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Category: Military,
Navy Secretary forced out after Trump’s war crimes intervention causes division and chaos in military
Trump intervened to reverse sentences against all three service members, ignoring Pentagon leaders who had told him such a move could damage the integrity of the military judicial system, the ability of military commanders to ensure good order and discipline, and the confidence of US allies and partners who host US troops.
…The Pentagon chief “fired” the Navy secretary Sunday for going outside his chain of command by proposing a “secret agreement with the White House.”
…”I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” [Navy Secretary Richard] Spencer wrote in his letter to the President acknowledging his termination.
…Current and former military officials say discipline is central to the US military ethos: that US forces are highly trained to operate in a legal and disciplined manner and if they are found guilty of violations, they must face punishment.
Beyond the impact on the military judicial process, there “could be an impact on military leaders and their ability to enact measures of good order and discipline. There also could be a potential crisis of confidence in the potential countries we’re operating in.”
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Missing submarine found: USS Grayback, U.S. submarine missing for 75 years, found off Okinawa
The Grayback sailed out of Pearl Harbor on January 28th, 1944, for its 10th combat patrol. Two months later, it was listed as missing and presumed lost.
…Tim Taylor, who heads the Lost 52 Project, told The New York Times his team was “elated” by the discovery. “But it’s also sobering, because we just found 80 men,” he said.
According to the Navy, the USS Grayback was one of the most successful submarines in the war, sinking a total of 14 ships.
Earlier this year, explorers with the Lost 52 Project found the USS Grunion, a submarine that sank in 1942 on its inaugural mission during World War II, off the coast of Alaska.
R.I.P.
The federal government has helped the militarization of police
The 1033 program …transferred surplus military-grade equipment from the Pentagon to police, [and] didn’t require any training or oversight for the equipment’s use. …Police had to deploy the equipment at least once within a year to keep it, [providing the motivation] to use the gear when it wasn’t necessary.
Police often deployed military-grade equipment …sometimes agitating the situation and causing demonstrations to unnecessarily escalate into tense and even violent conflicts.
The federal government has helped the militarization of police – Vox
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Romney’s big suggestion about Trump and Turkey
[Romney] suggested Trump got bullied into the withdrawal by Turkey — and that he backed down.
“Are we so weak and inept diplomatically that Turkey forced the hand of the United States of America? Turkey!?” Romney said. “I believe that it’s imperative that public hearings are held to answer these questions, and I hope the Senate is able to conduct those hearings next week.”
…Most of the theorizing about what happened has focused on the idea that Trump got rolled by Erdogan, who has been pitching the idea that Turkey could take over the fight against ISIS in northern Syria for a long time. The possibility that Trump gave away the farm because Erdogan was particularly convincing or because of something else — Trump’s business interests in Turkey, his desire for Middle East withdrawals, etc. — is a well-trafficked theory among Trump’s opponents.
…Trump basically got told what was going to happen and essentially let Erdogan dictate the terms of a withdrawal. We are talking about a relatively small country forcing the hand of the United States and the supposed dealmaker in chief.
Romney’s big suggestion about Trump and Turkey – The Washington Post
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In Edward Snowden’s New Memoir, the Disclosures This Time Are Personal
Snowden, of course, is the former intelligence contractor who, in 2013, leaked documents about the United States government’s surveillance programs, dispelling any notions that the National Security Agency and its allies were playing a quaint game of spy vs. spy, limiting their dragnet to specific persons of interest.
…Sweeping up phone records of Americans citizens, eavesdropping on foreign leaders, harvesting data from internet activity: For revealing these secret programs and more, Snowden was deemed a traitor by the Obama administration, which charged him with violating the Espionage Act and revoked his passport, effectively stranding Snowden in Moscow, where he has been living ever since.
…The internet of the 1990s was a liberating space, he says, where adopting and discarding different avatars could open up possibilities for more authentic expression and connection.
…What does it mean to have the data of our lives collected and stored on file, ready to be accessed — not just now, by whatever administration happens to be in office at the moment, but potentially forever? Should such sensitive work be outsourced to private contractors? What entails effective “oversight” if the public is kept in the dark? When can concerns about “national security” slip into bids for unchecked power?
In Edward Snowden’s New Memoir, the Disclosures This Time Are Personal – The New York Times
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Edward Snowden: My Hope in Obama Was ‘Misplaced’
Snowden also wrote that America had engaged in “self-destruction” after 9/11, “with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars.”
…“I fully supported defensive and targeted surveillance,” Snowden writes, but he called the government’s “bulk collection” of data hypocritical. According to The New York Times, Snowden felt like Obama was doubling down on the Bush administration’s surveillance programs.
