Biden Takes Apology Tour to Turkish, Muslim Brotherhood-Loving Erdogan

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The Obama administration’s years-long international apology tour continues with its latest stop in Turkey, where Vice President Joe Biden expressed regret to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that he couldn’t have come to the Islamist strongman’s aid sooner after the failed coup last month.

“The American people stand with you; we’ve stood with you from the beginning,” Biden said at a joint news conference the nation’s capital, Ankara. Barack Obama was one of the first people to call. But I do apologize, I wish I could have been here earlier.”

This is, of course, the same Islamist strongman who’s imprisoned tens of thousands of citizens during the country’s political unrest and has been accused of a laundry list of human rights violations, including torture, a crackdown on freedom of the press, and the subversion of the rule of law.

As expected, Biden avoided public criticism of the recent purge, in which The New York Times reported almost 9,000 police officers have been fired, a third of the country’s private school teachers have been suspended, and over 10,000 soldiers have been detained.

Rather, during his time in the Middle Eastern nation, “Biden [was] expected to emphasize to Turkish officials that the purge was damaging perceptions of Turkey within the U.S., Europe and the business community,” an unnamed U.S. official told Bloomberg News.

This meeting-and-apology move is obviously an attempt to keep a finally-engaged Turkey involved in regional efforts against ISIS, which did far more harm than good as the insurgency gained ground after its precipitous rise to power in 2014.

As I have previously written:

Erdogan’s tenure in control of the country began in 2003, when he became prime minister and has continued through his assumption of the office of president in 2014. During this time, he has gained a reputation as a strongman politician who is cozy with the Muslim Brotherhood, and bent on Islamizing Turkey. Additionally, he’s been roundly criticized for his compliance in the rise of ISIS, stemming from a willful blindness to the insurgent threat. In fact, it’s almost impossible to imagine a rise of ISIS without a poorly-managed Turkish border allowing both the influx of foreign fighters to enter the so-called caliphate, while allowing smuggled oil and antiquities to come out.

In fact, Biden’s last public apology to his “old friend” was in direct connection to Turkey’s complacency in regard to ISIS’ rise. In 2014, he called Erdogan and publicly apologized for implying that the Turkish president’s inactions were partially responsible for strengthening the jihadist organization’s presence in the region.

Nonetheless, the Obama administration is making sure that it’s on record propping up the Muslim Brotherhood-loving, ISIS-complicit strongman, who will be more than emboldened to continue turning his country into a Sunni version of Iran.

This, of course, all lines up with the Obama administration’s past. It offered outspoken support for former Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi (a former Muslim Brotherhood member) during the North African country’s 2013 revolution and other policies that abetted the growth of the jihadist presence in other areas of the continent. And all that is not to mention former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s abysmal China policy that signaled to the country’s communist government that its egregious religious freedom violations would go unchallenged.

But that’s the Obama Doctrine for you. (For more from the author of “Biden Takes Apology Tour to Turkish, Muslim Brotherhood-Loving Erdogan” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Stealth War: Placing Special Ops in Syria and Libya … to What End?

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Place our brave soldiers into an Islamic civil war first, ask questions about national security interests and strategy later. That has essentially been the modus operandi of our military adventures in the Middle East for this past generation.

In the waning months of the Obama presidency, few in the media have bothered to report that Obama is continuing to ratchet up the missions of our special operators, using them as his private mercenary force to save political face from quagmires in the Middle East until he leaves the White House and everything falls apart on the watch of the next president. As we observed in July, despite the much-vaunted debate over pulling out from Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama has actually increased troop levels in those regions in recent months. At the same time, he has placed draconian restrictions on their ability to fight the enemy and has failed to formulate any long-term strategic goals.

Meanwhile, the Taliban reportedly operate in more territory than they did before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The military just dispatched another 100 soldiers to Helmand province, which is overrun by the Taliban. Earlier today, at least one U.S. soldier was killed there in a roadside bombing and another one was seriously injured. What exactly are these 100 soldiers to do? How many more good men have to die for an aimless mission to prop up a Sharia government?

Obama wants to use our special ops as his private band aid as a panacea for the deep wounds he has sown throughout the region. Misusing special operators for impetuous crisis management with no broader strategy allows Obama to keep troop levels artificially low and avoid scrutiny from Congress or the media. Now he has added two more theaters to the war to nowhere: Libya and Syria.

