How About that Immigration Slush Fund?

Posted on July 6, 2015July 6, 2015 by Denise Simon

How about using $1.3 BILLION to fix just one home country first?

First, you need some background on the Department of Homeland Security and how they not only publish crap but how they justify it and then ask for their annual budgetary requirements with glowing accomplishments. So to help you out, click this link and head on over to the Janet Napolitano DHS operations on page 121 and read on if you can stomach the task.

Now, let us move on to the slush fund shall we?

Hat tip to Senator Jeff Sessions, he held a subcommittee meeting in March and discovered a $1.3 billion dollar slush fund and lots of nefarious actions with that money. I watch this stuff on C-Span and report:

“USCIS has been hoarding fees paid by legal immigrants to subsidize the planned new executive amnesty for an estimated five million illegal aliens and failing to screen applicants adequately to prevent criminal aliens from obtaining benefits. In addition, the agency has created a pathway to citizenship for many of these illegal aliens.”

There is more.

“USCIS has accumulated a “reserve fund” of unexpended revenues that now totals $1.2 billion (with a “B”). The agency has a policy to maintain a reserve balance of $600 million to help it manage in the event of revenue fluctuations, but USCIS is using these funds to launch the new executive amnesty programs (without any statutory authorization). One cannot help but wonder how this reserve fund got so big over the years, because by law USCIS is supposed to charge fees that reflect the exact cost of processing the benefits. Did they overcharge millions of legal applicants or cut corners on the processing of benefits? Both?

Sen. Tom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked why USCIS has not used its huge cash reserves to reduce the processing backlogs for legal applicants instead of setting up unconstitutional work permit programs for illegal aliens.

USCIS had already spent $11 million getting ready for the new executive amnesty until it was blocked by a federal judge in mid-February. About $7 million was spent to lease office space in Crystal City, Va., and those rent payments still need to be made whether the program goes forward or not. The total cost of the processing facility alone is estimated to be $26.2 million.

Before the program was stopped, USCIS had hired “one or two” people to work on the program and had made job offers to 360 others, which are now on hold. The plan is for the amnesty applications to be adjudicated by 700-800 brand-new employees, with no experience in evaluating immigration applications.”

You can actually get a few more details here.

Yippee for Senator Cruz, he has introduced A BILL

To eliminate the offsetting accounts that are currently available

for use by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

This is great in action but gaining real traction is slim to none. This is why you need to apply pressure to your respective lawmakers.

Now, USCIS has a website, where a full welcoming and kindly layout encourages anyone into the United States and helps them find a way to do it.

Okay, so remember now that was $1.8 BILLION and that is not including the budget at DHS for 2015. You see, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employs more than 13,000 people and in 2012, there were 72,000 refugee applications and 29,000 asylum applications. Add that to the unknown quantity coming across the border and we have no clue what language we will be required to speak to keep our job.

On page 133 of this latest document:

USCIS ensures that information and decisions on citizenship and immigration benefits are provided to customers in a timely, accurate, consistent, courteous, and professional manner, while also working to safeguard our national security. More than 50 different types of citizenship and immigration benefit applications
are processed by USCIS. Every case is unique and requires specialized attention from experienced USCIS immigration officers. USCIS is also responsible for enhancing the integrity of our country’s legal immigration system by deterring, detecting, and pursuing immigration-related fraud, combating the unauthorized practice of immigration law, and helping to combat unauthorized employment in the workplace.
Each day, USCIS employees work to fulfill the USCIS mission of enhancing both national security and the integrity of the legal immigration system by: (1) identifying threats to national security and public safety posed by those seeking immigration benefits; (2) deterring, detecting, and pursuing, immigration benefit fraud; (3) identifying and removing systemic vulnerabilities in the legal immigration system; and (4) promoting information sharing and collaboration with other governmental agencies.
In addition, USCIS extends humanitarian protection to refugees, both within and outside of the United States, in accordance with U.S. law and international obligations.

There are these 2 samples of how DHS states their accomplishments:

Collaborated in the effort to respond to the April 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings including the establishment of Task Force 1 as a centralized hub for fielding requests from interagency partners.
• Interviewed and performed security checks for approximately 72,000 refugee applicants in more than 66 countries to support the admission of 69,930 refugees to the United States; interviewed, performed security checks, and completed more than 29,000 affirmative asylum applications; and performed more than 43,000 asylum screenings for reasonable and credible fear.

