Obama Knows More Than His Military Leaders! Betcha You Won't Hear About This On Your Evening News!

Military Leaders Reportedly Opposed Manning’s Get-Out-Of-Jail Pass

"... entire intelligence community is deflated ..."

by Jack Davis January 18, 2017 at 5:13pm

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President Obama commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence over the objection of his military leaders, according to news reports.

Both Fox News and CNN reported that Defense Secretary Ash Carter, as well as top Army leaders, opposed Obama’s action to let Manning go free after serving only seven of the 35 years to which the former Army intelligence analyst was sentenced for giving military secrets to WikiLeaks.

CNN quoted what it called a “former intelligence official” who said the “entire intelligence community is deflated by this inexplicable use of executive power.”

The official denounced Obama’s action as “deeply hypocritical given Obama’s denunciation of WikiLeaks’ role in the hacking of the (Democratic National Committee).”

Fox News reported the damage from Manning’s leaks was extensive.

“Ambassadors were forced to resign, [CIA] station chiefs had to be recalled, secret diplomatic cables were revealed,” Fox News reported one official as saying.

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Fox News quoted two intelligence sources as saying that after some Afghanistan reports were released in 2010, the Taliban “went on a killing spree,” killing anyone remotely fitting the description of someone helping the United States.

If the report said “someone with short dark hair was helping the U.S., the Taliban took out everyone with short dark hair. It was indiscriminate,” one source told the network.

Writing in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said Obama’s commutation of Manning’s sentence “defies rational explanation.”

Rubin said that even if Obama wanted to show compassion, a reduced sentence could have done the trick.

“An administration that understandably went ballistic when the leaks first occurred and has prosecuted more leaking cases than all his predecessors combined, looks feckless, to put it mildly,” she wrote.

Rubin noted the move was opposed by military leaders.

“At a time when we are battling cyberattacks and combating the notion that WikiLeaks is a respected news organization, setting Manning free seems to convey exactly the wrong message to our enemies and to potential leakers at the wrong time,” she wrote.

Rubin put the action in the context of another piece of the Obama legacy.

“Just as the genocide in Syria, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the decline in military preparedness, the deterioration in U.S.-Israel relations, the premature decision to pull all troops out of Iraq and the spread of the Islamic State on his watch will be part of his legacy, so too will the Manning commutation. History, we suspect, will not look kindly on any of it,” she added.

What do you think? 

Military Buildup Against Russia Largest Since Cold War

Britain, U.S. sending planes, troops 

to deter Russia in the east

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg briefs the media during a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance
 headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, October 26, 2016. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

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By Robin Emmott and Phil Stewart | BRUSSELS

Britain said on Wednesday it will send fighter jets to Romania next year and the
 United States promised troops, tanks and artillery to Poland in NATO's biggest
military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War.

Germany, Canada and other NATO allies also pledged forces at a defense ministers
meeting in Brussels on the same day two Russian warships armed with cruise
 missiles entered the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Denmark, underscoring
 East-West tensions.

In Madrid, the foreign ministry said Russia had withdrawn a request to refuel
 three warships in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta after NATO allies
said they could be used to target civilians in Syria.

The ships were part of an eight-ship carrier battle group - including Russia's sole
 aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov - that is expected to join around 10 other
 Russian vessels already off the Syrian coast, diplomats said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the troop contributions to a
new 4,000-strong force in the Baltics and eastern Europe were a measured
 response to what the alliance believes are some 330,000 Russian troops
stationed on Russia's western flank near Moscow.

"This month alone, Russia has deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles
to Kaliningrad and suspended a weapons-grade plutonium agreement with the
 United States," Stoltenberg said, also accusing Russia of continued support for
 rebels in Ukraine.

Those ballistic missiles can hit targets across Poland and the Baltics, although
 NATO officials declined to say if Russia had moved nuclear warheads to
Kaliningrad.

NATO's aim is to make good on a July promise by NATO leaders to deter
Russia in Europe's ex-Soviet states, after Moscow orchestrated the annexation
of the Crimea peninsula in 2014.

NATO's plan is to set up four battle groups with a total of some 4,000 troops
from early next year, backed by a 40,000-strong rapid-reaction force, and if
 need be, follow-on forces.

As part of that, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced a "battle-
ready battalion task force" of about 900 soldiers would be sent to eastern
 Poland, as well as another, separate force equipped with tanks and other
 heavy equipment to move across eastern Europe.

"It's a major sign of the U.S. commitment to strengthening deterrence here,"
Carter said.

Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said Britain would send an 800-
strong battalion to Estonia, supported by French and Danish troops, starting
 from May. The United States wants its troops in position by June.

London is also sending Typhoon fighter aircraft to Romania to patrol around
 the Black Sea, partly in support of Turkey.

"Although we are leaving the European Union, we will be doing more to
 help secure the eastern and southern flanks of NATO," Fallon said.

SYRIAN SHADOW

Others NATO allies joined the four battle groups led by the United States,
Germany, Britain and Canada to go to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
Canada said it was sending 450 troops to Latvia, joined by 140 military
personnel from Italy.

Germany said it was sending between 400 and 600 troops to Lithuania,
 with additional forces from the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Croatia
and Luxembourg.

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Stoltenberg said allies' commitments would be "a
clear demonstration of our transatlantic bond." Diplomats
said it would also send a message to Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has
 complained that European allies do not pay their way
 in the alliance.

For the Kremlin, the U.S.-led alliance's plans are already
 too much given Russia's grievances at NATO's expansion
 eastwards, although Stoltenberg denied going too far.

But NATO's troop announcements in the Baltic states and Poland were partly
 overshadowed by the dispute about whether Spain should refuel the Russian
 warships, which was later resolved by Moscow's decision to withdraw its request.

NATO's tensions with Russia have been building since Crimea and the West's
 decision to impose retaliatory sanctions.

But the breakdown of a U.S-Russia brokered ceasefire in Syria on Oct. 3, followed
by U.S. accusations that Russia has used cyber attacks to disrupt the presidential
election, have signaled a worsening of ties.

Even before the break down of the Syrian ceasefire, Russian President Vladimir
 Putin suspended a treaty with Washington on cleaning up weapons-grade
plutonium, signaling he was willing to use nuclear disarmament as a new
bargaining chip in disputes with the United States over Ukraine and Syria.

Has Obama Lost Control Of The Military? Has The History Of No First Strike Off The Table?

Former Army officer says U.S. has lost control of military

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Sam Rolley

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A former Army Special Operations officer says the Obama administration’s inability to officially say the U.S. has a no-first-use nuclear policy is a sign that military top brass want to antagonize Russia and China.

Asked about whether he thought it was a good idea for U.S. leaders to unequivocally pledge that the nation would only use nuclear weapons in a defensive capacity, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters:

“It has been the policy of the United States for a long time to extend the – its nuclear umbrella to friends and allies and — thereby to contribute to the deterrence of conflict and the deterrence of war and many of our friends and allies have benefited from that over time. And our future plans will retain for the United States the capability to meet those alliance commitments in the future.”

Confused reporters asked the official to clarify whether he’d just said ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Carter’s response remained unclear.

“It has been our policy for a long time and it’s part of our plans going forward,” he said.

Since the U.S.’s use of nuclear bombs to end WWII, presidential administrations have made clear that nuclear technology would only be used again as a matter of last resort.

But earlier this year, Obama administration officials began discussing whether the administration should ratify the longstanding unwritten policy with an official pledge.

Senior military officials, including Carter, rejected the proposal, saying any such move would signal weakness to nuclear powers like Russia and China. Despite his desire to make decreasing international reliance on nuclear weapons part of his legacy, Obama has now abandoned the proposal.

Scott Bennett, a former Army psychological warfare officer who is now a whistleblower, said in an interview with the Iranian-backed PressTV that all of this is a sign elected officials in the U.S. may be losing control of the military.

“Essentially what I see [military leaders] doing is positioning the United States Pentagon – the Department of Defense – in a military gun road within the United States that is headed up by psychopaths and uniforms that are really blood-drunk with war for the past 15 years, setting them up for a long-term military conflict with Russia, Iran and China,” he said.

Bennett called for the White House to regain control of what he sees as a military apparatus engaging in provocation of other nations for its own benefit.

“The military in the United States is now off the chain, it’s not obeying President Obama, it is not obeying the United States Congress, instead you have a small cabal within the Pentagon and specifically the US Central Command commanding the Middle East theater, positioning itself for a long-term war,” he said.

Bennet added that Americans should be particularly alarmed of the possibility of conflict with Russia “given the positioning of the batteries of missile silos now in Romania and Poland” the U.S. military is currently beefing up.

What Happens When US Runs Out Of Weaponry To Fight ISIS?

Pentagon Running Low on Smart Bombs for ISIS Campaign

 February 2, 2016   0 Comment

Airman 1st Class Connor Howard removes a bomb fuze initiator (FZU-55) for inspection during a six-month Assembled Munitions Serviceability Inspection on a Joint Direct Attack Munition

The Pentagon is starting to run low on the smart bombs and guided missiles it has used in the 9,000-plus airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria over the past 18 months, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Tuesday.

Because of that, President Barack Obama will ask Congress next week to approve $1.8 billion to buy 45,000 new bombs. The spending request is part of $7.5 billion the Pentagon says it will need to bomb ISIS and train Iraqi security forces in 2017.

“This will be critical as our updated coalition military campaign plan takes hold,” Carter said of the request for the Pentagon’s war chest.

The secretary, in a speech to the Economic Club of Washington, outlined major themes within the Pentagon 2017 spending plan, which the Obama administration will send to Congress next week.

Carter said the Pentagon is at “a major inflection point” and that its $583 billion 2017 budget takes “the long view.”