Libya

Although the dubious mission behind Benghazi might seem like a thing of the past, our lack of strategy in the country has continued to fester since 2012. Obama has kept special operators on the ground for years, and now, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is finally admitting that they are involved in ground and air campaigns against the Islamic State in Sirte. While any war against the Islamic State sounds worthy, Obama is getting us sucked into the same Middle East sink hole that has plagued us for over a decade. Who exactly are we fighting for? Who will hold this ground?

While our troops on the ground are busy fighting an aimless war, the elected government in Tobruk just voted against joining the US-backed (and UN) Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. Obama is trying to successfully block reformers from fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, much like he tried to do in Egypt against the government of el-Sisi.

In 2014, the only democratically held elections resulted in the creation of a government in Tobruk (northeastern Libya) committed to rooting out the radical Islamists. The duly-elected Libyan House of Representatives appointed Khalifa Haftar commander of the Libyan army. Haftar successfully took back much of eastern Libya from the radical Islamists and fought the various terrorist factions, including those associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Haftar was so feared by the Islamists that Ansar al Sharia, the group behind the Benghazi attack, accused Haftar of launching “a war against the religion and Islam backed by the West and their Arab allies.” Naturally, Obama and the international community didn’t appreciate the war on their Muslim Brotherhood friends so they installed a government in Tripoli, which includes a number of Islamist factions and is not very popular. Now, the Tobruk government has rejected the U.S. backed government – all the while our troops are on the ground fighting for …?

Syria

It’s not just the Islamic State that is in Syria. A multitude of Islamic factions, along with the Assad Administration, are fighting each other. Yet, our special operators are on the ground there to help “the rebels.” Not only is it unclear what ground they are holding and for whom, our soldiers are not even allowed to engage in combat while being placed in combat. As Eli Lake reported last week, their job is to not get shot at! This is similar to the dynamic in Afghanistan where special operators are being tasked with keeping the entire country together with a small force but they must call a lawyer before even calling in close air support. What happens when our soldiers are placed in an untenable situation? Last week, they were almost bombed by Syrian aircraft because nobody is coordinating a broader mission there that serves our strategic interests.

Syria is full of multiple enemy factions. Al Nusra recently decided to get in on the “Syrian rebel” racket that western countries have been offering. They decided to cut ties with Al Qaeda and rename themselves Jabhat Fath al-Sham (JFS), seizing the opportunity to unite the rebel factions. They now have an English-speaking Aussie spokesman with a Twitter account to boot. So will Obama’s myopic focus in Syria now lead him to back these Islamists as well simply because they are rebels? It’s no coincidence that Obama’s UN envoy vetoed an effort to designate Ahar-al-Sham, a close ally of Nusra, as a terror group. After all, these Islamist rebels have been more “effective” against the Islamic State than the Pentagon-backed rebels, who themselves have been pitted against CIA-backed rebels.

As Andy McCarthy puts it, by doubling down on the Syrian engagement “we’d simply be empowering one set of anti-American Islamists against another.” The entire effort against Assad and the Islamic State is dominated by groups with ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as Thomas Joscelyn chronicles so clearly at The Long War Journal. What do we stand to benefit from getting involved in a viper pit full of enemy factions?

Why are we placing our troops into this untenable circus without first formulating a long-term plan? When there is no big picture of what we are fighting for, or worse, if we are downright fighting for the Muslim Brotherhood, the last thing we should be doing is placing our troops on the battlefield.

When Congress returns from summer recess, they have the opportunity to address Obama’s backwards strategy in the Middle East in both the defense authorization bill and the continuing resolution funding bill for fiscal year 2017. They can easily bar any funding, training, and equipping of rebel groups in Syria and deny any logistical support for the inept GNA in Libya. Given the track record of this Republican Congress, it’s unlikely they will even raise any concerns over Obama’s “strategy,” much less take any action. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Stealth War: Placing Special Ops in Syria and Libya … to What End?” please click HERE)

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Mass Casualties Reported After Car Bomb Goes off in Popular Resort Area

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A car bomb blast ripped through a hotel in Thailand on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring 29.

“The explosion happened near a hotel in the province of Pattani, an area popular with Western tourists in the country’s south,” the Daily Mail reported.

“Pictures have emerged showing the remains of a building and a fire raging inside. The nationality of those caught up in the blast is not yet known,” the outlet added.

According to RT.com, the Thai government is reporting the attacks were carried out by a group of at least 20, though denying the perpetrators are Malay-Muslim insurgents.

The attack comes days after eight simultaneous explosions rocked the seaside resort of Hua Hin last month, killing two and wounding 21.

The State Department has listed no recent travel warnings regarding Thailand.

