AMERICAN AMBASSADORS Live! Africa Needs a New Foreign Policy of Engagement By John Price, Monday March 11, 2019 |ARTICLE (from American Ambassadors Live!) The U.S. needs to develop a new foreign policy of engagement with Africa, before China annexes this rich continent as part of its strategic plan to dominate the global economy. I first visited […]
Read MoreThe Increase of Islamist Attacks is Alarming
By John Price, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 We are living in the most crucial time in modern history since the Cold War. Today’s enemy is not a standing army of a sovereign nation. It is a theological movement with a mission to destroy Western civilization. As the Cold War ended in the 1980s, the U.S. focused […]
Read MoreTimbuktu ‘Festival of the Desert’ may be Catalyst for Peace
By John Price, Wednesday August 13, 2014 Last year I met Malian musician Mamadou Diabate, the 2009 Grammy Award winner of the “Best Traditional World Music” for his album ‘Douga Mansa’. Mamadou had also composed the song ‘Bogna’ meaning “Respect is the healing medicine of peace. Peace is the healing medicine of love. Love is […]
Read MoreOsama Bin Laden Could Have Been Captured Earlier
By John Price, Wednesday August 6, 2014 On May 1, 2012, I wrote an article on Osama bin Laden noting that he could have been captured before 1996. I had spent five years researching al-Qaeda’s terrorist activities in the Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula and Middle East for my book “When the White House Calls”. I served […]
Read MoreAl-Shabaab continues to be a threat
By John Price, Thursday October 3, 2013 The Federal Republic of Somalia was ruled by the brutal dictator Siad Barre until 1991, when a coalition of warlords deposed him. Shortly thereafter the U.S. embassy in the capital Mogadishu was shuttered, leaving a diplomatic void for over twenty-two years. Warlords and their clans started fighting for control […]
Read MoreObama to Assad: Weapons Cache must be Verifiable, or there will be Consequences
By John Price, Tuesday September 17, 2013 On Friday President Barrack Obama told Kuwait’s Emir Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah that any diplomatic solution in Syria depended on President Bashar al-Assad listing all of the chemical weapons in his arsenal, and signing on to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Secretary of State John Kerry echoing the president’s […]
Read MoreObama’s line in the sand may prove to be a quagmire
By John Price, Monday September 9, 2013 President Barrack Obama in making his case for a military strike against Syria stated that Bashar al-Assad had used deadly nerve agents against his people. Politicos around the world however are not convinced that the U.S. and UN inspectors have pinpointed exactly who used the chemical weapons last […]
Read MoreMali’s elected president must unite the country
By John Price, Monday August 19, 2013 Mali’s second-round presidential election runoff on August 11 ended without major incident. The ministry for territorial administration on Monday reported that the voter turnout was 46 percent, slightly less than voter participation in the first-round. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the former prime minister from 1994 to 2000, was the […]
Read MoreAl-Qaeda has not been decimated
By John Price, Thursday August 15, 2013 In my May 2012 article, “The Republic of Yemen: Al-Qaeda’s backyard” I highlighted concerns about al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and the instability that these Islamists could create in the region. Osama bin Laden had family ties to the Kindite clan in Yemen. As a young man he […]
Read MoreU.S. Embassies are our first line of defense
By John Price, Tuesday August 6, 2013 Last Thursday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the “Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty Embassy Security, Threat Mitigation, and Personnel Protection Act of 2013”, named after the four Americans killed by Islamists at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attacks reinforced the fact that the State Department failed […]
Read MoreMali’s first round election results announced
By John Price, Friday August 2, 2013 On Friday morning August 2, the Minister of Administration Moussa Sinko announced the results of the first-round in Mali’s July 28 presidential election. The former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta also known by his nickname IBK received 39 percent of the vote, with Soumaïla Cissé a former finance […]
Read MoreMali’s “old guard” set to win presidential election
By John Price, Monday July 29, 2013 The French press on Sunday night reported that Mali’s presidential election turnout was surprisingly heavy in the capital Bamako, and in the surrounding towns. In the northern area the town of Gao had a modest turnout while in Kidal, the Tuareg separatist stronghold, few voters showed up at […]
Read More