Despite the Islamic State’s loss of territory in Iraq and Syria, an increasingly diffuse Salafi-jihadist movement is far from defeated.
This report constructs a data set of groups and fighters from 1980 to 2018, including from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. It finds that the number of Salafi-jihadists in 2018 declined somewhat from a high in 2016, but is still at near-peak levels since 1980.
The regions with the largest number of fighters are Syria (between 43,650 and 70,550 fighters), Afghanistan (between 27,000 and 64,060), Pakistan (between 17,900 and 39,540), Iraq (between 10,000 and 15,000), Nigeria (between 3,450 and 6,900), and Somalia (between 3,095 and 7,240). Attack data indicates that there are still high levels of violence in Syria and Iraq from Salafi-jihadist groups, along with significant violence in such countries and regions as Yemen, the Sahel, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
These findings suggest that there is a large pool of Salafi-jihadist and allied fighters willing and able to use violence to achieve their goals. Every U.S. president since 9/11 has tried to move away from counterterrorism in some capacity, and it is no different today. Balancing national security priorities in today’s world needs to happen gradually.
For the United States, the challenge is not that U.S. officials are devoting attention and resources to dealing with state adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. These countries present legitimate threats to the United States at home and abroad. Rather, the mistake would be declaring victory over terrorism too quickly and, as a result, shifting too many resources and too much attention away from terrorist groups when the threat remains significant.
Developing national security is more an art than a science, especially when trying to prioritize among a range of important issues. A high school student experimenting with weights on a scale finds that taking off mass from one side too quickly—or adding toomuch mass to the other side—will cause the scale to lose its balance. Indeed, balancing U.S. national security priorities in today’s world needs to happen gradu-ally. The challenge is not that U.S. officials are devoting attention to deal with state adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. These countries presentlegitimate threats to the United States at home and abroad. Rather, the mistake would be declaring victory too quickly against terrorism—and then shifting too many resources and too much attention away when the threat remains significant. A significant withdrawal of U.S. special operations forces, intelligence operatives, intelligence resources, and development and diplomatic experts for counterterrorism in key areas of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia would be unnecessarily risky.
Category Archives: Citizens Duty
Click here to read report.New Committee Chair Cummings has 64 Subpoenas for Trump
Yup, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings will become the Oversight Committee Chairman in the new Congress and he has readied 64 subpoenas for Trump and his family over conflicting business deals, the hotel and more.
Meanwhile, the democrats are likely going to work to cut funding for the military, ICE and DHS. They will advance legislation to move the Federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour and will continue to bail out health insurers to save Obamacare.
Ah but this democrat agenda can become more contentious and nasty if the democrats want to play a legal warfare game as the republicans can take some major counter-measures. Of course none of this is really good for the country but as President Trump declared more than once, we will restore law and order and those who violated law should in fact receive a consequence.
So, what should the republicans consider?
- Declassify and release all Fast and Furious documents.
- Declassify and release all HolyLand Foundation trial documents.
- Declassify and release and IRS targeting scandal documents and subpoena emails and documents of Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Doug Shulman, John Koskinen, Steven T. Miller, Daniel Werfel, Peter Kadzik, Elijah Cummings among others.
- Department of Justice to formally open a case on Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Pakistan IT scandal.
- Announce a formal investigation into Dianne Feinstein’s Chinese operative employed in her California office and to demand Feinstein submit her investments in Chinese corporations/organizations.
- Defund Planned Parenthood.
- Defund Export Import Bank.
- Investigate Maxine Waters and her use of campaign funds employing her daughter’s company.
- Investigate newly elected congresswoman Debbie Muscarel Powell and her association(s) with Ihor Kolomoisky, a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch.
- Open formal investigation into Keith Ellison.
- Re-open criminal case against New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez.
- Refer Bernie Sanders to the Senate Ethics Committee on loan scandal.
- Release all the text messages and emails of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
- Open a formal and announced investigation into the Clinton Foundation and release what is in the file now.
- Need we explain the Hillary email server thing? Git ‘er done.
- Comey, McCabe, Ohr, and that crowd with the FISA warrant, communications and the dossier.
- Investigate Sheila Jackson Lee’s office for the staffer’s doxxing operation.
- How about Uranium One, Rosemont Capital and Vistria?
- Then there is John Podesta, Tony Podesta, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and all of that.
- But we cannot overlook the tarmac meeting and the role Loretta Lynch and her DoJ played in the coverup.
- Benghazi? Was that ever resolved or the billions to Iran?
