[AnNahar] After 20 years of military engagement and billions of dollars spent, NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure.... and the United States still grapple with the same, seemingly intractable conundrum — how to withdraw troops from Afghanistan without abandoning the country to even more mayhem.
An accelerated U.S. drawdown over the past few months, led by the previous U.S. administration, has signaled what may be in store for long-suffering Afghans.
Continued on Page 49
#3
NATO countries want out, out, out of Afghanistan. They view it as a needless war that they have no interest in, and licking the boots of warmongers in DC. I can't find any arguments against this viewpoint.
#5
Bush 'declare victory' and got out at the first opportunity, and moved the war to the more practical and important front in Iraq. He then succumbed to the overwhelming 'public' pressure to pursue the 'just' war and go back.
Fred started Rantburg on 9/11 as a place to park his notes on the subject, Unimble McGurque1207. See here, then go forward day by day. We mark the date every year, though not with a party. We celebrate on July 4th.
Next year your site will have the "FULL BUNDLE OF RIGHTS" - 21 years old - so alcohol can be put on the menu (smile).
Well I'm going to raise a glass to the site, Freds' slow but sure recovery,(thanks for the info update TW) after all its after 5 o'clock somewhere...cheers,
Drinking Age by State 2021 In 1984, the Federal Government passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act and established twenty-one as the national minimum legal drinking age ("MLDA") age. It was phased in over a few years and today all fifty states require one to be twenty-one or older to purchase alcohol.
[ToloNews] The Afghan air force won’t be able to fly effective combat missions within months if the few remaining allied advisers leave, a report to Congress by the Lead Inspector General for Operation Freedom’s Sentinel said, according to Stars and Stripes.
Almost 94% of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... ’s Train Advise Assist Command-Air personnel tasked with helping build Afghanistan’s air force have already left the country over the last nine months, according to the report.
The sharp drawdown of foreign military advisers, mainly from the US, has virtually paralyzed the mission to train crews and maintain the service’s aircraft, it said.
If US forces leave Afghanistan by the May 1 deadline outlined in last year’s deal with the Taliban ...Arabic for students... , the Afghan air force will have to maintain its aircraft and facilities on its own, it said.
But the service is still "completely dependent" on expensive US contractors, who are also supposed to depart as part of the deal.
Without this support, "no airframe can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months," the report said.
The strains of reduced manpower have left the command’s mission "largely static," with less advising and oversight, the report released Wednesday said. "Lost training time, lack of US military evaluators to assess proficiency, and reduced advisor oversight have (led to a) decline in basic skills for aircrews and maintainers," it said.
The reduced US military footprint has meant almost total reliance on contractors to train airmen, with fewer personnel to check on them.
"It has been difficult to hold contractors accountable," the command said.
The few Afghan pilots and crew members are also overextended, flying excessive hours on missions often above their experience level, it said.
Finding replacements for these pilots could prove difficult, as the drawdown led to the end of contracts to train MD-530 and UH-60 air crews. The training program for the A-29 program may be next on the chopping block, the report said.
#1
But the service is still "completely dependent" on expensive US contractors, who are also supposed to depart as part of the deal.
Without this support, "no airframe can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months," the report said.
I'm starting to suspect that the 'endless war' scenarios aren't so much to keep corporations rich and politicians in power, as to avoid the certain, quick, and inevitable collapse of any government we leave behind in Afghanistan. Nobody, least of all the Biden Administration, is going to want to explain that one on the Hill.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/22/2021 6:25 Comments ||
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Posted by: Shiva Protector of the Hohlraums ||
02/22/2021 8:25 Comments ||
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#4
when you're lying there wounded on afghanian plains and the women are coming to pick over your remains then roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your god like a soldier. .. w b yeats
#7
the downside of the US pullout is that a lot of ordinary non jihad loving afghans will be murdered
the upside is that, in time, the country will devolve to ALQ vs ISIS, Taliban vs Shiites, etc. With some really good diplomacy we could get Iran to invade and occupy some of western Afghanistan and get China to invade and occupy a sliver of east Afghanistan
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/22/2021 19:29 Comments ||
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#8
fuck the non jihad loving ppl/ They have been living in an area that has been at war for many years and they are to bitch to take up for themselves at some point.
