Category: Military

U.S. sending home 21 Saudi cadets, NAS Pensacola shooting an ‘act of terrorism.’

We don’t have to treat the Saudis with kid gloves anymore now that our technology is able to better process our own massive petroleum reserves

WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr said Monday that the Saudi Arabian shooter at Naval Air Station Pensacola was “motivated by Jihadist ideology.”

Barr says 21 Saudi military students are being removed from the US training program and returning home.

Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich announced the findings of the criminal investigation in a press conference at the Department of Justice.

Many of the 21 cadets being sent home had contact with child pornography and possessed jihadist or anti-American material, Barr said. None is accused of having advanced knowledge of the shooting, which Barr said was motivated by “jihadist ideology” and has been classified as an act of terrorism.

Appeals Court Allows Use of $3.6 Billion in Military Funds for Border Wall

A federal appeals court allowed the administration to use a certain set of Defense Department funds for the construction of the border wall after a lower court blocked the administration from dipping into them last month.

The ruling marks a victory for President Donald Trump, who has sought to shore up funds for his signature border wall. The money is separate from other funds that the Supreme Court allowed to be used last year.

In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of a Texas judge’s order, which the administration had appealed. The case is still ongoing.

The use of Defense Department funds for the President’s border wall has received pushback from numerous groups and states, which have argued the administration circumvented Congress to shore up wall funds.

The latest ruling applies to the military construction funds. Last September, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper authorized diverting $3.6 billion in the construction funds for 11 wall projects on the southern border with Mexico. The Pentagon said at the time that half the money was coming from deferred projects overseas, and the other half was planned for projects in the US.

The ruling doesn’t apply to the use of other funds, including counter-drug and Treasury Forfeiture Funds, that have been designated for wall construction.

Missile attacks target US forces in Iraq

Talk about sucking all the oxygen out of the news cycle. If the President orders the strikes as promised, this is going to be 99% of what we’ll hear for the next whatever.

Iran fired “more than a dozen ballistic missiles” into Iraq, targeting U.S. military and coalition forces early Wednesday, Pentagon officials said, in a major retaliation by the rogue regime after the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani last week.

The missiles launched by Iran targeted military bases in Al-Assad and Erbil, the Pentagon added.

Initial assessments showed “no U.S. casualties,” a U.S. military official in Baghdad told Fox News, adding that the U.S. was continuing to look into possible damage.

President Trump did not immediately respond, and the White House eventually said he would not make an address to the nation or other on-camera statement Tuesday.

Update:

Ten missiles hit Al-Assad Air Base, one missile hit a military base in Erbil and four missiles failed to hit their targets, according to a U.S. military spokesman for Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East.
The attacks unfolded in two waves, each about an hour apart.

U.S. service member, 2 contractors killed in attack on base in Kenya

This bunch is Sunni moslem, as opposed to the Iranians being Shite moslem, so it’s hard to say if this was a coordinated attack, or was something already planned. That being said, there’s the old thing about them considering the U.S. a common enemy. Of course, the solution for one sect is the same for all of them.

Al-Shabab, a Somali terror group linked to al-Qaeda, attacked a military base Sunday morning in Kenya, killing one U.S. service member and two Defense Department contractors, and wounding two others, U.S. African Command said.

Al-Shabab is a Sunni Muslim group and is not linked to Shiite Iran. Last Friday, a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s top military commander, and Iran has vowed to retaliate.

Six civilian aircraft were damaged at Manda Bay Airfield, which is on an island in the coastal region of Lamu near the border with Somalia, AFRICOM said.

Initially, the U.S.-led coalition said there were no casualties in the attack but several hours later AFRICOM released an updated statement.

https://twitter.com/USAfricaCommand/status/1213780265560092679

New U.S. Airstrikes North of Baghdad – Three Vehicle Convoy of Iran-backed Shia Militia Leaders…

Reports of new late-night U.S. airstrikes north of Baghdad are starting to be confirmed.  According to developing reports a convoy of two or three vehicles carrying Iran-back Shia Militia leaders was targeted near Taji in Northern Baghdad.

The strike is reported to have killed Qais Khazali, one of the people the US named as responsible for storming of US Embassy in Baghdad.  Also Shibl al-Zaydi is now confirmed to have been killed. Shibl was the leader of Kata’ib al-Imam Ali or the Imam Ali Battalions.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said late on Friday.

