Army Building “Self-Aware” Squid-Like Robot That Can Be “3-D Printed” During Combat

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

The Army Research Laboratory’s next robot weapon isn’t a new predator drone or even a robot dog like the infamous prototype developed by Boston Labs.

Instead, it’s a “self-aware” robot built from flexible materials inspired by invertebrates like squid, the Army Times reports.

But in addition to its advance machine-learning capabilities, the material used to build the robots is so lightweight and malleable that soldiers will be able to “print” the robots on the battlefield, the control them with controllers that send electric currents through the materials.

In case you weren’t already terrified of robots that can jump over walls, fly or crawl, Army researchers are developing your next nightmare – a flexible, soft robot inspired by squid and other invertebrates.

And they want soldiers to be able to use 3D printers to make them on the battlefield.

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the University of Minnesota are developing materials that can be 3D printed based on the flexibility and nimbleness of invertebrates such as a squid, according to an ARL release.

Researchers were inspired to design the new type of robot after testing material that would bend in any direction when hit with electricity.

Traditional materials are too rigid and limit certain types of movement that robots might require to get into “confined or restricted spaces,” said Ed Habtour, an ARL researcher.

The prototypes that Habtour and fellow ARL researchers developed gave 3D-printed actuators three times the movement as what’s been tested before.

The material that they’ve used in their testing will bend in any direction when hit with electricity.

“In the initial phase of the project, our team began by investigating new methods for emulating the locomotion of invertebrates,” said Michael McAlpine, a professor at the University of Minnesota.

That helped researchers learn how to apply the natural movement of invertebrates like squids to produce “high bending motions without skeletal support,” McAlpine said.

As scientists continue to study the material, the head researchers say they will be able to build robots that are “dynamic”, “self-aware” and able to adjust to battlefield conditions.

Because the material doesn’t have to be dried, heated or assembled, it would require little training and could be used for printable robots that soldiers could make and use whenever and wherever they’re needed.

“If we can understand these interactions, then we can use those insights to fabricate dynamic structures and flexible robots which are designed to be self-aware, self-sensing and capable of adjusting their morphologies and properties in real time to adapt to a myriad of external and internal conditions,” Habtour said.

While the Army is building squid-like robots that can squeeze into confined spaces – whether it’s to search for explosives or rescue or treat wounded soldiers – Amazon is working on a “top secret” robotics project of its own: Building what it hopes will be the first domestic robot to break into the mainstream.

Russia Readies For ‘OPENING STRIKE’ In NATO War

Thousands of Russian soldiers along with tanks, warplanes, and missiles are now on alert in Russia’s western frontier with Europe amid heightened tensions with the West. Newest reports claim Russia is readying the “opening strike” in a war against NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

According to The Daily Star, Russia is said to be positioning its armies in such a way as to ensure a quick decisive victory over NATO in the event that a war breaks out. Russia appears to want to be prepared to make an opening attack should the talks fall through.

Fears of another world war have spiked on both sides, with each blaming the other for failing relations – such as Britain and Russia’s war of words over the poisoning Sergei Skripal. Defense experts at the Atlantic Council have now laid out the “significant threat” from Russia on the edge of Europe.

The NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg says that the decision to expel seven staff members from a Russian mission sends a “clear and very strong message there is a cost to Russia’s reckless actions,” reported The Guardian. But Russia isn’t going down that easily as they position their military for a war.

NATO has announced it is cutting the size of its Russian mission by a third in an effort to remove accreditation from seven Russian staff and rejecting three other pending applications. Stoltenberg said the permanent size of the Russian mission would be cut from 30 to 20 people, because of the poisoning of Skripal in Salisbury. He also claimed that Russia had underestimated NATO’s resolve and said the announcements would reduce Russia’s capability to do intelligence work across NATO.

And it appears that Russian has responded with positioning their military strategically to win a quick war with an opening strike. Western forces stationed in Europe currently do not have the firepower needed to defeat Russia.

Only a handful of EU countries including Austria, Portugal, Greece, and Malta, have declined to take any steps against Russia. Many countries have confined themselves to a tokenistic expulsion of a single diplomat, a move designed to register support for the UK, as opposed to causing disruption to the Russian state.

WW3 Preparations: Amidst Drought North Korean Officials Raid Homes And Farms To Feed Army

North Korean officials are ransacking homes and raiding farms in order to feed their starving army.  Not only has the drought taken its toll on the nation, but this newest harsh seizure of food is causing internal clashes between the civilians and the army.

Soldiers for the communist regime had already been given long periods of leave in order to try to find food and make money to purchase food. However, it hasn’t been enough. Collective farms are suffering due to drought and poor harvests, leading officials to ransack farms and homes in order to find any stored food or money that might benefit the army, Daily NK reports.

While North Korean citizens are used to officials searching for food and asking for bribes, their use of increasingly brutal tactics to feed a starving army has led to reported clashes between troops and citizens. Farms in the country have not been able to meet quotas, and in response, officials are giving them new assignments.

“We are suffering because collective farms in our region did not have a good harvest last year and so we were unable to fulfill the mandatory quota for military provisions. All individuals who weren’t able to meet the demands have been receiving additional assignments since the very beginning of January,” a source in South Hamgyong Province reported to Daily NK. “This year, we have to postpone our farm work due to this ‘extremely urgent’ task of gathering food for the military,” the source said.

In the past, individuals were allowed to take leave from farm work to obtain money for fertilizer or farm equipment.  But this year, any money is being used to procure food and other items for military use.

“Last year, most of this region, including the Taehongdan, Pochon, Samjiyon, and Paekam areas, were not able to meet their military provision quotas. These demands are pushing people to their wits’ end,” said a separate source in the Ryanggang Province. “Sometime in spring, the collective farms that are behind on their quotas will have some of their constituents provide frozen potatoes, which are processed by peeling and drying before presentation to the authorities. But many also call the season the ‘time when thieves (in this case, the farm authorities) rear their ugly heads,‘” he added.

Famine is believed to have previously killed millions of people in the hermit kingdom. The communist regime prioritizes sending food and resources to the military and high ranking government officials over its general population.

Top Russian General Accuses US Of Training ISIS At Syrian Border Base

From ISIS To US-Backed "New Syrian Army" - "They Change Their Spots" Russia Alleges

According to a new Reuters report, the chief of the Russian General Staff has accused the United States of hosting a training facility for ISIS fighters in Syria along the Syria-Iraq border. Al-Tanf base on Syria"s southeast side has been under the control of the US-backed "New Syrian Army" and their US special forces advisers since the area was captured from ISIS in August of 2016.

Russia has previously called the base a 100km wide “black hole” operated by the US wherein an assortment of unaccountable armed groups and militants can operate freely. That American troops have long been deployed there was previously confirmed through multiple photographs and videos released early in the summer of 2017 which showed US elite soldiers on active patrols with Syrian rebel factions associated with the Free Syrian Army (or FSA, elements of which were more recently renamed the New Syrian Army).

