Category Archives: military news

military news

New defense boss breaks with commander in chief-to-be

Imagine that … the man picked to lead the Defense Department thinks Russia is our No. 1 worldwide adversary and he’s sounding a good bit more anti-Kremlin than the man who nominated him, Donald J. Trump.

What’s going on here? Sanity is breaking out within the budding Trump administration.

Trump’s CIA director-designate, Mike Pompeo, calls waterboarding a form of “torture” and says he would refuse to obey a direct order to invoke “enhanced interrogation” techniques on enemy captives. Trump campaigned on a pledge to restore waterboarding.

Now we hear from Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis, who tells us that Russia is our top adversary and that the United States should honor the nuclear arms-production agreement it struck with Iran. Let’s see: Trump is buddies with Vladimir Putin and he says he’ll tear up the Iran nuke treaty when he takes office.

Mattis isn’t too keen on either matter, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/senate-set-to-question-trumps-pentagon-pick-veteran-marine-gen-james-mattis/2017/01/11/b3c6946a-d816-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2af606a6369a

Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general with plenty of combat experience. The man is a plain-spoken, in-your-face general-grade officer.

He said this about the Iran nuclear deal: “I think it is in an imperfect arms control agreement — it’s not a friendship treaty. But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”

I’m beginning to believe Trump might be surrounding himself with at least a couple of reasonable minds on his national security team.

He will need their wise counsel. I hope the hothead/know-it-all/commander in chief chooses to heed it.

military news, national news, political news

This farewell won’t be your usual farewell

I miss Barack H. Obama already … and he’s still on the job as president of the United States.

Tonight, though, he’s going to bid us all farewell in a speech delivered in Chicago. I don’t usually remember specifics of presidential farewells, other than recalling how I felt in real time as they were delivering them.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/10/509052320/obamas-farewell-address-how-presidents-use-this-moment-of-reflection

I anticipate a mixed feeling tonight as I listen to President Obama recount his successes and, perhaps, his failures. As with all presidents, they have their high- and low-water marks.

My appreciation for this man hinges on the dignity he brought to the office. He stood proudly as the leader of the free world and as commander in chief. He seemed to wear both titles well, which is saying something for the latter, given that he didn’t serve in the military. He brought a certain bearing to that role.

I trust, too, he’ll remind us yet again about how difficult life had gotten in this country when he became president. He’ll tell us of the measures he pushed through Congress to stimulate a collapsing economy.

Yes, I’ll miss him.

It might be as well that my feelings for Barack Obama — and his family — are tinged in large measure by the feeling I harbor toward his successor. I won’t belabor that particular point here, except to say that the juxtaposition of those two emotions highlights and underscores my sense of sadness as I watch the current president say goodbye.

I won’t predict that we’ll hear a signature phrase that we’ll take away from this speech tonight, but neither will I be surprised to hear one. I guess the most memorable of those phrases in my lifetime came from President Eisenhower, a one-time general of the Army and hero of World War II, who warned of the “military-industrial complex” wielding too much power in the future.

Imagine such an admonition, coming from Ike, of all people!

It’ll be a watershed moment to be sure.

International news, military news

ISIS or ISIL … pick which one you want to hate

Defense Secretary Ash Carter invoked a term that I find puzzling.

It’s not in a negative way, just a puzzling way.

Appearing this morning on “Meet the Press,” Carter was responding to a question from moderator Chuck Todd, who used the term “ISIS.” Carter answered him using the term “ISIL.”

ISIS, ISIL. Tomato, tom-ah-to.

President Obama for some time has been calling the terrorist monsters ISIL, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The more, um, colloquial term has been ISIS, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The Levant describes a geographical region that covers roughly the nations bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea. They comprise the site of the ongoing struggle against Islamic terrorists.

I suppose that, given the reach of the Islamic State, that “ISIL” seems a bit more appropriate, as it has done its murderous deeds throughout the eastern Med — and beyond.

Secretary of State John Kerry has been using the term “Daesh” when discussing ISIS/ISIL. Daesh is seen in the Islamic world as an epithet, a slur against the terrorists who comprise this monstrous group.

We all know, of course, how the Islamic State has elevated its profile from something President Obama once called the “JV team” of international terrorists. They’re the first-stringers these days, the varsity, Public Enemy No. 1 worldwide.

It really matters not one damn bit whether we call them “ISIS, ISIL” or “Daesh.” I’d prefer to call them all “dead.” We have killed many thousands of them since 9/11, but there no doubt remain many more to hunt down and, in the parlance so often used, “remove from the battlefield.”

I continue to have faith we’ll be able to do that — one day. I hope to be alive to welcome that event.

local news, military news, national news, political news

Still waiting on Thornberry’s take on this hacking matter

I’m thinking that we need to send out an all-points-bulletin for Mac Thornberry, the Republican member of Congress who represents the 13th Congressional District.