The West Bank and Gaza Strip of Israel, Iran, North Korea, Congo, Turkey and Honduras are among locations the State Department has issued recent warnings.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has said there is a “high threat from terrorism” in Thailand.

It has also advised against “all but essential travel to the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla on the Thai-Malaysia border.”

The Bangkok Post offered a list of recent bombings. In February of this year, a car bomb detonated outside a police station in the southern Thailand, injuring seven.

The deadliest attack in recent years happened in October 2010, when a blast at a Bangkok apartment complex killed four people. The government blamed the incident on the anti-government Red Shirt movement, which denied any involvement, according to the Post. (For more from the author of “Mass Casualties Reported After Car Bomb Goes off in Popular Resort Area” please click HERE)

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The Next Steps on the Road to Brexit

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Britain’s vote to leave the European Union on June 23 was a milestone in the history of the United Kingdom, and of the defense of British freedom and sovereignty. But it was also just the start of securing Britain’s independence. It is one thing to vote to stand on your own two feet, it is another thing to do it.

Since the vote, Britain has put in place a new government, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, with many prominent leaders of the “leave” campaign—including former London Mayor Boris Johnson and former Defense Secretary Liam Fox—in key positions, with Johnson taking the foreign secretary job.

Fox’s position, as the head of the new ministry for international trade, is particularly significant. Ever since it joined the EU in 1973, Britain hasn’t been able to negotiate its own trade treaties. When Britain leaves the EU, it will recover that right.

It’s vital that Britain rebuild the necessary negotiating expertise, and equally vital that this job be held by an outward-looking and senior figure in the governing Conservative Party, who, like Fox, fully backed Britain’s exit from the EU.

So far, prominent government officials or business leaders in at least 27 nations—including eight of the 10 largest economies in the world—have backed negotiating a trade deal with Britain. And the British economy, far from collapsing in the aftermath of the vote, has seen unemployment fall and sales surge.

But though Britain has voted to leave the EU, it has yet to take the necessary first formal step: to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union, and commence formal negotiations on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal. It’s now possible that Article 50 might not be invoked until mid-2017, a worrying delay.

Then, as Britain negotiates, it will need to repeal the British laws that brought Britain into the EU in the first place. Finally, it will have to establish a mechanism to review the entire body of EU law that now operates in Britain. There’s so much of this that Parliament will have to find a way to streamline the process—conducting a line-by-line review would take an eternity.

Then there are a host of vital questions for particular sectors of the economy. The British government has already announced that it will continue to pay farming and scientific subsidies until 2020, but what happens after that is still unclear. Similarly, there is the issue of what should happen to the EU citizens who were legally employed in Britain on June 23, and the reciprocal question about the rights of British subjects who were working on, or who retired to, the Continent.

Beyond all these questions is a final, vital one: What kind of relationship should Britain seek to have with the EU after it leaves? Some Brexit supporters want to stay in the European Economic Area, which would allow Britain to keep its current access to the EU’s single market.

Others, however, point out that being in the European Economic Area means being subject to the EU’s rules, contributing to the EU’s budget, and allowing free movement of labor from the EU. In other words, it means keeping most of the things that British voters rejected on June 23. The alternative, therefore, is for Britain to become completely independent, and to negotiate a trade deal with the EU from outside the economic area.

In short, many uncertainties remain. But believers in free markets and free peoples have been thinking about these problems for years. Indeed, in 2013, the Institute of Economic Affairs, a leading free-market think tank in London, held a competition to find the best plan for Britain after Brexit.

We are delighted to welcome the joint authors of one of the prize-winning essays from the Institute of Economic Affairs’ competition, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Rory Broomfield of the Freedom Association and its Better Off Out campaign, to The Heritage Foundation to present an updated edition of their plan, “Cutting the Gordian Knot: A Road Map for British Exit from the European Union,” on Wednesday, Aug. 24, at 1 p.m.

Joining the authors will be Marian L. Tupy, of the Cato Institute, who will comment on the plan, and Victoria Coates, national security adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who will offer Capitol Hill’s perspective on Brexit and the future of Anglo-American relations after June 23.

Please join us on Wednesday for a look, from both British and American perspectives, at the next steps in achieving Britain’s independence from the EU and making Brexit a reality. (For more from the author of “The Next Steps on the Road to Brexit” please click HERE)

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Coalition Jets Scrambled to Defend U.S. Forces From Syrian Bombing

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A U.S.-led coalition sent aircraft into northeastern Syria on Thursday in a “very unusual” move to protect American special operation ground forces from attacks by Syrian government jets, a Pentagon official said on Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters the coalition aircraft reached the area around the city of Hasaka as the two Syrian SU-24s were leaving, and the U.S. special operation forces were in the area where the strikes were taking place. He said the Syrian planes did not respond to efforts by ground forces to contact them.

