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An armed Somali refugee gets shot by a sheriff deputy during an active investigation and the family is upset. The best part? The dad who is a refugee is on vacation in Somalia. What are we doing? How can these people be refugees while traveling back to their home country for vacation and business?

Judge Who Ordered Admin to Process 12,000 Refugees Tucks Tail After 9th Circuit Corrects Him...Again By Susie Moore https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2025/05/15/judge-who-ordered-admin-to-process-12000-refugees-tucks-tail-after-9th-circuit-corrects-him-again-n2189147

Please link me to the Joe F. Refugee Risk Standings. I suspect that he doesn't rank any whites in his Top 25.

Of course. They aren't 'refugees'.

#WTH How to think about Syria It's more complicated than many want you to believe Danielle Pletka Syria is a beautiful country, destroyed by decades of exploitation by the Assad regime, and its allies, Russia, Iran, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Since the late 2010 uprising against the Assad regime, about half a million Syrians have been murdered. The Assad regime was so important to the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran that rather than simply sacrificing the liability that was Bashar al Assad — son of longtime Syrian tyrant Hafez al Assad — and installing a different leader and aiming for reconciliation, Tehran backed Assad to the end, with hundreds of thousands dead, millions of refugees, and heavy costs to the regime and its proxies. Assad, who now lives under the protection of Vladimir Putin with his stolen billions, is a member of the minority Alawite sect (about 10 percent of Syria), an offshoot of Shiism that Sunni Muslims view as apostasy. The vast majority of Syrians are Sunni, though the country also has a sizable Muslim Kurdish and Druze minority, as well as a shrinking Christian minority and a handful of Jews. https://whatthehellisgoingon.substack.com/p/wth-how-to-think-about-syria

But what would he know ? Another January to remember Cuba American Thinker, by Sylvia Canto Jr. Cuba became an independent country in 1902. You can divide the island’s history into two periods: the pre-Castro years and the current regime’s period in power since 1959. I was born in the last decade of pre-Castro Cuba. My story so typical of the other kids born in the 1950s. We were the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants from Spain or elsewhere. Our ancestors came to Cuba because it was a prosperous island, an attractive place for Spaniards seeking a better life, for Jewish refugees from Europe, hardworking Asians, and others. It was a young and vibrant country with hope and a future. In other words, the island of Cuba attracted people rather than driving its citizens away looking for a future. It is really sad to watch Cuba today, from energy blackouts to importing sugar. Let me repeat: importing sugar. As a result, the young escape and look for a better life, preferably in the U.S. The old get stuck behind. As I saw yesterday, Cuba is on track to have the oldest population in Latin America. It is even more painful when you realize that pre-Castro Cuba attracted thousands of immigrants from all over the world To wither is to shrivel, fade, decay, or lose the freshness of youth. Cuba is indeed withering today. So another January to remember the tragedy of Cuba and how much longer it will go on. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/01/another_january_to_remember_cuba.html

