in rhetoric and tactics between the Islamist MIA/AIS and the Islamo-fascist GIA during that civil war (GIA started massacring whole villages of civilians). Even though Al-Qaeda in the Mahgrib is the spiritual/ideological descendant of GIA, they are smart enough to realize that the tactic that lost them the civil war (massacre of Muslim Algerian civilians) had to be avoided in their latest terrorist outrage.

 

This gives an idea as to what is going on. All of around 60 foreign workers including those who have taken refuge on the site -presumably in hiding. That makes a bit of sense of all the confusion over numbers as obviously nobody is interested in letting on about those hiding. No news about hostages being executed. What a mess!


About 650 hostages have been freed from militants at a gas facility in Algeria, state media report, but about 60 foreigners are still being held.

State-run APS news agency said those freed at the In Amenas installation included 573 Algerians and more than half of 132 foreign workers.

The militants remained holed up at the site and the Algerian army wanted a "peaceful end" to the crisis, APS said.

At least four foreign workers died when troops moved in on Thursday.

A "comprehensive total" of the hostages still held was not available and some of them had taken refuge at various points around the site, a security source told APS.

The installation had been put out of action to avoid the risk of an explosion, the agency reported.

source

 

Numbers dead have been either grossly overstated, or as low as 15.

Report says the 'rescue operation' itself killed 15 of the hostages.

Thus, if the number of hostages killed comes in at aroundd 15, it would be fair to say they were victims of said rescue attempt.

 

You got that right Liebe. Let's don't blame the source - Islamists, which are more powerful now since Obama aided in taking Gadafi out; blame the French for their oil needs, but never the ones taking workers hostage, fitting them with bomb belts and killing others. Of course, several Muslim hostages were let go by the terrorists.

"In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's dawn raid deep in the desert, a local man employed at the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.

""The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels,"" Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. ""We will kill them, they said.""





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I think your are drawing an erroneous implication from my argument.
Firstly I did not make any quantification of those who desire power or merit elevation to the elite.
Secondly, I would agree that generally on an individual level people are at least as alturisitic/selfless as they are greedy. (Most of the proletariat have either petty or no power ambitions given their social position and human potential).
Thirdly, I was specifically talking about the elite themselves wrt power and security. Simply by their societal positions and natural desire to retain them, they set themselves apart from the bulk of the population. IOW, those in positions of power have a different perspective and motivation than those that they lead.

Consider the social and economic situation for the peasants in Russia. Starvation, depravation, abuse and complete indifference by the current leadership. Given this situation, the more basic elements of human nature rose to the surface, there to be exploited by the meritorious rise from the proletariat of a leadership cadre.

In the case of the russian revolution, the revolution failed to spread around the world, because the political, economic and human conditions were not "in alignment" as they were in russia. The return of apathy, resignation and docility was not a product of isolation, but a product of human nature. Once again an elite emerged that ordered the proletariat around like cattle and took the best for themselves. No commisar waited in line for toilet paper or for their weekly ration of bread. Of course the conditions of the common person in comparison to what went before was vastly improved (however meager we might deem such improvement). The common people then just tried to get on with their lives - hence the return of apathy, resignation and docility.

I absolutely agree that social norms evolve. If anyone is old enough tday, they have been witness to dramatic changes in what is deemed socially acceptable behaviour. When I was a child, segregation was acceptable, and the country would have had a collective conniption if they saw a tampon or concom commercial. These readily identifiable social changes, did not effect the the political and economic power infrastructure in any transformative fashion. As social norms changed, older non=viable political/economic opportunity was replaced by new opportunity.

I missed your previous arguments about altruistic and collective behaviour being more prevalent. From an anthropological perspective, part of our success as a specis can be directly attributed to our ability for collective actions.

In fact virtually all of our social and economic structures are predicated on collective action of some kind. From hunter gatherer tribal groupings, to agrarian communities, to urban environments, none would have succeeded let alone survived without collective action. The concern for others stems from the need of collective action for survival and has been discovered/observed in a number of other animal species.

 

I looked, and obviously I see something completely different than you do.

OTOH, this is an interesting topic and might merit its own thread in political science or religion/philosophy.

 

I don't think it's necessarily the case that those in power have a different perspective than those they lead. If you actually strip down what is implied by leadership, it suggests a democratic and, by definition, consensual and collective form of social organisation thus potentially benefitting the interests of the vast majority across the board as opposed to disproportionately benefitting a minority of elites over and above those they lead. "Ruling over" a group rather than "leading" the said group, on the other hand, presupposes a hierarchical (and unrepresentative/undemocratic) structure. This explains in terms of ideology, theory and practice, how the Russian Revolution of 1917 was won. It was won precisely because it was necessarily consensual. The masses democratically overthrew Tsarist tyranny with a leadership at the helm that was in tune with the said masses. The Russian revolution was therefore a revolution in the Marxist sense.

 

And that is fine, since I would no sooner have everyone thinking in the precise same way, any sooner than I would wish to have two left hands.

To be clear.

If your position is that a society should be based on the principle of the needs of the many taking broad priority of the very few, then yes, I agree, it should.

Where we differ (I think?), is that you appear to be labouring under the idea that this is the World that we have, and the societies that we now have.

And I believe the precise opposite to be how it is - that is to say, I think we have the needs of the many being overlooked, and often denied entirely, for the (greed driven) needs of the few.

I don't have a starting position, as you do, that we may as well accept, in an almost defeatist manner, that evil and greed has to always lord over the many, no I do not. If the mindset of those people was typical of man, then each of us would be reduced to being greedy driven, lying, manipulative, back stabbing, murdering, twisted, as our primary personality, and we aren't.