Posted by: Chris ||
02/22/2021 19:46 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Libyans marked the 10th anniversary Wednesday of the start of the uprising that toppled longtime ruler Moamer Qadaffy, ending decades of dictatorship but throwing the country into violent mostly peaceful chaos.
In western Libya, festive crowds gathered in public squares to watch anniversary fireworks and military parades, but in the east, which has had a separate government for years, the mood was more sombre.
Ahead of the anniversary, UN envoy Jan Kubis held talks with Libyan leaders Tuesday on his first visit to the North African nation since taking up the post.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/22/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#2
Could we start with the premise that Libya' border were drawn by a European imperialist? Divide into twwo countries, one in the West and one in the East, and stop trying to enforce an arbitrary line on the map.
[Just the News] Illegal border crossings in Arizona's Cochise County have grown fivefold since Joe Biden secured the presidential nomination and signaled he would ease immigration policies, overwhelming local resources from COVID protection to law enforcement investigations, Sheriff Mark Dannels says.
"It just makes it really, really tough, because now the message is, 'Come across our border, legally or illegally,'" Dannels told Just the News on Friday. "And then the consequences are minimum, if any." Except for the illegals - see the last paragraph.
Dannels said some of those most endangered by the new policies are migrants themselves, who when released by authorities often don't have a penny to their name or anyone to turn to. If charities can't reach them, they are vulnerable to dying while migrating by foot in harsh conditions or to being lured by criminal elements, such as drug cartels and human traffickers, he said.
"[I]t's tough for us, because what happens in my border county, and the 31 border counties on the Southwest border, will soon be in your backyard," Dannels added, saying many released immigrants in his county start migrating elsewhere in the country in search of resources to survive.
Dannels said he respected the right of President Biden to change border policies but said the "hasty" changes made as soon the Democrat took office did not give local officials, who bear the brunt of responsibility for released illegal aliens, enough time to adjust or seek more resources.
Dannels said some of those most endangered by the new policies are migrants themselves, who when released by authorities often don't have a penny to their name or anyone to turn to. If charities can't reach them, they are vulnerable to dying while migrating by foot in harsh conditions or to being lured by criminal elements, such as drug cartels and human traffickers, he said. Of course, some do have friends or relatives to help. Or charities to assist them.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/22/2021 07:45 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Human Trafficking
#1
We are 18 miles from the border. Expecting some door bell ringing.....again.
#5
Truly strange times: while America collapses, in Europe there are now spontaneous anti-migrant movements springing up everywhere to defend Europe's borders.
[OneIndia] Protesting farmers on Sunday announced a series of events from February 23-27 to further intensify their agitation against the three new agricultural laws as they accused the government of adopting "repressive" measures against them.
They also said they will soon devise a strategy to keep the protest going for long.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), which is spearheading the protests, told a presser here that under their proposed escalation programme, February 23 will be observed as 'Pagadi Sambhal Diwas' and February 24 as 'Daman Virodhi Diwas', essentially to underline that farmers must be respected and no "repressive measures" should be taken against them.
The Morcha said February 26 will be observed as 'Yuva Kisan Diwas' (youth farmers day) and February 27 as 'Mazdoor Kisan Ekta Divws' (farmer-labourer unity day).
"The government is adopting all the repressive measures, mischief and manipulations including arrests, detentions and registration of cases against the protesters. The Singhu border has been fortified and appears to be an international border," farmer leader Yogendra Yadav said.
A long-term plan for movement will be discussed in view of the Parliament session from March 8, and the strategy will be shared in the next meeting of SKM, he said.
Another Morcha leader, Darshan Pal, also alleged "repression" by the government.
He said around 32 people have got bail out of 122 arrested by the Delhi Police in connection with the violence and vandalism in the national capital during a farmers' tractor rally on Republic Day.
#2
^Not really, Glenmore. I'm afraid not one of these people protesting are really food producers.
The real farmers' interests, which for once the State had tried to serve, are now obstructed by these half a dozen unions and pressure groups. The protesters are middlemen and syndicates of procurers who wish to keep the real farmer trapped. They are actually opposing free market commercial farming. Half of them led by in-country assets of Soros, like Yogendra Yadav.