Davis said he was not aware of any other instances where coalition aircraft had been scrambled to respond to Syrian government bombing.

“This is very unusual, we have not seen the regime take this kind of action against YPG before,” Davis said, using an acronym for the Syrian Kurdish fighters . . .

On Friday, two Syrian aircraft tried to pass through the airspace around Hasaka, but left without incident when they were met by coalition fighter jets. The coalition fighter jets were F-22 aircraft and came within 1 mile (1.6 km)of the Syrian planes. (Read more from “Coalition Jets Scrambled to Defend U.S. Forces From Syrian Bombing” HERE)

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The Global Poor Aren’t Dominated by Markets — They’re Excluded From Them

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Religious and political leaders often talk about how poor people are dominated by markets, and how we need to protect the poor in the developing world from the crushing effects of globalization. The reality is that the poor aren’t dominated by markets. They’re excluded from them.

When Pope Francis said we must say “no to an economy of exclusion and inequality,” he underscored the fundamental problem that the poor face today: They’re disconnected and excluded from the institutions of justice that would enable them to create prosperity in their own communities.

Our immediate reaction to statements like this can be to gather and send money or goods overseas, or to focus on taxation/redistribution policies aimed at eradicating inequality. But these reactions miss the deeper sources of injustice — things like a lack of access to justice in the courts, an absence of clear title to land, or the inability to register a business.

Where the poor have gained these things in cultures around the world, they have lifted themselves out of poverty by the hundreds of millions. Where they have been denied these things, they have remained mired in extreme poverty, generation after generation.

Reform is possible. Unleashing the creative capacity of the poor is possible. But getting there requires overcoming at least four key challenges.

1. The Current System Benefits the Wealthy and Well-Connected.

Many of the powerful and wealthy don’t have an economic incentive to build institutions of justice like clear title to land or broad access to the formal economy. They are doing well under the status quo and many of them are actually benefiting from the current situation through connections, access to special privileges, bribes and sweetheart deals on things like mineral rights.

The point here isn’t to critique everyone who is privileged and well-connected in developing countries. Rather it’s to point out that pure economic incentive is not enough to build inclusive institutions. There must be a moral and spiritual motivation and a change of heart, as well as a hunger for justice that only a spiritual conversion can bring about.

2. Many are Fixated on the Bugbear of “Unfettered Capitalism.”

A second challenge to justice and inclusion for the poor is the widespread misconception that “unfettered capitalism” is the source of our economic troubles. This is a common refrain from politicians, celebrities and religious leaders, and even, unfortunately, from business professors.

I once participated in a panel discussion about capitalism at the Academy of Management. Accompanying me on the panel was a European professor from a prestigious Ivy League business school who argued that the biggest problem we face is unfettered capitalism — not crony capitalism, but unfettered capitalism. He said this several times, so I finally pressed him to give an actual example of where such unfettered capitalism exists. Of course he could not.

In Europe, on average 40% of GDP is made up of government spending. We often hear about the brutal Anglo-American model, but the U.S. is not much different from Europe: Government spending is close to 40% of GDP, with a government debt to GDP ratio of over 100%. In the last several years, thousands of new regulations have been added. Corporate tax rates are at 39%, the highest among OECD countries, and with personal rates, five of the seven brackets are at 25% or more, with a top bracket of 39% to help pay for all this spending. Even the original Keynesian, John Maynard Keynes — a proponent of government interventions in the market — once commented in a letter (to Colin Clark, May 1, 1944) that he thought the highest tolerable limit of taxation was around 25%.

The problem is that, while the unfettered capitalism we hear so much about does not really exist — and is a distraction from the real issue which is, more often than not, crony capitalism and oligarchy — an economy controlled from the top down benefits politicians and corporate insiders, and excludes the poor.

3. Populist Policies and Populist Rhetoric Distract.

A third and related challenge is that populist programs and populist rhetoric distract from building an economy that allows the poor to enter the formal economy and create wealth through business enterprise. A majority of countries throughout world create burdensome and exclusionary rules that harm the poor, but they enact one or two high profile populist programs that make it look like they care for the poor. Then they try to shift the blame to others to mask the obstacles and exclusionary policies they create.