Photos above and below were made public last summer which shows ongoing training of "New Syrian Army" fighters by US military advisers. Russia now alleges ISIS members have sought the protection of the base and area under its control. Russia"s top general said this week, "They are practically Islamic State. But after they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name." The images were originally published through Hammurabi’s Justice News, a news outlet affiliated with Maghaweir al Thowra (MaT) - a faction which is the latest incarnation of the US-created New Syrian Army. Via the Long War Journal

Image produced by Maghaweir al Thowra (MaT) - the latest incarnation of the US-created New Syrian Army.

The head of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, made the allegations in an interview on Wednesday with Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, saying that the US base is illegal (and presumably the other roughly up to 10 or more known bases) as the Americans have no right to violate Syrian sovereignty and have not been invited to be there by Damascus in the first place. Russian military officials have recently indicated that the Syrian Army has essentially cut off the area and isolated US-backed forces" ability to expand. If true this raises significant doubts concerning how the presumed "anti-ISIL" mission of US coalition forces are valid or relevant, or how a direct US military presence in the remote southeast region could be justified.

Early this month Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Islamic State had been destroyed and no longer holds cities or significant territory, though insurgent pockets remain. And at the same time the Russian "mission accomplished" announcement was being widely reported, the Pentagon said US forces would stay in Syria "as long as we need to, to support our partners and prevent the return of terrorist groups." Meanwhile, this week Russia has moved forward with plans brokered with the Syrian government to maintain two permanent Russian military bases on the Mediterranean - the naval station at Tartus and Khmeimim airbase outside of Latakia.

General Gerasimov told the Russian newspaper that the defense ministry possessed drone and satellite footage confirming large numbers of ISIS-affiliated fighters at the US base at Tanf. "They are in reality being trained there,” Gerasimov said, and continued “They are practically Islamic State. But after they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name. Their task is to destabilize the situation."

Thus the allegation appears to be that as ISIS loses territory and is rooted out of various pockets in the east, its fighters then conveniently declare their allegiance to US-backed FSA/New Syrian Army factions, after which they enter training programs hosted by US advisers. 

Gerasimov further indicated that some 400 militants recently left a town in the southern al-Hasakah Province for al-Tanf, launching an offensive on the Syrian forces from the eastern bank of Euphrates, after the main ISIS forces were routed there. Russia has over the past months accused the US coalition of essentially relocating ISIS fighters in order to allow their redeploying to locations where they could attack and pressure Syrian and Russian aligned forces.

In one major instance related to the coalition and SDF victory over ISIS in Raqqa, a bombshell investigative report produced by no less than BBC News confirmed that Russia has certainly had reason to be suspicious of the Pentagon"s motives and strategy inside Syria. According the November BBC report:

The BBC has uncovered details of a secret deal that let hundreds of Islamic State fighters and their families escape from Raqqa, under the gaze of the US and British-led coalition and Kurdish-led forces who control the city. A convoy included some of IS"s most notorious members and - despite reassurances - dozens of foreign fighters. Some of those have spread out across Syria, even making it as far as Turkey.

And concerning the latest accusations of US-ISIS complicity in al-Tanf, Gen. Gerasimov further said the pattern continues: "The most important is that we have been seeing the militants advancing from there for several months. When the control [of the Syrian forces] loosened, as many as 350 militants left the area." He further said of the Russian-Syrian fight against ISIS in the area, "We took timely measures…they have suffered a defeat, these forces were destroyed. There were captives from these camps. It is clear that training is underway at those camps."

And he continued, "Instead of the New Syrian Army, mobile ISIS groups, like a jack in the box, carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks against Syrian troops and civilians from there." And though the pretext for the Tanf base’s creation was "the need to conduct operations against ISIS" - the rapid recent demise of ISIS proves that the Americans have ulterior motives, according to the Russian general.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has heightened his rhetoric of late regarding uninvited foreign forces operating on Syrian soil. He said last week in a televised interview which was subsequently posted to multiple Syrian official social media channels: "Those who work with foreigners against their army are traitors." Assad has also on multiple occasions promised to return all of natural Syria to the control of the Syrian government and army.

Israeli Military Capabilities - Scenarios For The Third Lebanon War

Via Southfront.org,

The Current State of Affairs

At the present time, Israel’s top political leadership is in the state of outright hysteria regarding Lebanese Hezbollah.  Senior Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed that Israel will not allow Hezbollah and Iran to concentrate its forces in border areas and to expand their influence in the region, particularly in Syria and Lebanon.

The already difficult situation in southern Lebanon and Syria was further complicated by the series of events, which contributed to the growing tensions in the region in November and early December. It started with a resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri announced from Saudi Arabia on November 7, continued with Saudi accusations of military aggression through missile supplies to Yemen against Iran and rose to a new level on December 6 when US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital sparking further escalation.

Some experts also said Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US are conspiring to start a new war in the region. In this light, “The Light of Dagan”, a major military exercise named in honour of the former Director of Foreign Intelligence Service of Israel, Mossad, Meir Dagan, was described as a part of the preparations for armed aggression against Lebanon.

The exercise lasted eleven days, from 4 to 14 September 2017, and involved tens of thousands of troops from all branches of service.

The exercise legend posited that terrorists attacked the village of Shavey Zion, fifteen kilometers from the Lebanese border and, together with hundreds of Hezbollah fighters from the Radwan units, carried out the invasion in the north, captured civilians and occupied the local synagogue. Their ultimate goal was to plant Hezbollah flag of the movement on Israeli soil and send a photo to Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. In response, Israel carried out the evacuation of civilians, then units of the IDF conducted a large-scale operation in southern Lebanon, which was carried out in three stages. The first stage was defensive, including a counter-attack and the deployment of additional units to counter the Hezbollah movements. The second stage consisted of launching an assault on southern Lebanon. The third phase pushed Hezbollah forces back into Lebanon. The exercises were held in southern Galilee to the south from Highway 85 Akko-Carmiel. The goal of the exercises was the full capitulation of the Hezbollah movement, “depriving them of their ability and willingness to resist”. According to the IDF command, the IDF excelled at these tasks.

The IDF Today

Currently the IDF in the regional scale is a formidable force with the budget of 15.9 bn USD.

According to the yearbook Military Balance 2017, IDF numbers 176 thousand servicemembers, of which 133 thousand are in the Army, 34 thousand in the Air Force, 9.5 thousand in the Navy. In addition, there are 465 thousand troops in reserve. The border police (MAGAV) may provide 8000 troops to assist the military.

Land forces are organized into three regional commands (North, Central, South), two armoured divisions, five territorial infantry divisions, three battalions of Special Forces, and a team of special operations forces. Overall they command a number of separate reconnaissance battalions, three tank brigades, three mechanized brigades (consisting of three mechanized battalions, a combat support battalion and a signal company), a mechanized brigade (consisting of five mechanized battalions), a separate mechanized brigade, two separate infantry battalions, an airborne brigade (composed of three airborne battalions, a combat support battalion and a signal company), and a training tank brigade. Three artillery brigades, three engineering battalions, two military police battalions, a company of sappers, a chemical protection battalion and a brigade of military intelligence provide battlefield support.

