Tag: war
Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War: Book Launch
Why This Circle Could Spark Africa’s Biggest War
US helicopter raid in Syria targets an Islamic State leader
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-helicopter-raid-syria-targets-080553594.html
The U.S. Took in 271,000 Ukrainian Refugees in a Year. It Can Handle More.
“Nearly a year after Biden’s announcement, the Department of Homeland Security says that over 271,000 Ukrainian refugees have been admitted to the United States. More than 117,000 came through the “Uniting for Ukraine” program, a private refugee sponsorship scheme through which Americans can volunteer to financially support Ukrainians. Another 150,000 came to the U.S. through pathways like the traditional refugee resettlement program or by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Bringing in 271,000 refugees, while a modest accomplishment compared to what countries such as Poland, Germany, and Canada have done, is a huge deal in the context of American immigration politics—especially with as little controversy as it provoked. It speaks volumes about America’s ability to absorb large numbers of people without changing something fundamental about its culture, which immigration restrictionists often doubt. Judging by the scores of Americans who stepped up to welcome Ukrainians, American culture is equipped to absorb.”
…
“assimilation potential is a slippery concept. Take language skills: According to EF Education First’s English Proficiency Index, Ukrainians fall into the same proficiency band as Cubans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans. This is roughly true of their economic circumstances as well. Ukraine’s per-capita gross domestic product was $4,835 as of 2021, per the World Bank—roughly $200 lower than Guatemala and $300 higher than El Salvador.
Given those factors, Ukrainian refugees may not be as different from other migrant groups as might appear. What has been unique is the way Uniting for Ukraine has been successful in capitalizing on and building public buy-in. It offered migrants an organized, predictable, low-drama pathway, and it allowed Americans to contribute to relief efforts directly by sponsoring migrants. Ukrainians leaned into the legal immigration option, and American sponsors gladly helped them do so—both in large numbers. Contrast that with the traditional government refugee resettlement process, which resettled just 12 Ukrainian refugees in the first month following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
The Young Gamers Who Shook the Intelligence World
https://www.yahoo.com/news/young-gamers-shook-intelligence-world-120948421.html
No, the U.S. Shouldn’t Wage War Against Mexican Cartels
“As Cato Institute Policy Analyst Daniel Raisbeck has written for Reason, Plan Colombia’s aid did initially “help the Colombian military to severely weaken the once-formidable [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)]. But Plan Colombia’s anti-narcotics element was an unqualified failure.” Per Raisbeck:
“By 2006, “coca cultivation and cocaine production levels (had) increased by about 15 and 4 percent, respectively.” In 2019, there were more hectares cultivated with coca leaf in Colombia (212,000) than two decades earlier (160,000).
The so-called FARC “dissidents,” thousands of fighters who did not demobilize in 2016, still control large swathes of the cocaine business. They wage constant combat over production areas and export routes against other guerrilla groups and criminal organizations, including several with links to Mexican drug cartels.”
American counternarcotics efforts yielded similarly bad results in Afghanistan. The U.S. spent about $9 billion to tackle Afghanistan’s opium and heroin production, only for the effort to be “perhaps the most feckless” of “all the failures in Afghanistan,” according to The Washington Post’s analysis of confidential government interviews and documents. By 2018, Afghan farmers were growing poppies on four times as much land as they were in 2002. Operation Iron Tempest, meant to cripple Afghanistan’s opium production labs, folded within a year. “Many of the suspected labs turned out to be empty, mud-walled compounds,” noted the Post.
The war on drugs has helped turn Latin America into the most violent region in the world. Criminalization has led to the proliferation of black market activity, a boom in many countries’ prison populations, and increased corruption across Latin America. It’s also contributed to a huge number of homicides: At least half of the violent deaths in Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela are estimated to be drug-related, according to the World Economic Forum.
Despite those failures, many Republicans still want to use war on terror tactics to fight Mexican cartels.”
…
“The increase in overdose deaths among Americans is tragic and obviously a problem. It isn’t one that will be solved by fighting the war on drugs just a little bit harder. It certainly isn’t one that will be solved by bombing a neighboring country against its wishes, risking further escalation. It requires being realistic about the policies that have made drug use more dangerous. “That starts with bipartisan support for prohibition,” writes Reason’s Jacob Sullum, “which creates a black market where the quality and potency of drugs are highly variable and unpredictable.”
Simply stopping the supply of drugs into the country is an impossible task, as decades of prohibition show. Republicans would be far better off embracing harm-reduction strategies rather than pushing for another episode of military adventurism that is destined to fail.”
U.S. sanctions Turkey-based entities it says helped Russia’s war
“The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on at least four Turkey-based entities it said violated U.S. export controls and helped Russia’s war effort, in the biggest U.S. enforcement action in Turkey since the invasion of Ukraine last year.
The designations – which included an electronics company and a technology trader alleged to have helped transfer “dual-use” goods – were part of a global sanctions package on more than 120 entities announced by the U.S. Treasury.
Washington and its allies imposed extensive sanctions on Russia after its invasion, but supply channels from Black Sea neighbour Turkey and other trading hubs, including Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, have remained open.
A U.S. administration official told Reuters the sanctions targeted entities and people in Turkey’s maritime and trade sectors that were “primarily” Russia-owned or Russia-linked.
“It’s meant as a warning shot in the evolving phase of enforcing export controls,” the official said, requesting anonymity.”
Two Decades Later, the War in Iraq Is Over—Right?
“President Barack Obama announced he was “responsibly ending the war in Iraq” in 2009, shortly after he came to office, in part on the strength of his condemnation of Bush’s decision to invade. The combat mission officially concluded for a second time two years later, in 2011, with around 700 U.S. troops remaining behind in an advise-and-assist role, along with several thousand U.S. contractors.
But once IS started grabbing land in Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014, committing anachronistic atrocities along the way, the Obama administration went back in. This second round never included a U.S. ground presence anywhere near the scale of the 160,000 American soldiers (plus nearly as many contractors) deployed during the 2007 surge. But U.S. forces again numbered in the thousands and continued to do so until the Iraqi government in 2020 asked then-President Donald Trump to make another exit plan.
The Trump administration dismissed that request, so it wasn’t until the end of 2021 that President Joe Biden announced the third end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq. This time, about 2,500 U.S. soldiers stayed behind to advise and assist—indefinitely.”