Where are the MEU's? Oh, I guess we don't have any Marines or any amphibious shipping - where has it all gone? Maybe "sold off" to pay for one MLR! This is getting disgusting.
Let the US Army do the “defense battalion” concept. The US Army has the resources, both operationally, experimentally and traditionally, to accomplish this mission.
Instead of cutting US Marine Combat power and compromising the MAGTF concept, the Commandant should have been fighting for more amphibious ships. Each Combatant Commander should have an amphibious MEU available for contingency purposes and USINDOPACOM needs two. Five Combatant Commanders plus two for USINDOPACOM equals six. BTW the Commandant should have thrown in at least two MPF’s (one in the Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean).
Then MAYBE the US could stop third world Houthi drones and missile from using both commercial and military shipping for target practice.
The US faint approach to dealing with the Houthis will create a much bigger problem than what we want. Our pin prick reaction to destroying a drone or a few or a missile or two will embolden the Houthis. In the Arab mind, the Houthis see the USA and West in general as weak, if they don’t, they wouldn’t be targeting ships with goods heading to our and the European markets. The Houthi population will look at every success as something they will turn into a folklore and folklore into legends and legends will mean more and more attacks.
I’m from the Middle East, I know how people in that greater region think. Don’t underestimate the Houthis, but on the other hand, don’t allow them to grow in myth and legends!
Approximately 200,000 American dead from CCP/PRC Cartels infiltrated into Our Xi’s payback for Opium Wars.Follow the authors
@VFelbabBrown
Editor's note: The following testimony was submitted to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions on March 23, 2023, for the “Follow the Money: The CCP’s Business Model Fueling the Fentanyl Crisis” hearing.
Dear Chairman Luetkemeyer, Ranking Member Beatty, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions of the Committee on Financial Services:
Thank you for holding this hearing entitled, “Follow the Money: The CCP’s Business Model Fueling the Fentanyl Crisis.” This is an important issue that deserves the attention of the House Financial Services Committee and its Members. I am honored to have this opportunity to submit this testimony as a statement for the record.
I am a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution where I direct The Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-direct the Africa Security Initiative. Illicit economies, such as the drug trade and wildlife trafficking, organized crime, corruption, and their impacts on U.S. and local security issues around the world are the domain of my work and the subject of several of the books I have written. I have conducted fieldwork on these issues in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. In addition to studying China’s and Mexico’s role in various illegal economies over the past two decades, I have been directing over the past three years a new Brookings workstream on China’s role in illegal economies and Chinese criminal groups around the world.
This testimony draws extensively on two detailed reports I published last year: “China’s Role in the Smuggling of Synthetic Drugs and Precursors” and “China’s Role in Poaching and Wildlife Trafficking in Mexico.”
The Brookings Institution is a U.S. nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The testimony that I am submitting represents solely my personal views, and does not reflect the views of Brookings, its other scholars, employees, officers, and/or trustees.
Executive Summary
The structural characteristics of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, including the ease of developing similar, but not scheduled, synthetic drugs and their new precursors — increasingly a wide array of dual-use chemicals — pose immense structural obstacles to controlling their supply.
U.S. domestic prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement measures are fundamental and indispensable to countering the devastating fentanyl crisis.
However, given the extent and lethality of the synthetic opioid epidemic in North America and its likely eventual spread to other parts of the world, even supply control measures with partial and limited effectiveness can save lives and thus need to be designed as smartly and robustly as possible.
Three U.S. presidential administrations — those of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden — have devoted diplomatic focus to induce and impel China to tighten its regulations vis-à-vis fentanyl-class drugs and their precursor chemicals and to more
A U.S. fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy blimp above the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast Saturday, ending a three-day spectacle that dominated headlines and created an international incident.
The operation took place at the direction of President Joe Biden in U.S. airspace as the balloon drifted over the water. Senior defense officials said the balloon was successfully downed by a single missile at 2:39 p.m. “I told them to shoot it down,” Biden told reporters, during a travel stop in Hagerstown, Md. on the way to Camp David.
Downing the large, slow-moving balloon over the ocean reduced the risk of falling debris causing damage or casualties, a concern that military commanders had earlier in the week as it drifted eastward across the country. Biden said he gave the U.S. military authority to take down the alleged surveillance balloon on Wednesday with orders to shoot it once there was no longer a fear of endangering Americans on the ground.
