Tag Archives: DaTechGuy

For Your Consideration

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DaTechGuy is a friend of mine. He blogs at DaTechGuy.com. He also has a radio show that I have guest hosted and been a guest on. He does his homework, does his research, and has good connections within the new media. He posted a story today written by a friend of his. The story is wild, but feasible. I submit it for your consideration.

The source story appeared in the Conservative Report Online, and was written by Chip Jones. DaTechGuy picked up the story and added his comments.

Some highlights from the story at the Conservative Report Online:

First, it is reported that an Army Special Forces team was present with an AC-130U Spooky (also known as a Spectre Gunship) on the tarmac at the airport in Tripoli, Libya. The Spooky is a technologically sophisticated, tactical aircraft, operated by the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.

It operates under the overall Special Operations Command stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, which is reportedly in charge of all military special operations units, including: Army Special Forces, Navy SEALS, Rangers and certain Marine units, as well as the USAF AC-130Us, and “stealth Blackhawks,” used in the Bin Laden raid.

…The second, and most troubling aspect of the refusal to issue Cross Border Authority is, who issued the refusal. Rather than the President, the Commander In Chief, making critical decisions, granting or denying the authority to initiate offensive-actions in support of our valiant fighting men, the decision not to take action was made by a person, to whom the people did not elect, nor did the Congress have confirmation power over.

The military-order, not to initiate action, saving our men in Benghazi, was issued by the President’s Advisor, Valerie Jarrett.

DaTechGuy sent me an email today that included the above story. These were his closing comments on the email:

I know the author of this article personally and I hope to speak to him later today but I want to note one final thing.
 
Five years in fact even three years ago if someone was saying something like this I’d have dismissed it out of hand.
 
Not anymore

I have no idea what to think about this story. Does it matter that Valerie Jarrett refused to issue the Cross Border Authority? Would President Obama have done the same thing if he were there? Was she representing the wishes of the President? And finally, how many Americans will be troubled by this news? Does this trouble you?

 

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One Of The Dangers Of The New Media

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The credit for this article goes to DaTechGuyBlog. DaTechGuy truly represents the new media–he has his own radio show (Saturday morning 10-12 on WCRN 830 AM or on the internet at wcrnradio.com), he is on twitter, and he will go anywhere to follow a story. He lives in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and was picking up a pizza in a local pizza place recently where the owner was watching a satellite channel in Arabic. The owner was talking to DaTechGuy about the use of violence by the Muslim Brotherhood to suppress the protests. Naturally, DaTechGuy looked into this.

The article posted at DaTechGuyBlog today shows some of the tweets coming out of Egypt describing what is happening. He posts capture shots of some tweets by Sandmonkey.  One of the tweets of Sandmonkey cites another tweeter, Gehad El-Hadd. Sandmonkey claims that El-Hadd is a liar.

My purpose in pointing this out is to show that the new media can be used for bad or for good. DaTechGuy points out that you have to go through five pages of El-Hadd’s tweets before you get to tweets in Arabic. Sandmonkey tweets both in Arabic and in English. So if most of El-Hadd’s tweets are in English, what audience is he aiming at?

An article in the Egypt Daily News posted yesterday stated:

The Muslim Brotherhood is waging a war of perception, not just for domestic consumption but for a western audience, too. Perception is crucial for two reasons: To defeat non-Islamist opponents, who may lose faith quickly when watching the endless number of pro-Morsy protestors in comparison to their relatively lower number in Tahrir and, secondly, to convince western nations that Islamists are the only reliable, powerful force in Egypt and that they are backed by the “majority” of Egyptians.

Eighty years of a mushrooming underground within Egyptian society has resulted in deep mistrust of mainstream establishments. Islamists view members of these establishments and other non-Islamist forces with deep suspicion and consider them elitist, anti-religious snobs. The strict, rules that govern the Brotherhood’s internal structure were partly introduced to protect the group from outside “corruption.”

This combination plus simmering resentment and years of grievance have finally exploded in the recent crisis in Egypt, and it partly explains the abrupt, odd way that Morsy has chosen to deal with it.

The situation as I see it is that Morsi wants to consolidate his power in Egypt and set up his part of the world-wide caliphate the Muslim Brotherhood is planning to build. This will be easier for him to do if he can convince the West that he is actually the good guy and the people protesting him are the bad guys. He will do his best to put down this rebellion against his power grab, but he doesn’t want the West to think that he is creating the caliphate he is creating. Morsi is an expert at propaganda. It is no surprise that he will use traditional and new media for his purposes.

All of us need to be very careful in deciding exactly who and what what we believe.