Two of the three vehicles making up a militia convoy were found burned, the source said, as well as six burned corpses. The strikes took place at 1:12 am local time, he said. (link)

It would appear the U.S. has ongoing excellent intelligence on the movements of key Iranian militia leadership operating in Iraq, and are now working through a list of those targets as they attempt to move around.

https://twitter.com/HeshmatAlavi/status/1213232018370285568

Statement by the Department of Defense

Iran forgot that Barack Hussein Obammy is no longer President.

At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.

This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.

Baghdad rocket attack kills Iranian military leaders including Gen. Qassim Soleimani

Soleimani is the military mastermind whom Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had deemed equally as dangerous as Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In October, Baghdadi killed himself during a U.S. raid on a compound in northwest Syria, seven months after the so-called ISIS “caliphate” crumbled as the terrorist group lost its final swath of Syrian territory in March.

In April 2019, the State Department announced Iran was responsible for killing 608 U.S. troops during the Iraq War. Soleimani was the head of the Iranian and Iranian-backed forces carrying out those operations killing American troops. According to the State Department, 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 were orchestrated by Soleimani.

As recent as 2015, a travel ban and United Nations Security Council resolutions had barred Soleimani from leaving Iran.

Iran’s Gen. Soleimani killed in airstrike at Baghdad airport

What was this Iranian General doing going to Baghdad anyway?
whatever….Rest In Pieces.

Baghdad (AP) — Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport Friday, Iraqi television and three Iraqi officials said.

The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, the officials said……….

The PMF blamed the United States for an attack at Baghdad International Airport Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. or Iran.

A senior Iraqi politician and a high-level security official confirmed to the Associated Press that Soleimani and al-Muhandis were among those killed in the attack. Two militia leaders loyal to Iran also confirmed the deaths, including an official with the Kataeb Hezbollah, which was involved in the attack on the U.S. Embassy this week.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said al-Muhandis had arrived to the airport in a convoy to receive Soleimani whose plane had arrived from either Lebanon or Syria. The airstrike occurred as soon as he descended from the plane to be greeted by al-Muhandis and his companions, killing them all.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject and because they were not authorized to give official statements.

US should attack Iran in response to attack on our embassy in Iraq

Once again, a U.S. embassy has come under an attack orchestrated by Iranian terrorists – but this time it is our embassy in Baghdad in Iraq rather than in the Iranian capital of Tehran as in 1979, when Iranian revolutionaries captured the U.S. Embassy and held 52 American hostage for 444 days.

Several dozen Iraqi Shiite militia members forced their way into the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad Tuesday setting fires and causing other damage, angered by weekend U.S. airstrikes that killed members of an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.

We must maintain control of our embassy in Baghdad. A U.S. official told Fox News that 100 Marines are being sent to the embassy to increase security.

President Trump is wisely standing firm, tweeting Tuesday to explain the American airstrikes and to deliver a sharp warning to the governments of both Iran and Iraq: “Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many,” the president tweeted. “We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”

The president’s tweet is a welcome display of U.S. resolve, but more than a tweet is needed to show Iran it cannot attack the U.S. embassy with impunity. It’s time for an American military response.

 

Report: Trump held private, enlisted-only Afghanistan war meetings – ‘No generals or officers, only enlisted guys that have been there’.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has been meeting with enlisted troops to get a better understanding of how they feel the war in Afghanistan has been progressing.

Trump did not want to meet with higher ranking officers, instead choosing to meet with enlisted troops to get a more candid assessment of the America’s longest-running war, Business Insider reported.
“I want to sit down with some enlisted guys that have been there,” Trump reportedly told advisers, according to Peter Bergen, author of “Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos.”

“I don’t want any generals in here. I don’t want any officers,” he added.

Enlisted members of the military may have been seen as better able to critique the war effort as their roles tend to place them closer to combat and the consequences of a command. Enlisted members are also less concerned with the day-to-day politics that might affect higher ranking officers.

Trump reportedly compared the opinions of senior military officers to those of a restaurant consultant. Rather than taking the advice of the consultant, who would suggest expanding a kitchen for renovations, Trump argued it would be more prudent and cost effective to ask the advice of the waiters who see the day to day operations and can identify the most basic problems in a restaurant’s functions.

One of the first groups Trump reportedly met with were enlisted Navy SEALs who criticized the war and said the war in Afghanistan is “unwinnable.”

“NATO’s a joke. Nobody knows what they’re doing,” the SEALs reportedly told Trump. “We don’t fight to win. The morale is terrible. It’s totally corrupt.”

On another occasion on July 18, 2017, Trump held a White House meeting with four more Army and Air Force senior enlisted service members.