Dear Democrats, It's Only a Matter of Time Before the Machine Turns on You by Brandon Morse FTA: But perhaps you’re a Democrat still and you’re reading this because my headline sparked something in your brain and resonated with something you’re worried about. Perhaps you’re looking for the door after the party, as Reagan once said, left you. And why wouldn’t you be? It’s become a radicalized mess of extremist views and indefensible beliefs. You were always pretty socially liberal but perhaps you never signed up for drag queens in schools and CRT infecting every corner of society. Perhaps you’re still financially suffering thanks to a mixture of residual problems after the lockdowns and inflation and all you’re getting from the Democrats is lies about how everything’s great. Perhaps you’re worried that the left’s hubris has grown so thick that they’re actively going after their political enemies by using the law and you’re wondering if that could happen to you or someone you love. You’re right to be worried. This isn’t normal. The Democrats are not the party you once knew. They are indeed something completely different now. It’s adopted all the worst qualities of political movements of the past while wearing a mask of modernized American “care” and “acceptance.” It’s a skinwalker, pretending to be something you once knew and cared for to get close to you but that thing you knew has been long dead. This sounds dramatic but if you’re a Democrat reading this, you probably feel it too. Like the aforementioned monster, it looks familiar but you no longer feel comfortable around it and you want to pull away. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Politicians and voters alike are leaving in droves. {snip} But notice the reaction from Democrats when someone started thinking for themselves. This isn’t uncommon. Look at the way a black person is treated when they distance themselves from the Democrat Party which thinks they own them. Look at the way gay people are treated when they decide to sign on with Republicans. Look at the way transgender people who detransition or support Republicans are ignored and/or silenced by mainstream culture and viciously attacked by their own leftist activist community behind the scenes. Look at the way illegal immigrants aren’t at all stopped from streaming across the border but refugees from places like Cuba, which create staunch Republicans once they establish themselves in America, are expressly rejected. Look at how women who reject the feminist cause are treated by leftists. Each of these groups receives some of the most vile treatment from the left, the same left that claims to be the party of the people and oppressed groups. This isn’t the behavior of a free-thinking party. This is fascistic. You are to stay in line and not step out of it lest you face the wrath of the body politic. It’s important to remember that the Democrat machine doesn’t have friends, just useful tools that eventually run out of usefulness. These are the kind of people that are doing everything they can to be in charge and they will do whatever it takes to stay in charge. You’re witnessing this happen now between a New York DA and Donald Trump. If you’re experiencing doubtfulness, it’s only a matter of time before it’s sniffed out by people in your personal circle and/or online mobs and you’re either intimidated into compliance or made an example of. It’s happened to many people before you. It’s time to ditch the Democrats. They aren’t the party of welcome and warmth. They’re infested with radicals who do not take “no” for an answer and will punish anyone who defies them. The best thing you can do is help them lose power by no longer standing with them. Just make the switch. https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2023/04/05/dear-democrats-its-only-a-matter-of-time-before-the-machine-turns-on-you-n726847 https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2020/05/22/wow-the-longer-video-clip-from-joe-bidens-you-aint-black-interview-was-actually-much-worse-n137882 https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/09/21/paypal-venmo-and-google-cut-off-group-fighting-to-protect-children-from-groomers-n630856 https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2022/06/14/how-the-transgender-community-uses-cult-like-tactics-and-unmitigated-fear-to-seduce-and-destroy-n578391 https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2021/07/15/biden-administration-finally-comes-down-hard-on-illegal-immigration-against-cubans-n411231 https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2023/03/14/theres-a-growing-trad-wife-trend-thats-making-feminists-furious-n716251

WELL, GOOD: America is rapidly pulling troops from Afghanistan. “It was only in 2001 that American forces toppled the Taliban regime, when the mullahs who led the movement refused to hand over Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. But nearly two-thirds of the population is less than 25 years old, and so has little or no memory of the Taliban’s rule. They are having to brush up on their history, however, as they contemplate the prospect of the Taliban returning to power in some form. The American troops that have propped up the Afghan government and held the Taliban at bay for the past 19 years are on their way out.” If Kabul can’t make it after nearly 20 years of American blood and treasure, they never will and were never going to.

Europe Braces for 130,000 Refugees on the Move from Turkey by Rick Moran https://pjmedia.com/trending/europe-braces-for-130000-refugees-on-the-move-from-turkey/

GOOD NEWS ON IMMIGRATION Mother Jones has data on immigration that most people will consider good news. Mother Jones, of course, doesn’t see it that way. I sincerely hope that last assertion is true. Now, on to the data. Refugee admissions have dropped sharply: Other immigration categories have slowed as well. It took me a moment to understand the charts, but the lighter dot to the left shows the percentage denied in 2015, and the darker dot to the right shows the percentage denied in 2019. I am especially glad to see “family unity applications” being denied at a relatively high rate–still, only 19%–as these are rife with fraud. Ultimately, we need a merit-based immigration system like Canada’s, or the one that the new Tory government in the U.K. is proposing. Until we have a system that is designed to benefit us, not random citizens of third world countries, Trump’s pullback is the best we can do. .

"The Taliban have showed off containers full of weapons and military hardware seized from the Afghan military as American forces withdraw from the country...." "The weaponry includes 900 guns, 30 light tactical vehicles and 20 army pickup trucks.... District after district has fallen to the Taliban. The militants have seized 120 districts since May 1.... [M]any military outposts have been surrendered without a fight, allowing the Taliban to seize weapons, according to multiple Afghan military and government sources." NBC reports. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-parade-new-weapons-seized-afghan-military-u-s-withdraws-n1273081

Tell that to the Abandoned: CBS Rips Biden Admin Spinning Afghan Crisis Newsbusters, by Nicholas Fondacaro With the final military planes off the tarmac and out of Afghan airspace, the Biden administration was desperate to try to paint their deadly disaster as some sort of success. Each of the press secretaries and top officials at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon parroted the same talking point that it was the largest airlift in U.S. history. But CBS News popped their bubble Monday as they pointed out how the “hundreds” of Americans they abandoned in the terrorist haven would beg to differ. https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2021/08/30/tell-abandoned-cbs-rips-biden-admin-spinning-afghan-crisis Sounds like several of the desperate posters here.