Sheesh….How many questions need to be asked now? The first one is how is this fleecing of the American taxpayer a benefit and what is the threat matrix to our national security?

What Now For Cuba

Posted on July 5, 2015July 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Cuba’s economic freedom score is 29.6, making its economy one of the world’s least free. Its overall score is 0.9 point higher than last year, with a slight deterioration in monetary freedom outweighed by improvements in three of the 10 economic freedoms, including trade freedom, fiscal freedom, and freedom from corruption. Cuba is ranked least free of 29 countries in the South and Central America/Caribbean region, and its overall score is significantly lower than the regional average.

In recent years, the government has made measured concessions to encourage more entrepreneurship and private-sector growth. Communist Party–endorsed reforms to cut government payrolls and expand approved professions have not been broad enough to ensure any meaningful advancement in overall economic freedom. The state continues to interfere in most economic activity. Price controls are pervasive, and the two-tiered exchange rate regime continues to distort prices.

Despite membership in the World Trade Organization, the economy remains relatively cut off from the international marketplace. Only state enterprises are allowed to engage in international trade and investment. The state uses an oppressive regulatory environment to suppress entrepreneurial activity and controls most means of production. Shallow credit markets impede access to credit for business activities.

Cuba is demanding the return of Guantanamo Base, stating it is illegally occupied. The military base goes far beyond being a detention center since 1907. It should be noted that many Cubans not only work at Base Guantanamo but live there as well, under the American flag.

U.S. Cuba Policy: Where Things Stand Now

WSJ:

President Barack Obama announced in December that the U.S. was moving to normalize relations with Cuba after over 50 years of Cold War enmity. That moment was both symbolic and practical, as he took steps to begin removing restrictions on travel and trade. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama announced that the U.S. will formally restore diplomatic ties and reopen its embassy in Havana.

What exactly has changed since December and where are we now? The Wall Street Journal explains:

Can I travel to Cuba now?

That depends. Traveling to Cuba from the U.S. as a tourist is still illegal. But 12 categories of people, including close relatives of Cubans, academics, journalists, people participating in educational programs, and people on humanitarian or religious missions can go to the island provided they say their trip falls within one of those categories. Airlines can fly to Cuba without obtaining special licenses, but flights to Cuba are charters—not yet commercial flights. Several U.S. ferry companies have received licenses to operate routes between ports in Florida and Cuba, but the proposed ferry services must receive Havana’s approval.

Can U.S. companies do business there?

Mr. Obama also took steps to loosen financial restrictions, but most trade remains illegal and will require congressional action before changing. Mr. Obama eased some rules to permit increased exports of U.S. telecommunications and other technological goods to the island, as well as building materials. Mr. Obama also made it easier for exports of agricultural and medical supplies and goods to Cuba’s nascent private sector.

U.S. banks are allowed to establish correspondent accounts in Cuba, and U.S. citizens now can use credit and debit cards there. But activity under Mr. Obama’s measures are slow-going, in part due to a lack of clarity about the regulations. U.S. officials have said they’re likely to be updated as more people try to use them.

What have been the big milestones so far?

The first big moments, of course, were the announcements by Mr. Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in December that the former Cold War foes would renew relations, the culmination of 18 months of secret talks.

Then, in January, loosened travel and trade regulations went into effect, and the U.S. and Cuba began negotiating reopening embassies and restoring diplomatic ties.

In April, Messrs. Obama and Castro met at the Summit of the Americas, the first substantive discussion between U.S. and Cuban presidents since 1956.

In May, the Obama administration lifted Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. That was a critical step toward restoring diplomatic relations, but didn’t have much practical effect, as Congressional sanctions still ban Cuba from arms exports and sales, from receiving U.S. economic assistance and from conducting most trade.

Wednesday’s announcement that the two countries are formally restoring diplomatic ties was another big step.

The next milestones will be reopening ceremonies for embassies in both countries. Cuba announced it would host its event in Washington on July 20 and its delegation will be led by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. The U.S. hasn’t set a date for its flag raising, but said Secretary of State John Kerry will be there to do the honors.

Now what?

The U.S. and Cuba will begin lots of bilateral talks and efforts to cooperate in areas including law enforcement, development, human rights, counterterrorism and antinarcotics. Talks will also begin on property claims and the Cuban government’s claims against the U.S. The U.S. has also said Cuba has agreed to talks about extraditing fugitives, though it’s unclear what will happen with some of the higher-profile ones, including JoAnne Chesimard, now known as Assata Shakur, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. Cuba granted her asylum after she escaped from prison in 1979.