India, for example, provides up to 100 days of paid labor for the poorest, which makes the state look benevolent. But if instead the government built institutions of justice, if they didn’t suffocate the poor under corruption and cronyism, then the government wouldn’t need to offer the subsidy. The poor would be able to find work that paid better, and they would have the dignity of knowing they were taking care of their families, not dependent on the benevolence of the state.

It has been a classic Latin American strategy to blame some other outside force for its own problems. Whether it is neoliberalism or hidden interests, or U.S. foreign policy, the cause of poverty is always something from outside. While the U.S. and Europe are not blameless, the main reason for poverty in Latin America is bad governmental policies of the right and the left that enrich a few at the expense of the majority. It’s important to unmask this deception so people understand the root of the problem.

4. The Idea That Charity, and Not Business, is the Solution to Poverty Misleads.

Charity and concern for the poor is essential. There will always be poverty and human need, and, as Benedict XVI wrote in Deus Caritas Est, this requires a response of love. The state cannot solve all our problems. Neither can economic development alone. There will always be the need for human love and care for the widow and the orphan. But at the same time, for the majority of the world’s poor, the long-term problem is they are excluded from the institutions of justice that would enable them to create prosperity in their own families and communities.

The challenge of global poverty is complex. Thoughtful economic and legal reforms are necessary, but so too are spiritual transformation, moral clarity and a hunger for justice rooted in prudence, charity and truth. One of the first things we need to do is identify the problems correctly. (For more from the author of “The Global Poor Aren’t Dominated by Markets — They’re Excluded From Them” please click HERE)

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‘The War Won’t Be Over Soon’: Ukraine’s Long Fight Against Russia for Freedom

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For more than two years, Ukraine’s military has been fighting a ground war against a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars in the Donbas, Ukraine’s embattled southeastern territory.

As Ukraine prepares for the 25th anniversary of its independence from the Soviet Union this Wednesday, the ongoing war in the Donbas highlights how the post-Soviet country is still fighting to establish its freedom from Russian vassalage.

“The dream of Ukrainian independence existed in the USSR, but we couldn’t talk about it,” Kovbel Vasyl Vasyliyovych, a 62-year-old Ukrainian soldier, told The Daily Signal. “The environment was one in which you only tried to survive. You didn’t express yourself. I feel like now I can finally express sentiments that I’ve had bottled up inside me my whole life.”

The war in Ukraine is a bizarre, paradoxical fusion of antiquated fighting methods with modern technology. It is a trench warfare battle, where heavy artillery is fired every day and drones orbit overhead. Small units engage each other in no man’s land, but there are no serious attempts to take new ground. The war is static, governed in its intensity by the terms of the Minsk II cease-fire. It’s like two boxers sparring at half speed, sparing themselves for the main event.

It has been nearly 100 years since the Russian Civil War began, sparking events that led to the consolidation of Ukraine into the Soviet Union—a loss of independence that lasted until Aug. 24, 1991. Today, many Ukrainian soldiers say they are still fighting for Ukraine’s independence from Moscow.

“The separatists are the weapons of the Russians,” Borys Antonovich Melnyk, a 75-year-old Ukrainian volunteer soldier and Red Army veteran, said in an interview.

“They were turned by Russian propaganda against Ukraine,” Melnyk said. “They are Russia’s weapons. They are the weapons, not the reasons. This is not only a war against the separatists, this is a war against Russia.”

It has also been about 100 years since combat airpower made its debut over the trenches in World War I. Today, Ukraine’s air force now sits on the ground while its soldiers dodge artillery and tank shots.

And despite the front lines ending on the Sea of Azov, there is no naval component to the war, either.

The last major offensive in the war was in February 2015. In the days after the signing of the second cease-fire, known as Minsk II, combined Russian-separatist forces sacked the strategic rail hub town of Debaltseve, seizing it from Ukrainian government control.

Since the Debaltseve battle, periodic upticks in violence predictably spur flurries of media speculation about whether a major Russian offensive is looming. Yet, the war has not changed in any meaningful way in more than a year and a half. No significant territory has changed hands, and the opposing camps have made scant progress toward achieving a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

And periodic spats between Kyiv and Moscow, such as the Aug. 10 border skirmishes in Crimea, underscore how the conflict retains the potential to quickly spiral into something much worse.

>>>After Crimea ‘Incursions,’ Russia and Ukraine Step Back From All-Out War

Today, U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence sources estimate the combined Russian-separatist army has about 45,000 troops inside Ukrainian territory, with about 45,000 more Russian soldiers staged in Russia along the western border with Ukraine. Russia also has about 45,000 military personnel stationed inside occupied Crimea. Ukraine has deployed about 100,000 soldiers to its eastern territories.