The Navy consists of a surface ship group, a submarine group, as well as a battalion of commandos.

The Israeli Air Force consist of two fighter squadrons, five attack squadrons, six mixed fighter-attack squadrons (plus two squadrons in reserve), an ASW squadron, a maritime patrol and support squadron (patrol and transport aircraft, tanker aircraft), two EW squadrons, an AWACS squadron, two squadrons of transport and tanker aircraft, two training squadrons, two squadrons of attack helicopters, four squadrons of transport helicopters, an air ambulance division and three squadrons of UAVs. Additionally, on December 6, Israel officially declared its fleet of nine F-35I warplanes operational.

It is believed that Israel has nuclear weapons. The number of nuclear warheads is debatable, but its delivery vehicles include F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, the Jericho-2 ballistic medium-range missiles, and Dolphin/Tanin class diesel-electric submarines capable of carrying cruise missiles.

There are nine orbital military and dual-purpose satellites:

• Three Amos-type satellites.


• One reconnaissance satellite with remote sensing of the Earth of the EROS type, located on the sun-synchronous orbit.


• Four optical reconnaissance satellites of the Ofeq type (No. 7, 9, 10 and 11), located in the low earth orbit.


• One radar-reconnaissance satellite of the TecSAR-1 type, located in low earth orbit.

IDF Problems

The IDF at the moment is a unique and astounding combination of nuclear weapons with delivery vehicles, an arsenal of equipment produced in the 1960s and of modern weapons on par with the leading world powers. This combination has its drawbacks and they do not make themselves wait for long.

For example:

• In September 2016, during the removal of the machine gun from a tank at the training base in Shizafon in the south of Israel several soldiers were severely injured.


• On 5 October 2016 on the approach to the Ramon airbase in southern Israel the pilot was killed as a result of the ejection from the F-16.


• In July 2017 during the course of an exercise, due to his own negligence Lieutenant David Golovenchick was shot dead by a soldier.


• On 8 August 2017 an AH-64 helicopter crashed at the Ramon airbase, as a result the pilot was killed, and others sustained injuries.


• On 9 August 2017 during IDF operations in the suburbs of Bethlehem, an Israeli soldier suffered wounds of moderate severity as a result of friendly fire.


• At the end of August 2017 ten soldiers were lightly injured at the Shizafon base in southern Israel after a smoke grenade exploded.


• At the beginning of September 2017 an Israeli soldier was severely injured by a grenade that exploded during military training on the base in the south of the country.

These incidents indicate that the Israeli military has serious shortcomings in the realm of personnel proficiency and equipment maintenance.

The Gideon Plan

In order to give the IDF the ability to confront modern threats from various armed groups, while implementing budget cuts and minimizing the number of accidents, Israel adopted the five-year Gideon Plan in 2015.

Main Provisions of the Plan:

• Reduction of the number of professional soldiers and officers to 40,000.


• Reduction of military service of male draftees from 36 to 32 months. (Reduction of military service of female soldiers from the draft is not considered so far).


• Reduction of the age of commanders. If the average age of the regiment staff officers, including the commander of the regiment, was 35 to 37 years, now for these positions officers from the age of 32 will be appointed. The staff officers of the brigade, including the brigade commander, 40 to 42 years instead of 45 to 46 years respectively.


• The reduction in the number of reservists to 100 thousand. The reservists who will remain in service will be trained and armed as support troops.


• Reducing the number of artillery and light infantry brigades.


• Eliminating two army divisions.


• Structures such as the Education Corps, Military Rabbinate, Chief Reserve Officer, the Chief of Staff’s Advisor on Women’s Affairs, Army Radio and the Military Censor must undergo reduction and optimization. The command of the Northern District will be merged with the command of the land forces.


• Creation of the cyber-troops. Jerusalem Post, citing a senior officer of the IDF, reported at the beginning of 2017 that it was decided to postpone establishing the cyber-troops center.


• Bolstering of the Navy group through the procurement and construction of surface ships and a submarine.


• Rearming the Air Force by purchasing the American F-35 and UAVs of American and local production. This includes the retirement of an air-force squadron, and the early retirement of F-16 multirole fighter aircraft.


• Ending deferment to students in yeshivas (religious high schools) is not mentioned in this plan.

These provisions indicate IDF’s leaders had decided to focus on transforming it from conscript army to a professional one, staffed with a large number of trained soldiers as well as young and promising officers, capable to implement and employ in practice new ideas.  The fact that the command of the Northern District will be united with the command of the land forces indicates that this area (south of Lebanon and Hezbollah) is given special attention. The new army will be armed with more modern equipment and thus will be able to withstand modern threats.

The Israeli Missile Defence Systems vs. the Hezbollah Missile Arsenal

Knowing that Hezbollah will not invade Israel itself, its most capable units are involved in the fighting in Syria, and Hezbollah’s armored forces are in the development stages, for the Israeli military the biggest threat is Hezbollah’s missile arsenal.

Israel has a multi-layer missile defense network, which includes the following systems: Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow and Patriot. Furthermore, a ship-mounted version of Iron Dome [Tamir-Adir] was declared fully operational for use on a gunship off coasts on November 27. However, so far, it has been installed only on one vessel, the Sa’ar 5-class INS Lahav.

Click to see the full-size image

There are 17 batteries of MIM-23 I-HAWK available for air defence but presumably due to their obsolescence they are not in active service.

For comparison purposes, the cost of Qassam type rockets of Palestinian production according to Israeli experts is in the neighbourhood of a few hundred dollars. Rockets for the BM-21 Grad cost few thousand. The cost of production of ballistic, anti-ship and medium-range missiles is unknown, but may be assumed that they do not exceed several hundred thousand dollars.

Of course, human life is priceless and the potential loss in this case from Grad rockets, not to mention Scud and Iranian missiles, exceeds the cost of the interceptor missile. While the Iron Dome control system will only launch missiles if incoming missiles are calculated to fall in residential areas, the cost balance is still not in Israel’s favor.

Scenarios for the Third Lebanon War

Over time, IDF’s military effectiveness had declined. Israel has won the 1967 fully and unconditionally. The Egyptian and Syrian armies were dealt a powerful blow, and the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the western shore of the river Jordan were occupied. The war of 1973 was won by Israel with heavy human and material losses; however, neither the Egyptian nor the Syrian army was completely defeated. In the 1982 war, where the IDF had numerical superiority, it had won a tactical victory but the task of reaching Beirut to link up with the right-wing Christian Phalangists was not completed. In the Second Lebanon War of 2006 due to the overwhelming numerical superiority in men and equipment the IDF managed to occupy key strong points but failed to inflict a decisive defeat on Hezbollah. The frequency of attacks in Israeli territory was not reduced; the units of the IDF became bogged down in the fighting in the settlements and suffered significant losses. There now exists considerable political pressure to reassert IDF’s lost military dominance and, despite the complexity and unpredictability of the situation we may assume the future conflict will feature two sides, IDF and Hezbollah. Based on the bellicose statements of the leadership of the Jewish state, the fighting will be initiated by Israel.