[OneIndia] Terrorist groups and their handlers were trying to shift the focus from Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... valley to the Jammu region, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Saturday.
He called for the "highest level of vigil" on the part of the security forces and alertness among the general public in the wake of these developments.
This and other issues were discussed during a meeting between Jammu and Kashmir's director general of police (DGP) Dilbag Singh and the minister during their meeting here, officials said.
The police chief also briefed the minister about the security situation in the Union Territory. Jitendra Singh said that the security forces had earned all-round appreciation for the way they had thwarted some major terror incidents in Jammu recently.
He, however, noted the "recent phenomenon" of terrorist groups and their handlers trying to shift the focus from Kashmir valley to the Jammu region including the Jammu city, the officials said. This calls for the highest level of vigil on the part of the security forces and at the same time, alertness and awareness among the general public, Singh said.
The minister of state for personnel conveyed his appreciation for some of the major recent breakthroughs and achievements of the Jammu and Kashmir police and the par-military forces. At the same time, he expressed concern over the selective terrorist attacks like the one on the son of the owner of popular Krishna Dhaba in Srinagar.
The DGP informed the minister that within 24 hours all the three culprits, including the shooter involved in the attack on the Krishna Dhaba proprietor, have been nabbed.
Aakash Mehra, the son of the Dhaba owner, was shot at from a close range and critically maimed on Wednesday evening.
The Moslem Janbaz Force, a terror outfit that was active in the early 1990s, had grabbed credit for the attack.
[IsraelTimes] Assad regime welcomes nomination to ’decolonization’ committee opposing ’subjugation, domination’; on same day, UN releases report saying Damascus likely guilty of genocide.
President Biden’s move to rejoin the thing is looking particularly clever just now.
[IsraelTimes] Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hady Amr starts job gunning for improvements to Paleostinian economy and renewing bilateral ties, but is not giving up on two-state solution.
US President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden ...Candidate for president in 2020. I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN Ambassador on the streets of Soweto, trying to get to see him on Robbens Island... ’s point-man on the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict is concentrating on restoring aid to the Paleostinians and taking a go-it-slow approach to peace prospects in line with the administration’s stated goal of seeking gradual reform.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Abu Dhabi sends Russian Sputnik V vaccines from Egypt via Rafah crossing; Hamas, a regional Iranian catspaw, officials say they hope for more shipments.
A shipment of 20,000 Russian coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... vaccine doses donated by the United Arab Emirates arrived in the Gazoo
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®, will not nominate a candidate in the scheduled Paleostinian presidential elections, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouq tells al-Jazeera.
PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... issued a decree ordering the first Paleostinian national elections in 15 years in mid-January.
Observers are skeptical that the elections will actually take place, as similar pledges have fallen through before.
Indeed. But it’s fun watching them wriggle.
The elections — should they come to pass — will happen in three rounds. First, national legislative elections have been set for May 22, a vote for the Paleostinian Authority presidency is set for July 31, and elections for the Paleostinian National Council on August 31.
Marzouq’s remarks are likely to come as a relief to aging Paleostinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, who opinion polls indicate would lose in a head-to-head matchup with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
How on earth is a territory that belongs to a terror group like the PLO supposed to concentrate on washing the land in rivers of Jewish blood when they keep being distracted by respectable money making schemes?
[AlAhram] The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum’s founding countries include Paleostine, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, and Italia.
Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla headed on Sunday to Ramallah and Israel to have talks with his counterparts over the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, the petroleum ministry said.
According to the statement issued by the ministry, El-Molla met and held talks with Mohammed Mustafa, the adviser to the Paleostinian President for economic affairs in Ramallah, and Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli minister of energy, in Jerusalem to support the goals and efforts of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum.
"The visits aims to crystalise a common vision and a systematic dialogue to develop a regional market, as the forum’s charter [comes into effect] in a way that supports the member states’ efforts to invest their gas reserves and use the existing and future infrastructure through fruitful and constructive cooperation," the statement read.
PA and Egypt agree to develop natural gas field off Gaza
[IsraelTimes] The Paleostinian Authority and Egypt sign a memorandum of understanding on developing a natural gas field off the coast of Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , the parties say.