BIDEN’S OPEN BORDER & THE OPEN QUESTION If a frank enemy of the United States had taker over the executive branch this past January, I wonder if he would conduct himself one whit differently than have Joe Biden, his administration, and his Democratic enablers in Congress and the media. The federal government is aiding and abetting illegal immigration. That is a violation of federal law and thus another manifestation of Biden’s disregard for his solemn duty to execute the laws faithfully, on unabashed display this week with his dictatorial eviction-moratorium decree, which he and his administration concede is unconstitutional. Immigration law commands that aliens who do not have a legal right to be present in the United States “shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.” That is, even those who credibly claim to fear persecution if returned from whence they came — the infinitesimally small percentage of legitimate refugees among the hordes now seeking entry — are supposed to be held in custody until that claim is fully adjudicated. But Biden has signaled that the border is open and that those who try to cross illegally stand an excellent chance of getting in and staying. Rhetorically, the president pretends the laws are being enforced, but he knows this is impossible in the conditions he has willfully created. The government is woefully short of the detention space, enforcement personnel, and administrative resources that would be needed to handle the vast migrant crowds arriving daily. Here is one more: The numbers here are staggering, even if we were to make-believe, Biden-style, that every illegal alien who crosses the border is “encountered” by border enforcement agents. (The government prefers to speak of “encountering migrants” because it can’t say it is detaining every alien who enters illegally, as the law mandates.) In July, there were 210,000 such “encounters,” the highest monthly figure in decades, but a figure that in the Biden era is becoming run-of-the-mill. Before hitting 190,000 in June, it had hovered around 180,000 per month since March and was significantly up year-over-year before that. Meantime, as our Zachary Evans reports, 834 unaccompanied alien minors arrived at the border on Wednesday, the largest daily total on record. Just for the month of July, that figure was over 19,000. More at the link: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/bidens-open-border-the-open-question.php

Getting results........... KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan man who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month was an enthusiastic and beloved longtime employee at an American humanitarian organization, his colleagues say, painting a stark contrast to the Pentagon’s claims that he was an Islamic State group militant about to carry out an attack on American troops. Signs have been mounting that the U.S. military may have targeted the wrong man in the Aug. 29 strike in Kabul, with devastating consequences, killing seven children and two other adults from his family. The Pentagon says it is further investigating the strike, but it has no way to do so on the ground in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, severely limiting its ability to gather evidence. Accounts from the family, documents from colleagues seen by The Associated Press, and the scene at the family home — where Zemerai Ahmadi’s car was struck by a Hellfire missile just as he pulled into the driveway — all seem to sharply contradict the accounts by the U.S. military. Instead, they paint the picture of a family that had worked for Americans and were trying to gain visas to the United States, fearing for their lives under the Taliban. At the home, the mangled, incinerated Toyota Corolla remains in the driveway. But there are no signs of large secondary blasts the Pentagon said were caused by explosives hidden in the car trunk. In the tightly cramped, walled compound, the house is undamaged except for broken glass, even a badly built wooden balcony remains in place. A brick wall immediately adjacent to the car stands intact. Trees and foliage close to the car are not burned or torn. (Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ... https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-strikes-islamic-state-group-b8bd9b0c805c610758bd1d3e20090c2c