The operation will begin with a massive evacuation of residents from the settlements in the north and center of Israel. Since Hezbollah has agents within the IDF, it will not be possible to keep secret the concentration of troops on the border and a mass evacuation of civilians. Hezbollah units will be ordered to occupy a prepared defensive position and simultaneously open fire on places were IDF units are concentrated. The civilian population of southern Lebanon will most likely be evacuated. IDF will launch massive bombing causing great damage to the social infrastructure and some damage to Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, but without destroying the carefully protected and camouflaged rocket launchers and launch sites.

Hezbollah control and communications systems have elements of redundancy. Consequently, regardless of the use of specialized precision-guided munitions, the command posts and electronic warfare systems will not be paralyzed, maintaining communications including through the use of fibre-optic communications means. IDF discovered that the movement has such equipment during the 2006 war. Smaller units will operate independently, working with open communication channels, using the pre-defined call signs and codes.

Israeli troops will then cross the border of Lebanon, despite the presence of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, beginning a ground operation with the involvement of a greater number of units than in the 2006 war. The IDF troops will occupy commanding heights and begin to prepare for assaults on settlements and actions in the tunnels. The Israelis do not score a quick victory as they suffer heavy losses in built-up areas. The need to secure occupied territory with patrols and checkpoints will cause further losses.

The fact that Israel itself started the war and caused damage to the civilian infrastructure, allows the leadership of the movement to use its missile arsenal on Israeli cities. While Israel’s missile defence systems can successfully intercept the launched missiles, there are not enough of them to blunt the bombardment. The civilian evacuation paralyzes life in the country. As soon IDF’s Iron Dome and other medium-range systems are spent on short-range Hezbollah rockets, the bombardment of Israel with medium-range missiles may commence. Hezbollah’s Iranian solid-fuel rockets do not require much time to prepare for launch and may target the entire territory of Israel, causing further losses.

It is difficult to assess the duration of actions of this war. One thing that seems certain is that Israel shouldn’t count on its rapid conclusion, similar to last September’s exercises. Hezbollah units are stronger and more capable than during the 2006 war, despite the fact that they are fighting in Syria and suffered losses there.

Conclusions

The combination of large-scale exercises and bellicose rhetoric is intended to muster Israeli public support for the aggression against Hezbollah by convincing the public the victory would be swift and bloodless. Instead of restraint based on a sober assessment of relative capabilities, Israeli leaders appear to be in a state of blood lust. In contrast, the Hezbollah has thus far demonstrated restraint and diplomacy.

Underestimating the adversary is always the first step towards a defeat. Such mistakes are paid for with soldiers’ blood and commanders’ careers.  The latest IDF exercises suggest Israeli leaders underestimate the opponent and, more importantly, consider them to be quite dumb. In reality, Hezbollah units will not cross the border. There is no need to provoke the already too nervous neighbor and to suffer losses solely to plant a flag and photograph it for their leader. For Hezbollah, it is easier and safer when the Israeli soldiers come to them. According to the IDF soldiers who served in Gaza and southern Lebanon, it is easier to operate on the plains of Gaza than the mountainous terrain of southern Lebanon. This is a problem for armoured vehicles fighting for control of heights, tunnels, and settlements, where they are exposed to anti-armor weapons.

While the Israeli establishment is in a state of patriotic frenzy, it would be a good time for them to turn to the wisdom of their ancestors. After all, as the old Jewish proverb says: “War is a big swamp, easy to go into but hard to get out”.

*  *  *

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"The US Has Crossed The Line": Russia Warns Trump Decision To Arm Ukraine Will "Lead To Bloodshed"

Russia has reacted fiercely to the end of week breaking news that President Trump plans to approve the legal sale of US antitank missiles and possibly other advanced systems to the Ukrainian government in a move that could change the battlefield calculus of the war between Ukrainian and Russian-aligned forces in the Donbass region along the Russian border. ABC News described the "total defense package of $47 million includes the sale of 210 anti-tank missiles and 35 launchers" which will be sure to harm Trump"s longtime stated goal of improving relations with Moscow.

Though Kiev has long had limited access to US lethal arms through private contracts with American and international arms producers, this represents a significant escalation involving the likelihood that advanced US systems would be used directly on Russian-aligned militias in the eastern Donbass region and potentially Russian forces along the border. Up until now, the White House has been reluctant to escalate the war so openly, as it did when it supplied anti-Assad fighters in Syria with sophisticated TOW anti-tank missiles.

While the US State Department claims the move is "defensive" in nature, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov charged the US with deliberately "crossing the line" and pushing the Ukrainian authorities "towards new bloodshed," adding that "American weapons can lead to new victims".

Ukrainian army soldiers perform a weapons exercise at a training ground outside Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. Image source: AP via Common Dreams

"Kiev revanchists are shooting at Donbass every day, they don"t want to conduct peace negotiations and dream of doing away with the disobedient population. And the United States has decided to give them weapons to do that," Ryabkov said. He further slammed the US as an "accomplice in igniting a war" whose political leadership is “blinded by Russophobia and eagerly applaud the Ukrainian nationalist punitive battalions.”

Indeed a number of outspoken Russia hawks in Congress were enthusiastic over the possibility of heavier and direct arms flow to Ukraine, including John McCain, Bob Corker, and Tom Cotton - all supporters of the original Ukraine Freedom Support Act signed into law by President Obama in December 2014, though never fully enacted.

So you"re telling me Putin ordered his puppet Trump to arm Ukrainians that are hostile to Putin?

This is some crazy 5th dimensional chess. https://t.co/AH4Ma9YShs

— Serge (@Zinvor) December 23, 2017

Cotton for example - recently rumored to be Trump"s pick for CIA Director - said of the new initiative for arms exports to Ukraine: "This is a break from failed Obama era policies to make Russia pay a cost for its aggression. With this decision, the Trump administration is reminding Vladimir Putin and his cronies that they lost the Cold War, and we won’t tolerate their bullying of our friend Ukraine."

But Russian leaders have warned that through the decision the US may be dragged deeper into a quagmire which could result in direct confrontation with pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine"s east. Aleksey Pushkov, member of the Russian Senate security committee, told RT News that delivery of the more advanced systems like the Army"s M-148 Javelin Portable Anti-Tank Missile would require US military advisers on the ground, which could be targeted by separatist forces. 

Pushkov told RT, the US “has enough problems already to allow itself to be involved in adventures of the [Ukrainian] regime. And we know too well how adventurous Kiev may be.” This comes as authorities in Kiev are already requesting that Washington adds anti-aircraft missiles to its shopping list as well, according to multiple reports. 

Meanwhile German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement calling for "disengagement and the withdrawal of heavy weapons" in the Ukrainian conflict, a scenario now much further away from taking shape than ever. But after years of covert American involvement in the Ukrainian proxy and civil war which has raged since 2014 - and which a leaked recording confirmed was precipitated by the US State Department - it appears that hawks like McCain, Cotton, and Corker are finally getting their way.