“Our number one concern was how can we take this down, while not creating undue risk to people or property,” a senior defense official told reporters.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement late Saturday condemning the strike. “The U.S. use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice,” the statement said. “China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company concerned, and reserves the right to make further responses if necessary.”
The Federal Aviation Administration restricted airspace Saturday afternoon over three cities in North and South Carolina as military assets moved into position. The balloon was flying at roughly 60,000 feet, an altitude about twice that of normal civilian air traffic. In the aftermath of the unmanned balloon being shot down, U.S. officials say, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have sent multiple ships to retrieve the wreckage to obtain insights into its surveillance payload—what’s described as a basket of equipment under the craft.
TWENTYNINE PALMS — A Chinese national reportedly in the country illegally was taken into custody inside the Condor Gate at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Wednesday, March 27.
U.S. Marine Corps Training and Education Command spokesman Maj. Joshua Pena confirmed that an individual lacking valid identification tried to gain access to the combat center about 12:45 p.m.
“Despite being prompted to exit at the Condor Gate by installation security, the individual proceeded onto the installation without authorization,” Pena stated.
“Military law enforcement were immediately notified and detained the individual. They then notified and transferred custody to Customs and Border Patrol.”
Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino confirmed in a tweet on X, formerly Twitter, that agents responded to a call from the base about a Chinese national who entered the base without authorization and ignored orders to leave.
“Subject was confirmed to be in the country illegally. His purpose and intent behind his actions are still being investigated,” Bovino wrote.
The Florida Gateway: Data Shows Most Migrant Flights Landing in Gov. DeSantis’s Sunshine State
Smaller but significant numbers are landing in Texas, New York, and California
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By Todd Bensman on April 1, 2024
Florida airport
One of Florida's busiest international airports in CBP's Miami Office of Field Operations where hundreds of thousands of presumed aspiring illegal border-crossers are flying in from foreign airports in Latin America and the Caribbean under a secretive Biden administration program. Photo by Todd Bensman.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to publicly identify the dozens of U.S. international airports for which it has approved direct flights from abroad for certain inadmissible aliens. At least 386,000 migrants through February have been allowed to fly to interior U.S. airports as part of a legally dubious admissions program the administration launched in October 2022. The rationale for the program is to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully” over the southern border — by flying them over it directly into the interior and then releasing them on parole.
But a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of available public information on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) website, filtered to see Office of Field Operations (OFO) airport customs officer encounters with the nationalities chosen to receive this benefit, points out the airports that might account for most of the landings from abroad, if not necessarily the final destinations.
This early evidence suggests that a great many of these inadmissible alien passengers, probably a majority, initially land at international airports in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Florida. In fact, Florida turns out to be the top landing and U.S. customs processing zone for this direct-flights parole-and-release program, tallying at nearly 326,000 of the initial arrivals from inception through February.
Top receiving OFOs
Miami 326,000
Houston 21,964
Los Angeles 8,382
San Francisco 4,578
Atlanta 4,515
Boston 4,879
Baltimore 3,784
Chicago 1,556
Lesser numbers also are landing in the regions of Houston, New York, both northern and southern California, and the Washington, D.C., area, the data analysis reveals. But the data for Florida shows it to be heaviest for initial landings and migrant releases.
Public knowledge of where these flights deliver migrants should matter to local, state, and national leaders in cities struggling with migrant influxes, who could use the information to financially plan for their care, or petition the federal government to stop the flights. The information may also hold implications for litigation by Texas, Florida, and other states that have sued to stop the parole programs on grounds that the administration's illegal abuse of the narrow statutory parole authority has directly harmed them.