Mike Pence: Biden Broke Our Deal With the Taliban It’s a foreign-policy humiliation unlike anything our country has endured since the Iran hostage crisis. By Mike Pence FTA: By the time we left office, the Afghan government and the Taliban each controlled their respective territories, neither was mounting major offensives, and America had only 2,500 U.S. troops in the country—the smallest military presence since the war began in 2001. America’s endless war was coming to a dignified end, and Bagram Air Base ensured we could conduct counterterrorism missions through the war’s conclusion. The progress our administration made toward ending the war was possible because Taliban leaders understood that the consequences of violating the deal would be swift and severe. After our military took out Iranian terrorist Qasem Soleimani, and U.S. Special Forces killed the leader of ISIS, the Taliban had no doubt we would keep our promise. But when Mr. Biden became president, he quickly announced that U.S. forces would remain in Afghanistan for an additional four months without a clear reason for doing so. There was no plan to transport the billions of dollars worth of American equipment recently captured by the Taliban, or evacuate the thousands of Americans now scrambling to escape Kabul, or facilitate the regional resettlement of the thousands of Afghan refugees who will now be seeking asylum in the U.S. with little or no vetting. Rather, it seems that the president simply didn’t want to appear to be abiding by the terms of a deal negotiated by his predecessor. https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-pence-biden-broke-our-deal-with-the-taliban-11629238764?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Joe Biden Begins the Bid to Rewrite the History of His Bloody Botched Afghan Exit by Andrew Malcolm Word out of the White House this week is that Joe Biden, or at least his handlers, intend to recapture the narrative on his colossal Afghan exit screw-up. Good luck with that tardy effort. It’s as if saying something in Washington, even without attribution, makes it so in this White House wonderland. [Snip] News Flash: The evacuation narrative train left the Kabul station more than a week ago when U.S. troops were finally gone, the Taliban was all over but so were countless thousands of Americans and Afghan allies. But the reality won’t stop this president from reading the lines touting his immense evacuation. Nor keep his dysfunctional team from parroting the same glowing things about Biden’s plan in order to reach any Americans not paying close attention to the chaotic and now deadly withdrawal scene. https://redstate.com/andrewmalcolm/2021/08/27/joe-biden-begins-the-bid-to-rewrite-the-history-of-his-bloody-botched-afghan-exit-n433514

Biden administration was warned Last Month by US diplomats in Kabul of impending Taliban 'catastrophe' if troops withdrew and urged evacuations of All Americans to begin on August 1 by Geoff Earle State Department officials in the Kabul embassy told the Biden administration last month that the Afghan capital would fall and to speed up evacuations, a new report claims.A dozen diplomats sent a confidential memo in a dissent channel to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on July 13 that the Taliban was rapidly gaining ground and the city was vulnerable to collapse, the Wall Street Journal reported.On July 8, President Biden said it was 'highly unlikely' the Taliban would take control of Afghanistan and denied there would be chaos in Kabul. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9910153/Blinken-warned-month-Kabul-fall-report-claims.html

MARK STEYN: The Afghan Humiliation: “Kabul Could Fall To The Taliban Within 90 Days, U.S. Intelligence Warns. Thank you, geniuses. That was Thursday. So it turned out to be well within ninety hours – which is close enough for US intelligence work. Was this the same ‘seventeen intelligence agencies’ who all agreed Russia had meddled in the 2016 election – and with whose collective intelligence only a fool would disagree? . . . To modify Hillary Clinton, what difference at this point would it make if the US government simply laid off its entire ‘intelligence community’? Indeed, what difference would it make if it closed down its military? Obviously, it would present a few mid-life challenges for its corrupt Pentagon bureaucracy, since that many generals on the market for defense lobbyist gigs and board directorships all at once would likely depress the going rate. But, other than that, a military that accounts for 40 per cent of the planet’s military spending can’t perform either of the functions for which one has an army: it can’t defeat overseas enemies, and it’s not permitted to defend the country, as we see on the Rio Grande. So what’s the point?” https://www.steynonline.com/11598/the-scale-of-humiliation “America’s NATO allies are now angry that the so called global engagement leader, Biden, consulted with none of them a whit. They are angry, and feel that they were abandoned. They are also left with the mess of having to rescue their nationals left in Afghanistan themselves. Not only is Biden grossly incompetent, so is all of his military bureaucracy. All of these people need to be cashiered immediately.”