- How about release of details on the side deals or payments for the Taliban 5 and Bergdahl or the Iran nuclear deal? Include Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes in these details.
- Release communications on why Obama and the Justice Department canceled Operation Cassandra.
- Release full report on John Brennan, former Director of the CIA and his role in ‘spygate’ along his spying on member of the senate.
- Declare via Treasury and DHS, ANTIFA a domestic terror organization.
- Release all payments made by Office of Compliance due to congressional member’s misconduct.
There of course are many other things to add to this list. You are invited to include some of your own ideas in the comments.
400 Left the Caravan and Arrive in Tijuana
Defense Secretary Mattis will spend Wednesday visiting the border. Customs and Border Patrol said it will close lanes at the San Ysidron and Otay Mesa crossing to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing in the Tijuana region of Baja, California.
The lead or first caravan is expected to arrive in an estimated two weeks with at least three other caravans are making progress heading north in Mexico. More details here.
Meanwhile, Ami Horowitz who is an onsite investigative journalist is traveling with and reporting on the real facts of the caravan. Horowitz has a vast resume of these kinds of investigations on his resume that include corruption at the United Nations and he also travel by boat with Syrian refugees arriving in Greece.
During this adventure by Ami Horowitz he found the following facts:
90-95% are males in the caravan.
There is a substantial logistical transportation operation aiding the migrants with trucks and buses.
Food, water, shelter, medicine, mobile hospitals, doctors and nurses are at each base camp along the way.
Mexican police are often found escorting the caravan.
Mexico is actively working with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and with UNICEF per the UN contact named Maria Rudi.
It is admitted there are violent and gang member people within the caravan. It takes work to keep them separated from the other members of the caravan daily.
The largest support comes from Pueblo sin Fronteras. This organization has hundreds of volunteers traveling with the caravan as noted in the video. The volunteers hold countless learning sessions with the migrants to teach them about applying for asylum, what a refugees and what their rights are according to U.S. law. United Nations workers are also traveling with the caravan and they along with the Pueblo Sin Fronteras wear vests noting who they are and some also wear badges.
Pueblo sin Fronteras has been reaching out to immigrants and migrants for more than 15 years aiding them to the United States demanding their human rights.On their website they even have a graphic that reads Otay Mesa Detention Resistance for Los Angeles and San Diego.
As tensions build over a new caravan, Mexican officials seize the man who helped organize the last one https://t.co/ipwsyldi9R
— Adolfo Flores (@aflores) October 19, 2018
The leader of Pueblo sin Fronteras is Irineo Mujico. From Phoenix, Mujico was arrested in southern Mexico in October in Cuidad Hidalgo. He was there not as a leader but more as a coordinator of humanitarian assistance. He has been released but he did forfeit documents under the demand of the Mexican police. Mujico is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico.
Need Your Help on the Feres Doctrine
Prepare for a little work on your part, it is a fight we need to win.
Reckless medical care, malpractice or malfeasance in the civilian world includes lawsuits and the removal of medical licenses. In the military….any and all active or former military service members can take NO action due to the Feres Doctrine.
OUTRAGEOUS
In 2002, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing to amend the Feres Doctrine or to at least include waiver language. It went no where.
You can read about that hearing at this link and see who was on the committee at the time.
This has nothing to do with the VA, these are military hospitals wherever they are across the world. The military has sovereign immunity.
From an article in 2017:
Under the Feres doctrine, service members are categorically banned from filing suits for harm incurred while on duty. Period, end of story. There are no exceptions, it is absolute.
Since its creation, courts and commentators have vehemently condemned the Feres doctrine. One of its most ardent critics was Antonin Scalia, the legendary conservative Supreme Court justice. In United States v. Johnson, Justice Scalia wrote that “Feres was wrongly decided and heartily deserves the ‘widespread, almost universal criticism’ it has received.” Yet, the Feres doctrine persists as national policy.
The given justification for the Feres doctrine is the protection of good order and discipline within the military. Without a doubt, commanding officers shouldn’t face the threat of a lawsuit for decisions made in combat or in preparing troops for battle. The Feres doctrine, though, goes too far by banning all suits “incident to service.”
Good order and discipline simply would not be harmed by the suit of a soldier burned due to known faulty wiring in his barracks, or a sexual assault victim, or a soldier who was secretly administered LSD to test its effects, or a Marine who had a towel left in his stomach during a routine procedure. Yet, the Feres doctrine summarily bans each of these suits.