All this talk, all this chatter, all this debate over Russian hackers trying to influence the 2016 presidential election is missing a key voice.

That would be Thornberry.

John Boehner was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives when he charged Thornberry with coming up with ways to secure our national computer grid. Thornberry chaired a special House committee to formulate a plan, a strategy, a defense against the kind of thing that appears to have been going on.

At this moment, I don’t know (a) whatever became of that committee’s findings and (b) why no one in the media has called on Thornberry to provide some context, perspective and expertise on what’s going on and how the nation can avoid this kind thing from ever happening again.

I have looked on Thornberry’s website and have found nothing from him about the issue that has consumed the national media.

Intelligence officials met with Donald Trump today to brief the president-elect on intelligence evidence that Russian spooks actually hacked into our cyber grid while trying to help Trump get elected president. Trump continues to downplay the allegation that our electoral process may have been compromised.

Didn’t the House speaker, though, commission our congressman to come up with answers to all this?

I’m all ears while I await what my congressman has to say about this issue.

Thornberry has served in the House since 1995. He’s a go-to guy on national defense issues, given that he chairs the House Armed Services Committee.

On this one, though, the chairman is missing in action.

military news, national news, political news

Trump is about to get an earful from U.S. spooks

My fondest wish at this very moment is to be a fly on the wall at the Trump Tower office where the president-elect of the United States is going to hear from the intelligence he has disparaged about what they know about Russian efforts to hack into our electoral process.

Donald Trump is playing host Friday to the director of national intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. They’re going to tell them what they know about Russian efforts to influence the presidential election we just endured.

Will the president-elect disparage these intelligence professionals to their faces? Will he tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about? Will he stand by the assertions of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who’s been hiding in a foreign embassy to avoid prosecution on criminal charges?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-big-take-aways-from-the-extraordinary-congressional-hearing-on-russian-hacking/ar-BBxWytL?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

DNI Jim Clapper said there’s a line between honest skepticism and “disparagement.” Indeed, Trump has disparaged the intelligence community’s ability to do its job, which is to provide national security information that presidents need to protect Americans from foreign adversaries.

Clapper was one of the intelligence honchos who spoke today to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee about the Russian hacking story. It was an amazing hearing. It produced pointed questions about the doubts that Trump has cast on the intelligence community. It also produced amazing answers from the intelligence pros about whether they would believe Julian Assange’s assertions dismissing Russian involvement in these hacking efforts.

The hearing today was a preliminary event, a setup for the main event set for Friday at Trump Tower.

I need serious help as I seek to turn into that fly on the wall. Oh, to listen to what the spooks tell Trump the evidence they have about Russian hackers.

military news

POTUS pays glowing tribute to those ‘who do the work’

Barack Obama said it as well as it can possibly be said.

The president bid farewell this week to the men and women who serve and protect us. They wear the uniform of the “greatest military in the history of the world,” he said.

The president reminded them — and the rest of the nation — that he is the “front man.” As commander in chief of that awesome military establishment, he gets his share of the credit for the successes achieved in defense of the nation.

“You do the work,” he told the men and women who he served as commander in chief.

Americans heard a lot of rhetoric during the recent presidential campaign about a military establishment in decline. They heard from the president-elect, who declared he knows “more about ISIS than the general.” Americans were subjected to put-downs and insults of our military forces who fight every day against international terrorists.

That kind of characterization does them a profound disservice.

I was glad to hear the commander in chief say the things he said to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to Vice President Joe Biden, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the service secretaries and to the warriors who take essentially the same oath taken by the president himself.

President Obama also stated correctly that the young Americans who answer the call to put themselves in harm’s way “are among the greatest generations.”

Let us never forget what they do.

Thank you as well, Mr. President, for your service to the country.

local news, military news

Yep, that was some flyover

I was out of town the day Randall County Judge Ernie Houdashell introduced the latest exhibit to the Texas Panhandle War Memorial and I regret very much missing the ceremony.

It’s of a U.S. Army UH-1 Huey helicopter that flew many combat missions during the Vietnam War. Houdashell, a former Huey crew member who saw his share of combat during that war, worked hard to bring the Huey to the memorial; it was dedicated this past October. Houdashell is on the far left in the picture at the top of this post.

Every time I drive by the memorial, which is next to the County Courthouse Annex in south Amarillo, I think of another ceremony that my wife and I were able to attend. It sends chills up my spine every time I think of it.

Several years ago, Houdashell presided over a ceremony that dedicated an Air Force F-100 fighter jet at the memorial grounds.

The plane also flew missions in Vietnam.