ROGER SIMON: Taliban Takeover Amid US Negligence a Disaster for Afghani Women. https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-negligence-a-disaster-for-afghani-women_3951082.html Beyond the obvious rise in terrorism now almost inevitable from the disaster in Afghanistan, beyond the many friends and allies likely to suffer death or torture, beyond the disgraceful waste of twenty years of American people and treasure, more than anything, our so-called progressive leaders—in their negligence—have inadvertently instigated one of the greatest examples of misogyny in human history. Think of what will become of the women of that country at the hands of the Taliban—aware, as opposed to “woke,” people remember the summary executions of females in their soccer stadium—as well as their treatment at the equally “feminist” hands of al-Qaeda and the rapidly renewing ISIS. These are the same Afghani women who were attending universities and working like normal modern people under our protection while we were there. Now they will be left trying to survive under the most extreme and oppressive versions of sharia law, if they are not raped or shot. Eli Lake has pointed out in an article that Taliban leaders are already preparing lists of young girls who will be “married” to their loyalists. One can only imagine the result. As Charles Cooke writes: The Democratic Party Can’t Have It Both Ways on Afghanistan. “ https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/the-democratic-party-cant-have-it-both-ways-on-afghanistan/ Rhetorically, Joe Biden’s party is trying to have it both ways. Leaving because it’s time to put ‘America First’ is a coherent course — albeit not one I would have counseled. Staying while talking about the importance of universal human rights is too. But leaving while talking about the importance of universal human rights? That’s a bad joke. Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday that she was ‘deeply concerned about reports regarding the Taliban’s brutal treatment of all Afghans, especially women and girls,’ while praising Biden for his ‘clarity’ and ‘wisdom’ in taking a series of actions that will lead directly to that brutal treatment. This makes no sense. As of today, it is simply not possible to say that you think the United States should leave and that you hope it will all work out. The United States is leaving, and it is not working out.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Afghan staff at U.S. Embassy losing faith in evacuation efforts, diplomatic cable says. Staffers reported being jostled, hit, spat on and cursed at by Taliban fighters at checkpoints near the airport, it said, adding that criminals were taking advantage of the chaos while the U.S. military tried to maintain order “in an extremely physical situation.” Some staff members reported that they were almost separated from their children, while others collapsed in a crush of people and had to be taken to hospitals with injuries, the cable said. Others said they had collapsed on the road because of heat exhaustion, it said. “It would be better to die under the Taliban’s bullet” than face the crowds again, a staff member was quoted as saying in the cable. None of this was necessary. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/afghan-staff-u-s-embassy-losing-faith-evacuation-efforts-diplomatic-n1277397 A cautionary note for those who think what is unfolding in Aghanistan is a local problem for the 15,000 Americans and our Afghan allies trapped there, plus a geopolitical humiliation. A lot has been said about Russia and China taking advantage of this. Also worth noting however that international jihad was on the ropes, after the destruction of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, with the Taliban stalemated in Afghanistan. International jihad just had a big win. That is going to have a ripple effect. Or maybe more like a tsunami. International jihad is back. Weird, it pretty much disappeared 2017 through 2020.

Biden's Foreign Policy Already GettING Results British Parliament Unloads On Biden: ‘Biden May Have Condemned The World To Chinese Domination In Future’ Numerous members of the British Parliament slammed President Joe Biden this week in response to the catastrophe the president created in Afghanistan with his disastrous pullout and handling of the situation.The remarks came on Wednesday from members in the House of Lords, which is one of the two chambers in the British Parliament.Members blamed Biden for the situation and shamed him for trying to cast blame on others, including the Afghan military. Many of the members said that America’s image was seriously damaged around the world and the West could suffer greatly in the years to come because nations may no longer trust the West https://www.dailywire.com/news/british-parliament-unloads-on-biden-biden-may-have-condemned-the-world-to-chinese-domination-in-future

In the worst showing since becoming president, President Joe Biden’s approval has fallen to its lowest ever, and the public no longer feels his team is competent, honest, or led well. As Biden struggles to recover from the bungled Afghan withdrawal and an interparty feud over his spending and tax agenda, his approval has sunk to just 38% in the latest Quinnipiac University Poll. A majority, 53%, disapprove. (https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3824) The survey follows a similar pattern in other polls, notably Gallup, that recently had his approval at a poor 43%. While partisanship remains as strong as it was during the Trump era, independents are weighing in heavily against Biden. By nearly 2-1, independents disapprove of Biden, 60%-32%. Of special note in the new survey, the public appears to have lost faith in Biden’s abilities. According to the survey: More than half say 55%-42% said the Biden administration is not competent in running the government. Fifty percent said Biden is not honest, while 44% said he is. Forty-one percent said he has “good leadership,” while 56% said he doesn’t. Fifty-five percent disapprove of his handling of the economy. Fifty-eight percent disapprove of his job as commander in chief. Sixty-seven percent said he's wrong on immigration and border issues. “Battered on trust, doubted on leadership, and challenged on overall competency, President Biden is being hammered on all sides as his approval rating continues its downward slide to a number not seen since the tough scrutiny of the Trump administration,” said Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/hammered-biden-falls-to-38-not-competent-honest

