America should seek military bases to house 40,000 troops in North Africa to assist in operational training and intelligence collection. #BarackObama #Ukraine #Russia #Crimea #Taliban #ISIS #Al-Qaeda #BokoHaram #NationalSecurity #HomelandSecurity #Hegel #Pentagon #DOD

    

    Proposed Policy Revisions

#BarackObama #Ukraine #Russia #Crimea #Taliban #ISIS #Al-Qaeda #BokoHaram #NationalSecurity #HomelandSecurity #Hegel #Pentagon #DOD

     With respect for Hegel's plan to reduce the army by 40,000 recent tensions with Russia and recent attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria make such calls unrealistic and dangerous and urge Barack Obama and the pentagon to scrap such plans instead in favor of a plan to pursue robust partnerships with Nigeria, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Egypt and Algeria that include the stationing of as many as 40,000 US troops to help with intelligence and operational training (forward policing and border security), with the State Department to help continue improving the functionality of their democracies and business partnerships to increase the productivity of their economies.  Let it be clear, America cannot afford to abandon Afghanistan and needs to keep an extended military presence, even if such a presence is kept safely within the barracks of its larger bases and airstrips, while negotiates with Iraq should not rule out the return of the US military assistance necessary in containing and combatting ISIS and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

[Specifically I recommend American military presence and bases in North Eastern Nigeria, in central Mali, in South Eastern Libya and along the borders where ISIS and their affiliates have taken advantage of porous borders to wage cross border attacks on Western owned assets and to interfere with the progression of democracy, Christian religious worship and College Attendance. The development of such bases and presence should be in partnership with these regional countries, and America should serve an auxiliary role, helping with intelligence and operational training. Regional Commanders, however, should be encouraged to be provided the free hand to use overwhelming military force whenever US military or the State Department at bases, embassies or elsewhere receive armed engagement so that it is clear to all, that direct military challenge to the United States of America is an instance death sentence and that we will not wait for diplomacy and international organizations to enact justice and achieve deterrence.]

     It is my assessment that efforts to direct periphery movements into acceptable movements (as supported in my earlier papers and as monitored) was hampered by the Egyptian Militaries decision to remove Morsi from power in Egypt, that while they should have let the Muslim Brotherhood fail and democratic transition to take place, that other Islamist movements looking to work peacefully within the democratic system need to take heed to the reality that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt failed to adequately enshrine minority protections and traditional liberal institutions of democracy (ie., independent courts) as matters of law. These realities sealed the Muslim Brotherhoods fate in Egypt's Arab Spring. The actions of Islamists in Tunisia took a different course and I point to there willingness to work with liberal collaborators in the Arab Spring to draft more workable constitutions protecting democratic institutions and minority rights, to illustrate that America and the West are not against moderate forms of Islam or their inclusion within the democratic process. This is something recent roes between individual agitators within Saudi Arabia and the rebel brigades of Syria should take note of if they wish to see an amiable end other than grey prison concrete or the blackness of death.

    I reiterate, that Al-Qaeda's strategy is to draw America and the West into costly and difficult fights with mutual enemies such as Assad's regime in Syria, a country with a capable military and advanced anti-aircraft artillery, in to Yemen- a country with nearly 50 million guns and of course, into Afghanistan- what Osama called the “Graveyard of Empires” and into Saddam's Iraq. Al-Qaeda's Modus Operandi is to thrive on the destruction of stabilizing secular or Western aligned states, to promote and sow ethnic strife, to create extended chaos that tires populations only to then present Sharia law as the answer and efficient means of restoring basic order. Al-Qaeda then sets up an Islamic state and immediately seeks to expand to surrounding territories.  America's lower risk approach of continued drone and air strikes directed at nodes of Al-Qaeda recruitment and operational planning is a necessary and sound security practice that should be continued, if not increased.  

     It is because of this, that America, the West and our partners across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia need to foster strong partnerships with the countries that have economic and democratic potentials, to secure their solvency and forward their progression so that Al-Qaeda is unable to spread its ideology and increasingly sees its proponents captured, killed or defeated, so that the Middle East and Africa, has its own Economic base, political structures and capable militaries, police forces and courts to combat, arrest and convict both agents of Al-Qaeda, affiliated groups and proponents of similar means and ends. I present this without enthusiasm, but if we wish to responsibly pursue security within the realities of the world, these recommendations are necessary to implement.

    These military actions have to come with serious efforts to raise robust aid and investment packages for Ukraine far larger than the 1 billion raised by the United States unilaterally. Their also needs to be more serious and substantial multilateral conversations about Afghanistan and Libya's future, progress and ongoing support to elevate their standards of living, volume of trade and to prevent the emergence of terrorist safe havens. All of these outward actions need to coincide with a serious and determined look at our domestic economy, to summon and marshal business leaders to be sure that economic retraction is not an option and that the federal reserve, our banking institutions and legislators are ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure continued recovery and economic growth in all sectors of our economy, with this in part being facilited by increasing coordination with the state department to garner profitable contracts for American companies products and services abroad in opening or recently opened markets, along with markets with suboptimal trade imbalances; in part by coordination with the commerce department to oversee the continued creation of quality jobs domestically for recent college graduates and others that have faced structural unemployment and undergone or need job retraining. This does not mean the continued exportation of American jobs to cheaper labor markets, this means the sale of American made products to foreign buyers with the expansion of America's domestic industrial base understood as a vital pillar in our National Security Strategy.