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General News    H4'ed 5/8/18

US Marines in Europe are ready to fight with ... locals

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Message Kovas Azbis

According to the Military Times , on the 1st of April Romanian police had taken into custody seven US servicemen from US Naval Support Facility Deveselu after their violent street fight near a nightclub in the town of Craiova, where the group partied Saturday night.

The US Marines consumed alcoholic drinks in the club and left without paying their bill. The club's guards reportedly caught up with them and a brawl ensued.

Is that the US Marines' mission? Are they supposed to protect civilians in Europe or brawl?

U.S. troops in the Baltic states

The Baltic states have sounded alarms about Russia activity in Eastern Europe for several months.

The Lithuanian president said she wanted an ongoing US troop presence in her country in light of increased Russian activity in the region.

Raimundas Karoblis, Lithuania's defence minister, criticized NATO's reaction speed in the past and recently echoed the president's remarks. "The presence of Americans is a multiplying factor for deterrence," he told The Journal. "With Americans here it is a game changer."

Companies of U.S. troops had been rotated in the Baltic states since 2014 in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. They were withdrawn, however, after the deployment of multinational NATO battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland last year. Thousands of NATO troops have amassed close to the border with Russia as part of the largest build-up of Western troops neighbouring Moscow's sphere of influence since the Cold War.

The Baltic states, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are hosting soldiers from across NATO's 28 member states, with more than 7,000 troops deployed in countries bordering Russia.

Russia has accused the U.S. of violating the "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation" after the Pentagon deployed a new force in the tense Baltic region. It's the latest of several Western moves seen as provocations by Russia, which has vowed to respond.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR), said in Vilnius that rotational American troops should be returned to the Baltic states.

According to Hodges, following the stationing of NATO land forces battalions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the U.S. could contribute by sending logistics and air defense units to the Baltics.

Foreign soldiers in Lithuania know what to do.

In October 2017 drunken German soldiers from the NATO mission staged a brawl in the bar of the Lithuanian Rukla, after which one soldier required hospitalization. It was reported by Spiegel.

Also in February in the Lithuanian Klaipeda five drunk and aggressive Czech soldiers was detained. According to the police report, police arrived on call to the night club where there were rowdy, drunken soldiers. To pacify foreign military police had to use stun guns.

Lithuanian locals wait for US Marines deployment.

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freelancer, live in Lithuania< credo - make peace not war
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US Marines in Europe are ready to fight with ... locals

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