“The Russian people are not the enemy,” Vasyliyovych said. “Half of my relatives and friends live in Russia. It’s a political war. The Soviet propaganda is still there. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin still uses it the same way as they did in the USSR.”

Ad Hoc War

The Ukrainian army’s 92nd Brigade is hunkered down in trenches and in the basements of abandoned homes scattered throughout the artillery-blasted ruins of the village of Pisky, on the outskirts of the separatist-controlled Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine.

Squads of Ukrainian soldiers on patrol carry at least one radio among them. The radio, usually an off-the-shelf Motorola, is their advance warning system for incoming artillery.

Spotters posted in front-line trenches continuously peer across no man’s land through binoculars and telescopes. When they observe artillery fired in the Ukrainians’ direction, they have a few precious instants to radio a warning—the word “hole”—on a common frequency. That’s the cue for all who hear it to take cover or to lay down flat on the ground if caught in the open.

The radios the Ukrainian soldiers use are not encrypted. Therefore, they share the airwaves with their enemies. Due to the lack of encrypted radios and how frequently Ukrainians change their positions, which precludes setting up hardline communications, the Ukrainians sometimes use runners to carry handwritten messages scribbled on sheets of torn paper among various front-line posts.

In calm periods of bemusement, the Ukrainian troops listen to radio chatter transmitted from the opposite side of no man’s land; they pick out Russian accents from Moscow, or St. Petersburg. The Ukrainians often chime in on the radio, employing the full breadth of the Russian language’s copious lexicon of curse words to taunt and mock their enemies.

At night, the dark sky is cut by the streaking red lights of tracer fire. And there is the frequent whirring sound from the motors of Russian drones orbiting overhead. The Ukrainian soldiers call them “sputniks.”

During downtime, the soldiers scroll through their Facebook pages on their smartphones. They listen to music or watch movies on their laptops. They try not to cluster together when on their cellphones, however, due to reports of Russian signals technology that can pick out clusters of cell signals as a way to target artillery.

The soldiers use an app, loaded onto a tablet and developed by university students in Kyiv, for plotting enemy artillery positions on a Google Earth map of the battlespace.

Without the possibility of airborne medevac, ground evacuation is the only hope for survival if a soldier is wounded. Understanding the long odds against survival if wounded severely, many Ukrainian soldiers carry a grenade under their body armor as a means to commit suicide if they are ever mortally wounded.

During the day, tanks on both sides periodically come out from their camouflaged hiding spots to lob a few artillery rounds across no man’s land. Snipers take frequent potshots, and other weapons like automatic grenade launchers are often used.

In 2012, Ukraine was the world’s fourth largest arms exporter, selling more than $1.344 billion worth of conventional arms, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Yet, apart from weapons and ammunition, almost all of the Ukrainian soldiers’ kits, food, and clothing are brought to the front lines by civilian volunteers. Many Ukrainian soldiers have used their own money to buy uniforms and body armor off the internet. One soldier said his wife gave him a body armor vest for his birthday.

Civilian volunteer groups raise money from internet campaigns to purchase items like individual first aid kits, sleeping bags, boots, and food for soldiers deployed to the front lines. Volunteers, usually with no military training, deliver these supplies, exposing themselves to the same risks of artillery and sniper fire as the soldiers they are supporting.

One Dimensional Fight

The southern terminus of the front lines is in the seaside town of Shyrokyne, on the Sea of Azov.

In the industrial city of Mariupol, about 20 minutes by car west of the front, the beaches are lined with troop barricades, barbed wire, and mines. It is a scene reminiscent of fortifications in Normandy during World War II.

Separatist territory comprises about 20 miles of shoreline on the Sea of Azov (running from Shyrokyne to the Russian border), but there is currently no naval dimension to the conflict.

Air power is also almost nonexistent. The Ukrainian air force was grounded as a condition of the first cease-fire signed in September 2014. The Donbas is now among the most heavily defended airspaces on Earth. The area is replete with modern Russian surface-to-air missile systems, posing a grave threat to Ukraine’s Cold War-era warplanes.

The July 17, 2014, downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over separatist-held territory by a Russian BUK surface-to-air missile, killing all 288 people aboard, highlighted the threat to aircraft in the region.

Three days prior to the downing of MH17, a Ukrainian An-26 transport plane flying at more than 21,000 feet over eastern Ukraine was brought down by a surface-to-air missile—the crew survived. A month earlier, on June 14, 2014, a Ukrainian IL-76 transport plane was shot down near the Luhansk airport in separatist-controlled territory, killing 49 soldiers and crew.