By immunizing the military from civil liability, the Feres doctrine increases abuse of power and corruption by military officials. It is common sense that when officials are not held accountable for their misconduct, they tend to abuse their authority. That is why the Founders split the government’s power into three branches and allowed the courts to review the conduct of the other two branches. Judicial review is a cornerstone of our democracy.
Protected from lawsuits, however, military officials are freed from this constitutional accountability framework. Lawsuits not only allow victims of misconduct to be made whole, they inform the public of governmental wrongdoing. This information flow is critical in a representative democracy, where voters cannot change what they do not know.
*** How about the case of a wife and new mother dying due to malpractice?
On March 9, 2014, Walter Daniel’s wife, Lt. Rebekah Daniel, a Navy nurse stationed at Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington, gave birth to a healthy baby girl at the facility where she worked. Four hours after the low-risk childbirth, she died due to blood loss.
In court documents, Daniel alleged the care team failed to prevent postpartum hemorrhaging, which caused Rebekah to lose “more than 1,500 ml of blood – nearly one-third of the amount of blood in the average human body” according to a statement put out by the Luvera Law Firm.
*** Now a terminal cancer case of a Green Beret that the hospital saw during an exam and did nothing, even refused to tell him. He has a year to live.
Sgt. 1st Class Richard Stayskal was deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004 when he was shot by a sniper. The round, which he kept as a souvenir, pierced his left lung and nearly killed him.
The round is “a reminder of how fragile life is,” he told Charlotte’s Fox 46. “Something could change everything in an instant.”
Despite beating the odds of such a grievous wound in combat, something else did change in an instant for the 37-year-old Green Beret when, following a June 2017 visit to a civilian doctor to address severe breathing issues the Army told him was a simple case of pneumonia, he received terrible news.
“Did a biopsy and when I woke up my wife was crying,” Stayskal told Fox 46. “And he [the doctor] was telling her that I had cancer.”
The tumor in Stayskal’s lungs had been egregiously misdiagnosed by Army doctors, the report said, allowing it to double in size and spread to other vital organs — and into stage four terminal lung cancer.
This is a fight we need to win for our war fighters….can you help and call your congress-person or senator and demand a new hearing and amendment to the Feres Doctrine? PLEASE?
There is an unknown number of victims of medical malpractice at military hospitals but does it matter?
This the Reason N Korea Cancelled the Meeting?
The excuses both sides explain scheduling conflicts. C’mon, lil Kim is not exactly that busy to take a meeting with America, right? As North and South Korea have begin to dismantle 20 guard posts along the DMZ. South Korea has 60 such positions while North Korea has an estimated 160. Allegedly, all firearms have been already removed from the guard posts. Personnel is still there but it is said they are unarmed.
Back to that cancelled meeting….
A satellite image of a secret North Korean ballistic missile base. The North has offered to dismantle a different major missile launching site while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others.CreditCreditCSIS/Beyond Parallel, via DigitalGlobe 2018
More detail is explained here.
What is the reason then? Missile sites….hummm
North Korea are still operating undeclared missile bases and even improving some of their missile sites instead of shutting them down.
The latest report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said it had identified 13 of an estimated 20 secret missile operating bases inside North Korea.
They could be used to house ballistic missiles of various ranges, with the largest believed to be capable of striking anywhere in the United States.
The report, written by researcher Joseph Bermudez, said maintenance and minor infrastructure improvements have been observed at some of the sites.
The sites identified in the report are scattered in remote, mountainous areas across North Korea.
It even identified improvements being made to its Sakkanmol site, close to the border with South Korea.
President Trump is still hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
The North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to work towards ‘denuclearization’ at their landmark June summit in Singapore.
Shortly after the summit, Trump tweeted that there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.
North Korea declared its nuclear force ‘complete’ and halted missile and nuclear bomb testing earlier this year.
North Korea has said it has closed its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site and the Sohae missile engine test facility.
It also raised the possibility of shuttering more sites and allowing international inspections if Washington took ‘corresponding measures’.
Last week, North Korea called off a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York.
The country’s state media said on Monday the resumption of some small-scale military drills by South Korea and the United States violated a recent agreement aimed at lowering tensions on the Korean peninsula.
‘Missile operating bases are not launch facilities,’ Bermudez wrote.
‘While missiles could be launched from within them in an emergency, Korean People’s Army (KPA) operational procedures call for missile launchers to disperse from the bases to pre-surveyed or semi-prepared launch sites for operations.’
None of the missile bases have been acknowledged by North Korea, and analysts say an accurate disclosure of nuclear weapons and missile capabilities would be an important part of any denuclearization deal.