The Jan. 8 call, especially, to such a high level person in China is going rogue by Milley. Milley doesn’t have the right to conduct foreign policy. It just means that we have to add Mark Esper to the people who may have acted improperly and need to answer up here. It isn’t the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense to conduct foreign policy.

But there’s also another problem here. Esper wasn’t even Secretary of Defense on Jan. 8 — he was fired in November 2020 and replaced by Christopher Miller. So whose authority was Milley operating under? It wasn’t from Trump or Esper.

It also means that if this story is true, they lose their crazy story/excuse about this being about the election and Jan. 6. Then it had nothing at all to do with that but with trying to operate around Trump, without any of that alleged “justification.”

Now, we can’t leave out that Woodward may just be adding a lot of spin into this to help sell his book.

But it’s clear that Mark Milley, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and now Mark Esper need to be questioned by Congress as to what was going on here, because if these reports are true, it surely does look like people were trying to subvert the president of the United States.

You can’t have a superhero without a nemesis, and the beloved A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane, which has saved the bacon of countless ground troops over its 45-year career, is no exception. The thing is, the A-10’s nemesis is the Air Force itself, and a new report reveals how hard the service has been working behind the scenes to starve the aircraft of replacement parts over the past 14 years. //

The goal of this starvation campaign is to convince Congress that the A-10 is old, difficult to maintain, and not worth the upkeep, according to report released on Monday from the Project On Government Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group. This sabotage effort goes against the wishes of Congress, which aims to keep the extremely effective A-10 in business.

“Congress has included several provisions in federal law to prevent A-10 retirements,” the report said. “Yet sources have told the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) that, despite these provisions, Air Force leaders have pursued a de facto retirement of the fleet through a starvation campaign.” //

These shortages and the wing shortage have the same root cause: the Air Force not renewing contracts with suppliers. Making things worse, the report said the Air Force has also tried to shut down A-10 maintenance facilities at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, which is one of three Air Force maintenance depots that perform the most intensive repair and rehabilitation work on military aircraft.

Though Congress stepped in to save the facilities, the combination of grounded aircraft; parts shortages; and the threat of depot closure has scared many experienced maintainers to find new jobs, the report read. Though the Air Force needs to send 57 A-10s through the Hill facility every year, right now it can handle only 31 a year, the report said. //

The A-10 instability is also costing the Air Force the institutional knowledge of close air support specialists who have done nothing but support ground troops for the past 20 years, the report argued. Many A-10 pilots say they would leave the service if the ‘Hog was retired, the report said, and the art of close air support doesn’t just teach itself. In fact, in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, ground troops suffered a great deal while pilots re-learned the art lost to post-war military downsizing. //

Why does the Air Force seem to hate the A-10 so much? Many experts say it is part of the branch’s efforts to replace the jet with the multirole F-35 Lightning II and the F-15EX Eagle II, which the service argues can also perform close air support. But many members of Congress, including former military aviators, say the F-35 can’t hold a candle to the A-10 in the close air support business. The Air Force also argues that the slow-moving A-10, while great against Taliban insurgents wielding low-tech AK-47s and RPGs, would not survive against higher-tech anti-aircraft fire.

The Project On Government Oversight pushed back on this argument, saying it assumes Warthogs would fly deep into enemy territory, outside the help of friendly ground troops. But that’s not what A-10s do, the report said. Instead, ground and air units like the A-10 are meant to support each other, and ground troops would suppress enemy air defenses “as a matter of routine,” the report said, citing 2001 Marine Corps guidance on the suppression of enemy air defenses.

Instead of replacing the A-10 with the subpar F-35 as a close air support platform, the Air Force needs to focus on creating a replacement for the A-10, the report argued. It took only seven years to whip up the A-10, the report said, so why not crank out a new design before the A-10’s lifespan ends in the 2030s. To do so otherwise could come at great cost for ground troops, the report argued.