If we all behaved and acted as they do, then every single time I had a dispute with someone, or if I merely got it into my head that they were maybe going to harm me (with no evidence), then I would pre emptively murder them, all of their friends, all of their family, steal their homes, and their bank accounts. Then sleep well that night.

Sorry, that is just not normal, or goodly, or to be aspired to, no matter how many bits of paper and perceived power it may sadly bring one, I for one do not think there is ANY amount of money that I would sell my soul for, and become a dead man, who like a machine, just consuming good, for my own furtherment. If anyone truly thinks that this sort of mindset is typical to anyone, then I seriously think they should get to know some different people, as NO ONE I know is like that, or would even think in such a way. Not saying we never make bad choices, or that we have never hurt someone, in some way, but the mindset of the above, is the mindset of a freak, and no number of houses, cars, NOTHING, is ever going to make up for the fact that, what they are in essence, is DEFECTIVE.

Maybe that is why the are so driven to accumulate riches and 'power', to fill a large emotional void. Just thinking out loud.

I am not interested in using the term 'utopia', as you do not NEED to be close to a 'utopia', to merely believe of a world in which maybe, just maybe, the normal, healthy, rational, and not twisted people can represent us, rather than leave our destiny in the hands of a small number of freaks, who are clearly twisted.

With your outlook, nothing would have gotten better. Ever.

Because you would have said 'Yeah, but bad stuff has always happened'. What you do not acknowledge, in your worldview, is that many of the greatest social justices that many have today, were due to people NOT like you, people who said 'Okay, this wrong may be the norm, but it IS wrong. And, okay, lots of other bad things may happen, but I still believe in a better day beyond this one'.

Jack

 

Great post. This confusion over the numbers is very weird & will last until the weekend, where the main will hope it will die and they can talk again about gun control. Imagine this, CNN's first headline was about Lance Armstrong today and not about the hostage situation. What the____? One witness that escaped in Algeria saw the military blow up two trucks loaded with hostages.

'The attackers had initially claimed to be holding 41 Western hostages. Some Westerners were able to evade capture by hiding.

They lived among hundreds of Algerian employees on the compound. The state news agency said the army had rescued 650 hostages in total, 573 of whom were Algerians.

"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.'

http://news.yahoo.com/algeria-ends-desert-siege-dozens-killed-001824500--finance.html

 

Meh, they are reporting it now. Some Americans are still being held - others sent to Europe for recovery.


Forget Mali. They wanted to exchange 2 American hostages for the releases of the blind sheikh accused of masterminding blow-up of NYC landmarks and instrumenting the World Trade Center bombing; and also Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who shot at two U.S. soldiers in Afganistan.

http://news.yahoo.com/state-dept-americans-still-hostage-algeria-181757291--politics.html

 

Let's be fair.. people dying, and further people being in danger as hostages taken by violent armed extremists isn't all that important.. We need to be focused on a guy who cheated at a game all those years ago.

IMO, in general sports and entertainment do not belong on the news period.. I can somewhat see traffic and weather, but some of these networks spend like HALF their air time going on about football scores and celebrity relationship's and other such distractions.

The "breaking news" Lance Armstrong story took over the ticker outright (just saying that over and over while saying no other headlines) on some of the channels for hours upon hours upon hours.

 

That's not very clever to let people go in some part of the world like that...
I don't understand why governement let their people come here!...

 

Seems its all over now:

Eleven hostage-takers have been killed as Algerian troops launched a final raid on a Sahara gas plant where foreign workers were being held captive, state news agency APS said.

Seven hostages were summarily killed by their captors as the troops tried to free them, the agency said.

The nationalities of the dead hostages are not known.

The militants had been involved in a stand-off since Thursday after trying to occupy the remote site.

APS has previously said 12 Algerian and foreign workers have been killed since rescue efforts began.

About 30 foreigners remain unaccounted for, including fewer than 10 from the UK.

The militants themselves said before the raid that they had been holding seven hostages.

Shortly before reports of the final assault emerged, the leader of the hostage-takers, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, said the government had to choose between negotiating with the kidnappers and leaving the hostages to die.

He said the area had been booby-trapped and swore to blow up the complex if the Algerian army used force.

The In Amenas gas field is situated at Tigantourine, about 40km (25 miles) south-west of the town of In Amenas and 1,300km (800 miles) south-east of Algiers.

The plant is jointly run by BP, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's state-owned oil company.

A statement from the kidnappers said the assault on the gas plant was launched in retaliation for French intervention against Islamist groups in neighbouring Mali.

source

What a shame these Islamists weren't picked off in a drone attack a long time ago.

 

France isn't free from Islamist terrorisme so I asssume you include your country as off limits? Otherwise of course civilised nations don't stop their citizens from travelling freely where they want toonly issueing advice of the dangers.

 

Stop interfering in other people's countries is a good start. Why are we wasting money and time on attacking Muslim countries for the yanks?

 

Absolutely right. Muslims. Jihadis, freedom fighters, or Al Quaida no sure whom are good or bad. For imperial powers if some some groups don't agree with them politics that mean terrorist. Sure France or USA and UK got problems inside country. Jobs, healthcare, social security.

 

The idea of countires living in isloation from each other is an anachronism in this global age. Yes, why are you wasting money attacking Muslims countries when your government along with other Western ones are offering so much to defend them from the brutal regimes threatening them and in the end us all?

Remember Massoud's warning prior to 9/11?

 

Bad news I am afraid. The hostage situation has ended violently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21101092

 

Try to follow the thread before posting.

 

It sounds like they deployed just about the worse possible methods in their so called 'rescue attempt'.

Indeed, I wonder what % of those finally determined to have died, have been killed by those involved in the 'rescue attempt'?

Makes about as much sense to me, as the one about liberating Libyans, by launching airstrikes on them.

 

It reminds me of "Operation Eagle Claw" only with significant carnage.