The Ultimate In Irony: Syrian Army Rolls Into Idlib With US Weapons Captured From ISIS

Authored by Leith Fadel and Andrew Illingworth of Al-Masdar News,

The Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) Tiger Forces arrived in northern Hama this week with a big surprise from their previous operations in the Deir Ezzor Governorate. Units from the Tiger Forces were seen armed with US-manufactured weapons that were seized from the Islamic State (ISIS) during the two month long battle in Deir Ezzor.

According to a military source in Hama, the Syrian Army’s Tiger Forces are planning to use the US-manufactured weapons against the jihadist rebels in the upcoming battle for the Idlib Governorate. Among the US-manufactured weapons transferred to the Idlib front were a large number of TOW missiles that were previously supplied by Washington to the rebel forces in Syria before they were later sold to the Islamic State.

Screenshot via Conflict Armament Research video documentation of weapons recovered from ISIS initially supplied through a CIA program to arm anti-Assad militants. 

The rapid defeat of Islamic State forces in eastern Syria over the last several months has seen the Syrian Arab Army capture untold quantities of military equipment from the terrorist group, most of which will likely go into the raising of new pro-government formations. As Syrian pro-government forces chased ISIS out of its main strongholds along the western shore of Euphrates River, the jihadist faction never had the time to re-locate its weapons stockpiles. The inevitable result of this was that such stockpiles came into the possession of the Syrian Army.

As video evidence has shown time and time again, the vast loot accumulated thus far comprises not only small arms, but also heavy weapons including mortars, howitzers, field guns, technicals, armored personnel carriers, main battle tanks and guided missiles.

https://twitter.com/TheArabSource/status/941481070419152896

Despite the fact that some Western-made weapon systems (particularly artillery and anti-tank missiles) were found, by far most of the equipment is of Soviet design (the CIA/Pentagon program to arm anti-Assad militants shipped mostly Soviet arms via Eastern Europe to US-backed groups). This means that the Syrian Army, itself possessing Soviet-made/Russian weapons, has compatible ammunition and spare parts to maintain the captured weapons and thus has the ability to press them into service.

Utilizing this huge captured arsenal, it is expected that the Syrian Army will raise new formations, not only within its own service, but also within pro-government militias – namely the National Defense Forces. In addition to raising new units of local fighters whose job it is to protect recently liberated territories throughout the provinces of Homs, Hama and Deir Ezzor, the army’s 5th Assault Corps formation is also predicted to expand.

To this end, the sheer amount of arms captured from ISIS ensures that many thousands of fresh recruits can be quickly provided with assault rifles and rocket launchers as well as the fire support assets their new units will require.

French PM Defends Spending 350,000 Euros On Chartered Flight

Apparently, the chartered flights scandal that enmeshed four Trump cabinet secretaries - eventually leading to the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price - has spread to Paris.

As France 24 reports, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has become entangled in a controversy over his use of a chartered flight to travel from Tokyo to Paris earlier this month. Philippe chartered a private aircraft at a cost of 350,000 euros ($415,000) to bring him and a delegation back from Tokyo earlier this month when a French military transport was flying essentially the same route at roughly the same time.

Philippe on Wednesday defended his decision to charter the Airbus A340 with first-class seats, explaining that he needed to be back in Paris urgently because President Emmanuel Macron was leaving the country, and that the air force plane would’ve been “too uncomfortable” for a nighttime trip.

"It"s complicated to move the prime minister around and it"s expensive," Philippe told RTL radio on Wednesday. "I understand both the surprise and the questions that French people are asking themselves."

Asked by a reporter if his trip had been a mistake, Philippe angrily responded: "I take responsibility for this decision completely, I take responsibility to such an extent that I want to explain it."

Edouard Philippe

Philippe was returning from the far-flung French Pacific territory of New Caledonia on December 5 along with a 60-strong delegation of officials and ministers. For the first leg of the journey from Noumea to Tokyo, they used the air force plane. But instead of continuing on to Paris, Philippe’s office hired the private A340 to complete their journey and arrived home two hours before the army plane which landed in Paris almost empty.

"We knew that there wasn"t a commercial flight at that time and that we needed to get back. We knew we needed to get back for something vital which is that the president was leaving on the Wednesday morning of our return," Philippe added.

The prime minister explained that the requirements of his job made travel expensive, but that he has done everything possible to keep a lid on costs - within reason. As Philippe explained, his travel requirements as prime minister are much more intense compared with those of a private citizen.

"If you had invited Edouard Philippe, I would have come in the metro which would have cost me 1.90 or 2 euros. But... I arrived with four vehicles, motorbikes, 15 people, and a doctor and a transmitter, who stay with me because these are the resources given to a prime minister to enable him to work at all times," he added.

Philippe’s office also pointed out that the trip cost 30% less than the similar trip taken by Prime Minister Manuel Valls in 2016.

Unfortunately for Philippe, his explanation did little to quiet the criticisms. Ex-minister of agriculture Stéphane Le Foll - a member of the Socialist Party - tweeted that "nothing can explain spending 350,000 euros... The Republic"s planes are very good. There"s no need to take private planes just so that you can sleep better."

 

Rien n"explique la dépense de 350 000 euros par @EPhilippePM pour un voyage ! Les avions de la République sont très bien pas besoin de prendre des avions privés pour mieux dormir! ?? #le79inter @franceinter

— Stéphane Le Foll (@SLeFoll) December 20, 2017

 

During his campaign, President Emmanuel Macron committed to running a frugal administration should he win the office. The president inadvertently created a spending-related controversy of his own last weekend by celebrating his 40th birthday at an opulent chateau in France"s Loire Valley.

While the Elysee Palace confirmed that the affair was paid for with private funds, Macron’s critics said the over-the-top party was yet another sign of how France’s youngest president is “cut off from the people.”

ISIS Claims To Have Hacked Army: ‘We Sent Information To Our Lone Wolves To Assassinate You’

Terrorist group ISIS has claims to have hacked the State Department and the United States Army.  Not only that, but they’ve put out a gruesome propaganda video detailing what their plans are now that they have “information.

The infamous terror group claims in the video it is sending assassins to employees’ homes. The footage was released by ISIS hacking group Islamic Ghosts of the Caliphate shows series of American websites with data it claims to have hacked from them, according to the Daily Mail. One of the boldest claims in their video is that ISIS is sending lone wolf assassins to employees’ homes.

The video declares: “Muslims will return to being masters of the world and kings of the earth.” It starts with disturbing images of maimed or killed Syrian and Iraqi children while a voice says in Arabic: “The Islamic State did not start the war against you and you will pay a great price as your sons will return to you as amputees or in coffins.”

But many believe this is nothing more than a “deep state-funded” video.

