[Travel] The Foreign Office now advises against travel to all or part of more than 60 nations around the world. The vast majority are in Africa and the Middle East, with Tunisia being the most recent addition, earlier this year.
Large parts of Egypt are deemed unsafe, including the entire Sinai peninsula, where a Russian aircraft crashed last week. Of the vast Sinai region, only the areas within the Sharm el Sheikh perimeter barrier, which includes the airport and the resorts of Sharm el Maya, Hadaba, Naama Bay, Sharks Bay and Nabq, is open to tourists. A large swathe of land to the west of the Nile Valley is also off-limits.
h/t Instapundit
The growing refugee crisis in Europe is clearly a humanitarian issue. But if leaders don't bring some common sense into the equation, the humanitarian problems could become a geopolitical crisis. The U.S. needs to heed the lessons of Europe because a similar situation could erupt on our borders.
Margot WallstrĂśm, Sweden's Social Democratic foreign minister, declared this week that the refugee flow in her country, with its current population of 9.8 million, was enormous: "We cannot maintain a system where perhaps 190,000 people will arrive every year -- in the long run, our system will collapse. And that welcome is not going to receive popular support."
The 190,000 refugees expected in Sweden this year would be the equivalent of 6.5 million people arriving in the U.S. -- the population of Indiana.
A major reason so many refugees want to settle in Sweden, Germany, and other Northern European countries is that they have generous welfare-state programs for non-citizens. Even so, some refugees can be picky. The Swedish newspaper Local reported last week that "more than 30 asylum seekers refused to get off a bus that took them to temporary accommodation at a holiday park on Sunday night because they didn't want to stay in such a rural location."
[News24] Johannesburg - The Australian accent is a result of drunk ancestors who passed their slurred speech to their children.
Dean Frenkel, a lecturer in public speaking and communication at Victoria University in Melbourne, wrote in an opinion in The Age newspaper that the Australian voice arose from a colonial mixture of British, Irish and German settlers and indigenous people.
"Aussie-speak developed in the early days of colonial settlement from a cocktail of English, Irish, Aboriginal and German -- before another mystery influence was slipped into the mix.
[Allen West] We predicted earlier this week President Obama's hand would be forced by SecDef Ash Carter's statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee. And so it's happened. Yesterday, Barack Obama announced we're sending in a force to fight ISIS -- 50 U.S. Special Operations warriors.
As reported by Fox News:
President Obama has authorized sending dozens of Special Operations Forces to Syria to help advise local ground troops and coalition efforts in the fight against the Islamic State, officials said Friday.
The decision comes after administration officials earlier this week said they were looking at moving U.S. troops closer to the front lines in the anti-ISIS fight, as part of a broader effort to recharge the struggling campaign.
The deployment marks the first time U.S. troops will be working openly on the ground in Syria. A senior administration official called it a "small" deployment, involving "fewer than 50" Special Ops Forces to northern Syria.
Several other steps were also announced Friday, including a new potential deployment to Iraq.
According to the official, the administration is working with the Iraqi government to set up a "Special Operations Force (SOF) task force to further enhance our ability to target ISIL leaders and networks." The official also says the U.S. will be sending additional aircraft, including F-15 fighters and A-10s, to the Incirlik air base in Turkey.
I'm confused. Whom, exactly, are these special operations forces supposed to "advise" in Syria -- the four to five fellas remaining out of the 54 that were trained with $45 million of taxpayer funds? And does anyone realize the complexity of the Syrian battlespace? You've got Russian ground troops along with Russian fighter and helicopter attack forces; Iranian Quds forces; Hezbollah; and, as we shared with you, Cuban special operations forces. That, along with Al Nusra Front (al-Qaeda affiliated) and ISIS fighters.
The Syrian rebels who were trained and armed are being decimated by the Russian-backed force. Does anyone know the Russian troop strength on the ground in Syria?
Oh and why did we just tell the enemy we're sending 50 troops into that zone? There's a reason why the Obama administration makes such pronouncements: the facade of doing something when nothing will be done.
ISIS has not been degraded, destroyed or defeated, and I can't fathom how a deployment of 50 or so -- what happened to the previous groups deployed? -- will make a difference. I completely understand deploying F-15s and A-10s into the theater, but if our troops are only there to advise, then who's calling in the strikes?
For those who understand history, this is how the morass that came to be known as Vietnam began -- U.S. Army Special Forces advisors. Matter of fact, President Kennedy created the U.S. Special Forces just for this mission.
Ladies and Gents, we're way beyond Foreign Internal Defense (FID). The mission for special operators is now direct action and we can't achieve any goals and objectives with 50 warriors on the ground. Mind you, they're exceptional, but in the calculus of the battlefield and offensive operations, one needs a 3:1 ratio. In Vietnam, we even had a serious technological advantage over the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), but it didn't matter in the end.
The answer is that the administration is trying to have it both ways. It is dedicating troops, but only the minimum necessary to establish a visible and credible presence. It's finally making public that American forces will conduct "direct action" missions on the ground in an effort to appear resolute, even though the US is known to have conducted raids into Syrian territory in the past. It is dedicating additional air assets to the region, but the amount of air strikes conducted over Syria has actually decreased since the beginning of Russia's bombing campaign. It is trying to keep its intervention "unbelievably small," while still adding touches of additional capabilities to an otherwise inadequate response.
