Blog Heap of Links for the day 18 January 2016

As the Afghanistan War grinds into its 15th year, many U.S. military officers are telling Congress their hands are tied to go after the enemy, particularly the Islamic State, which is building up its presence in the country despite fierce opposition from the Taliban.… “If the public were able to know all the restrictions placed on our troops, they would be unhappy about it, and if the enemy knew this they would have more of a leg up than they do now.”…

…Then the first refugees came to my office, where I wanted to stop the counseling services – After the first few visits I noted that my very positive and idealistic notion of them and their behavior was clearly different from reality. Of course you should not make generalizations about all refugees under any circumstances, there are many of them who are very friendly, grateful, very willingly integrated, very happy here. But if I’m honest, then the collaboration with 90 percent of those whom I meet is rather unpleasant and unfortunately not as I had thought before.…

The U.S. military released new details on Monday about how 10 Navy sailors were taken captive briefly by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Persian Gulf last week, but it remains unclear how the sailors first ended up in Iranian territorial waters before their capture. … A defense official said that the boats veered into Iranian waters first, and then one of them experienced a mechanical problem.…

…"When the 13 young people sat down here in the state of Oklahoma, young people from all over the United States started standing up and sit-ins spread like wildfire throughout this entire nation…" Now, a documentary directed by Oklahoman Julia Clifford called, "Children of the Civil Rights," is reliving history. It catches up with those kids, who were inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., 50 years later.…

Austria has tightened its border controls even further, instituting comprehensive checks along its border with Slovenia and temporarily suspending its compliance with the Schengen Agreement. Meanwhile, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is proposing to finance measures that deal with the “refugee” crisis by imposing a new petrol tax on EU member states. And the Jewish Agency in Italy reports that 353 Italian Jews emigrated to Israel last year, which according to some sources is more than 1% of the Jewish population in Italy, while others say 0.1%.

In other news, gunmen wearing turbans attacked a major hotel in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, killing an undetermined number of people and taking hostages. The kinetic activists who staged the attack are reportedly affiliated with Al Qaeda.…

Two “Americans” — two “Virginians”, actually — have been charged with terror offenses for planning a trip to Syria where one of them wanted to fight for the Islamic State. Meanwhile, a former Dutch soldier may face a murder charge for traveling to Syria and joining the coalition against the Islamic State. He reportedly killed an ISIS fighter, which violates Dutch law.

In other news, Germany is planning to build repatriation centers where Algerian and Moroccan asylum seekers will be housed until they are deported. Since Algeria and Morocco are not war zones, their citizens are unlikely to be granted asylum in Germany.…

…On this day in 1967 Albert DeSalvo, AKA the "Boston Strangler", was convicted of numerous crimes and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Oddly enough he was convicted of sex crimes, including rape and murder of one woman, and not all the actual strangler cases. He was sent to a mental hospital where he escaped. After that he was sent to a maximum-security prison where he was stabbed to death.…