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Bloomberg Opinion wrote:UN Fires a Shot at America's ‘Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier’
A General Assembly vote to end Britain's control of Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean imperils an irreplaceable U.S. naval base.
By Tobin Harshaw
May 24, 2019, 9:40 AM AST
The stakes here may go well beyond the tiny islands themselves. Britain’s very savvy ambassador to the U.N., Karen Pierce, warned that the vote would “set an unwelcome precedent” over sovereignty disputes “that should be of concern to member states.” Britain has 14 major overseas territories, while the U.S. has five: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The de-colonization of Mauritius is a black mark on British history. After detaching the 60 or so Chagos Islands from the new republic in 1965, the U.K. evicted every resident of Diego Garcia and two other atolls, resettling an estimated 2,000 victims mostly in Mauritius and the Seychelles. Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth told the General Assembly this was “akin to a crime against humanity.” The following year, the U.K. bought and shut down the British-owned coconut plantations that had been the islands’ only commerce, and gave the U.S. the right to use Diego Garcia as a joint military site for 50 years, since extended to 70. (No money changed hands, but the U.S. gave Britain a sweetheart deal on some submarine-based Polaris missiles.)
Mauritius and Diego Garcia have been vital to military operations since the British took them from France in 1810 in order to protect the ships of the British East India Company. (For a rollicking fictional account of that operation, read “The Mauritius Command,” the fourth novel in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series.) In the late 19th century, Diego Garcia was briefly a major coaling station for military and commercial ships; in both world wars, it was a flashpoint for naval confrontations between the British and German fleets.
But it was the creation of the Diego Garcia base – what the U.S. Navy calls its “unsinkable aircraft carrier” – that made the 17-mile-square island one of the most important military assets in the world.
In the 1991 Gulf War, B-52 bombers took advantage of the site’s very long airstrips to drop bombs on Iraqi troops 3,000 miles away. That role has expanded greatly during the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s also the launch point for counterterrorism missions on the Horn of Africa and anti-piracy operations off Somalia.
A few thousand U.S. and U.K. troops and civilians operate not just the port and air fields there but also high-tech surveillance equipment including one of the Pentagon’s three Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance Systems, which can see objects the size of a basketball 25,000 miles away.
My Bloomberg Opinion colleague James Stavridis, a retired four-star admiral who led NATO's alliance globally, told me: "After many trips to Diego Garcia over decades going back to 1978, I have personally seen the absolute criticality of this crucial base. We have literally used it in every forward military operation in Africa and Southwest Asia for 40 years, and are relying on it again now to support our presence in the Gulf as we work to deter Iran."
Mauritius has been coy about what the future of the base, if any, would be if the nation retakes the islands. Prime Minister Jugnauth said that the U.S. could continue operations “in accordance with international law” and that there would be a “higher degree of legal certainty” – whatever that means. Bear in mind that the current U.K.-U.S. agreement expires in 2036.
Mauritius, technically an African nation, has also been getting cozy with China, last year signing on to Beijing’s vast Belt and Road infrastructure project. Thus the U.N. vote wasn’t just about a remote territorial dispute; it pushed Mauritius deeper into what Bloomberg Opinion columnist Noah Feldman calls the “Cool War” between Washington and Beijing.
The ideal outcome would be for Britain to cut a deal with its former crown colony giving Mauritius nominal sovereignty over the Chagos Islands but guaranteeing the U.S.-U.K. military presence indefinitely.
This time, instead of dried coconut, the archipelago might develop an economy based on tourism. My fins will be packed the moment Britain’s longtime ban on scuba diving in the marine sanctuary is lifted.
As for the “domino effect” fear expressed by Britain’s ambassador to the UN … well, that may not be the worst thing. How vital is Pitcairn Island to Britain’s national security? The U.S. for far too long has maintained a hazy relationship with its territories, and the results aren’t pretty: minimum wages under $6 for Samoan fish-cannery workers, an exploding sex-abuse scandal that last year bankrupted the Catholic Church in Guam, a zone exempt from U.S. labor laws and subject to Chinese predation in the Northern Mariana Islands, and of course the Trump administration’s shameful response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Ordering Britain to hand over the islands within six months was another example of the General Assembly’s general cluelessness. But the issue is not going away.
Losing the base at Diego Garcia would be a tremendous blow to U.S. and global security, and a win for terrorists, drug smugglers and pirates. It would also be a boon to China’s economic offensive, and perhaps its military ambitions as well: Just imagine Mauritius leasing the base to the People’s Liberation Navy.
A future without Diego Garcia is simply unthinkable for the U.S. military, because the rest of its aircraft carriers are very much sinkable.
At this point, an impeachment may be regarded as simply an empty gesture.shogun wrote:Wait "insufficient" evidence? Not NO evidence of collusion?
Also, he directly contradicts Barr's statement that Mueller was not prevented from indicting the president because of the DOJ's rule that a sitting president could not be indicted. Barr I'm sure will have his usual response, but clearly someone has some explaining to do?
