Navy SEAL Killed Near Mogadishu. What Are US Troops Doing There?

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A U.S. Navy SEAL was killed in Somalia Thursday on a U.S. mission involving the al-Shabaab terror group. It was the first U.S. military combat death in Somalia since the infamous 1993 Black Hawk Down mission.

Almost immediately upon arriving on a mission location 40 miles west of Mogadishu, American and Somali troops came under intense gunfire.

“We helped bring them in there with our aircraft,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said Friday, per ABC News. “We were there maintaining a distance back as they conducted the operation, that’s when our forces came under fire and we had the unfortunate casualty.”

In addition to the death of the Navy SEAL, two Americans were injured on the “advise-and-assist” mission.

So, what brought brings our troops to the east African state rife with Islamic extremism?

U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) says that American forces are there in an advisory role to the Somali National Army.

“Al-Shabaab presents a threat to Americans and American interests,” AFRICOM said in a statement Friday. “Al Shabaab’s affiliate, al-Qaeda has murdered Americans; radicalizes and recruits terrorists and fighters in the United States; and attempts to conduct and inspire attacks against Americans, our allies and our interests around the world, including here at home.”

U.S. forces are in Somalia to “degrade the al-Qaeda affiliate’s ability to recruit, train and plot external terror attacks throughout the region and in America,” the statement added.

Indeed, al-Shabaab has been able to successfully recruit a number of Somali immigrants resettled in an area of Minnesota that has come to be known as “Little Mogadishu.” As of late 2016, dozens of individuals from Minnesota’s Somali community have been recruited by al-Shabaab, Fox News reports.

However, as CR Senior Editor Michelle Malkin has argued, this internal radicalization issue is also largely due to a broken refugee program that allows individuals from radical Islamic countries to come into the country and live in resettlement zones that are detached from the American melting pot.

And given that Somalia hardly has a functioning government, it’s hard to see how American efforts in the country will pay off in the long term. Additionally, Somalia is one of the least free countries on the planet. Skeptics have challenged the wisdom of an American government picking a winner in a semi-failed state that does not have the ability to defend either its borders or its people.

But U.S. military officials are said to be encouraged by the new president of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo (a dual-American citizen), who is reportedly more invested in the campaign against jihadi terrorism.

There are an untold number of American troops in Somalia (reports range from dozens to hundreds). In April, President Trump authorized a larger troop contingent there to assist in the mission to stave off al-Shabaab. The new deployment will consist of about 40 more soldiers, a military official told CNN.

The U.S. pulled troops out of Somalia after the “Black Hawk Down” battle that saw 18 U.S. servicemen killed and another 73 wounded.

Somalia was one of the countries listed when President Trump attempted to impose an immigration moratorium on individuals coming from radical Islamic strongholds. The executive orders, however, were struck down by federal judges under questionable authority. (For more from the author of “Navy SEAL Killed Near Mogadishu. What Are US Troops Doing There?” please click HERE)

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New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas

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Coming into office, President Donald Trump declared defeating and destroying ISIS to be his foreign policy top priority.

In contrast with the Obama administration, he had no hesitation defining precisely the root of the threat: Islamist terrorism — not vaguely phrased “violent extremism,” “workplace violence” or “manmade contingencies.”

This definition of the threat also needs to come with a far more concise strategy to combat it. The shorthand for the Obama strategy was “CVE,” or “Countering Violent Extremism.”

Like the evasive title, this program failed. The United States continues to face terror attacks from radicalized individuals, such as last year’s Orlando nightclub massacre.

In a recent article for The National Interest, “Top 10 Ways to Make the War on the ‘War of Ideas,’” The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano writes that “the new team in Washington needs to right-size the effort, making it complimentary with effective counterterrorism measures and U.S. strategy overseas.”

Carafano’s 10 points are:

Helping Americans understand the changing nature of the war. This could potentially occur through the creation of a 9/11-style commission to define the threat for this new era.

Do not allow efforts to be captured by ulterior motives. This happens when the perpetrators of violence are excused as victims, and therefore not to blame.

Focus on Islamist threats. The Islamist threat is a very specific and anti-democratic threat that cannot be countered with a generic counterterrorism approach.

Limit domestic programs and keep them modest in character. Overly broad programs to counter radicalization have failed in the past. For instance, one FBI anti-terror program in 2012 identified the real terror threat as right-wing terrorism, not Islamism.