As scenes of war, bombings, and terror attacks flash on the screen, the narrating voice continues. “You will pay a price as you walk along your streets fearing Muslims. We will attack your homeland – you will not even feel secure in your bedrooms.” The video then brings up a message in English and Arabic reading, which reads: “We were able to hack sensitive sites of the US Army, the Interior Ministry, the State Department, and other government sites, and we were able to get thousands of your confidential information. We have sent the information to our lone wolves to assassinate you and to increase frequent jihadist operations against you.“

According to the Daily Mail, the video then shows a series of American websites with the names and addresses of employees which the group claims to have gotten after hacking the sites. The examples of hacked websites shown in the video are not from the State Department or US Army but other lower-security sites including the Geological Society of Nevada and the National Caves Association.

Watch Live: Alabama Voters Head To The Polls To Fill Crucial Senate Seat

Shortly after 8pm EST this evening, the voting results of one of the most controversial special elections in modern history, which pits Republican Roy Moore against Democrat Doug Jones for Jeff Sessions" vacant Senate seat, will start to flow in to news desks all around the country.

While this election would have been a complete blowout just a few months ago, allegations of sexual assault which surfaced against Moore in November and which reportedly occurred in the late "70s, have made it a complete toss up.  As we noted earlier this morning, even pollsters have no clue how to predict voter turnout tonight with Fox News predicting a 10-point win for Jones and Emerson predicting a 9-point win for Moore.

For those looking to get an early read on how the night might turn out, we would suggest keeping a close eye on Mobile which is the second largest county in Alabama and is home to a disproportionate share of the state"s affluent republicans who are the most likely to abandon Moore.  Otherwise, while voter turnout will undoubtedly be down from the 2016 presidential contest, shifts in support in Jefferson and Montgomery counties, both with high concentrations of African-American voters, could provide an early signal on whether Jones has been successful in turning out his base.

With that intro, tune in below for the live results:

* * *

For those who missed it, below is the preview we shared earlier this morning.

After a last weekend of campaigning with celebrities, Doug Jones (D) with Alabama native Charles Barkley and Roy Moore (R) with Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon and controversial former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, election day for one of the most controversial special elections in modern U.S. history has finally arrived. 

As The Hill points out, Moore"s chances to become the first Democrat to win an Alabama Senate seat since 1992 rely on his ability to turnout African-American voters in cities like Birmingham and Montgomery.  Moore"s fate, on the other hand, depends on voters in the more affluent city of Mobile and rural white voters from around the state.

Jones spent the weekend on stops with prominent black Democratic lawmakers such as Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, while Congressional Black Caucus members Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) held get-out-the-vote events down state.

 

While African-Americans make up roughly a quarter of Alabama’s population, years of dismal Democratic returns have left his party without much of a ground game.

 

“I wish that the [Democratic National Committee] had focused more on states and making certain they had infrastructure here,” he said.

 

While Moore’s time on the trail has been limited recently — there were rumors he attended the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia on Saturday — he did sit down for an interview on “The Voice of Alabama Politics” at the state Republican Party headquarters, which aired Sunday.

Of course, as we pointed out yesterday, the polls headed into election day are almost completely useless as pollsters admit they have no idea how to handicap voter turnout today.  While voter turnout in mid-cycle elections is always difficult to predict, this one is especially complicated in light of the sexual assault allegations against Roy Moore. 

Which is precisely why the latest Fox News Poll of likely voters showed a commanding 10-point lead for Democrat Doug Jones....

Even though a poll released the day before by Emerson showed the exact opposite with a 9-point lead for Moore.  Per Real Clear Politics:

As CNN notes, the key to victory in Alabama could come down to Mobile, a region that is home to scores of more affluent, moderate, business-type Republicans who are most likely to abandon Moore for Jones or simply elect to sit this election out.

There"s a reason Trump"s event was in Pensacola, and Moore closed his campaign with big rallies in Fairhope a week from election day and Midland City on Monday night: They"re all in the Mobile media market.

 

If Jones is going to win, he can"t rely purely on turning out his base and hoping Republicans stay home. He"ll need some white, conservative supporters, and the Mobile region is his best chance to win some.

 

Those are the voters Moore"s supporters have targeted with a message that the election is a referendum on Trump"s agenda.

 

"It"s an up-or-down vote tomorrow between the Trump miracle and the nullification project," Bannon said Monday night in Midland City.

As a quick reminder, here is how Alabama voted in the 2016 Presidential election.  Hillary performed well in the heavily African-American cities of Birmingham (+7.6%) and Montgomery (+26.8%) while Trump carried Mobile (+13.7%) and most of the rural areas of the state.

All of which ultimately resulted in a massive 27.7 point blowout victory for Trump.

So, after weeks of intense media focus on an election that should have been a foregone conclusion, we are now just a few hours away from finding out whether Republicans made their first a serious special election blunder by choosing to support a highly controversial candidate who was potentially doomed from the moment sexual assault allegations against him first surfaced last month.

"You Grow Up Wanting To Be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You"ve Become A Stormtrooper For The Empire"

Authored by US Army combat veteran Daniel Crimmins via Upriser.com,

You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.

Question: How do you Americans as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months your country is committing a 9/11 size atrocity to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in America every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.

Daniel Crimmins from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division answered:

Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media’s definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the “us vs. them” good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.

Some of us, therefore, left our dorm rooms, and walked down Main Street to the recruiter’s office. Some of us were genuinely surprised the office wasn’t full to bursting of young men eager to avenge their fallen countrymen. Some of us were genuinely surprised when we had to push the recruiter to stop trying to sell desk jobs and just let us join the damn Infantry.

Image via Upriser.com

Some of us got enlisted, then, and went down to Georgia, head high to mask the anxiety and fear they might have helped. Perhaps some number of Americans in this situation discovered that maybe it hadn’t been the best idea, but would be goddamned if they were going to admit it, and let everyone back home smuggly remark on how right they were.

So they persevere. They learn to work as a unit, to look past personality issues, to see each other as Soldiers rather than as a race, or economic status, or any of the other things people hate about each other. They learn to kill.

Then some of these people, perhaps while sitting hungover in the platoon area in the Republic of Korea hear that we have invaded Iraq. They have “Big Scary Bombs”, and Saddam Hussein, the secular Arab dictator had somehow colluded with the devoutly religious Osama Bin Laden to attack the US. They hated our freedom, you see.

Then some of these young American men might transfer back to Georgia and be assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, and end up in Iraq in January of 2005. And maybe these kids, still drunk on Fox News and fantasies of glory and renown being enough to win their ex-girlfriends back, are excited to go to Iraq. Sure, we hadn’t found any WMDs yet, and we had Hussein in custody, but they were still somehow a threat and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Jeffersonian democracy. Inside every dirka is a good American, yearning to be free.

So you fight. You kill. Watch friends die. Its usually quick, almost never quiet, but for the rest of your life, when you remember sitting at the bar with them, they’re blown open. You picture the nights you spent downtown at Scruffy Murphy’s, but instead of the stupid hookah shell necklace, your boy’s jaw is blown off, and his left eye is ruined, and he’s screaming.