Alexander S. Vindman
@AVindman
If this is true GEN Milley must resign. He usurped civilian authority, broke Chain of Command, and violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military. It’s an extremely dangerous precedent. You can’t simply walk away from that. #dotherightthingintherightway

The Washington Post
@washingtonpost
Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war with China that he made secret calls to his counterpart in Beijing, new book says https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/14/peril-woodward-costa-trump-milley-china/
2:17 PM · Sep 14, 2021

Dr. Jeffrey Guterman
@JeffreyGuterman
·
Sep 14, 2021
Replying to @AVindman
I respectfully disagree. If true, this was an extraordinary situation that threatened the federal government.

Alexander S. Vindman
@AVindman
The CJCS always has the ability to resign rather than implement a awful or unlawful order. What is described here is wrong. Also, no one person is indispensable. There are a half dozen Chief ready to step into that role. There is no “deep state” but this narrative feeds into one.
2:43 PM · Sep 14, 2021

Jeff B. is BOX OFFICE POISON
@EsotericCD
The basis of the entire Republic is civilian control of the military. There is no "but we think he sucks" exception. Vindman is correct. If true, Milley either goes or we have now put into place a dangerous precedent that only Twitter bluechecks think won't boomerang.

Sean Davis
@seanmdav
He learned it by watching you. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXb7do9C-w

Alexander S. Vindman
@AVindman
If this is true GEN Milley must resign.

Leo Major

Leo Major’s story is so preposterous that Hollywood still hasn’t made a movie about it. A French-Canadian who saw action in the Normandy landings, Leo began his military career by full of communications equipment, providing the Allies with invaluable intelligence. He then single-handedly took out a group of elite Nazi SS troops, but lost his left eye after a dying enemy managed to ignite a phosphorus grenade. When a doctor tried to send him home, Leo reportedly replied that he to aim. He later broke several bones in his back, but again refused to be evacuated, returning to the battlefield to participate in the liberation of Holland.

During an early-morning reconnaissance mission at the Battle of the Scheldt, he spotted a German contingent in a village, most of them asleep. A typical soldier would have returned to report to a superior, but for a guy like Leo this was an opportunity. He captured the German commander, and after killing a few soldiers, the entire company of 93 men . He then escorted them back to the Allied lines. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

But Leo’s greatest feat was still to come. In April 1945, the Canadians were tasked with liberating the Dutch city of Zwolle. Their plan was to bombard the German positions with artillery until they surrendered. Leo was once again sent on a reconnaissance mission, this time with a friend. His superiors really should’ve known better. Realizing that an artillery barrage would also kill innocent civilians, Leo and his buddy Willie decided to liberate the city all by themselves. Unfortunately, around midnight, Willie was shot and killed. Enraged, Leo grabbed his friend’s weapon and gunned down two Germans, with the others fleeing in terror. He then proceeded to capture a different German vehicle and forced the driver to bring him to an enemy officer at a nearby tavern. Leo then informed the surprised officer that the town was surrounded by an overwhelming Canadian force and that an attack was imminent, before strolling out of the tavern and disappearing into the night.

The next step was to convince the Germans that what he had told the officer was true. Leo spent the rest of the night racing around the town, gunning down Nazis and throwing grenades like a one-man army. After seeing their comrades gunned down by a mad Canadian in an eyepatch, most enemy soldiers made the smart choice and surrendered. As the night wore on, Leo kept appearing at the Allied lines with groups of confused German prisoners—before returning to the city. His final feat was to clear out the local SS headquarters. By 4:00 AM, the Germans had abandoned the town. The artillery attack was canceled, the city saved by a single man.

Leo received numerous medals for his deeds in World War II, and earned even more in Korea. Leo Major died in 2008, but his memory lives on in Zwolle, where he is regarded as a hero.

The US Air Force's first ever chief software officer has quit the job after branding it "probably the most challenging and infuriating of my entire career" in a remarkably candid blog post.