Edward Snowden: My Hope in Obama Was ‘Misplaced’
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The Trump administration may be making the same mistake Obama White House did
The Levant continues to be the battleground of regional rivalries, which destabilise the region and leave space for ISIL to stage a comeback. Right now Russia, Turkey and Iran, the key players in the Syrian conflict, all want the US to leave Syria but this consensus may not last after the US withdrawal.
Iran already feels that it is being excluded from the understandings between Russia and Turkey on one hand, and the US and Turkey, on the other hand.
In fact, Iran fears that the new arrangements in northern Syria, wherein Turkey and Russia try to fill in the vacuum resulting from the departure of US troops, will be at its expense. Ankara and Moscow may well be working towards preventing Tehran from establishing a “Shia crescent” across east Syria, which both the US and its closest ally Israel fear.
To complicate things even further, the Pentagon decided to keep the Syrian oil fields under US control. Oil income, according to Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, will help fund Kurdish fighters, including the ones guarding prisons that hold captured ISIL fighters. The Syrian regime cannot survive in a post-conflict environment without recovering the oil fields too.
Turkey will interpret the US move as a step towards creating a local economy for a possibly independent Kurdish entity in east Syria. Russia will not tolerate that either. This means renewed turmoil in northeast Syria is quite likely.
Second, the maladies which plague Arab countries and which ISIL exploited to recruit and expand, are still very much present. Sectarian politics in the Middle East are still raging across the Middle East, marginalising various communities; social-economic problems, like poverty, corruption, injustice, repression, etc have still not been resolved.
If these conditions are not dealt with, ISIL will no doubt make a comeback, just as al-Qaeda did in the past.
Trump may be making the same mistake Obama did | Syria | Al Jazeera
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Reality Winner sentenced to more than 5 years for leaking info about Russia hacking attempts
Winner, 26, who was a contractor with the National Security Agency, pleaded guilty in June to copying a classified report that detailed the Russian government’s efforts to penetrate a Florida-based voting software supplier.
U.S. intelligence agencies later confirmed Russia had meddled in the election. Authorities have never confirmed what exactly the report said, or identified the news organization that received it.
But a leaked document that was published by the online news outlet The Intercept in June 2017 bore the same May 5 date as the NSA report that Winner had leaked. The Justice Department announced it had arrested Winner on the same day as the Intercept report came out.
…Winner has been held with no bail since she was arrested last June and charged under the Espionage Act. A former Air Force linguist who speaks Arabic and languages used in Afghanistan, including Farsi and Pashto, Winner had a top-secret security clearance while working for national security contractor Pluribus International at Fort Gordon in Georgia when she was charged.
Reality Winner sentenced to more than 5 years for leaking info about Russia hacking attempts
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F-35s and F-15s bombed Iraqi island where ISIS hid out
On September 10, US and Iraqi forces dropped 80,000 pounds of munitions on Qanus Island, in Iraq’s Salah-al-Din province
…A spokesperson for OIR told Insider that ISIS casualties were still being assessed, but that there were no casualties for the coalition or the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Services. A small cache of abandoned weapons was found on the island, the spokersperson said. The spokesperson said that the number of ISIS militants on the island at the time of the strike was unknown.
F-35s and F-15s bombed Iraqi island where ISIS hid out – Business Insider
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Pentagon pulls funds for military schools to pay for Trump’s border wall
The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would pull funding from 127 Defense Department projects, including schools and daycare centers for military families, as it diverts $3.6 billion to fund President Donald Trump’s wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
…Trump declared a national emergency earlier this year to access the funds from the military construction budget.
…A Pentagon official said in a briefing that the department was given a “lawful order” by Trump to divert the funds. She said the Pentagon is working closely with Congress and its allies abroad to find funding to replace money diverted for the wall, but that there are not any guarantees that those funds will come.
…Pelosi said in a call with fellow Democrats on Tuesday that the diversion of military funds “will undermine our national security, quality of life and morale of our troops, and that indeed makes America less safe.”
Pentagon pulls funds for military schools to pay for Trump’s border wall
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Bahamas PM laments ‘generational devastation’ as Dorian toll mounts
Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis on Wednesday lamented the “generational devastation” wrought by Hurricane Dorian, as he confirmed the storm’s death toll had risen to at least 20.
…He also issued a warning to looters, saying they will be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law” and announced the deployment of additional police and defence force officers.
Shelter, safe drinking water, food and medicine were urgently needed for some 50,000 people on Grand Bahama and between 15,000 and 20,000 on Abaco, UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said after a meeting with Minnis.
…People on Grand Bahama island were using jet skis and boats to pluck victims from homes flooded and pulverized by heavy rain and lashing winds from the monster storm.
US Coast Guard and Royal Navy helicopters were conducting medical evacuations, aerial assessments to help coordinate relief efforts, and reconnaissance flights to assess damage.
Bahamas PM laments ‘generational devastation’ as Dorian toll mounts – Daily Nation
Jeezus…
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