You fight, you kill, you watch friends die, and you notice a distinct lack of change. You kick in doors and tell terrified women to sit on the floor while you and your friends ransack their home, tearing the place apart, because they might be hiding weapons. There is no reason to believe this house in particular is enemy, same for the next one, and the one after that, or the seven before; they just happened to be there, and maybe they had weapons. Probably not, they almost never did. There were a few times when we had deliberate raids based on solid intel and we’d turn up some stuff, but generally we were just tossing houses because we could.

Then maybe your FISTer [field artillery forward observer] forgets to carry the remainder, and drops a mess of mortars on the village your supposed to protect. Maybe the big Iraqi running at you screaming was just mentally ill. Of course, you won’t know this until after you’ve put seven rounds through his rib cage, and his wailing, ancient mother is cradling his body, spitting at you.

Maybe when you get back to the FOB [Forward Operating Base], the Platoon Sergeant tells you you did the right thing; next time, it might be a suicide bomber. They tell you it was an honest mistake, it wasn’t your fault. They tell you to go get some chow, take a shower if the water works, and sleep it off. You did good work that day, apparently.

Chris Hondros" well-known "One Night in Tal Afar" photograph (Getty Images) showing the aftermath of a checkpoint shooting - Samar Hassan, 5, screams after her parents were killed after their car unwittingly approached a US Army checkpoint at dusk in Tal Afar, Iraq.

During chow, the TV is on AFN, and they are rebroadcasting some Fox News show, and you’re hearing about drone strikes, and all the great things we’re doing, and you can’t help but see that poor dumb assholes face, looking past his mother as he bleeds to death. He’s in pain, obviously, but he has the most perfectly confused look on his face. He doesn’t comprehend what’s happening. Little more hot sauce on your eggs doesn’t really help.

Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all he contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.

Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.

Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.

Maybe your heart breaks a little every time some asshole brags about a “successful” drone strike.

Your statement is correct enough; if all of America was one dude, that dude would not give a shit about the little brown people we’re burning and crushing and choking to death. We aren’t all like that, but it makes me incredibly, profoundly sad to see what my country actually is.

Some of us care, and I think there are more every day.

Pentagon To Undergo First Ever Audit After Decades Of Sloppy Accounting And Missing Trillions

After decades of waste, overpayments, trillions of missing or improperly accounted for dollars, and most recently losing track of 44,000 US soldiers, the Pentagon is about to undergo its first audit in history conducted by 2,400 auditors from independent public accounting firms to conduct reviews across the Army, Navy, Air Force and more - followed by annual audits going forward. 

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis speaks with DoD Comptroller David L. Norquist, June 15, 2017

The announcement follows a May commitment by Pentagon comptroller David Norquist, who previously served as the CFO at the Department of Homeland Security when the agency performed its audit. "Starting an audit is a matter of driving change inside a bureaucracy that may resist it," Norquist told members of the Armed Services Committee at the time when pressed over whether or not he could get the job done at the DHS. 

According to the DoD release: 

The audit is massive. It will examine every aspect of the department from personnel to real property to weapons to supplies to bases. Some 2,400 auditors will fan out across the department to conduct it, Pentagon officials said.

 

"It is important that the Congress and the American people have confidence in DoD"s management of every taxpayer dollar," Norquist said. -defense.gov

The Pentagon is no stranger to criticism over serious waste and purposefully sloppy accounting.  A DoD Inspector General"s report from 2016 - which appears to be unavailable on the DoD website (but fortunately WAS archived)- found that in 2015 alone a staggering $6.5 trillion in funds was unaccounted for out of the Army"s budget, with $2.8 trillion in "wrongful adjustments" occurring in just one quarter.

In 2015, the Pentagon denied trying to shelve a study detailing $125 billion in waste created by a bloated employee counts for noncombat related work such as human resources, finance, health care management and property management. The report concluded that $125 billion could be saved by making those operations more efficient. 

On September 10th, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," after a Pentagon whistleblower set off a probe. A day later, the September 11th attacks happened and the accounting scandal was quickly forgotten.

And twenty years before that, DoD analyst Franklin C. Spinney exposed what he called "accounting games," saying "Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year." In a 2002 testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform, Spinney laid out the DoD"s accounting quagmire of un-auditable books and budget projections which don"t match reality. 

Franklin Spinney, 2002

Finally, those of us old enough to remember the 80"s, let"s not forget the bombshell report on overpayments the Pentagon made for simple items, such as $37 screws, $7,622 coffee makers, and $640 toilet seats which Sen. William Roth Jr (R-DE) was able to whittle down to $200. 

The announcement of the audit comes amid a looming government shutdown battle which was given a two-week extension last week until December 22. If this occurs, military personnel would report to work as usual, but the DoD would not pay them until the shutdown ends. 

 "I cannot emphasize too much how destructive a shutdown is," Norquist said. "We"ve talked before about the importance of maintenance on weapons systems and others, but if it"s not an excepted activity, there"ll be work stoppage on many of those maintenance functions."

With both parties standing to lose more than gain from a shutdown, that is unlikely to happen. Meanwhile, with decades of lost confidence in the Pentagon"s accounting practices, we eagerly await the results of this "massive" audit to see exactly how much dirt - and where - previous administrations have swept under the rug.

Dude Where"s My Troops? Pentagon Loses Track Of 44,000 Soldiers

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force," said Thomas Jefferson in an 1807 letter to Chandler Price. And what would the nation"s third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence say of today"s American "global force" deployed across the earth?

America"s "global military presence" is not hyperbole, but a literal fact, as a new Department of Defense study has found that US military personnel are stationed in literally every nation on the earth. The report bluntly confirms that, "The United States has military personnel in nearly every country in the world, ranging from two liaison officers in Fiji to tens of thousands from all of the service branches in Japan and Germany, according to the report."

But perhaps more important and equally absurd (when one considers the original beginnings of the humble "republic" envisioned by founders like Madison and Jefferson) is the fact that America"s world-wide military presence is such that the Pentagon itself can"t track how many US service members are deployed where. A new bombshell article in Stars and Stripes military newspaper is non-ironically headlined, "Report: 44,000 ‘unknown’ military personnel stationed around the world".

The Stripes article opens with a line that would seem straight out of the Onion, yet matter-of-factly states, "The U.S. military has more than 44,000 troops across the globe that the Pentagon claims it cannot track, according to a recent report."

The Pentagon"s system for accounting troop deployment numbers, maintained by the Defense Manpower Data Center under the Office of the Secretary of Defense, lists up to 44,000 troops in a country location category labeled "Unknown". 

The report has come to light after a series of recent Pentagon press briefings on military actions in the Middle East and Africa which left journalists scratching their heads. For example the latest DoD admission that there are "about 2,000 troops in Syria" - four times the previously acknowledged figure - came after a late October Pentagon presser wherein an Army spokesman told reporters that 4,000 troops were deployed to Syria, after which he awkwardly walked back the statement less than 30 seconds later, saying "I"m sorry I mispoke there - there are approximately 500 troops in Syria".