Focus domestic programs on counterterrorism. Identify and hone in on individuals that pose potential threats, and prevent those individuals from successfully striking. Most domestic terrorists have been on law enforcement’s radar screen prior to attacking.

Make domestic programs bottom-up. Equip local communities and law enforcement to confront terrorism, instead of hoping that the federal government can handle the terror threat all by itself.

Emphasize support to the field in overseas programs. Again, local officials and political leaders will be far better equipped than central authorities to deal with radicalization on the ground in trouble spots.

End handouts that don’t deliver. No more government-funded conferences and meetings for ineffective NGOs, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

Avoid obsessing over social media. Social media is not itself the root cause of terror attacks. Social media is a contributing factor in radicalization that is most effective where there is already a local network to carry out attacks.

Drop the label. The Obama administration’s “Countering Violent Extremism” label is too vague. Islamist extremism represents a well-defined threat that we need to fight in the name of all that human decency and liberal democracy stand for.

An 11th point that should be added is the importance of information and communication in defeating the enemy.

For that, the United States government has powerful tools — in particular, the civilian entities of U.S. International Broadcasting under the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

These broadcasters are legitimate and important tools of U.S. foreign policy, and have been ever since they were created in World War II.

The U.S. government has devoted millions of dollars over the last 15 years toward expanding these broadcast services to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with varying degrees of success.

Networks that came from these efforts include the Middle East Broadcasting Network (which consists of Radio Sawa and Al Hurra Television), Voice of America’s Persian News Network, Radio Free Afghanistan and Radio Farda (for Iran) produced by Radio Liberty in Munich.

The Trump team must now create a comprehensive broadcasting strategy to reach and inform audiences who are trapped behind enemy lines, often by autocratic Islamist regimes. This should become part of a clear, focused and revitalized counterterrorism strategy. (For more from the author of “New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas” please click HERE)

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Europe’s Childless Leaders Sleepwalking the West to Disaster

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There have never been so many childless politicians leading Europe as today. They are modern, open minded and multicultural. They know that “everything finishes with them.” In the short term, being childless is a relief since it means no spending for families, no sacrifices and that no one complains about the future consequences. As in a research report financed by the European Union: “No kids, no problem!”

Being a mother or a father, however, means that you have a very real stake in the future of the country you lead. Europe’s most important leaders leave no children behind.

Europe’s most important leaders are all childless: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron. The list continues with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Europe Is Committing Suicide

As Europe’s leaders have no children, they seem have no reason to worry about the future of their continent. German philosopher Rüdiger Safranski wrote:

[F]or the childless, thinking in terms of the generations to come loses relevance. Therefore, they behave more and more as if they were the last and see themselves as standing at the end of the chain.

(For more from the author of “Europe’s Childless Leaders Sleepwalking the West to Disaster” please click HERE)

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US Military Member Killed in Somalia, 1st Death Since 1993

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A U.S. service member has been killed in Somalia during an operation against the extremist group al-Shabab — the first U.S. combat death there in more than two decades — as the United States steps up its fight against the al-Qaida-linked organization in a country that remains largely chaos.

“We do not believe there has been a case where a U.S. service member has been killed in combat action in Somalia since the incident there in 1993,” U.S. Africa Command spokesman Patrick Barnes said Friday. The United States pulled out of Somalia after that incident in which two helicopters were shot down in the capital, Mogadishu, and bodies of Americans were dragged through the streets.

In a statement, the U.S. Africa Command said the service member was killed Thursday during the operation near Barii, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Mogadishu. The Pentagon said two other service members were wounded. (Read more from “US Military Member Killed in Somalia, 1st Death Since 1993” HERE)

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North Korea Accuses US, south Korea of Assassination Attempt

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North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. and South Korean spy agencies of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on leader Kim Jong Un involving biochemical weapons.

In a statement carried on state media, North Korea’s Ministry of State Security said it will “ferret out and mercilessly destroy” the “terrorists” in the CIA and South Korean intelligence agency responsible for targeting its supreme leadership.

North Korea frequently lambasts the United States and South Korea, but its accusation Friday was unusual in its detail. (Read more from “North Korea Accuses US, south Korea of Assassination Attempt” HERE)

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Trump’s First International Trip Shows Middle East a Priority

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President Donald Trump could be indicating his highest international priority in traveling to the Middle East ahead of European summits later this month, experts say, while also honoring three of the world’s major religions.