The story, though, of this blog relates to the opening of the ceremony that preceded the keynote speech delivered by Texas Supreme Court Justice Phil Johnson, the former chief judge of he 7th Court of Appeals in Amarillo — and a former F-100 pilot who flew combat missions in Vietnam.

Houdashell took the podium at about 10:55 a.m. to alert the audience that the ceremony was to begin at precisely 11 o’clock. Houdashell made quite a point that the event was to occur at the top of the hour and he implored us all to take our seats to await the opening.

And what an opening it turned out to be!

At 11 a.m. sharp we heard the sound of jets coming from the south. We looked up toward the roof of the annex building and then saw three F-16 Fighting Falcons fly overhead, no more than 1,000 feet or so above us.

Just as the jets flew over, they kicked in their afterburners — the sound of which was literally deafening. They blasted northward over Amarillo — and in the process set off car  and house alarms for miles around, not to mention started dogs barking throughout the southern half of the city.

Houdashell informed me earlier that he has gotten permission for USAF Col. Scott Neibergall, an Amarillo High School graduate, to lead the formation from its base in South Texas.

I have to tell you, it was an opening ceremonial gambit the likes of which I’d never seen — or heard!

I give all the credit in the world to my pal Ernie Houdashell for working this deal to its fruition  –and for bringing the Huey to Amarillo, too, to honor the veterans who have served our nation.

International news, military news, national news

No apology for attack, but still a profound promise

As the son of a gallant World War II veteran who jumped into the fight just weeks after a treacherous attack against the United States, I was hoping for an apology.

It didn’t come. Instead, the prime minister of Japan — the nation that yanked us into a global bloodbath — offered something that came pretty close to an apology.

Shinzo Abe visited the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu as the guest of President Obama, who is on vacation there with his family. He spoke of the “precious souls” who died during the Japanese air attack on our naval and air forces on Dec. 7, 1941.

He vowed that Japan never again would go to war. Abe offered a statement of condolence that he said, in effect, will never end.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/world/asia/shinzo-abe-text-pearl-harbor.html?_r=0

The prime minister also expressed his gratitude for the generosity that Americans have extended to his people in the years since the “date which will live in infamy.”

“On behalf of the Japanese people, I hereby wish to express once again my heartfelt gratitude to the United States and to the world for the tolerance extended to Japan,” Abe said.

An actual apology would have been the best outcome of this first-ever visit to Pearl Harbor by a Japanese head of government.

This American, though, will accept the prime minister’s statement of eternal condolence.

military news, national news, political news

To salute or not to salute?

I’ve wondered about previous presidents and whether they would adhere to a particular protocol, so I’ll ask it once again about the next president: Will the new commander in chief return military salutes given by the men and women in uniform who are required to salute him?

I’ll presume that Donald J. Trump knows how to snap a salute. He attended a military high school, which he once said was virtually the same as serving in the military. I’m betting young Donald’s instructors taught him how to salute.

Believe me when I tell you this: It’s something one never forgets how to do. It’s kind of like riding a bicycle … you know?

Of all the presidents in my lifetime — I was born during the Truman administration — I can recall only four commanders in chief who would return the salute: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Of those men, only two — Presidents Reagan and Bush — had actual military experience; Reagan, I regret to say, would snap what a friend of mine (a retired Army major) would call a “Hollywood salute.”

All the rest of the presidents during my lifetime, didn’t return the salute, not even President Eisenhower, the former general of the Army and supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II. Nor did President Kennedy, a Navy officer who saw intense combat in the Pacific Theater. Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Bush 41 all served on active duty. They didn’t salute, either.

And so the question will persist as we await a new commander in chief. There’s no rule that requires a president to return the military salute.

It is my own personal belief that the commander chief, despite his civilian status, should return the salute as a matter of courtesy to those who are fulfilling their obligation as military personnel.

Still, I’ll await the next president to see how he treats the servicemen and women who serve under his command.

International news, military news

More nukes for U.S.? Sure thing, Mr. President-elect

Let’s go back a few decades.

Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had many differences of opinion on a whole range of issues.

They all agreed, though, on one key matter: They all wanted to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

Then along comes Donald J. Trump to announce to the world — via Twitter, of course — that he wants more nukes, not fewer of them.

The response from his pal, Russian President Vladimir, was equally disconcerting. Hey, no prob, said the Russian strongman.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/russia/311618-putin-trumps-nuke-talk-nothing-special

Putin takes no great concern over Trump’s assertion that we need to boost our nuclear arsenal, apparently disregarding the notion that we already can destroy the world with what we have.

Trump already has let it be known that a new nuclear arms race with the Russians is no big deal, that the United States can outlast ’em in Moscow.

Trump’s new press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the president-elect’s tweet was meant to warn the world against nuclear proliferation.

Oh, boy. Conducting foreign policy discussions via Twitter is truly for the birds.