Whether those hundreds of thousands stay in those areas or fly on after their initial landing and release is not shown in this data. Many of the landing Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians will obviously choose to stay in Florida, where expatriate
Executive Branch Policy Decision is the reason the Houthis exist and are attacking International Shipping in the Red Sea. They are funded, trained, armed and controlled by Iran. Commander Central Command was ask at a recent Congressional Hearing why he was using 2million dollar missiles to shoot down 2000dollar drones instead of stopping Iran from Arming the Houthis. His answer was to diplomatically say “It’s a policy decision”. Re Venezuelans, Maduro emptied his prisons and sent hundreds of thousands of these prisoners and others N to enter Our Homeland. I just viewed a photo on X of thousands of them at the El Paso, Texas border camped out on the other side of the Razor Wire Barrier put in place on order of Texas Governor Abbott to the Texas National Guard. Texas has spent 10 Billion Dollars to fortify Our 1,254 mile border w Mexico. New Mexico, Arizona and California do literally 0 to stop the flood of invaders from 172 countries that Biden, Blinken, MAYORKAS have streamed into the USA since Jan 20, 2021. 10 million plus unvetted invaders have entered. Todd BENSMAN, Center for Immigration Studies has penned 2 books on this mass invasion. This weekend he released details maps showing how and where Biden and Company flew almost 400,000 invaders directly into Our Homeland. There was once a time when US Marines guarded the U.S. Mail, in the near future US Marines may be called upon to hunt down tens of thousands of terrorist, Chinese saboteurs etc….in Our Homeland. We will not be bothered w putting Marines in a SIF instead the will be operating in the USA. A Chinese operative infiltrated Our US Marine base in California last week. I use Duck Duck Go as a search engine use the search engine of your choice and ck out Todd BENSMAN’S. PS I live in San Antonio and have personally witnessed this invasion, to include the use of San Antonio International Airport where invaders are flown into Our Interior after being bused there by Catholic Charities from Eagle Pass, Laredo etc..
The US has been shown time and time again that a graduated escalating response to terrorism and budding insurgencies does not work, i.e, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Stomp on a smoldering insurgency like the Houthis. It removes the threat to shipping, destroys the "schoolhouse" and sends a message to Iran, China and North Korea - don't poke the eagle. While it is important to try and minimize collateral damage, rather than taking out these sites one or two at a time, several massive raids would knock out much of their capability and restore free sea lanes.
Where are the MEU's? Oh, I guess we don't have any Marines or any amphibious shipping - where has it all gone? Maybe "sold off" to pay for one MLR! This is getting disgusting.
This is what I’m talking about!
https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/global-force-symposium/2024/04/01/army-office-in-charge-of-rapid-development-takes-on-guam-air-defense/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mil-ebb
Let the US Army do the “defense battalion” concept. The US Army has the resources, both operationally, experimentally and traditionally, to accomplish this mission.
Instead of cutting US Marine Combat power and compromising the MAGTF concept, the Commandant should have been fighting for more amphibious ships. Each Combatant Commander should have an amphibious MEU available for contingency purposes and USINDOPACOM needs two. Five Combatant Commanders plus two for USINDOPACOM equals six. BTW the Commandant should have thrown in at least two MPF’s (one in the Pacific and one in the Indian Ocean).
Then MAYBE the US could stop third world Houthi drones and missile from using both commercial and military shipping for target practice.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/02/12/all-the-houthi-us-navy-incidents-in-the-middle-east-that-we-know-of/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mil-ebb
Semper Fi
The US faint approach to dealing with the Houthis will create a much bigger problem than what we want. Our pin prick reaction to destroying a drone or a few or a missile or two will embolden the Houthis. In the Arab mind, the Houthis see the USA and West in general as weak, if they don’t, they wouldn’t be targeting ships with goods heading to our and the European markets. The Houthi population will look at every success as something they will turn into a folklore and folklore into legends and legends will mean more and more attacks.
I’m from the Middle East, I know how people in that greater region think. Don’t underestimate the Houthis, but on the other hand, don’t allow them to grow in myth and legends!
Approximately 200,000 American dead from CCP/PRC Cartels infiltrated into Our Xi’s payback for Opium Wars.Follow the authors
@VFelbabBrown
Editor's note: The following testimony was submitted to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions on March 23, 2023, for the “Follow the Money: The CCP’s Business Model Fueling the Fentanyl Crisis” hearing.
Dear Chairman Luetkemeyer, Ranking Member Beatty, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions of the Committee on Financial Services:
Thank you for holding this hearing entitled, “Follow the Money: The CCP’s Business Model Fueling the Fentanyl Crisis.” This is an important issue that deserves the attention of the House Financial Services Committee and its Members. I am honored to have this opportunity to submit this testimony as a statement for the record.