Trump will travel to Saudi Arabia, then to Israel, and finally to Italy to visit the Vatican in Rome. This will be his first international trip as president.

The president announced the travel to centers of three major religions–Islam, Judaism, and Christianity–during a National Day of Prayer event Thursday in the Rose Garden of the White House.

The trip comes ahead news came ahead of already-scheduled travel to Brussels for the NATO summit May 25 and a Group of Seven, or G7, gathering May 27 in Sicily.

Trump’s travel plans are a good sign to American allies following President Barack Obama’s two terms, said Mike Makovsky, a former Pentagon official who is now the president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

“President Trump has had this image of a great disruptor, but this shows he is a great restorer of our ties with our traditional allies,” Makovsky told The Daily Signal. “This is an important message after eight years of Obama. It reverberates globally by reassuring our traditional allies, who realize this is a good signal.”

Even with other problems abroad such as North Korea, the Trump administration is focusing much attention on the Middle East with challenges including the Islamic State terrorist army, the civil war in Syria, an emboldened Iran, and unstable countries such as Iraq and Libya.

“The Middle East is a big problem and he wants to do something to address it,” said Richard Benedetto, an adjunct professor in American University’s government department, adding:

It’s significant that Saudi Arabia is the first stop. They have been our second-closest ally [after Israel] in the Middle East and our closest Arab ally. Each president–Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama–has worked closely with the Saudis.

While in Saudi Arabia, Trump is scheduled to meet with leaders of the five other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic alliance of Arab nations. They are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

“He recognizes the importance of bringing all of our partners together, and certainly looking for ways that we can combat some of the greatest threats to all of the world,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of the president at a press briefing Thursday. “And that’s going to take some buy-in and some of the people in the Middle East taking a larger stake in that process, and I think that’s a big part of what we’re going to see on that trip.”

America needs the participation of four key countries for a coalition to help stabilize the Middle East and combat the Islamic State—Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—said James Carafano, vice president for national security and foreign policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Trump already has visited with the leaders of Egypt, Israel, and Jordan at the White House. He is going to Saudi Arabia. He will handle the Middle East differently than his immediate predecessors, Obama and Bush, Carafano said.

“This trip will have a specific operational component, it’s not just for balance or checking off boxes,” Carafano told The Daily Signal, adding:

He wants to re-engage with the Middle East, not as Bush did in a muscular way, and obviously not in a lead-from-behind Obama way. Unlike Europe, with the Middle East, everything is bilateral. Relationships are important.

Trump met earlier in the past week with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and frequently has talked about the Middle East peace process. However, showing commitment to a peace deal is as much strategy as it is a goal, Carafano said, explaining that it’s an important way to get Arab allies on board for other U.S. national security priorities.

The third destination, a visit with Pope Francis at the Vatican, might be a harmonious way to check a box after going to the holy cities of Islam and Judaism, Carafano said.

Still, considering the rhetorical clash the pope and Trump had during the 2016 campaign over immigration, Benedetto said, their meeting will have symbolic importance.

“Americans have always seen the pope as a world spiritual leader,” Benedetto said. “Trump’s executive order seemed to be a way of showing he cares for people of faith, and this meeting could show that moral leadership is important to him.”

Trump signed an executive order on religious freedom Thursday that directed the Internal Revenue Service not to target political speech by leaders of churches and other houses of worship. It also eased Obamacare-related regulatory burdens on religious organizations.

Bridging the gap could be worthwhile, said Craig Shirley, a presidential historian whose most recent book is “Reagan Rising: The Decisive Years, 1976 to 1980.”

President Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Pope John Paul II was “world altering” in ending the Cold War, Shirley said.

“I don’t know if we could see that here without a strategic alignment against Islamic terrorism, as there was against Soviet communism,” Shirley told The Daily Signal. “Being from Poland, Pope John Paul II saw Soviet communism first hand. Pope Francis hasn’t directly experienced Islamic terrorism.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s First International Trip Shows Middle East a Priority” please click HERE)

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New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas

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Coming into office, President Donald Trump declared defeating and destroying ISIS to be his foreign policy top priority.

In contrast with the Obama administration, he had no hesitation defining precisely the root of the threat: Islamist terrorism—not vaguely phrased “violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” or “manmade contingencies.”