"If we could have made a determination that the President did not commit a crime, we would have done so"
Damn.
Then throwing shade on congress for not acting? Interesting he mentioned that he's now not an employee of the DOJ and that this might not be the last time we hear him speak about the findings in the report. Interesting days ahead, for sure.
Republicans Justin Amash and Tom Coleman now calling for impeachment. Coleman even calling for impeaching Pence.
Courts shoot down Roger Stone associate's refusal to testify before congress
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former ... grand-jury
shogun wrote:And?
We all know Republicans in the Senate aren't gonna vote for impeachment. Empty gesture though? No. Precedent will be set.
Thaz some funny sh!t.adnj wrote:shogun wrote:And?
We all know Republicans in the Senate aren't gonna vote for impeachment. Empty gesture though? No. Precedent will be set.
The Senate can remove a sitting President with a 67% majority.
Or you can remove a sitting President with a 51% majority... along with anyone else that chose to do nothing. That is setting a precedent.
The_Honourable wrote:Record number of African migrants coming to Mexican border
Associated Press.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Undaunted by a dangerous journey over thousands of miles, people fleeing economic hardship and human rights abuses in African countries are coming to the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers, surprising Border Patrol agents more accustomed to Spanish-speaking migrants.
Officials in Texas and even Maine are scrambling to absorb the sharp increase in African migrants. They are coming to America after flying across the Atlantic Ocean to South America and then embarking on an often harrowing overland journey.
In one recent week, agents in the Border Patrol's Del Rio sector stopped more than 500 African migrants found walking in separate groups along the arid land after splashing across the Rio Grande, children in tow.
That is more than double the total of 211 African migrants who were detained by the Border Patrol along the entire 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border in the 2018 fiscal year.
"We are continuing to see a rise in apprehensions of immigrants from countries not normally encountered in our area," said Raul Ortiz, head of the U.S. Border Patrol's Del Rio sector.
More: https://news.yahoo.com/record-number-af ... 39706.html
De Dragon wrote:Trump's worst nightmare, Sheitholers and rapists
US government orders first federal executions since 2003
The US federal government is to resume executing death-row inmates after a 16-year hiatus, the justice department has announced.
Attorney General William Barr said in a statement he had directed the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to schedule the executions of five inmates.
Mr Barr said the five had been convicted of murders or rapes of children or the elderly.
The executions have been scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020.
"Under administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals," Mr Barr said in a statement. "The Justice Department upholds the rule of law - and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system."
The announcement lifts what was an informal moratorium on the federal death penalty - as opposed to state-directed executions - since the 2003 execution of Louis Jones Jr, a 53-year-old a Gulf War veteran who murdered 19-year-old soldier Tracie Joy McBride.
Under the US justice system, crimes can be tried either in federal courts - at a national level - or or state courts, at a regional level. Certain crimes that apply nationally, such as counterfeiting currency or mail theft, are automatically tried at a federal level, while others are tried in federal courts based on the severity of the crimes.
The death penalty was outlawed at state and federal level by a 1972 Supreme Court decision that cancelled all existing death penalty statutes. A 1976 Supreme Court decision reinstated the death penalty to a number of states and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made the death penalty available again at a federal level.
According to data collected by the Death Penalty Information Center, 78 people were sentenced to death in federal cases between 1988 and 2018 but only three have since been executed. There are 62 inmates currently on federal death row.
Mr Barr is to allow the prison authorities to use the single drug Pentobarbital in place of a three-drug procedure previously used in federal executions. The drug is a potent sedative that slows down the body, including the nervous system, to the point of death.
The five executions to be scheduled would take place at the US Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana, and additional executions would take place at a later date, the justice department said.
For more than a decade and a half, the federal death penalty was mostly an afterthought. Although there was no formal moratorium on the procedure, as there was in some states where opposition to executions has been growing, a combination of administrative inertia, protracted appeals processes, practical obstacles and the relatively few number of federal death-row inmates combined to grind executions to a de-facto halt.
The Trump administration now wants to change that, even if a shortage of the drugs used in lethal injections remains a significant obstacle.
The president has expressed a harsh attitude toward convicted criminals in the past, claiming that they are treated too gently and given too many opportunities to appeal against their sentences.
While a majority of Americans say they still favour the death penalty in certain instances, opinion surveys indicate that the American public is turning against capital punishment, with a particular eye toward allegations that it is frequently unjustly imposed.
That suggests that while the Trump administration's announcement will draw some sharp criticism from activists, it is unlikely to cause significant political waves.
Capital punishment in the US
The death penalty is a legal punishment in 29 US states
Since 1976, Texas has carried out the most executions (561), followed by Virginia (113) and Oklahoma (112)
There are 2,673 inmates on death row in the US
California has the most prisoners on death row - 733 - but has carried out only 13 executions since 1976
The annual number of death sentences fell by 85% between 1998 and 2018 - from 295 to 43
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