The spotlight moves to Congress now, where lawmakers must act to lift bans on travel and trade. Church groups, agricultural groups, business groups and others are supportive of lifting the ban. The White House is counting on these independent stakeholders to pressure Congress to act. It’s likely to be a long battle, with supporters of normalization taking a piecemeal approach to chipping away at the embargo.

The White House backs that strategy, and a move to lift the travel ban is likely to be the first step in the process.

Obama’s Middle East Policy is IN This Book

Posted on July 4, 2015July 4, 2015 by Denise Simon

2003:

At Khalidi’s 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.”

One speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been “blinded by ideology.”

2004

Rashid Khalidi wrote a book. Fittingly the title is ‘Resurrecting Empire’. Released in 2004, Khalidi cherry picked facts to build his case against any Western intervention into the Middle East and wrote often about early colonization and occupation by Britain and France with the aid of the United States. How many times have we heard the words colonization and occupation out of this White House?

2008

CHICAGO — It was a celebration of Palestinian culture — a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking. Obama also calls for the U.S. to talk to such declared enemies as Iran, Syria and Cuba. But he argues that the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, is an exception, calling it a terrorist group that should renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist before dialogue begins. That viewpoint, which also matches current U.S. policy, clashes with that of many Palestinian advocates who urge the United States and Israel to treat Hamas as a partner in negotiations.

2010

From Politico: An Arab-American activist who attended an outreach session at the White House complex in April had his Chicago home raided by the FBI last week and appears to be a focus of an unfolding federal terrorism-support investigation.

Hatem Abudayyeh, who serves as executive director of the Arab-American Action Network, took part in a meeting for Arab-American leaders held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 22, according to appointment data posted on the White House website.

FBI agents executed a search warrant at Abudayyeh’s Chicago home as part of a coordinated series of raids involving at least one other Chicago site, along with the homes of anti-war activists in Minnesota. A copy posted on the web of a grand jury subpoena served on one target of the raids in Minneapolis demands “all records of any payment provided directly or indirectly to Hatem Abudayyeh, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (“PFLP”) or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (“FARC”).”

A search warrant served on a Minneapolis anti-war activist, Michael Kelly, ordered agents to seize records relating to Kelly’s travels to “Palestine, Colombia, and … within the United States.” It also mentions possible connections to Hezbollah.

The warrant and subpoena suggest the probe, which is being run by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago, is focusing on illegal support for terrorist organizations, particularly by a Minnesota-based group called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. PFLP, FARC and Hezbollah are designated as terrorist groups by the U.S. government. A spokesman for Fitzgerald’s office declined to comment on the probe.

In a 2006 interview with Fight Back News, an outlet run by Minneapolis activist Kelly, Abudayyeh seemed to disagree rather strenuously with at least some of the U.S. government’s use of the “terrorist” label.

“The U.S. and Israel will continue to describe Hamas, Hezbollah and the other Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organizations as ‘terrorists,’ but the real terrorists are the governments and military forces of the U.S. and Israel,” Abudayyeh said. “The vast majority of the world sees and understands this, and are in full support of Lebanese, Palestinian and worldwide resistance to Israel and the U.S.’s naked aggression, war, imperialism and occupation.”

2011

In part from TWS:

Barack Obama and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi both taught at the University of Chicago in the ’90s, and at a farewell dinner for Khalidi in 2003, Obama warmly praised Khalidi’s advice, which took the form of “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.” Since the Los Angeles Times never released its videotape of the event, we may never know Obama’s blind spots or the enlightenment on offer from his friend and colleague Khalidi—a PLO spokesman in Beirut during the Lebanese civil wars.

Khalidi has denied his role with the PLO, but Martin Kramer, the Wexler-Fromer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has him dead to rights. On his website, www.martinkramer.org, Kramer explains that between 1976 and 1982 Khalidi was consistently identified—by, among others, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times—as a PLO spokesman, without once demanding a correction. Still, all Khalidi will admit today is that he was “deeply involved in politics in Beirut.”

Perhaps it’s understandable that Khalidi won’t come clean about his role in the civil wars, for everyone came out of the conflict dripping with blood, not just the Christians and Israelis, but the Palestinians, too. Why the Christians are typically censured for their brutality while the PLO seems to get a pass from so many U.S. analysts, journalists, and even former government employees like Pillar is strange, especially since PLO chairman Yasser Arafat showed that, unlike the Lebanese Forces, he was willing to kill Americans as well.