He also announced a host of new technological projects to address near-term and strategic threats. Among them is the “arsenal plane, which takes one of our oldest aircraft platforms, and turns it into a flying launch pad for all sorts of different conventional payloads.”

While he did not specify the platform, it is likely the B-52 bomber, which has undergone a multitude of upgrades since it first flew in the 1950s.

“In practice, the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, networked to 5th-generation aircraft that act as forward sensor and targeting nodes – essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create wholly new capabilities,” Carter said.

Since August 2014, the Pentagon has conducted more than 9,000 airstrikes against ISIS. As of Dec. 31, the Pentagon used $1.3 billion worth of bombs and missiles. Those airstrikes have destroyed more than 20,000 ISIS targets.

The bombing campaign against ISIS is costing about $11.2 million per day, Air Force Times reported earlier this month.

The increase in the Pentagon’s war budget signals that the U.S. military’s campaign against ISIS will accelerate over the next two years.

Still, the ISIS money is only a fraction of the Pentagon’s war chest. For the current fiscal year, Congress approved $59 billion, $8 billion more than the Pentagon requested, for the 9,800 troops that remain in Afghanistan and continue the airstrike against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The war budget, formally called the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, is the conduit for unexpected expenses in the military’s fights overseas and related training stateside. But critics say it is too often used as a way to get around Pentagon spending caps.

Lt. Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson, President Barack Obama’s pick to lead American forces in Afghanistan, told senators last week during his confirmation hearing that he would review the planned troop drawdown in the country. U.S. forces are supposed to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2017, but a resurgence in Taliban attacks has put that in question.

“[W]e’re in this for the long run,” Carter said of Afghanistan at a briefing last week. “The president has made a commitment, and all the coalition members have to stick with Afghanistan. That’s not just for the year 2016. It’s the year 2017 and beyond.”

Carter said last week that the Pentagon’s 2017 war budget would include funding, as it has in the past, for Afghan security forces. He also said would make “contributions” as well.

Lawmakers have tried to use the war budget to skirt Pentagon spending caps, but the Obama administration has rejected those attempts.

The budget deal struck by Congress for this year and next stipulated the Pentagon will get at least $59 billion in 2017, but that account is not capped and they could get more.

“At this point, trying to project OCO costs is complicated because OCO includes so much more than war-related costs for Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Todd Harrison, a budget analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “OCO has become a semi-permanent addition to the base budget, effectively a catch-all for priorities that don’t fit within the budget caps. The level of OCO funding has become more of a political calculation than a
budgetary calculation.”

Marcus Weisgerber is the global business reporter for Defense One, where he writes about the intersection of business and national security. He has been covering defense and national security issues for nearly a decade, previously as Pentagon correspondent for Defense News and chief editor of Inside the Air Force. He has reported from Afghanistan, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, and often travels with the defense secretary and other senior military officials.

Without Muslim Troops On The Ground, Any Attack In Iraq Will Eventually End In Disaster

Pentagon Mulls Sending US Troops to Iraq for Mosul Attack

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. (Getty Images) 

By Cathy Burke   |   Friday, 22 Jan 2016 08:45 PM

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U.S. commanders are considering whether to put American troops alongside Iraqi forces for a battle to retake Mosul from ISIS militants, the New York Times reports. 

The nation's top military officer, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said talks have begun between U.S. and Iraqi commanders and officials on how to "integrate," the Times reports.

"It’s fair to say that we will have positions up in the north [of Iraq] that will facilitate supporting Iraqi security forces," Dunford told reporters in Paris, the Times reports.

The outstanding question is "how can we be more integrated in Mosul," Dunford said, and whether U.S. advisers and trainers will embed with Iraqi forces at operational headquarters farther from the fight – or with the brigades closer to the fighting, the Times reports.

U.S. forces had a training center at Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya in eastern Anbar Province to help in the retaking of Ramadi last month, the Times noted.

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The Mosul operation is probably months away, the Times reports.

American military planners also want to cut off Raqqa from the rest of the Islamic State’s territory in Syria, the Times reports – adding Dunford said the United States is considering a request from Turkey to train and equip "hundreds" of Syrian Arabs who've lost their homes to the Islamic State.

“They want to go back and take their homelands, and we want to support them in doing that," he said.

The report comes as Defense Secretary Ash Carter said "boots on the ground" could be part of the strategy of U.S.-led coalition's fight to take back both Mosul and Raqqa.

"We need to destroy them in those two places, and I'd like to get on with that as soon as possible," Carter, speaking from Davos, Switzerland, said in an interview on CNBC. 

He said the coalition is using raids and bombs to take control of the routes between the two cities and cut off communication between them.

"That'll essentially separate the Iraqi theater from the Syrian theater," he said.

Carter said more ground soldiers will probably be added to support those already there, but part of the strategy is also mobilizing local forces "rather than trying to substitute for them."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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