According to news reports, combined Russian-separatist forces shot down seven Ukrainian fighter and attack aircraft, three transport aircraft, and at least nine helicopters over eastern Ukraine prior to the first cease-fire.

Ukraine has not lost any aircraft to enemy fire after September 2014 due to the halt in air operations. Yet, according to the Ukrainian military, Russian air defense forces are still moving into eastern Ukraine.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported that Russia had deployed a mobile air defense division to the Donbas, comprising 12 TOR-M2U short-range air defense missile systems and 170 personnel.

Additionally, combined Russian-separatist forces in eastern Ukraine currently have more tanks than the arsenals of France and the United Kingdom put together, according to Ukrainian defense officials.

Life Goes On

In Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv one would hardly know there was a land war going on within a day’s drive from the city’s bustling cafés and restaurants. There are new art spaces popping up across town, live music in the bars, festivals in the streets. It feels like a carefree summer in any European capital.

Kyiv’s main thoroughfare, Khreshchatyk, will be closed for a military parade on Wednesday as part of Independence Day celebrations.

Many Ukrainian soldiers admit they don’t want civilian life to grind to a halt because of the war. They say it is a testament to their military service and the promise of the 2014 revolution that normal life carries on despite the war.

Kyiv’s ubiquitous hipsters, the new coffee shops, the packed arena concerts featuring bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Muse make it feel like the revolution’s promise of a more Western European way of life is inching toward reality. Ukrainian millennials wishfully describe Kyiv as the “New Berlin.”

Yet, beneath the surface, life is harder in Ukraine than it was prior to the 2014 revolution. The country’s economy is struggling. Wages have remained stagnant despite the fact that the hryvnia, Ukraine’s national currency, has plummeted to less than a third of its pre-revolution value against the dollar.

Corruption is still rampant, from government halls to the minutia of daily life, like getting in to see a doctor. And the war is no closer to a long-term solution today than when the second cease-fire was signed on Feb. 12, 2015, more than a year and a half ago.

The conflict is quarantined to the Donbas region, which comprises less than 15 percent of Ukraine’s total landmass. And for many Ukrainians, the day-to-day hardships of the economic downturn trump concerns about the conflict, which has little tangible impact on daily life outside of the war zone. News reports from the front lines have consequently faded from Ukraine’s domestic headlines.

Waning public attention to the war has left many returning veterans feeling isolated and frustrated when they return home. There is a feeling among many veterans and active-duty soldiers that they are fighting in a forgotten war. Not only forgotten by the world’s media, but by Ukrainians themselves.

“The war won’t be over soon,” Melnyk, the 75-year-old Ukrainian soldier, said. “I don’t know when. Maybe Putin knows. Maybe [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko knows. But I don’t think it will be over soon.” (For more from the author of “‘The War Won’t Be Over Soon’: Ukraine’s Long Fight Against Russia for Freedom” please click HERE)

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We Dodged One ISIS Bullet. But Will America Be as Lucky Next Time?

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How many more terrorist bullets must we dodge before we finally come to our senses and deploy every possible legal tool against our jihadist enemies? Two news stories from earlier this month got somewhat lost in the turmoil surrounding the presidential election and the excitement of the Olympics, but together they tell us both about the bullet we just dodged and about the ones we can expect to face if Congress doesn’t act more aggressively in defense of the American people. In one story, the FBI announced the arrest of Nicholas Young of Virginia for trying to provide material aid to ISIS. In the other, the New York Times laid out the activities of the so-called “Emni,” a branch of ISIS that oversees its program to plant jihadists in western Europe and the United States.

Young’s history is sobering. A Metro cop since 2003, he was a convert to Islam who ventured twice to Libya to fight with the so-called rebels against Muammar Qaddafi — the same rebels who were later revealed as radical Islamic terrorists affiliated with ISIS. He stockpiled weapons and traveled with military equipment (which we apparently know because his baggage was searched) and had subsequent contact with terrorist sympathizers in the United States, as well as FBI agents posing as terrorist sympathizers. In addition, our allies clearly saw him as a threat — the Egyptian authorities actually prevented him from entering Libya on one trip, although he subsequently gained access through Tunisia. Still, for the six years the FBI had him under surveillance, there does not seem to have been an effort to restrict his movements or raise concerns about his work as a Metro cop, despite the havoc he could have wrecked given his position and jihadist training. The consensus seems to have been that he was kooky but not really serious about committing a terrorist act. Only when he was caught red-handed trying to provide untraceable communications cards to ISIS was he finally arrested for providing material support to a known terrorist group.