And when news broke of the October 4 ambush and deaths of four elite Green Beret soldiers in Niger, the immediate reaction voiced among congressional leaders and echoed generally in the media was: "we have troops in Niger?" - after which it came to light that the US has at least 6,000 military personnel spread across the African continent, though few knew of AFRICOM"s (US Africa Command) dangerously burgeoning number of undisclosed daily missions. 

Where are they? Image source: US Marine Corps

“We are not at a point where we can give numbers other than those officially stated,” said Army Col. Rob Manning, quoted in Stripes. Though as Stripes acknowledges it appears that this is due more to the Pentagon simply not knowing where it has stationed thousands of troops rather than the officially stated reasons of "secrecy" and force protection from enemies. The Army spokesman further asserted, “Our commitment is to be as transparent as we can, within the constraints of operation security,” but it"s also that case that, "The Pentagon acknowledged in a statement that it has no good way to track how many service members are stationed overseas, where they are and when they were there," according to Stripes. 

A Pentagon statement also ambiguously acknowledged that its troop tracking methods will inevitably miscalculate the locations of its roughly 1.3 million total personnel across all branches, based on the worrisome reasoning that "there is no easy way to track all deployments":

“There is no one personnel system in the [Defense Department] that tracks the daily location of all DoD personnel. There is no easy way to track all deployments, training exercises, TDY (being attached to another unit for training or specific missions, typically for less than six months) or temporary assignments,” according to the statement. “If you take the total numbers assigned in the United States and assigned overseas, and add the ‘Unknown,’ you get the total force numbers for each service.”

The report also comes after President Trump unveiled a new Afghan strategy last summer, saying the US would not pull out of the now 16-year long war but would instead inject more troops into the country for increased anti-terror operations.  According to recent statements from the Pentagon, the total number of US soldiers in Afghanistan has risen to about 14,000, though accounting procures have been especially unclear concerning the nation"s longest running war.

When Secretary of Defense James Mattis was asked during a news conference last summer about troops levels in Afghanistan he said, “There’s a very strange accounting procedure I inherited... What I’m probably going to end up doing is out putting everyone into one thing and saying, ‘Here’s how many are really there now."

And none of this addresses the even greater numbers of civilian contractors in global hot spots where America is present. According to Stripes, "The United States maintains 23,659 contractors in Afghanistan and 4,609 in Iraq, according to a fourth-quarter 2017 report from the Defense Department."

Given that we learned this week of 44,000 troops stationed in locations the Pentagon itself deems "unknown", perhaps we are long overdue for a massive drawback of overseas forces and bloated military budgets? Of course if the Pentagon can"t find them in the first place, it might be hard to bring them home.

Paul Craig Roberts Exposes "Plunder Capitalism"

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

I deplore the tax cut that has passed Congress. It is not an economic policy tax cut, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with supply-side economics. The entire purpose is to raise equity prices by providing equity owners with more capital gains and dividends.

In other words, it is legislation that makes equity owners richer, thus further polarizing society into a vast arena of poverty and near-poverty and the One Percent, or more precisely a fraction of the One Percent wallowing in billions of dollars. Unless our rulers can continue to control the explanations, the tax cut edges us closer to revolution resulting from complete distrust of government.

The current tax legislation drops the corporate tax rate to 20%. This means that global corporations registered in the US will be taxed at a lower income tax rate than a licensed practical nurse making $50,000 per year. The nurse, if single, faces in 2017 a 25% marginal tax rate on all income over $37,950.

A single person is taxed at a rate of 33% on all income above $191,651. 33% was the top tax rate extracted from medieval serfs, and approaches the tax rate on US 19th century slaves. Such an upper middle class income as $191,651 sounds extraordinary to most Americans, but it is so far from the multi-million dollar annual incomes of the rich as to be invisible. In America, it is the shrinking middle and upper middle class incomes that bear the burden of income taxation. The rich with their capital gains from their equity holdings are taxed at 15%.

Even single individuals who earn between $1 and $9,325 are taxed at 10% on their pittance.

The neoliberal economists who are the shills for the rich, Wall Street, and the Banks-Too-Big-Too-Fail claim, erroneously, that by cutting the corporate income tax rate to 20% all sorts of offshored profits will be brought back to the US and lead to a booming economy and higher wages.

This is absolute total nonsense. The money won’t come back, because it is invested abroad where labor costs are lower, if invested at all instead of buying back the corporation’s stock or buying other existing companies. After 20 years of offshoring US manufacturing and professional tradable skills and the incomes associated with the jobs, who is going to invest in America? The American population has no income with which to purchase the goods and services from new investment, and the American population’s credit cards are maxed out.

All that is going to happen is that Wall Street will calculate the lower tax rate into a higher equity price. Wall Street can do this without any of the offshored earnings coming home. Suddenly, everyone who owns equities will experience a boost in wealth, or the boost has already occurred in anticipation of the handout.

The deficit-conscious Republicans have put into the Bill for Enhancement of the Rich’s Wealth, cuts in social services in order to “save workers from higher interest rates from budget deficits.” This is more dishonesty. If the Fed lets real interest rates rise to any meaningful amount, derivatives will unwind, and the Fed will have to create trillions more in new dollars to keep its ponzi scheme in place. The deficit that results from the tax cut will be covered by the Fed purchasing the Treasuries, not by a rise in interest rates.

What we are witnessing in the US and indeed throughout the western world is the total failure of capitalism. Capitalism is now merely a looting machine. The financial sector no longer supplies capital for production. What the financial sector does is to turn discretionary consumer income into interest and fee payments to banks. Aggregate demand can only grow through debt expansion, and the consumers reach a point where they cannot expand their debt.

Capitalism, hiding behind “globalism,” which is misrepresented as a good thing when it is death itself, locates production where labor is cheapest, thus depriving First World labor of good wages and work opportunities and putting First World countries on the path to becoming Third World countries.

Short-term profits and executive and board bonuses and stock options are maximized at the cost of the destruction of the domestic consumer market.

Plunder Capitalism also privatizes as much of the public sector, such as the military, as possible, thus driving up the cost of the Pentagon’s budget. Jobs that the soldiers themselves formerly did are given to politically-connected firms. What was once KP (kitchen patrol) is now provided by an outside private service. Private mercenaries hired by the Pentagon collect as much in a month as troops in the line of fire earn in a year. I don’t know that the army any longer has a supply organization other than the private business that has the contract.

Medicare and Medicaid are the next to be privatized, along with Social Security. The tax cut will result in deficit and high interest rate hype, and these lies will be used to save the workers from high interest rates on their mortgage, credit card, and student loan debt by scaling back or privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

The environment and public lands will be sacrificed to the private profits of timber, mining, and energy companies. Grizzly bears and wolves are losing their protection under the endangered species act so that states can sell trophy hunting licenses to men who have to prove their manhood by killing an animal with a high-powerful rifle at a safe distance.

What we are witnessing is the complete looting of America and the entirety of the West. While the Western World collapses, the insouciant, submissive people sit there sucking their thumbs while they are being ruined.

Nothing is left of the West except looters at work.

This tax bill is an abomination, an act of brutal plunder. Its sponsors should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, if not hung from a lamp post.