This definition of the threat also needs to come with a far more concise strategy to combat it. The shorthand for the Obama strategy was “CVE,” or “Countering Violent Extremism.”

Like the evasive title, this program failed. The United States continues to face terror attacks from radicalized individuals, such as last year’s Orlando nightclub massacre.

In a recent article for The National Interest, “Top 10 Ways to Make the War on the ‘War of Ideas,’” The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano writes that “the new team in Washington needs to right-size the effort, making it complimentary with effective counterterrorism measures and U.S. strategy overseas.”

Carafano’s 10 points are:

1. Helping Americans understand the changing nature of the war. This could potentially occur through the creation of a 9/11-style commission to define the threat for this new era.

2. Do not allow efforts to be captured by ulterior motives. This happens when the perpetrators of violence are excused as victims, and therefore not to blame.

3. Focus on Islamist threats. The Islamist threat is a very specific and anti-democratic threat that cannot be countered with a generic counterterrorism approach.

4. Limit domestic programs and keep them modest in character. Overly broad programs to counter radicalization have failed in the past. For instance, one FBI anti-terror program in 2012 identified the real terror threat as right-wing terrorism, not Islamism.

5. Focus domestic programs on counterterrorism. Identify and hone in on individuals that pose potential threats, and prevent those individuals from successfully striking. Most domestic terrorists have been on law enforcement’s radar screen prior to attacking.

6. Make domestic programs bottom-up. Equip local communities and law enforcement to confront terrorism, instead of hoping that the federal government can handle the terror threat all by itself.

7. Emphasize support to the field in overseas programs. Again, local officials and political leaders will be far better equipped than central authorities to deal with radicalization on the ground in trouble spots.

8. End handouts that don’t deliver. No more government-funded conferences and meetings for ineffective NGOs, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

9. Avoid obsessing over social media. Social media is not itself the root cause of terror attacks. Social media is a contributing factor in radicalization that is most effective where there is already a local network to carry out attacks.

10. Drop the label. The Obama administration’s “Countering Violent Extremism” label is too vague. Islamist extremism represents a well-defined threat that we need to fight in the name of all that human decency and liberal democracy stand for.

An 11th point that should be added is the importance of information and communication in defeating the enemy.

For that, the United States government has powerful tools—in particular, the civilian entities of U.S. International Broadcasting under the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

These broadcasters are legitimate and important tools of U.S. foreign policy, and have been ever since they were created in World War II.

The U.S. government has devoted millions of dollars over the last 15 years toward expanding these broadcast services to the Middle East and Afghanistan, with varying degrees of success.

Networks that came from these efforts include the Middle East Broadcasting Network (which consists of Radio Sawa and Al Hurra Television), Voice of America’s Persian News Network, Radio Free Afghanistan, and Radio Farda (for Iran) produced by Radio Liberty in Munich.

The Trump team must now create a comprehensive broadcasting strategy to reach and inform audiences who are trapped behind enemy lines, often by autocratic Islamist regimes. This should become part of a clear, focused, and revitalized counterterrorism strategy. (For more from the author of “New Strategy Needed to Confront Islamist Threats in War of Ideas” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Netanyahu: Abbas Lied to President Trump

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called out Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas for lying to President Donald Trump during their meeting Wednesday.

The leader of the anti-Semitic Palestinian Authority came to the United States as President Trump seeks a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine.

“I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians,” Trump told Reuters last week. “There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians — none whatsoever.”

During a joint press conference with the president, Abbas expressed a desire for peace and claimed that Palestinian children are brought up in a “culture of peace.”

“Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace,” Abbas told Trump. “And we are endeavoring to bring about security, freedom and peace for our children to live like the other children in the world, along with the Israeli children in peace, freedom and security.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu called out Abbas’ egregious lie.

“I heard President Abbas yesterday say that they teach, Palestinians teach their children peace. That’s unfortunately not true,” Netanyahu said Thursday. “They name their schools after mass murderers of Israelis and they pay terrorists.”

President Trump is mistaken if he believes Abbas is genuinely interested in finding peace. The Palestinian leader has a series of ties to terrorist organizations and has previously motivated his people to commit acts of violence against the Israeli people.

Despite Abbas’ history as a bad actor, PM Netanyahu reserves hope that peace can be achieved.

