Yemen Withdraws Permission for US Ground Operations

February 8, 2017   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) The Trump Administration’s claims that a January 29 ground raid in Yemen was a “success” appear to be on increasingly flimsy ground, with the Yemeni government announcing it has revoked permission for all future US ground operations on their soil.

Though US officials downplayed the move, saying it doesn’t apply to drone strikes, it is still a nasty black eye for the administration, as the US has long managed to keep the Yemeni government unquestioningly supportive, irrespective of a string of fairly plain blunders.

The January 29 raid was particularly bad, with officials saying everything that could’ve gone wrong did, and that the raid was carried out without sufficient intelligence. Though the Pentagon says 14 “combatants” were killed, so were dozens of civilians, including a substantial number of children, and the raid destroyed most of a village.

The large number of slain children, including eight-year-old American Nora Awlaki, fueled a lot of anger at the US, and virtually obliged the Yemeni government to put the kibosh on future such raids. Officials later suggested intelligence acquired might have justified the raid, though so far this amounted to a single, decade-old video that was already publicly available.

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This article (Yemen Withdraws Permission for US Ground Operations) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Pentagon Makes “Urgent” Request for $6 Billion for Overseas Troop Deployments

November 3, 2016   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) The Pentagon has announced it will file a “budget amendment” seeking another $6 billion in funding for the current fiscal year to pay for additional overseas troop deployments above and beyond what was already in the budget for this year.

The $6 billion request comes as an “urgent” request from the Pentagon, and would pay for additional ground troops in Iraq, the additional troops left in Afghanistan by stalling the drawdown, and to pay for escalated airstrikes around the world.

Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord says the hope is to get the White House to approve submitting the request to Congress before next week’s election, with an eye at getting it added to the latest emergency spending bill, expected before early December.

These “emergency” funding bills are the main way to get around spending caps, with Congress deliberately funding the Pentagon only for a portion of the year with money that, by the cap’s reckoning, was the whole year’s budget, then slipping “emergency” bills in afterwards to pay for the rest of the year, while pretending the caps still exist.

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This article (Pentagon Makes “Urgent” Request for $6 Billion for Overseas Troop Deployments) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.