“I’ve heard plenty of ideas from a lot of people, but I want to hear it from the people on the ground,” Trump said at a press conference for the July 2017 meeting.

Following that meeting, Trump reportedly gathered senior military officials to the White House situation room, where he then warned that the enlisted members he spoke with know “a lot more than you generals,” and said that “we’re losing” the war in Afghanistan.

U.S. Army Investigates Cadets Over OK Hand Gestures, Finds No Wrongdoing

The U.S. Military academy has concluded its investigation into cadets who flashed the “OK sign” during a live broadcast of an Army-Navy football game.

The findings of the West Point investigation were that “the cadets were playing a common game, popular among teenagers today, known as the ‘circle game’ and the intent was not associated with ideologies or movements that are contrary to the Army values.”

President Trump Signs Defense Bill Creating Space Force

SPaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace FORCE!

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, MARYLAND — Flanked by two fighter jets and in front of a giant American flag, President Trump on Friday signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that officially created the Space Force, the sixth and first new military branch since 1947.

“For the first time since Truman, we will create a brand new American military service,” Trump said. “You will witness the birth of the Space Force. That’s a big moment and we’re all here for it.”

 

THE ARDENNES:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.

During most of the eleven months between D-day and V-E day in Europe, the U S Army was carrying on highly successful offensive operations As a consequence, the American soldier was buoyed with success, imbued with the idea that his enemy could not strike him a really heavy counterblow, and sustained by the conviction that the war was nearly won. Then, unbelievably, and under the goad of Hitler’s fanaticism, the German Army launched its powerful counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944 with the design of knifing through the Allied armies and forcing a negotiated peace.

The mettle of the American soldier was tested in the fires of adversity and the quality of his response earned for him the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with his forebears of Valley Forge, Fredericksburg, and the Marne.

This is the story of how the Germans planned and executed their offensive.
It is the story of how the high command, American and British, reacted to defeat the German plan once the reality of a German offensive was accepted.
But most of all it is the story of the American fighting man and the manner in which he fought a myriad of small defensive battles until the torrent of the German attack was slowed and diverted, its force dissipated and finally spent.
It is the story of squads, platoons, companies, and even conglomerate scratch groups that fought with courage, with fortitude, with sheer obstinacy, often without information or communications or the knowledge of the whereabouts of friends. In less than a fortnight the enemy was stopped and the Americans were preparing to resume the offensive.
While Bastogne has become the symbol of this obstinate, gallant, and successful defense, this work appropriately emphasizes the crucial significance of early American success in containing the attack by holding firmly on its northern and southern shoulders and by upsetting the enemy timetable at St. Vith and a dozen lesser known but important and decisive battlefields

Trump Pushes to Allow Troops to Carry Personal Weapons on Bases

President Donald Trump said Friday that he would review policies that keep troops from carrying personal weapons onto military bases.

“If we can’t have our military holding guns, it’s pretty bad,” Trump said in a wide-ranging speech to the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Maryland, “and I’m going to look at that whole policy on military bases.”

“So we want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than it’s ever been,” Trump continued in the speech, in which he also renewed his call for allowing trained teachers and military retirees to carry concealed weapons in schools.

Schools and military bases currently are “gun-free zones” that are easy targets for deranged shooters such as the one in Parkland, Florida, who killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, Trump said.Defense Department policy mainly has been that base security is the province of military police. In most cases, troops are required to leave their personal weapons at home or check them at the gate in an effort to prevent accidental shootings and discourage suicides.”We had a number of instances on military bases, you know that,” Trump said in his speech, apparently referring to active shooter episodes.

In making the case for personal weapons on military bases, Trump appeared to be referencing the July 2015 incident in Chattanooga, Tenn., where four Marines and a sailor were killed.

The shootings occurred at a recruiting storefront in a strip shopping mall and at a U.S. Naval Reserve Center some miles away. But Trump said the victims “were on a military base in a gun-free zone.”

The victims were Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, 40; Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, 35; Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist; Lance Cpl. Squire D. “Skip” Wells, 21; and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, 26.

The FBI and local police said that Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez carried out a drive-by shooting at the recruiting center and then drove to the U.S. Naval Reserve Center, where he was killed in a shootout with police.

Then-FBI Director James Comey later said that Abdulazeez was “motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.”

“You know the five great soldiers from four years ago, three of them were world-class marksmen,” Trump said in his account of the incident. “They were on a military base in a gun-free zone.”