“But I hope that it’s possible to achieve a change and to pursue a genuine peace. This is something Israel is always ready for. I’m always ready for genuine peace,” Netanyahu said.

President Trump has previously criticized the Palestinian authority for teaching their children hate “from a very young age.”

(For more from the author of “Netanyahu: Abbas Lied to President Trump” please click HERE)

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Catholic Hospitals in Belgium Now Provide Euthanasia as an Option for Those With ‘Hopeless Suffering’

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Psychiatric patients in Catholic-run Belgium hospitals will now be given the option to die.

The Belgian branch of the Catholic religious order the Brothers of Charity said on their website that they take patients’ requests to die seriously. Those with “hopeless suffering” are now allowed to die upon request. They will make sure the patient is killed only if they don’t have a “reasonable” prospect of treating them.

The chairman of the hospital’s board told a Belgian news source that allowing people to choose to die is consistent with their criteria for treatment. Now they are making it available as an option. The “inviolability of life” is not an absolute, he said.

The order runs 13 psychiatric clinics in Belgium. Previously, its hospitals had sent people who wanted to die to other hospitals. It began treating the mentally ill in 1815.

A Real Tragedy

The head of Brothers of Charity “strongly opposes” the practice. Speaking to MercatorNet, Brother René Stockman called the decision “a real tragedy.” The order had resisted the push by the Belgian government and medical establishment for widely available euthanasia. Now, he said, the order’s opponents are saying “that finally the group of the Brothers of Charity capitulated and came into their camp.”

Catholic theologian Fr. Thomas Petri told LifeSiteNews he wasn’t surprised. Euthanasia, he said, “is not only an offense against the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but an offense against life itself.”

Petri said the board of Brothers of Charity insist they are both pro-life and pro-euthanasia. The contradiction is irrational. “In the United States, such persons are normally encouraged to seek psychiatric care.”

The order began its work with the mentally ill by “breaking of the shackles used to restrain the mentally ill in the crypts of Gerard the Devil’s Castle in Ghent,” according to its website. Then, they freed them. Now they’ll help them die. (For more from the author of “Catholic Hospitals in Belgium Now Provide Euthanasia as an Option for Those With ‘Hopeless Suffering'” please click HERE)

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U.S. General Confirms: Special Operations Teams Will Be Sent to Take out North Korean Nuke Sites

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With China issuing a final warning to North Korea earlier today, and U.S. President Donald Trump keeping all options on the table as he prepares a response to continued North Korean military posturing and rhetoric, Army General Raymond A. Thomas confirmed in sworn testimony to a Congressional subcommittee that special operations teams will be utilized as part of any conflict with the rogue state and would likely be sent in to secure and/or destroy North Korean nuclear facilities in the event of war:

Army Gen. Raymond A. Thomas stated in testimony to a House subcommittee that Army, Navy, and Air Force commandos are based both permanently and in rotations on the Korean peninsula in case conflict breaks out.

The special operations training and preparation is a warfighting priority, Thomas said in prepared testimony. There are currently around 8,000 special operations troops deployed in more than 80 countries.

“We are actively pursuing a training path to ensure readiness for the entire range of contingency operations in which [special operations forces], to include our exquisite [countering weapons of mass destruction] capabilities, may play a critical role,” he told the subcommittee on emerging threats.

“We are looking comprehensively at our force structure and capabilities on the peninsula and across the region to maximize our support to U.S. [Pacific Command] and [U.S. Forces Korea]. This is my warfighting priority for planning and support.”

…

Special forces troops would be responsible for locating and destroying North Korean nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, such as mobile missiles. They also would seek to prevent the movement of the weapons out of the country during a conflict.

Special operations missions are said by military experts to include intelligence gathering on the location of nuclear and chemical weapons sites for targeting by bombers. They also are likely to include direct action assaults on facilities to sabotage the weapons, or to prevent the weapons from being stolen, or set off at the sites by the North Koreans.

Source: Free Beacon

In earlier reports it was noted that SEALs and other commandos could be used in a first strike to decapitate North Korean leadership at the onset of any military engagement.

The President deployed high-altitude surveillance drones over North Korea earlier this week in a bid to gather intelligence about the secretive country’s nuclear and military capabilities ahead of any military action . . .

The world appears to be moving towards war at a feverish pace. (For more from the author of “U.S. General Confirms: Special Operations Teams Will Be Sent to Take out North Korean Nuke Sites” please click HERE)

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