Comment: Prepare your sick bag. John Kerry and Obama shed crocodile tears for the loss of American and African hostages who were almost guaranteed to be killed in the worst "hostage rescue" operation ever.
U.S. special forces stormed a walled compound in a remote Yemeni village early on Saturday in an attempt to free Western hostages held by an al Qaeda unit, but an American journalist and a South African teacher were killed by their captors, officials said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said Luke Somers, 33, and South African Pierre Korkie, 56, were shot by their kidnappers shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province long seen as one of al Qaeda's most formidable strongholds.
It was the second U.S. attempt to free Somers in 10 days and Kerry said it had been approved because of information that Somers' life was in imminent danger. "It was our assessment that that clock would run out on Saturday," one U.S. official said.
Comment: Violence and brutality have become the new normal and are epidemic. The disease starts with our leaders and infects the rest of society.