“They were asked to check their guns quite far away. And a maniac walked in, guns blazing, killed all five of them. He wouldn’t of had a chance if these world-class marksmen had — on a military base — access to their guns,” Trump said.

In his 2015 Senate confirmation hearing to become Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley was asked about the Chattanooga shootings and said that “in some cases I think it’s appropriate” for recruiters to carry weapons for self-defense.

He said that arming recruiters was complicated by a patchwork of state laws but “I think under certain conditions — both on military bases and in outstations, recruiting stations, reserve centers — we should seriously consider it.”

Then-Lt. Gen. Milley was commander at Fort Hood, Texas, in April 2014 when Spec. Ivan Lopez opened fire, killing three soldiers and wounding 12 others before killing himself.

Numerous lawmakers then called for allowing troops to carry weapons on base, but Milley said at a news conference that he didn’t support the idea.

“I don’t think soldiers should have concealed weapons on base,” he said.

U.S. Naval Academy graduate died relaying crucial information to first responders.

PENSACOLA, Fla. – A young graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, whose dream was to become a pilot, is being hailed a hero after he reportedly related crucial information about the identity of the Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola shooter to first responders, despite having been shot several times, a family member revealed.

Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, was confirmed as one of the three victims who were killed Friday morning when Saudi national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani opened fire on a flight training program for foreign military personnel, Adam Watson revealed in a Facebook post.

In an interview to air Sunday with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said all three victims were Americans. Two were members of the U.S. Navy, a senior Pentagon official told Fox News.

Watson’s father Benjamin told USA Today that his son was the officer on deck at the time of the shooting and sustained at least five gunshot wounds before being able to make it out to relay important information about the shooter before succumbing to his injuries.

“Heavily wounded, he made his way out to flag down first responders and gave an accurate description of the shooter,” he told the outlet. “He died serving his country.”

All Secure: A Special Operations Soldier’s Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the Homefront

One of the most highly regarded Tier One Delta Force operators in American military history shares his war stories and personal battle with PTSD.
As a senior non-commissioned officer of Delta Force, the most elite and secretive special operations unit in the U.S. military, Command Sergeant Major Tom Satterly fought some of this country’s most fearsome enemies. Over the course of twenty years and thousands of missions, he’s fought desperately for his life, rescued hostages, killed and captured terrorist leaders, and seen his friends maimed and killed around him.

All Secure is in part Tom’s journey into a world so dark and dangerous that most Americans can’t contemplate its existence. It recounts what it is like to be on the front lines with one of America’s most highly trained warriors. As action-packed as any fiction thriller, All Secure is an insider’s view of “The Unit.”
Tom is a legend even among other Tier One special operators. Yet the enemy that cost him three marriages, and ruined his health physically and psychologically, existed in his brain. It nearly led him to kill himself in 2014; but for the lifeline thrown to him by an extraordinary woman it might have ended there. Instead, they took on Satterly’s most important mission-saving the lives of his brothers and sisters in arms who are killing themselves at a rate of more than twenty a day.
Told through Satterly’s firsthand experiences, it also weaves in the reasons-the bloodshed, the deaths, the intense moments of sheer terror, the survivor’s guilt, depression, and substance abuse-for his career-long battle against the most insidious enemy of all: Post Traumatic Stress. With the help of his wife, he learned that by admitting his weaknesses and faults he sets an example for other combat veterans struggling to come home.

“The Greatest Failure is the Failure to Try.” Tom Satterly CSM(Ret)

September 2004 Yusufiyah, Iraq

The Blackhawk helicopter hovered in the dark above the house on the outskirts of Baghdad while eighteen Unit operators slid down ropes forty feet to the roof. The small arms fire my troop and helos had been taking since our arrival a few minutes earlier intensified as the last man landed and joined the others.

Directing the assault from a field thirty meters north of the target house, I watched through my night vision goggles as the aircraft began to pull up and away. At that moment, above the fierce barking of assault rifles and machine guns, I heard the all-too-familiar whoosh and saw the red trail of an RPG as it was launched skyward.

The grenade struck the Blackhawk on its rotor blades and exploded. The elite Night Stalker pilots had been through it before and knew they wouldn’t make it to back to base. They aimed for a field five hundred meters from the house to put the injured bird down.

The Blackhawk hit hard but remained upright, intact, and didn’t burst into flames. But the pilot and crew immediately came under heavy fire from the enemy who were running in all directions from the house.

I thought, “here we go again.” Just thinking of the words, I was about to radio over the command station sent a chill through me. “We have a Blackhawk down!”