MatthewVanDyke

I provide analysis of international security issues, such as the conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Iraq. One aspect of the work is consulting the media, NGO workers, and others on security issues relevant to their work in those countries. Other times I contribute to security reports on a conflict zone that are published by security firms. But mostly I appear on radio and television networks like MSNBC, Fox News, BBC, etc. as an a analyst and commentator about current events related to the international security (Syria, ISIS, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, etc.) My masters degree is in Security Studies from Georgetown University, and combined with my unique experiences on the ground over the years in some of the conflict zones has media outlets calling me regularly to appear as a commentator.

I was a friend of James Foley and that has been publicly known for years. Those media appearances were in August, shortly after James was killed, before we started promoting the film in the media, so I'm not sure what you are referring to about promoting the film during them. The film may have been mentioned if the host brought it up during the interview, or because James Foley appears in Point and Shoot, but out of the dozens of interviews I did at that time about James I can't remember if/when the film ever came up during an interview. Those interviews were done to help tell the world who James was and what he died for, and to help his legacy. The Foley family was and continues to be supportive of my media appearances talking about what a great man and journalist James was.

Like I said, if the host brought something up, I replied. I don't get to choose the questions, and out of the dozens of interviews I did around that time you found an appearance that clearly wasn't about James, but about two topics, James Foley and a film I made about a Syrian journalist and the dangers facing journalists working in Syria, which was called "Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution." It wasn't an appearance that was about James in which I brought up any of my work, the host brought up the film because it was relevant to a discussion about the security of journalists working in Syria, and because I had experience filming in Syria under similar conditions to what James Foley and others faced. They obtained the footage they showed from the film because it is available on YouTube. It wasn't provided to them for the interview, and I wasn't expecting them to talk about the film at all. I was surprised that they shifted the focus of the interview to that film considering that the film had been released a year earlier and I haven't done many media appearances lately to promote it. I think they brought up the film because we were talking about the situation in Syria and the dangers facing journalists working in Syria, which is a topic brought up by the film. As for talking about the security of journalists in Syria, security studies is my field of expertise and I have a masters' degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University. I am a security analyst, and I routinely provide security advice to journalists working in Syria, and have contributed to security reports used by the media and NGOs when planning their trips to cover the conflict because I have access to sources and information on security threats that they might otherwise not be aware of.

I do not believe that Erdogan has done enough, and I don't believe he will do much more.

We were organized into a real army, the National Liberation Army of Libya. We weren't renegade militias running around like some are in Libya now, and there weren't radical Islamist groups fighting alongside us in the war. Those problems started after the revolution was over.