First a public service announcement.

The Open Thread diary slots for both Tuesday and Saturday are available. Open Thread diaries can be a little as you wish just as long you head it Open Thread. There is no rule that you have to write a long diary or what the content thereof should be. That is the beauty of to the Open Thread diaries. Draw up a header, add a tag "open thread," cue that baby up, and you are ready to go. And another cool thing is you do not even have diary sit an Open Thread diary. You can even get together and share a slot with another person. What could be easier?

Now for today's Open Thread. I will begin with the chit chat part.

When we left for Florida and my high school reunion on November 3, there was still plenty of fall color in town and in our yard. This year was a very good year for fall color in this part of North Carolina, probably one of the best in the ten years we have been here. The green Japanese maple in our front yard is always spectacular, painted in brilliant oranges every year. It was just peaking when we left.

While the fall colors had peaked at the upper elevations along the Blue Ridge Parkway during the third week of October, the colors in town were still very nice. I knew that when we left, there was a good chance all the leaves would have dropped by the time we returned so I drank in the beauty of fall as much as I could, particularly along our drive south.

There are several routes for us to go south, and all are along rural roads leading to South Carolina. We always choose to go via US 276 because it is such a scenic road to travel on. It is slightly longer than alternative routes, but you cannot beat the scenery, particularly on the South Carolina side. US 276 is a very winding and steep road that climbs up Cedar Mountain on the North Carolina side where it runs along a ridge line for a couple of miles through the community of Cedar Mountain. It then crosses the Eastern Continental Divide which also is the border between North and South Carolina at this location, and passes Caesar's Head State Park before making its way down the very steep and twisting road on the South Carolina side.

Many here may be surprised to learn that the South Carolina side of this mountain is actually steeper and more twisting than the North Carolina side. There are not many mountainous areas in South Carolina, but this one is one of the most beautiful. The leaves on the North Carolina side of the mountain were already finished, but there was still quite a bit of color on the South Carolina side. We knew that this would be the last of the 2015 color that we would be seeing so we just really took it all in.

When we returned on November 11, all the leaves were down and it looked like the trees were ready for winter. Then I remembered that I had not checked the ginkgo tree on the far side of the yard. It is hidden from view from the front and the street. When I looked at it, there it was, all decked out in a profusion of chartreusey yellow leaves. We got back just in time to see the last remnant of the fall color in our yard and it was gorgeous. The picture below is not our tree, but simply one of a ginkgo in its fall colors. Our tree is much larger. Unfortunately, there is no way I can get a clear shot of our tree due to the surrounding vegetation

Now for the serious stuff.

Today I am going to feature what I consider a very important discussion about US special operations troops in Africa. The war on OF terrorism is being expanded to everywhere. Africa is resource rich with many governments unstable due to a variety of reasons. The use of special operations troops in Africa is another attempt by the US government to head off the Chinese from gaining a foothold in this continent. The video is from Democracy Now! in which Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales interview journalist and author Nick Turse.

This year, special ops have been sent to a record 147 countries—75 percent of the nations on the planet. It’s a 145 percent increase from the days of George W. Bush. And it means that on any given day elite U.S. forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries.

Part 1 of the Nick Turse interview.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXUuaOZbV7s]

Part 2 of the Nick Turse interview. I could not find where this video was posted, so I am linking to the Democracy Now! website for this interview.

The world is a battle field for the US government and people all over the world are paying a very high price for the actions of our government. No wonder they hate us.

Yesterday, Nick Turse posted this article at Tom Dispatch.

Within the above link, you will see just how omnipresent the US military presence is on the continent of Africa.

For this site in these last years, Turse has regularly revealed much that has been out of sight when it comes to Washington’s expanding military focus on Africa, including the cascading number of U.S. military missions across that continent, a similar spike in missions to train proxy forces there, and soaring deployments of U.S. Special Operations forces -- that secret military-within-the-military of 70,000 that now thrives solely in a world of shadows. It took a year of his efforts, but today he finishes off his portrait of the garrisoning of a whole continent in a new way with a look at the basing policies of U.S. Africa Command. It’s a piece that couldn’t be more important or hard-won, and it offers us our first look at how a continent is being prepared for what Turse, in his latest book, has called “tomorrow’s battlefield.”

I urge you to read the link to TomDispatch immediately above.

What is on your mind today?