Category: Stupid Hit
No wonder why the number of Russian men keep going down
The Pentagon announced Monday that it had finished withdrawing U.S. forces from a $110 million military base in Niger, Africa, as the nation’s ruling regime takes over.
Niger’s Air Base 201 previously hosted hundreds of U.S. troops who have now evacuated at the request of the country’s military junta. The Pentagon said in a statement on Monday that all remaining forces and assets at the base have been withdrawn as final evacuation efforts come to a close.
“This effort began on May 19 following the mutual establishment of withdrawal conditions and coordination will continue between U.S. and Nigerien armed forces over the coming weeks to ensure the full withdrawal is complete as planned,” a statement from the Pentagon reads. “The effective cooperation and communication between the U.S. and Nigerien armed forces ensured that this turnover was finished ahead of schedule and without complications.”
American soldiers in front of military vehicles that they are preparing to board a cargo plane in Niamey on June 7, 2024 during the ceremony for the first departure of American troops from Niger. (Photo by BOUREIMA HAMA/AFP via Getty Images)
Some U.S. troops will remain at the U.S. Embassy in Niger while final withdrawal operations are completed in the coming weeks, according to The New York Times. Some equipment from Air Base 201 was shipped out, such as weaponry, but other equipment was left behind.
The U.S. relationship with Niger began to unravel after the country’s military regime toppled the democratic system in mid-2023, sending the nation spiraling into chaos. The regime was adamant that it did not want the U.S. to maintain a presence in Niger and demanded its immediate withdrawal.
Attempts to negotiate with the military regime largely failed as the country became increasingly hostile to troops stationed in the country. Officials issued a formal order in May to begin evacuating U.S. forces over the coming months, with the last of troops expected to depart from Niger by mid-September, according to the Times.
Some prominent U.S. defense officials argue that not having forces in Niger limits the U.S.’ ability to conduct counterterrorism operations against extremist and terrorist groups in the Sahel region.
TOPSHOT – Niger’s security officers stand guard as supporters of Niger’s National Council of Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) gather oustide Niger and French airbase in Niamey on September 3, 2023, to demand the departure of the French army from Niger. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
“This does make safeguarding U.S. security interests in the Sahel that much harder,” Maj. Gen. Kenneth P. Ekman of the Air Force, tasked with overseeing the withdrawal, told the Times in July. “The threats from ISIS and Al Qaeda in the region are getting worse every day.”
However, some defense experts and former U.S. officials who previously spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation believed that withdrawing forces from Niger was the right decision, given that they were falling under an increasing amount of danger from the country’s hostile government and population. Boots on the ground are not necessarily needed to conduct counterterrorism operations, as the U.S. has other extensive military and intelligence capabilities, experts told the DCNF.
“What the [Biden administration] was not understanding, is that these guys are cold-blooded. This new government in Niger? They don’t care. They do not want the United States involved in their country,” Michael DiMino, a former CIA official and senior fellow at Defense Priorities, told the DCNF. “There was this denialism for several months that, ‘We can salvage this, we did fix this.’”
The Pentagon and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FILE – State Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, listens as lawmakers discuss a bill before the Senate at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., July 10, 2023. A federal appeals court on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, upheld California's ban on gun shows at county fairs and other public properties, deciding the laws do not violate the rights of firearm sellers or buyers. The two measures were both written by Min. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
SOURCE: Rich Pedroncelli
SAN FRANCISCO —
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld California’s ban on gun shows at county fairs and other public properties, deciding the laws do not violate the rights of firearm sellers or buyers.
The 3-0 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a federal judge’s ruling in October that blocked the laws.
The two measures were both written by Democratic state Sen. Dave Min. The first, which went into effect in January 2022, barred gun shows at the Orange County Fair, and the other, which took effect last year, extended the ban to county fairgrounds on state-owned land.
In his decision last fall, U.S. District Judge Mark Holcomb wrote that the state was violating the rights of sellers and would-be buyers by prohibiting transactions for firearms that can be bought at any gun shop. He said lawful gun sales involve commercial speech protected by the First Amendment.
But the appeals court decided the laws prohibit only sales agreements on public property — not discussions, advertisements or other speech about firearms. The bans “do not directly or inevitably restrict any expressive activity,” Judge Richard Clifton wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who defended the laws in court, hailed the decision.
“Guns should not be sold on property owned by the state, it is that simple,” Bonta said in a statement. “This is another victory in the battle against gun violence in our state and country.”
Gun shows attract thousands of prospective buyers to local fairgrounds. Under a separate state law, not challenged in the case, actual purchase of a firearm at a gun show is completed at a licensed gun store after a 10-day waiting period and a background check, Clifton noted.
Gun-control groups have maintained the shows pose dangers, making the weapons attractive to children and enabling “straw purchases” for people ineligible to possess firearms.
The suit was filed by a gun show company, B&L Productions, which also argued that the ban on fairgrounds sales violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The appeals court disagreed, noting that there were six licensed firearms dealers in the same ZIP code as the Orange County Fairgrounds, the subject of Min’s 2022 law.
Min said the restoration of the laws will make Californians safer.
“I hope that in my lifetime, we will return to being a society where people’s lives are valued more than guns, and where gun violence incidents are rare and shocking rather than commonplace as they are today,” Min said in a statement Tuesday.
The ruling will be appealed, said attorney Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
“CRPA will continue to protect the despised gun culture and fight back against an overreaching government that seeks to limit disfavored fundamental rights and discriminate against certain groups of people on state property,” Michel said in a statement provided to the San Francisco Chronicle.