Nicolas Chaillan's impressively blunt leaving note, which he posted to his LinkedIn profile, castigated USAF senior hierarchy for failing to prioritise basic IT issues, saying: "A lack of response and alignment is certainly a contributor to my accelerated exit."

Chaillan took on his chief software officer role in May 2019, having previously worked at the US Department of Defense rolling out DevSecOps practices to the American military. Before that he founded two companies.

In his missive, Chaillan also singled out a part of military culture that features in both the US and the UK: the practice of appointing mid-ranking generalist officers to run specialist projects.

"Please," he implored, "stop putting a Major or Lt Col (despite their devotion, exceptional attitude, and culture) in charge of ICAM, Zero Trust or Cloud for 1 to 4 million users when they have no previous experience in that field – we are setting up critical infrastructure to fail."

"I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, I demand accountability."

A reckoning will come for this catastrophe; military and political. For those of us who fought, it’s too much. //

Unfortunately, my colleague Streiff’s prediction came true — they just fired LTC. Scheller for what he said, and he likely knew he was risking his career to make that statement.

Scheller posted on Facebook, “I have been relieved for cause based on a lack of trust and confidence.”

With its iconic “brrrrrt” sound and painted-on teeth, it is easy to distinguish the A-10 Thunderbolt II (affectionately referred to as the Warthog)—the plane built around a gun. Despite the love from its fans and high accuracy for close air support (CAS), there is still continuous debate as to whether to retire the A-10.

For starters, the plane is quite old. Created in 1977, the A-10 has seen its share of upgrades. Just one year after being created, it was upgraded with the Pave Penny laser pod, which can “sense reflected laser radiation from a laser designator.”1 Other upgrades include Global Position System navigation systems, multifunction display, and precision engagement upgrades. Each of these keeps the A-10 up to date with current technology, so why are there plans to retire it?

It is because it is still considered outdated and is “the oldest and least-ready aircraft” to modernize.2 However, the benefits of keeping the A-10 around outweigh the negatives. //

There are alternatives to using the A-10, but the Warthog still prevails through its many planned retirements because of its training requirements, design, weaponry, and ability to fly low and slow. The opinion by and large is that the A-10 is outdated, but this plane constantly proves why it has been around this long. No other plane is built like the A-10 or can do everything the A-10 does, and the US Air Force does not have any plans to bring any other plane to that standard. That is why no other plane would be able to truly replace the A-10.

one would think General Milley, with several decades of experience, should have had the foresight to see this coming disaster. If he didn’t see the oncoming wreck, he should resign. If he did see it coming and testified to the contrary, he should resign.

If he truly didn’t see this disaster speeding toward him, he’s not fit for the position he holds and he should resign. //

My family has served in America’s military back to the Revolutionary War – the most recent being my eldest son who served as a SEAL for almost a decade. I don’t criticize the men and women in harm’s way, I am critical of those who lead them.

I am critical of politicians and inept generals. Milley is apparently both. In my estimation, he stopped being a “leader of men” when he testified about wanting to “understand white rage”, the “rage he claimed fueled the January 6th riot. That testimony barely 6 weeks ago focused wholly outside the charge of our military. His focus should be our enemies abroad. He should have been focused on a very real rage – that of the Taliban which would soon consume Afghanistan. He should have concentrated his “understanding on contingencies for getting Americans out of harm’s way before Afghanistan turned into a burning cauldron. Instead, we have thousands of Americans trapped outside the wire.

We were failed by 20 years worth of general officers. There needs to be an accounting. No matter what dumbf*** calls Joe Biden made, the military had an obligation to anticipate, do better, and not blame Biden for them screwing the pooch as they did in the past 72 hours.

cdrsalamander
@cdrsalamander
Anyone with 4-stars resign yet this weekend?

I distinctly remember all the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes abt reducing a footprint in Syria a few years ago ... norms and all.

Anyone? Did I miss something?
2:09 PM · Aug 15, 2021 //

ziegler.von.strahn
2 hours ago
something that not too many people know about........and might explain why we wasted so much there.