"The visit to Paleostine reflects the direct interest of the Egyptian leadership in cooperation between the two brotherly countries," Egyptian Energy Minister Tariq al-Mulla says in a statement.
Since it was discovered in 2000, the Gaza Marine field has been seen as a way to bring the Paleostinian territories to energy independence. Paleostinians in the West Bank and Gaza currently receive the vast majority of their electricity from Israel.
Political considerations have prevented the development of the field so far, however.
Israel and Egypt’s energy ministers agreed Sunday to build a gas pipeline from Israel’s offshore eastern Mediterranean Leviathan field to Egypt, aimed at boosting exports to Europe, an Israeli official said.
Yuval Steinitz and his Egyptian counterpart Tarek el-Molla "agreed on the construction of an offshore gas pipeline from the Leviathan gas field to the liquefaction facilities in Egypt," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The goal was "to increase the gas exports to Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... through the liquefaction facilities in Egypt, in light of the growing demand in Europe for natural gas," he added.
The deal was announced as Molla visited Israel, where he also met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi as well as Steinitz.
The energy ministers and their teams met "in order to enlarge and to increase the cooperation in energy," Molla said in a video released by Steinitz’s office.
Leviathan, discovered 130 kilometers (81 miles) west of the Mediterranean port city Haifa in 2010, is estimated to hold 535 billion cubic meters (18.9 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas, along with 34.1 million barrels of condensate.
US-based Noble and Israel’s Delek, the consortium leading the development of the Leviathan and the smaller Tamar field, struck a $15 billion 10-year deal last year with Egypt’s Dolphinus to supply 64 billion cubic meters (2.26 trillion cubic feet).
Israel began pumping gas from Leviathan in December 2019 and exporting to Egypt the following month.
[Breitbart] More than one million migrants will try to push through the southern border this year, warns a former senior official in former President Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The 78,000 arrivals in January were "nearly double the figure for the same month last year and the highest for January in a decade," Juliette Kayyem wrote in a January 18 article for the Atlantic. "If the current pattern holds, the U.S. is on track for more than 1 million encounters in 2021."
One million migrants adds up to roughly one migrant for every four Americans who turn 18 this year.
Kayyem’s warning, however, is not about the impact on many millions of Americans whose wages and neighborhoods face damage from the government-delivered flow of workers, buyers, and renters to the U.S. consumer economy. "People who are fleeing persecution and violence deserve refuge," she insists as senior lecturer of the homeland security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
No mention of the health risk to all involved from that number of people wandering the landscape without being vaccinated against Covid — and probably neither wearing masks, maintaining 6’ personal distance, or quarantining. The horror!
Instead, her concern seems to be that the flood of migrants will prompt American voters to step in and reassert control of the border which has now been delegated to Biden’s team of ethnic advocacy groups, open-borders progressives, and corporate allies.
That intervention would be bad for Harvard because it would likely derail Biden’s amnesty bill — a bill includes a massive giveaway to the elite university sector.
The Biden bill, if passed, would effectively allow Harvard and other universities to recruit fee-paying foreign students by offering an unlimited number of work permits — complete with a 15-year "path to citizenship." In effect, the bill allows the universities to train fee-paying foreigners to take the careers the universities’ American graduates need.
Kayyem cautiously tries to blame the flood on the progressive wing of the Democrats. She wrote:
Many Democratic candidates during the 2020 presidential-primary season supported decriminalization of unlawful border crossings, and activists and officials on the party’s progressive flank support the outright abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Both positions, however, are unpopular among an American public.
#2
Republicans Fear Backlash from Next Year's Imported Democrats.
Posted by: Ho Chi Shusogum5632 ||
02/22/2021 1:49 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Great. Just great. At a time of still-high unemployment and rising jobless claims, you increase the supply of labor. I hope all the unemployed people who voted for Biden appreciate this.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/22/2021 12:31 Comments ||
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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.
[AnNahar] After 20 years of military engagement and billions of dollars spent, 
...Arabic for 
[Just the News] Illegal border crossings in Arizona's Cochise County have grown fivefold since Joe Biden secured the presidential nomination and signaled he would ease immigration policies, overwhelming local resources from COVID protection to law enforcement investigations, Sheriff Mark Dannels says.
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...Candidate for president in 2020. 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