In summary, is can be stated that the basis of Barack Obama’s policy on Israel and the rest of the Middle East is grounded in the book, authored by Khalidi. From the word ‘resurrection’ in the title, to relations with Israel, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and even Cuba, now Venezuela is on the near horizon.

Fits like a globe….

The Truth About a Mexican Border Town

Posted on July 3, 2015July 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

In April of 2015, Mexican authorities arrested the head of the Juarez Cartel, one of Mexico’s leader of the dark underworld of the country. Jesus Salas Aquayo was on the DEA most wanted list.

Jesus Salas

Now for the Great Trial and perhaps some truth about Mexico, right at our southern border.

Juarez’s Missing Girls Were Sex Slaves—And Everyone Knew It

From the Daily Beast:

Hundreds of women have been murdered or simply disappeared in the city in the last five years. This case is about only 11 of them, but it’s a beginning.

In the Juárez media, it is being called the Great Trial, the first in 20 years to tackle the issue of femicides—a term for the hundreds of unsolved murders and forcible disappearances of women in the city that sits just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

The news magazine Proceso reports 727 such disappearances between 2010 and 2014, and many more such crimes date at least as far back as the early 1990s.

Altogether 158 witnesses have testified in this case so far. Only six men are in the dock, accused of sex trafficking and the kidnapping and murder of 11 young women in Ciudad Juárez, but the institutions of Mexican law and order are on trial as well.

“The hypothesis of corruption and collusion, the complicity of police, is sustained by witnesses,” Santiago González, a lawyer with the Women’s Roundtable of Juárez, which represents the families of three of the victims, told The Daily Beast. “Organized crime always has to operate with the collusion or participation of the authorities.”

The tendency in hundreds of prior cases was for investigators to treat the disappearances as isolated instances, rather than the work of organized crime. Then in January 2012 the remains of 21 young women between the ages of 15 and 21 were found discarded in a dry stream bed called Arroyo del Navajo, 80 miles southeast of the city in the Juárez Valley.

The site where the remains were found is so rugged the detectives had to use all-terrain vehicles to reach it. DNA analysis showed a match with genetic material from the mothers of 11 of the young women who had disappeared in downtown Juárez in 2009 and 2010.

The six defendants on trial are being identified as members of Los Aztecas, a street gang linked to the Juárez cartel. Numerous witnesses have testified the defendants operated a kidnapping ring in plain sight in downtown Juárez from 2008 to at least 2011. They are accused of terrorizing girls between the ages of 15 and 21 born to humble families, coercing them into prostitution, and disposing of them as they pleased.

Implicit in the trial proceedings, which began in April, is the question of how organized crime could operate so brazenly for years in the busiest part of the city. The question looms even more starkly when one considers the period in question was when some 6,800 Mexican soldiers and 2,300 Federal Police were deployed to the area to combat organized crime as part of the “Joint Operation Chihuahua” decreed by then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

On June 1, a protected witness who is an admitted member of Los Aztecas testified he was responsible for paying the police to turn a blind eye to the group’s business of kidnapping and forced prostitution. The protected witness, identified by the initials LJRL, told the court that the Federal Police and Mexican Army occasionally accepted sex with the underage prostitutes in lieu of cash (some soldiers in the Army, for example, “asked to keep the girls a day or two for pleasure.”)

“Sometimes it was my job to pay the city, state, and federal police,” he continued, “besides that we were always in radio contact with them and they would tell us what was going on, how ‘hot’ things were in The Valley, what the ‘doubles’ [nickname for the Artist Assassins, an enemy gang] were up to, what they were doing, because we had to stay on our toes and be ready for when things got hot.”

LJRL, who for reasons of security testified in a separate room adjoining the court, said two high-ranking leaders of Los Aztecas ran the gang’s sex-trafficking operation from inside the walls of two prisons in Juárez. The gang leaders in question—Jesús Damián Pérez Ortega (alias El Patachú), and Pedro Payán Gloria (alias El Pifas)—were free to enter and exit the state prison “to cool off when things got hot.”

He said “El Pifas” was also the gang’s intermediary with Mexican soldiers stationed beyond the city limits:

Q. To clarify, why did this man you call El Pifas, why was he in communication with soldiers?

A. Because it was another point where women were kidnapped from, sometimes they asked to keep them a day or two for pleasure, if you will, or to hold the girls, it was also a point where the women were held en route to being transported to the United States or wherever it was they were being taken to.