Afghanistan is thought to have about 1 trillion worth of lithium and other rare metals.

Now that we are leaving, will be interesting to watch how involved China becomes. //

Scotty2Hotty ziegler.von.strahn
2 hours ago
Yah, that's why we were there for 20 years and never took out billions in rare minerals.

Cuz we stayed there to get them.

So he’s joining right in with the political hit agenda of Joe Biden, encouraging the censoring of people for a different political opinion than his. Lippincott wasn’t spreading any misinformation. His “offense” was raising a good point that this general didn’t want to answer. But even had Lippincott been spreading something false, it isn’t the role of the military to be encouraging shutting down political opinion with which they disagree. This is just wrong and conduct unbecoming on top of it. The bottom line was the general had no real response, so he wanted to shut down criticism. Some general. He couldn’t even deal with a battle on Twitter. //

Patrick Donahoe
@PatDonahoeArmy
Public Service Announcement. Block and report the trolls and the disinformation tinfoil hat team. //

Article V Convention of States please
@philthatremains
A Major General in the United States Army is calling for people to block and report people for having incorrect opinions.

I assume this includes American citizens, the same citizens protected by the constitution which he has sworn to protect and defend. //

Jim Hanson
@JimHansonDC
A serving officer calling to censor political opponents

You are a disgrace to the uniform

I don’t think anyone, right or left, really thinks Joe Biden can afford to hold Beijing to account for much of anything due to the degree to which he and his drug-addled, sex-addicted grifting son are compromised by China’s intelligence services. It is also difficult to believe that Navy leadership, which has to be at least as aware of the Navy’s ineptitude as the rest of us, didn’t give the Benfold orders to skedaddle when faced with Chinese pushback. The US Navy, indeed the US military, is simply not capable of carrying out a limited conflict to defend freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and protecting the territorial integrity of the nations in the region, including those of our allies. The Chinese know it. Our allies know it. Our military and political leadership know it. Maybe, eventually, the American people will wake up to just how poorly they are being served before too many young Americans have to die to make the point.

While the 46th president talked about grave unspecified threats to global peace, word seeped out of his administration that he was actually cutting – as in reducing — U.S. defense spending amid a ubiquitous panoply of threats.

It’s a familiar Democrat tactic, seizing funds from national defense spending to finance the freebies that Biden and his party are so fond of doling out. //

Here’s a chilling observation: “America is rapidly piling up debt past 100% of GDP while shrinking its defenses.” That will make it extremely difficult to compete in the future with authoritarian countries that might have aggressive intentions but no foible-filled Congress to address.

Take China, for instance. It now has more than 350 ships in its military fleet. The U.S. but 300. While the U.S. intends to retire nearly $3 billion in older ships to save money in coming months, China continues building apace.

It commissioned three new warships on the same day recently, a nuclear submarine and two for amphibious operations in the nearby South China Sea.

Since building new ships takes years of designing and construction, today’s decisions to cut back the Navy’s fleet and arsenal will determine American capabilities to counter any Chinese aggression in 10 years’ time.

By then, of course, the same crowd will be running China. Joe Biden will be long gone and the repercussions of any unpreparedness will be left for others to face.

Getting beyond the poisonous poppycock spread by Kendi for fun and profit, there is a real cost to readiness that will potentially be paid in lives. The Navy and its sister services are at a point where our first encounters of the upcoming war with China will make Kasserine Pass and Savo Island and Task Force Smith look like the epitome of military efficiency. Though sown over the past decade, these seeds of these future defeats are reaching full bloom under guys like Gildray, who are much more political commissars than they are military leaders. One hopes that when it comes time for the bill to be paid, they are hauled before a vengeful tribunal to account for their promotion of a corrupt ideology over the welfare of their troops. And if they are dead, I hope a mob treats them how Charles II dealt with Oliver Cromwell.