I am a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution where I direct The Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-direct the Africa Security Initiative. Illicit economies, such as the drug trade and wildlife trafficking, organized crime, corruption, and their impacts on U.S. and local security issues around the world are the domain of my work and the subject of several of the books I have written. I have conducted fieldwork on these issues in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. In addition to studying China’s and Mexico’s role in various illegal economies over the past two decades, I have been directing over the past three years a new Brookings workstream on China’s role in illegal economies and Chinese criminal groups around the world.
This testimony draws extensively on two detailed reports I published last year: “China’s Role in the Smuggling of Synthetic Drugs and Precursors” and “China’s Role in Poaching and Wildlife Trafficking in Mexico.”
The Brookings Institution is a U.S. nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The testimony that I am submitting represents solely my personal views, and does not reflect the views of Brookings, its other scholars, employees, officers, and/or trustees.
Executive Summary
The structural characteristics of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, including the ease of developing similar, but not scheduled, synthetic drugs and their new precursors — increasingly a wide array of dual-use chemicals — pose immense structural obstacles to controlling their supply.
U.S. domestic prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement measures are fundamental and indispensable to countering the devastating fentanyl crisis.
However, given the extent and lethality of the synthetic opioid epidemic in North America and its likely eventual spread to other parts of the world, even supply control measures with partial and limited effectiveness can save lives and thus need to be designed as smartly and robustly as possible.
Three U.S. presidential administrations — those of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden — have devoted diplomatic focus to induce and impel China to tighten its regulations vis-à-vis fentanyl-class drugs and their precursor chemicals and to more
Where was the SIF when CCP/PRC surveilled US Strategic Missile Bases etc on its high altitude reconnaissance of Our Homeland?
A U.S. fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy blimp above the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast Saturday, ending a three-day spectacle that dominated headlines and created an international incident.
The operation took place at the direction of President Joe Biden in U.S. airspace as the balloon drifted over the water. Senior defense officials said the balloon was successfully downed by a single missile at 2:39 p.m. “I told them to shoot it down,” Biden told reporters, during a travel stop in Hagerstown, Md. on the way to Camp David.
Downing the large, slow-moving balloon over the ocean reduced the risk of falling debris causing damage or casualties, a concern that military commanders had earlier in the week as it drifted eastward across the country. Biden said he gave the U.S. military authority to take down the alleged surveillance balloon on Wednesday with orders to shoot it once there was no longer a fear of endangering Americans on the ground.
“Our number one concern was how can we take this down, while not creating undue risk to people or property,” a senior defense official told reporters.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement late Saturday condemning the strike. “The U.S. use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice,” the statement said. “China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company concerned, and reserves the right to make further responses if necessary.”
The Federal Aviation Administration restricted airspace Saturday afternoon over three cities in North and South Carolina as military assets moved into position. The balloon was flying at roughly 60,000 feet, an altitude about twice that of normal civilian air traffic. In the aftermath of the unmanned balloon being shot down, U.S. officials say, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have sent multiple ships to retrieve the wreckage to obtain insights into its surveillance payload—what’s described as a basket of equipment under the craft.
TWENTYNINE PALMS — A Chinese national reportedly in the country illegally was taken into custody inside the Condor Gate at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Wednesday, March 27.
U.S. Marine Corps Training and Education Command spokesman Maj. Joshua Pena confirmed that an individual lacking valid identification tried to gain access to the combat center about 12:45 p.m.
“Despite being prompted to exit at the Condor Gate by installation security, the individual proceeded onto the installation without authorization,” Pena stated.
“Military law enforcement were immediately notified and detained the individual. They then notified and transferred custody to Customs and Border Patrol.”
Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino confirmed in a tweet on X, formerly Twitter, that agents responded to a call from the base about a Chinese national who entered the base without authorization and ignored orders to leave.
“Subject was confirmed to be in the country illegally. His purpose and intent behind his actions are still being investigated,” Bovino wrote.
Toggle navigation
The Florida Gateway: Data Shows Most Migrant Flights Landing in Gov. DeSantis’s Sunshine State
Smaller but significant numbers are landing in Texas, New York, and California
FacebookTwitterRedditLinkedInEmailCopy LinkPrint
By Todd Bensman on April 1, 2024
Florida airport
One of Florida's busiest international airports in CBP's Miami Office of Field Operations where hundreds of thousands of presumed aspiring illegal border-crossers are flying in from foreign airports in Latin America and the Caribbean under a secretive Biden administration program. Photo by Todd Bensman.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to publicly identify the dozens of U.S. international airports for which it has approved direct flights from abroad for certain inadmissible aliens. At least 386,000 migrants through February have been allowed to fly to interior U.S. airports as part of a legally dubious admissions program the administration launched in October 2022. The rationale for the program is to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully” over the southern border — by flying them over it directly into the interior and then releasing them on parole.
But a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of available public information on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) website, filtered to see Office of Field Operations (OFO) airport customs officer encounters with the nationalities chosen to receive this benefit, points out the airports that might account for most of the landings from abroad, if not necessarily the final destinations.
This early evidence suggests that a great many of these inadmissible alien passengers, probably a majority, initially land at international airports in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Florida. In fact, Florida turns out to be the top landing and U.S. customs processing zone for this direct-flights parole-and-release program, tallying at nearly 326,000 of the initial arrivals from inception through February.
Top receiving OFOs
Miami 326,000
Houston 21,964
Los Angeles 8,382
San Francisco 4,578
Atlanta 4,515
Boston 4,879
Baltimore 3,784
Chicago 1,556
Lesser numbers also are landing in the regions of Houston, New York, both northern and southern California, and the Washington, D.C., area, the data analysis reveals. But the data for Florida shows it to be heaviest for initial landings and migrant releases.
Public knowledge of where these flights deliver migrants should matter to local, state, and national leaders in cities struggling with migrant influxes, who could use the information to financially plan for their care, or petition the federal government to stop the flights. The information may also hold implications for litigation by Texas, Florida, and other states that have sued to stop the parole programs on grounds that the administration's illegal abuse of the narrow statutory parole authority has directly harmed them.
Whether those hundreds of thousands stay in those areas or fly on after their initial landing and release is not shown in this data. Many of the landing Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians will obviously choose to stay in Florida, where expatriate
Executive Branch Policy Decision is the reason the Houthis exist and are attacking International Shipping in the Red Sea. They are funded, trained, armed and controlled by Iran. Commander Central Command was ask at a recent Congressional Hearing why he was using 2million dollar missiles to shoot down 2000dollar drones instead of stopping Iran from Arming the Houthis. His answer was to diplomatically say “It’s a policy decision”. Re Venezuelans, Maduro emptied his prisons and sent hundreds of thousands of these prisoners and others N to enter Our Homeland. I just viewed a photo on X of thousands of them at the El Paso, Texas border camped out on the other side of the Razor Wire Barrier put in place on order of Texas Governor Abbott to the Texas National Guard. Texas has spent 10 Billion Dollars to fortify Our 1,254 mile border w Mexico. New Mexico, Arizona and California do literally 0 to stop the flood of invaders from 172 countries that Biden, Blinken, MAYORKAS have streamed into the USA since Jan 20, 2021. 10 million plus unvetted invaders have entered. Todd BENSMAN, Center for Immigration Studies has penned 2 books on this mass invasion. This weekend he released details maps showing how and where Biden and Company flew almost 400,000 invaders directly into Our Homeland. There was once a time when US Marines guarded the U.S. Mail, in the near future US Marines may be called upon to hunt down tens of thousands of terrorist, Chinese saboteurs etc….in Our Homeland. We will not be bothered w putting Marines in a SIF instead the will be operating in the USA. A Chinese operative infiltrated Our US Marine base in California last week. I use Duck Duck Go as a search engine use the search engine of your choice and ck out Todd BENSMAN’S. PS I live in San Antonio and have personally witnessed this invasion, to include the use of San Antonio International Airport where invaders are flown into Our Interior after being bused there by Catholic Charities from Eagle Pass, Laredo etc..
The US has been shown time and time again that a graduated escalating response to terrorism and budding insurgencies does not work, i.e, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Stomp on a smoldering insurgency like the Houthis. It removes the threat to shipping, destroys the "schoolhouse" and sends a message to Iran, China and North Korea - don't poke the eagle. While it is important to try and minimize collateral damage, rather than taking out these sites one or two at a time, several massive raids would knock out much of their capability and restore free sea lanes.