The homicide rate in Juárez from 2008 to 2010 rose to be among the very highest in the world. Overlooked at times amid the all-encompassing violence were the unexplained disappearances of hundreds of young women, and it’s now obvious that the sex-trafficking operation brought to light at trial was hidden in plain sight. The 11 victims whose remains were identified had been kidnapped in broad daylight in the busy market area in downtown, a block or two from the Spanish cathedral in the main square.

Perla Ivonne Aguirre Gonzalez, 15, was abducted not long after the end of her shift at a fast-food restaurant downtown. Deysí Ramírez Muñoz, 16, was dismissed from her factory job without warning at 8 a.m. Her family suspects she was kidnapped on her return home, while changing buses downtown. Jazmín Salazar Ponce, 17, went to ask for a job at a shoe store downtown and disappeared.

State prosecutor Jorge González said some of the defendants were passing themselves off as small-business owners in the busy area of Reforma Market downtown. Witnesses described a grocery store with no merchandise, a shoe store with no customers, a modeling agency with no furniture. They were business fronts set up so the criminal could talk to the young women and ask questions to see if they had a network of support in place.

A protected witness identified in court by the initials KDM was a female employee of the grocery store. She said while she was employed there she frequently saw municipal and federal police enter through a side entrance.

“On public transportation, in jails, hotels, businesses—how could this be happening downtown and not be seen?” asked Imelda Marrufo, a lawyer and the director of the Women’s Roundtable of Ciudad Juárez, in an interview with The Daily Beast.

Referring to the overwhelming presence of Federal Police and Mexican soldiers in Juárez at the time, she said “Military checkpoints were part of the fabric of the city. With so much vigilance they must have seen the girls being transported around the city, and out of the city. The mothers want answers for why nothing was done to stop it.”

What’s more, according to numerous witnesses at trial, many of the young women who were murdered had been prostituted at a brothel no more than a few blocks from a police precinct headquarters. The brothel, called the Hotel Verde, is also near the Santa Fe International Bridge that links Juárez to El Paso, Texas. The Hotel Verde was a three-story headquarters for Los Aztecas, with prostitution on the first and second floors, and a drug warehouse on the third.

Two Federal Police officers were murdered at the Hotel Verde under unexplained circumstances in 2010.

LJRL testified that after the women were kidnapped downtown, they were transported to a neighborhood close by, and held at a safe house located eight blocks from a municipal police station. The safe house functioned as a hub for shuttling the kidnap victims to one of several locations in the city, and some out of state.

The sex trafficking was widespread enough that brothel owners advertised to sex traffickers like Los Aztecas in the classified section of the newspaper PM.

“What [LJRL] is saying is not an exclusive,” said the lawyer Santiago González. “He is only corroborating what many other witnesses have said.”

Asked why no police or soldiers had been indicted as part of the proceedings against Los Aztecas, González said the evidence is only being heard for the first time.

“It’s up to the authorities what they’re going to do with that information,” he said.

“The case won’t be closed. It is a very important step, but only the first step.”

This is the first case of sex trafficking prosecuted by the office of the state’s special counsel for crimes against women, which was formed back in 2012. At this one trial, some 300 witness eventually are expected to testify.

The Words in General Dempsey’s Swan Song

Posted on July 2, 2015July 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

Si Vis pacem, para bellum

GW Bush said it was going to be a long war when the top enemy was al Qaeda. Defeat was realized until the rules of engagement and strategy were altered dynamically month by month beginning in 2009.

There is Russia and Ukraine as noted by the Institute for the Study of War.

Then there is the Baltic Balance as summarized by the Rand Corporation.

There is Islamic State throughout the Middle East region where the caliphate is beyond incubation.

An outcome of the Iran P5+1 talk on the nuclear program is eminent and that could spell an armed conflict that includes Saudi Arabia and or Israel.

The forgotten region is the South China Sea.

Dempsey’s Final Instruction to the Pentagon, Prepare for a Long War

By: Marcus Weisgerber

Non-state actors, like ISIS, are among the Pentagon’s top concerns, but so are hybrid wars in which nations like Russia support militia forces fighting on their behalf in Eastern Ukraine threaten national security interests, Dempsey writes.

“Hybrid conflicts also may be comprised of state and non-state actors working together toward shared objectives, employing a wide range of weapons such as we have witnessed in eastern Ukraine,” Dempsey writes. “Hybrid conflicts serve to increase ambiguity, complicate decision-making, and slow the coordination of effective responses. Due to these advantages to the aggressor, it is likely that this form of conflict will persist well into the future.”

Dempsey also warns that the “probability of U.S. involvement in interstate war with a major power is … low but growing.”

“We must be able to rapidly adapt to new threats while maintaining comparative advantage over traditional ones. Success will increasingly depend on how well our military instrument can support the other instruments of power and enable our network of allies and partners,” Dempsey writes.

The strategy also calls for greater agility, innovation and integration among military forces.

“[T]he 2015 strategy recognizes that success will increasingly depend on how well our military instrument supports the other instruments of national power and how it enables our network of allies and partners,” Dempsey said Wednesday.

The military will continue its pivot to the Pacific, Dempsey writes, but its presence in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa will evolve. The military must remain “globally engaged to shape the security environment,” he said Wednesday.

The Russian campaign in Ukraine has military strategists questioning if traditional U.S. military force as it is deployed globally is still — or enough of — a deterrence to hybrid and non-state threats like today’s terrorism. “If deterrence fails, at any given time, our military will be capable of defeating a regional adversary in a large-scale, multi-phased campaign while denying the objectives of – or imposing unacceptable costs on – another aggressor in a different region,” Dempsey writes.

The chairman also criticizes Beijing’s “aggressive land reclamation efforts” in the South China Sea where it is building military bases in on disputed islands. In the same region, on North Korea, “In time, they will threaten the U.S. homeland,” Dempsey writes, and mentions Pyongyang’s alleged hack of Sony’s computer network.

Dempsey scolds Iran, which is in the midst of negotiating a deal with Washington to limit its nuclear program, for being a “state-sponsor of terrorism that has undermined stability in many nations, including Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.”

Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, Dempsey writes, are not “believed to be seeking direct military conflict with the United States or our allies,” but the U.S. military needs to be prepared.

“Nonetheless, they each pose serious security concerns which the international community is working to collectively address by way of common policies, shared messages, and coordinated action,” Dempsey said.

Prepare for a long war. General Dempsey is retiring as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and will likely move on to academia. Meanwhile, on July 9, the Senate Armed Services will hold a confirmation hearing for General Joseph Dunford.

As General Dempsey is making his farewell rounds, his words speak to some liberation in saying what needs to be said in his swan song.

In a new National Military Strategy, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warns the Pentagon to reorganize its global footprint to combat prolonged battles of terrorism and proxy wars.

The U.S. military needs to reorganize itself and prepare for war that has no end in sight with militant groups like the Islamic State and nations that use proxies to fight on their behalf, America’s top general warned Wednesday.

In what is likely his last significant strategy direction before retiring this summer, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon that “global disorder has trended upward while some of our comparative advantages have begun to erode,” since 2011, the last update to the National Military Strategy.

“We are more likely to face prolonged campaigns than conflicts that are resolved quickly… that control of escalation is becoming more difficult and more important… and that as a hedge against unpredictability with reduced resources, we may have to adjust our global posture,” Dempsey writes in the new military strategy.

Dempsey, the president’s senior military advisor, criticizes Russia, Iran, North Korea and China for aggressive military actions and warns that the rapidly changing global security environment might force the U.S. military to reorganize as it prepares for a busy future.

The military has been shrinking since 2012, when the Obama administration announced plans to pivot forces to the Asia-Pacific region as troops withdrew from Afghanistan and Iraq. But since then, Obama slowed the Afghanistan withdrawal as fighting continues there, and thousands of American military forces have found themselves back in the Middle East and North Africa conducting airstrikes, gathering intelligence and training and advising Iraqi soldiers that are battling ISIS. Since U.S. forces are not deployed to Iraq in a combat role, significantly fewer numbers are needed compared to the hundreds of thousands troops that were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. Still, U.S. commanders have repeatedly said it will take decades to defeat ISIS, and a stronger nonmilitary effort to defeat the ideology that fuels Islamic extremist groups.

Dempsey also warns that the “probability of U.S. involvement in interstate war with a major power is … low but growing.”

The strategy also calls for greater agility, innovation and integration among military forces.

Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, Dempsey writes, are not “believed to be seeking direct military conflict with the United States or our allies,” but the U.S. military needs to be prepared.