The claim that U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are maintained on “hair-trigger alert” has persisted despite multiple senior military leaders having discredited that falsehood.

One such accusant is President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the Department of Defense’s assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, Deborah Rosenblum. She has stated that U.S. and Russian ICBMs are “in a hair-trigger mode, leaving no time for either president to make a considered decision, if he or she thought the nation was under attack: No time to gather data, no time to figure out if it’s a spoof, no time to discover mistakes.” //

An ICBM is not like a loaded gun lying on the table with the safety off and a finger on the trigger. Nor is there a “big red button” waiting to be pressed.

To use an analogy coined by Richard, by the logic of “hair trigger,” our cars are on hair-trigger alert, too, waiting in the driveway ready to go. But you don’t see cars driving around accidentally. And cars only require three steps to go—turning on the engine, putting it into drive, and hitting to gas.

But where are the studies that would indicate gender dysphoria policies and other such claptrap will result in improvements in the military’s ability to “break things and kill people” – which is ultimately what the military provides in the way of blunt instrument force in defense of the Republic? There are none, of course. We are all supposed to take it on faith that social engineering will be to our collective benefit and will improve the military’s warfighting capabilities, “because diversity.” Except that is not the ultimate purpose of The Hologram’s America Last policy. He and they are not interested in “improvements”; to the contrary, they understand quite well the ultimate effects of left-wing social engineering in the military services. And those effects will be dire to our collective national security, just as they intended from the beginning.

Imagine the training time that will be sacrificed on the altar of policies like the one trumpeted in the above Marine admin message. The negative impacts of these social engineering experiments on US military readiness, combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, and morale cannot be measured at this point, but one can be certain that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and Russian military are laughing themselves silly at this malarkey. Do you suppose they will be at all concerned about “dignity and respect” on the future battlefield, let alone the Geneva Conventions (especially the Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflicts)? Hold my beer on that.

Speaking of beer, my brother and a lot of retired Marines are crying in theirs as they witness the ongoing destruction and descent into PC Hell of their beloved Marine Corps. Some of them would love to be recalled to active duty and help square away their Corps, too. If only…

On this Armed Forces Day, with a goal to inform and educate American citizens and to protect every member of the US Armed Forces serving the Republic, we are exposing the very dangerous initiative hatched by Biden/Harris/Obama to the American Citizens, that is destroying the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US armed forces. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hired a radical DOD extremist czar and fellow graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, Bishop Garrison, to search for and oust so-called extremists from the US armed forces. Bishop Garrison’s official title is “Senior Advisor to The Secretary of Defense on Human Capital and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” Garrison will oversee the implementation of immediate actions required to combat “patriot extremism, as well as the development of the mid-term and long-term recommendations for the continued engagement to combat future patriot extremism in the ranks.

Garrison is a racist activist who believes in and provides support for the racist principles of the 1619 Project, which is based on outright lies that never actually occurred in American history. He is implementing a very sinister and extremely dangerous initiative in the US Armed Forces, by force-feeding Critical Race Theory into the entire US Armed Forces, which is degrading the combat effectiveness and unit cohesion of the US military. The Obama regime screened inept woke Superintendents at West Point and the US Naval Academy have been inserting Critical Race Theory, politics, and racism into the curriculum of those Service Academies, to the detriment of unit cohesion, comradery, and morale in the Long Gray Line and in The Brigade of Midshipmen.

Bishop Garrison has repeatedly stated that anyone in the US Armed Forces who supported President Donald J. Trump is a racist and must be purged from the US military. Garrison does not see Army Green; instead, he only sees “race,” unlike every recruit trained in the US Army over the last 80 years who have been taught that there is only one color in the US Army (Army Green). Garrison is only searching for MAGA Red and is determined to get all of those supporters of President Trump out of the US military. That is a flagrant violation of the civil rights of every member of the US Armed Forces, but Secretary Austin has given Garrison free range to hunt out and eliminate career opportunities for any patriot supporter of President Trump. //

this is a racist quest by Bishop Garrison which was started by Obama in 2008 with EO 13583. It is being driven forward by the Marxists, socialists, and the Biden/Harris/Obama administration to purge the US Armed Forces of patriotic Americans and destroy the military readiness, combat effectiveness, and unit cohesion of the US armed forces while eliminating any support for the principles that The Founding Fathers laid out in the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights while substituting the racist principles of the 1619 Project.