While we can all breathe a sigh of relief that this human time bomb is no longer a threat to the innocent commuters of our nation’s capital, the New York Times article should eliminate any sense of false security. Nicholas Young was not just crazy and he was not a lone wolf — he was the forerunner of a gathering pack, a “global network of killers,” that ISIS is mobilizing to attack America and our allies abroad. He is also flesh-and-blood evidence that United States citizens are traveling overseas, contacting terrorist groups, and returning here to plot against us.

For the past three years, our attention has been riveted by the horrific acts of violence carried out by ISIS in its claimed caliphate. Critics of the Obama administration’s ISIS policy have frequently pointed out the anemic pace and intensity of the air strikes against ISIS, and have urged a more rigorous, concerted campaign to actually destroy them. While there have been some recent advances, reports about the activities of a secretive branch of ISIS called “Emni” suggest that even the dissolution of the caliphate will not end the ISIS threat. Indeed, ISIS is already planning for the next phase of this long war, which will shift to their agents in the West — some infiltrating the waves of refugees pouring out of the Middle East, some radicalized online, and some our own citizens who have gone abroad to train with terrorist groups.

There are many red flags around the Young case that need to be addressed. If the Obama Administration continues to refuse to recognize the threat that he represents, hopefully Congress will start to take action on legislation to address the influx of refugees from the Middle East and the ability of the State Department to make joining with a terrorist group overseas grounds for denying re-entry into the United States. In light of the terrorist threat we face, these steps are only the most basic common sense and should enjoy bi-partisan support.

In the case of Nicholas Young, our law enforcement officers were able to keep track of him until he tipped his hand about his intentions. We got lucky in this case, but ISIS has taken note of our vulnerability. The threat is growing, not receding and we might not be so lucky the next time. (For more from the author of “We Dodged One ISIS Bullet. But Will America Be as Lucky Next Time?” please click HERE)

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‘ISIS Child Suicide Bomber’ Kills 50 at Turkey Wedding

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A suspected Islamic State child suicide bomber massacred at least 50 wedding guests dancing in a Turkey street.

President Tayyip Erdogan blamed the murders on Islamic State and said the killer, who wore an explosive belt, was between the ages of 12 and 14.

The sickening attack is the deadliest bombing this year in Turkey, which faces threats from militants at home and across the border with neighbouring Syria.

The country’s President Tayyip Erdogan said militants had carried out the late-night attack Gaziantep on Saturday.

The local governor’s office said in a statement 50 people were killed in the bombing, and more wounded were still being treated in hospitals around the province. (Read more from “‘ISIS Child Suicide Bomber’ Kills 50 at Turkey Wedding” HERE)

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Lawsuit Filed Over Feds, Refugee Groups Losing 10,000+ Refugee Children, Possibly to Sex Trade or Worse

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A 12-year-old Honduran boy seeking asylum in the United States has been “lost” in the system, illustrating what immigration experts say is a widespread problem of the government failing to keep track of the large number of vulnerable children flooding across the border.

The case of missing child [Walter] has been brought to light in a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Columbia, South Carolina, that names Gov. Nikki Haley, the S.C. Department of Social Services, Lutheran Services and World Relief among the defendants. World Relief is a division of the National Association of Evangelicals and, like the Lutherans and Catholics, is heavily involved in the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers, getting paid handsomely to perform one of the government’s most secretive and cash-rich operations under the guise of humanitarianism, the suit claims. . .

The federal government has been “rubber stamping” the asylum applications of tens of thousands of child migrants like Walter since 2014, says Lauren Martel, the attorney representing [the plaintiff taxpayer] in the case. Their asylum applications are rushed through the system without taking time to ensure the children’s safety. . .

“There’s a 12-year-old boy out there somewhere who is unaccounted for and we only know about him because a lawyer in the Family Court of Beaufort County didn’t redact his name [on court documents],” Martel told WND. “So now he could be part of the sex trade industry for all we know. Nobody can tell us anything” . . .

“They do not routinely do background checks or determine that the person claiming them is capable, responsible, law-abiding or even financially able,” Vaughan said. “There are more than 10,000 kids who are here now without family members, and most of them are unaccounted for.” (Read more from “Lawsuit Filed Over Feds, Refugee Groups Losing 10,000+ Refugee Children, Possibly to Sex Trade or Worse” HERE)

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