Forty special operations troops may have been enough to make an impact in the fight against the ISIS of 2012, but not the ISIS of 2015. A pinprick force will only have a pinprick impact, that is, unless they are allowed to exercise the full range of capabilities that they have been trained to bring to bear.
The deployment of special operations forces to northern Syria is a public relations campaign and a last-gasp tactic masquerading as prudence and strategy.
What's needed in Syria is a real strategy, one that matches America's aims with its capabilities; a display of unequivocal strength instead of incrementalism and hesitation. The "unbelievably small" approach didn't work before, and as the conflict grows in complexity, there's no reason to believe that it will work now.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
11/02/2015 9:20 Comments ||
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#10
Vietnam was lost because we walked away. Vietnam was not won because Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon had no plan to win it.
What is 0bama's plan to defeat ISIS? (Deafening silence)
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
11/02/2015 14:52 Comments ||
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#11
More meddling in the Middle East? Because all the meddling we've done so far has worked out so well?
Kinda scary when you think that all of our nastiest wars in the last hundred or so years have been the result of Democrat presidents embarking on misguided military adventures.
Baraq still has a year or so to go. He could still get us into the shit. Just what we need on top of a $20 trillion federal debt.
#14
It sounds more like a TCAV. Really amounting to a pre deployment cel. Probably an ODA and a slice of an ODB with an OGA guy or two. They will assess what is going on and how to bring SOF into the fight correctly. They will build the plan to bring in a JSOTF. Hopefully someone is trying to follow the proper model for bringing SOF into a fight like this.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/02/2015 18:32 Comments ||
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#15
I know Iowahawk is dozens of IQ points above mine, but it really does not matter who's side we're on as long as we are killing ISIS members and leaders.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/02/2015 18:35 Comments ||
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#16
I'm afraid Russia hoisted the West on it's ISIS badguys petard.
The good news here is they may be helping the Kurds and it's Arab allies (code for Christians), but it's far from clear that's the case.
The DemoLefties must be wanting a Republican to win the WH next November, in order to clean up all of their geopol + econ messes so that the former can take credit for it.
GET READY TO SEE THE USoAMERIKA WILFULLY GIVE UP EAST ASIA + 1/2 OF THE PACIFIC TO CHINA.
BECUZ US-N-ONLY-THE-US UNILATERAL STRATEGIC RETREAT AROUND THE WORLD AREN'T JUST PURDY WORDS TO US-LED ANTI-US OWG GLOBIES.
D *** NG IT, AMERIKA DEMANDING ITS RIGHT TO PROUDLY SURRENDER LIKE FRANCE + BE BEHEADED BY THE HARD BOYZ IS FOR THE CHILDREN!
[Daily Caller] Van Jones: What's so weird is that we're in this moment where we have a white female who's a front-runner for the Democrats. We don't even notice that anymore. We now have an African-American man, front-runner for the Republicans. Ben Carson bewilders, I think most black Democrats. I mean, he certainly is professionally impressive. Personally, he can be somewhat impressive. Usually politically he's probably the least impressive on that stage and yet, this morning, he was great. Sorry old man, you just wouldn't understand.
#2
I believe that someone should be elected at least dog catcher first before running for president. I also believe that governors make the best presidents because unlike senators whose experience is limited to bloviating, governors have to appoint judges, balance a budget, lead police and fire rescue, and deal with a legislature.
But after 0bama and the pathetic Congress, Carson is looking more interesting.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
11/02/2015 7:50 Comments ||
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#3
I doubt he 'bewilders' the large black church-going community; they might not vote for hime, but he would not bewilder them. Until recently that group would have been a majority of black Americans, but sadly, I suspect it is not anymore.
#4
Because 'integrating' in the manner Dr. King envisioned is now strange and unnatural among the race segregationists that unfortunately have gain so much influence and power among their own community. Cause where's the power after you disappear among the population? The Asians have found that out.
The modern art of a community organizer seems fairly simple.
The proverbial agitator identifies a particular aggrieved racial, ethnic, gender, or class group that believes equality of opportunity must guarantee equality of result.
Then he "organizes" the victims by claiming that their ostensible failure to obtain parity can only be due to systematic racism, sexism, and bias by the supposed callous establishment majority (usually emblemized as callous white male heterosexual Christians). Myth is useful (e.g., "hands up, don't shoot" or "one in four women on campus suffer sexual assault").
Next he mounts a shrill campaign to demand "fairness" and "equality" (demonstrations, demonization of public figures, boycotts, media campaigns, showing up outside the homes of supposed enemies of the people, getting "in their faces," and metaphorically "taking a gun to a knife fight," etc.).
Finally, he is willing to meet with authorities (such as the mayor, city council, various legislators, college president, police, etc.).
Then the organizer subtly offers "solutions," a euphemism for payoffs such as new laws, favorable executive orders, lucrative jobs for himself and friends, community block grants, diversity hires, some sort of reparations and set-asides, legal exemptions, new community programs, etc. Soon the organizer's original radical demands metamorphosize from being shrill and costly to mainstream, doable and akin to cost-effective protection money. And then onto the next victim.
#1
You forgot to mention that the 'victims' original problems don't actually get addressed after all this and often they are left worse off than before (example: the 'war on poverty' left poor families shattered, destitute, and utterly dependent on the government) leaving the situation ripe for the next community organizer to exploit address.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[News24] Johannesburg - The Australian accent is a result of drunk ancestors who passed their slurred speech to their children.
The modern art of a community organizer seems fairly simple.