More than 2,000 rockets have been fired towards Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in five days.

But about 90% of the rockets have been intercepted by its flagship Iron Dome missile defence system, according to the Israeli military.

The Iron Dome was specially designed to protect against a range of incoming short-range threats.

The system has its roots in the war Israel fought with Lebanon's militant Hezbollah movement in 2006, when thousands of rockets were launched into Israel - causing huge damage, mass evacuations and dozens of deaths.

After that Israel said a new missile defence shield would be developed.

A Realistic Plan for World Peace
a.k.a
Nuke the Moon
by Frank J. (originally written August 15th, 2002)
View blog reactions
"Gotta nuke something."
-20th century philosopher Nelson Muntz

World peace cannot be achieved by sitting around on our duffs singing hippy songs to the moon. Peace can only be achieved through excessive acts of seemingly mindless violence. Who do bullies pick on in the playground? The giant, crazy looking guy who looks ready to snap and kill the person nearest or some harmless looking weenie who appears to do anything to avoid conflict? People pick on the weenie because people like to start fights they think they can win. In the same way, people will continue to attack America and our interests when they get the idea that they can piss off America without us immediately eradicating them and everyone around them in the most painful way possible. //

Now the world will be pretty convinced that America is frick'n nuts and just looking for a fight, but we need to really ingrain it into everyone's conscious so that no one will ever even contemplate crossing us. This requires making good use of our nukes. I know, nukes can kill millions of people, but they sure aren't doing anyone any good just sitting around. I mean, how many years has it been since we last dropped a bomb on someone? No one even thinks we'll actually use one now. Of course, using nukes shouldn't be done haphazardly; all uses have to be well planned out because the explosions are so cool looking that we'll want to give the press plenty of notice so they can get pictures of the mushroom cloud from all sorts of different angles. But what to nuke? Well, usually the idea is populated cities, but, by the beliefs of my morally superior religion, killing is wrong. So why can't we be more creative than nuking people. My idea is to nuke the moon; just say we thought we saw moon people or something. There is no one actually there to kill (unless we time it poorly) and everyone in the world could see the results. And all the other countries would exclaim, "Holy @$#%! They are nuking the moon! America has gone insane! I better go eat at McDonald's before they think I don't like them." //

So there you have it, a real peace plan that could actually work. Warmongering pacifists want us to act all nice such that countries think we're rational and won't kill everyone with a blind fury, thus making it possible they might actually attack us and draw us into a war. But, if America follows my idea and lashes out at the slightest provocation with unmeasured vengeance, there can be peace. So there's the choice: either be a homicidal maniac thus ensuring peace and love in the world, or be some pacifist hippy while the streets flow with the blood of the innocent.

Beginning in July 2018, the Intelligence Community will begin its release of declassified documents related to the Tet offensive. These documents will be released in three installments over a period of 15 months. Below is a list of each document added. As documents are released we will include additional features and information to improve functionality and discovery. Please check back regularly for ongoing updates.

In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive—which took place on January 30, 1968—Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats directed intelligence agencies to review their holdings to reveal previously classified details to the public.

This page displays selected documents from the declassified volume as well as other contextual images, videos, and quotes which will be updated on a periodic basis. To view all declassified documents that have been released to date please click on the 'view documents' link. Additional items of interest can be found in the menu to provide greater context and insight into the Tet Offensive declassification effort.

Intel.gov will serve as the hub for the release of Tet offensive declassified documents. However, some agencies have dedicated locations for their corresponding documents: