In a daring twilight raid, personally authorized by the President, civilians were rescued when commandos killed terrorist hostage takers in east Africa.
Sounds familiar?
Yes.
This is President Obama’s Raid on Entebbe.
► To understand just how big of an accomplishment was today's historic rescue, we need to crank-up the Wayback Machine and return to 1976.
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"There is a lot of goodwill in the Army, Marine Corp., and Special Operations community for President Obama. His diplomatic engagement with the world will lessen the strain of the military first reflex we had over the past eight years." General Barry McCafferty US Army (Ret.)
The Enforcer
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In late June 1976, four terrorists hijacked an Air France flight that had departed from Tel Aviv. The plane, carrying Jewish tourists en rout to Paris, was diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, where the passengers where held as hostages.
The hijackers demanded the release of 40 Palestinians held in Israel and 13 other detainees imprisoned in Kenya, France, Switzerland, and West Germany. If these demands were not met, they threatened to begin killing 104 hostages on July 1st, a deadline which was later extended to July 4th at the behest of their Ugandan host, President Idi Amin.
This crisis was necessary viewed in historical context – only four years earlier, 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and killed at the Munich Olympics.
No one had confidence that the terrorists would free the hostages if their demands were met, and at the same time, a rescue was precarious at best, as Israel was 2,500 miles from Entebbe.
"Among the Israeli public at the time there was a strong feeling of worry and deep anxiety," former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then a colonel in the IDF Operations Branch and tasked with devising a rescue plan, told the BBC.
"There was a lot of tension in the political leadership over the decision to be made," Mr Barak recalled.
"All the emotional and psychological pressure was on the shoulders of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Several of the hostages were close friends of Rabin, but he never lost his sense of direction and judgment about the need to make rational and unemotional decisions and he excelled in these days."
Shimon Peres meets with the commandos before the mission launch
On Saturday, July 3rd, Rabin approved the plan.
Hours later, four C-130 planes took off from Israel in separate directions so as not to arouse suspicion, and flew 2,500 miles at a height of 100 feet over the Red Sea to avoid tripping Egyptian and Saudi radar.
The commando plan called for a night landing directly on the Entebbe airport runway, where Special Forces would the approach the airport terminal in vehicles disguised as President Amin’s motorcade.
With the world’s attention turned to the United States' 4th of July Bicentennial celebration (also on a Sunday), a mere 29 Israeli commandos, wearing Ugandan army uniforms, touched down at midnight, rolling out of their cargo planes in the disguised presidential Mercedes and Land Rovers.
Israelis seized the airport in a brutal firefight against 200 Ugandan regular forces. Then they stormed the terminal holding the hostages, killing the four hijackers, while losing three hostages in the crossfire.
Commandos proceeded to destroyed Ugandan MIG-17 fighters lining the runway to preventing any possible pursuit, as the hostages were flown to Kenyan and later to Tel Aviv.
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Postscript
For the first time in months, I tune-in to watch Meet the Press, expecting to see coverage of President Obama's incredible overseas success, and for a moment I thought I had accidentally turned on The Twilight Zone.
Asswipe David Gregory began the show with this line: "While Mr. Obama enjoys his popularity at home and star status abroad, his political critics question whether he has the toughness to conquer the mounting threats across the globe."
Can you believe that. After everything the President did in Turkey and Iraq, this Corporate Media Kapò questioned the President's courage, in the face of all contrary evidence.
This is why we HATE you Gregory. This is why we hold you and the Corporate Media™ in great disdain. We're laughing AT you. Give it up, McCain lost -- we won. You can stop reading the wingnut talking points. Talk about coward -- blindly reading laughable right-wing talking points.
Disgusting.
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Appendix:
► Source #1
► Source #2
► Source #3