Joe Biden Now Describes Migrant Rush on the Border as a ‘Crisis’ by Charlie Spiering President Joe Biden finally described the rush of unaccompanied minor migrants to the border as a “crisis” on Saturday, despite himself and members of his administration previously refusing to use the word to describe the situation. Biden spoke to reporters about the border crisis after a round of golf at the Delaware Country Club on Saturday. He commented on the crisis as he explained why he reversed his position on raising the caps set by former President Donald Trump on refugees. “The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people,” he said to reporters. “We couldn’t do two things at once. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/04/17/joe-biden-now-describes-migrant-rush-on-the-border-as-a-crisis/

BIDENOMICS OFF TO ROARING START: Shot: “We saw the jobs report. Only 6,000 private sector jobs will be created. And at that rate, it’s going to take ten years before we get to full employment. That’s not hyperbole,” Biden said, seated beside Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office during a meeting with House Democratic leadership. —CNN, yesterday. Chaser: Biden plans early legislation to offer legal status to 11 million immigrants without it. —The Los Angeles Times, January 15th. Hangover: Jared Bernstein, member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors: “One thing we learned in the 1990s was that a surefire way to reconnect the fortunes of working people at all skill levels, immigrant and native-born alike, to the growing economy is to let the job market tighten up. A tight job market pressures employers to boost wage offers to get and keep the workers they need. One equally surefire way to sort-circuit this useful dynamic is to turn on the immigrant spigot every time some group’s wages go up.” UPDATE: Biden Sets Stage For Largest Number of Refugee Admissions in Three Decades. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) criticized Biden’s announcement. “Increasing the refugee admissions cap to its highest point in three decades will put American jobs and safety at risk during a pandemic,” he said. “We’re only one week into the Biden administration and its immigration policies are already putting Americans last.” —CNS News, Thursday.

A SENSIBLE TAKE ON SYRIA Liberals’ foreign policy views are inconsistent, but entirely predictable: whatever a Republican president does, they oppose. Thus, Democrats applauded when President Obama prematurely withdrew American troops from Iraq, enabling the rise of ISIS. But when President Trump pulled a few hundred out of Syria, it was: OMG! The Kurds! James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation and the Institute of World Politics gave an interview to the Daily Signal that gives the best take I have seen on Trump’s recent Syria move. You really should read it all, but here are some highlights: When President Trump came in office, he actually expanded the U.S. footprint in Syria, because military advisers made the argument that … you couldn’t take down the caliphate—in other words, destroy the physical state that the terrorist had—if we didn’t actually have forces in there working with indigenous groups that were fighting ISIS, chief among them, the YPG, which is an armed Kurdish group. And so President Trump actually increased the U.S. footprint in Syria. Then subsequent to that, after the caliphate was destroyed, the president wanted to withdraw U.S. troops. The military advisers and several allies, including Israel, said, “Well, look, there’s still concerns that need to be addressed.” So we’ve maintained a small footprint in Syria for the last year or so. *** [W]e estimate it’s a relatively small print of a few hundred Americans in uniform that are spread around the areas that are not controlled by the Syrian government. *** Let’s start by what the Turks are doing. They’re not invading Syria. There is a portion of Syria which borders Turkey, which right now is kind of uncontrolled. Nobody really controls the port. The Syrian government doesn’t control the border. There are Kurdish groups in that area and the Turks wanted to control that area. It’s several kilometers wide, so it’s really a small chunk of Syria. Why do they want to control it? Well, one, they don’t want it to be a platform for Kurdish terrorist groups, not the Kurdish people. There’s a difference, right? There are Kurds all over the region. There are Kurds in Iran. There are Kurds in Iraq. There are Kurds in Syria. There are Kurds in other places. So when you say the Kurds, that’s a lot of people spread all over the Middle East, but there are Kurdish groups which are affiliated with specific terrorist groups, like the PKK, which is a terrorist group [that] … focuses on attacking Turkey. So they don’t want terrorist groups to use that area as a platform to attack Turkey. They want to control their border and they would like to create a space because they have probably a million refugees or more from Syria that are living in Turkey. The Turks would like to create a space so those people can move back into Syria. It’s a relatively limited objective that the Turks have outlined. *** What did the U.S. do? Well, if you actually read the statement of the Department of Defense, which actually explains this, we didn’t give permission for the Turks to do this. They didn’t ask permission. And the reality is we can’t stop them from doing this. We have a couple of hundred soldiers in the entire country. We don’t have enough … to prevent the Turks from doing anything unless we’re going to start bombing the Turkish military, which I don’t think we’re going to do. MORE AT THE LINK: