Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

-Land of the Free

Number of Imprisoned Veterans Concerns Former US Defense Chiefs

2023-03-06

They are also concerned in Afghanistan about our troops, it appears.

[ToloNews] Two former Iraq and Afghanistan War-era defense secretaries are recommending that the government consider new ways to ensure that military service is taken into account when courts prosecute former service members.

The Veterans Justice Commission, led by onetime Pentagon chiefs Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta
...former SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
, offered that guidance after reports that a concerning number of veterans have been convicted of crimes since leaving military service.

The commission was tasked with examining the extent to which veterans are getting in trouble with the law, whether they are receiving appropriate transitional assistance when they no longer are in the armed services and how they are treated once they enter the criminal justice system.

Both Hagel and Panetta led the Defense Department during the Iraq War, which marks its 20th anniversary this month, and the Afghanistan War, which ended abruptly in 2021 when U.S. forces withdrew from Kabul.

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, said many of the stressors his generation faced are similar to those for this new generation of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, except that the United States had never been in a 20-year long conflict and there were unprecedented demands that the multiple, prolonged deployments put on the relatively small pool of people who serve.

While most veterans transition into civilian life without incident, the commission found that as many as 1 in 3 of the nation’s 19 million military veterans have reported being arrested at least once in their lifetime, and that about 181,500 veterans are incarcerated and make up about 8 percent of the state prison population and 5 percent of the federal prison population.

For comparison, less than 1 percent of all U.S. adults volunteer to serve, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those risks for veterans are elevated by post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and substance abuse issues, the report said. "Once ensnared by the system, veterans often present a complex set of needs and risk factors that are distinctive from those characteristic of civilians without a military background. But multiple barriers prevent many veterans from receiving the targeted interventions they need," the report found.

Instead of prison sentences, the commission has recommended that state and federal statutes should "create or expand judicial diversion," which would establish alternative treatments that could potentially allow for reduced charges, to avoid conviction or have a sentence lowered.

Some of alternatives could include requiring veterans to enter and complete Veteran’s Treatment Centers programs that would allow them to address underlying issues that led to the criminal activity, and involving victims or family members to be involved in the supervision and treatment process of the veteran.

"These veterans who do get in trouble, we’re not saying that they don’t have a price to pay, and they’re not going to serve their time, and that they’re not going to pay for whatever offense they may have committed," Panetta said during a virtual media briefing of the commission’s findings. "What we are saying is by virtue of the fact that they did serve in uniform, and that they are veteran, that there are interventions that can be made, that they’re entitled to, by virtue of being a veteran."

The multiple deployments "do have some impact" on the likelihood of incarceration, said commission director Army Col. Jim Seward.

Beyond the prison alternatives, the commission is recommending that Congress should review how effective state and national databases are at identifying a person’s veteran status, and that military service and specifically combat exposure should be considered at sentencing, including in cases that involving violence.

"Too many veterans are ending up in our criminal justice system, and while they must be held accountable for their behavior, our nation has a responsibility to honor their service and help them address the factors that often drive them to break the law," Hagel said.

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Home Front: Politix

Erik Prince hits back at Biden, says Blackwater contractors rescued him

2021-08-30

[NYP] Erik Prince, the co-founder of defense contractor Blackwater, is responding after the White House took a shot at him for offering to fly people out of Afghanistan on charter flights for $6,500 a seat — recalling that his contractors once rescued Biden from Taliban territory.
The Big Guy just wants his 10%
Prince, a former Navy SEAL, added that the Biden administration’s bungling of the evacuation operation and the president’s refusal to extend the deadline have "shattered the confidence" of America’s allies.

"So we have shattered the confidence of our European allies and every other ally around the world that America depends, whether you’re a CIA agent trying to recruit somebody to work for you or whether you’re a country that America wants you to compete with — to side with us versus something that the Chinese want — it will definitely figure into people’s thinking how quickly America abandoned its friends in Afghanistan and left in such a horribly chaotic and clumsy manner," Prince told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in an interview Wednesday night.

He also pointed out that Blackwater soldiers had to rescue Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel when they got lost in a snowstorm in 2008.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

The Quislings – The Usual Suspects Lobbying For Iran

2020-04-11

[AND Magazine] For our resident quisling who is kneejerk Anti-American

Definition: quisling

n. A traitor who serves as the puppet of the enemy occupying his or her country.

n. A traitor who collaborates with the enemy.

n. someone who collaborates with an enemy occupying force
https://www.wordnik.com/words/quisling

Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian army officer who founded Norway’s fascist party in 1933. In December 1939, he met with Adolf Hitler and urged him to occupy Norway. Following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, Quisling served as a figurehead in the puppet government set up by German forces. He was executed for treason after the liberation of Norway in 1945.

Quisling is dead. There are, however, Quislings still among us.

Two dozen American and European former officials have signed onto a letter urging President Trump to relieve sanctions against Iran. The request is couched in terms of providing "humanitarian" relief and assisting Tehran in combatting the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement on April 6, the former government officials claimed that relieving the sanctions on Tehran could "potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives in Iran."

Who could possibly oppose such a "humanitarian" move at this time of crisis? It is a powerful, emotional message.

It is also a carefully crafted stroke of propaganda genius.

The reality is that current sanctions do not cover medical supplies and other humanitarian materials needed in Iran. Medical supplies and humanitarian aid can be given to Iran already.

The reality is also that the Iranian regime, which claims it is desperate for assistance in this hour of need, somehow continues to find more than enough money to arm the Houthi insurgency in Yemen, bankroll Hezbollah and send arms into Iraq with which its Iraqi Shia surrogates kill American servicemen and women. Meanwhile, on at least two occasions, Iran has specifically rejected offers of humanitarian assistance by the Trump administration.

In short, this has nothing to do with the coronavirus.

This has everything to do with exploiting a pandemic to benefit an evil, totalitarian regime, which has held its own people hostage for over forty years.
Let’s take a quick look at just some of the signatories to the letter in question:

Federica Mogherini:
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy from 2014-2019. Mogherini attended Sapienza University in Rome where she wrote her final dissertation on Islam and politics. She was instrumental in crafting the nuclear deal with Iran and has bitterly opposed President Trump’s decision to walk away from it. She has made clear repeatedly that she fully supports the ability of European businesses to make money in Iran in defiance of U.S. sanctions.

Speaking in 2019, Mogherini said, "Part of this work requires us to guarantee that firms wanting to do legitimate business with Iran are allowed to do so. This is what we are working on right now: tools that will assist, protect, and reassure economic actors pursuing legitimate business with Iran." Mogherini added, "We Europeans cannot accept that a foreign power ‐ even our closest friend and ally ‐ makes decisions over our legitimate trade with another country. This is a basic element of sovereignty, and it is only natural that this reflection takes place, not only in Europe but in other parts of the world, too."

Leaving aside European signatories to this missive, however, the list of Americans who signed on reads like a "who’s who" of American apologists for Tehran and advocates of doing business with the devil.

Wiliam Cohen:
Cohen was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense and was an ardent opponent of Donald Trump from the beginning of Trump’s candidacy. He has described the U.S. sanctions on Iran as being the equivalent of "economic war" and spoke out loudly against the American targeting of IRGC Qods Force commander Soleimani.

Chuck Hagel:
Hagel was Barack Obama’s Secretary of Defense. He is on record as opposing the killing of General Soleimani as well. He has a long history of opposing the use of sanctions against Tehran.

Madeleine Albright:
Albright was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, she was instrumental in ending many of the sanctions against Iran that were in place at that time. In discussing the ending of these sanctions in a speech to the American-Iranian Council (AIC) in 2000 Albright talked glowingly "of the winds of change" she saw blowing in Iran and the need to normalize relations with the tyrannical theocracy in Tehran. She also made what can only be characterized as a series of abject apologies to Iran for what she characterized as prior American transgressions against that nation.

The AIC is a pro-Tehran, anti-sanctions lobbying group.

Albright is a member of the board of directors at AIC as is Chuck Hagel.

The American-Iranian Council was established in the U.S. in 1997 by Houshang Amirahmadi, a lobbyist for the Iranian regime. It was founded with the support of American oil companies to promote investment in Iran. It has a long history of opposition to American sanctions against Tehran.

The first honorary Chair of the AIC was Cyrus Vance. Vance is perhaps best known as Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of State during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Vance bitterly opposed Carter’s decision to attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran and eventually resigned in public protest of the President’s decision to authorize the operation.

Iran is estimated to have roughly $90 billion in escrow accounts both at home and abroad.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei runs a corporate conglomerate worth approximately $200 billion that includes the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, or EIKO; the Mostazafan Foundation; and Astan Quds Razavi.

Supreme Leader Khamenei has a sovereign wealth fund known as the National Development Fund (NDF) with an estimated $91 billion in assets, $20 billion of which is in cash.

In January 2019, Tehran authorized the expenditure of $1.5 billion on military activities.

In January 2020, following the death of Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, Ayatollah Khamenei allocated $220 million to support the Qods Force.

Since 2012 Tehran has spent over $16 billion on terrorism abroad.
Hit link for more

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Home Front: WoT

An Al Qaeda Ldr Came to USA as a Refugee, And Applied for Disability for Bullet Wounds

2020-02-07

[Frontpage] Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

After engaging in terrorism in Iraq, an Al Qaeda leader came to America as a refugee and applied for Social Security disability benefits because his "injuries" in Iraq had made it too hard for him to work.

In 2006, Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri was the Emir of an Al Qaeda terrorist group in Fallujah. The Iraqi city was the scene of brutal battles between Al Qaeda and America. It was where American soldiers had suffered the most casualties in any battle since the Vietnam War. Despite multiple defeats, Al Qaeda remained deeply entrenched in the city and was even able to seize a number of neighborhoods in 2014.

By then, Al-Nouri was living in Arizona.

Only 2 years after being the Emir of an Al Qaeda group, Al-Nouri had traded the deserts of Al-Anbar for the deserts of the Southwest. How was an Al Qaeda leader able to move to the United States?

Easy. He claimed to be a refugee from Al Qaeda.

In 2008, the United States raised the refugee admission celling to 80,000 to accommodate the surge of Iraqis applying to come to the United States. The Iraqis claimed to be fleeing terrorism, but some, like Al-Nouri were terrorists, and our refugee resettlement program was not interested in telling them apart.

A quarter of refugees that year were Iraqis. The Al Qaeda leader was one of 13,823 Iraqi refugees. The huge increase from 1,608 in 2007, made any real screening of the Iraqis all but impossible. And, worse still, Iraqis, like Al-Nouri, were in the top 3 refugee groups and their claims were processed 'in-country'.

"In-country processing", as noted by the Center of American Progress, makes "the process less onerous and cumbersome for Iraqis seeking asylum by allowing for in-country visa processing, making screening less restrictive." And what migrants from Al-Qaeda’s stronghold needed was less restrictive screenings.

The less restrictive screenings were one of Senator Ted Kennedy’s final immigration gifts to America. The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act was introduced by Ted Kennedy, backed by Grover Norquist, and co-sponsored by Joe Biden, Pat Leahy, Chuck Hagel, Dick Durbin, Bob Menendez and Barack Obama.

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Home Front: WoT

Chuck Hagel's Astonishing Admission on Syria

2015-12-21

Follow-up on posts earlier in the week.

[THEATLANTIC] Last week, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave his first extended interview since resigning as Pentagon chief in November 2014. The curated interview with Foreign Policy is worth reading in its entirety, if for nothing else than the insights into how White House officials and staffers micromanaged Department of Defense decisions; Hagel claims that staffers would call generals "asking fifth-level questions that the White House should not be involved in." (This would not be the first or last White House charged with this degree of oversight.)

However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
the most revealing moment of the interview was not an instance of White House micromanagement, but rather indecisiveness. In September 2014, in reaction to the horrific videos of U.S. citizen beheadings released by the self-declared Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, Congress passed legislation mandating that the Pentagon "provide assistance, including training, equipment, supplies, and sustainment, to appropriately vetted elements of the Syrian opposition." The most critical question regarding this policy decision was not whether the program would be effective--almost immediately nobody inside or outside of the Pentagon thought it would be--but what direct military support the United States would provide to the Pentagon-trained rebels in Syria. As I later wrote, initial, limited support to Syrian rebels could escalate to a Bay of Pigs situation, where the U.S.-backed rebels were easily killed or captured, and subsequently U.S. credibility further eroded.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Hagel: Obama ordered him to 'stand down' when Assad crossed red line

2015-12-19

Behind a subscription wall at Foreign Policy. A few choice tidbits here, courtesy of Hot Air:

Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him.

It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad that his regime would face consequences if it crossed a “red line” by employing chemical weapons against its own people. Assad did it anyway, and Hagel had spent the day approving final plans for a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missile strikes against Damascus. U.S. naval destroyers were in the Mediterranean, awaiting orders to fire.

Instead, Obama told a stunned Hagel to stand down. Assad’s Aug. 21 chemical attack in a Damascus suburb had killed hundreds of civilians, but the president said the United States wasn’t going to take any military action against the Syrian government. The president had decided to ignore his own red line — a decision, Hagel believes, that dealt a severe blow to the credibility of both Obama and the United States. …

In the days and months afterward, Hagel’s counterparts around the world told him their confidence in Washington had been shaken over Obama’s sudden about-face. And the former defense secretary said he still hears complaints to this day from foreign leaders.

“A president’s word is a big thing, and when the president says things, that’s a big deal,” he said.

Link

-Land of the Free

Duncan Hunter: Make No Mistake, The FBI and Army Retaliated Against a Hero

2015-12-17

[WOTR] When I first met Jason Amerine, it was hard not to be impressed. He's got the right stuff. His resume -- flush with the type of things that would make a Hollywood movie producer drool -- isn't too bad either.

In politics, trust is important and often what a person has done says a lot about who they truly are. In this case, Amerine is a war hero. It's a characterization he loathes and will never attribute to himself, but I will.

So of course I was on board to help save American lives when he came to me to talk about the problems with our country's policy on hostages. I committed to giving my best effort to change the U.S. government's approach to recovering Americans -- civilian and military -- held captive in warzones.

Amerine was first tasked by Gen. John Campbell -- who is now leading the ground war in Afghanistan -- to develop plans to recover Bowe Bergdahl. Nobody in their right mind thought the State Department-induced and -led five-for-one prisoner exchange was a good idea.

Amerine quickly determined that not only could he recover Bergdahl, but he could also secure the release of other American captives without firing a shot. He also spotted inherent dysfunction and conflict within government. Our response was quick. I wrote to former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel twice. He called me to say he agreed that these problems needed to be solved. He told me what he planned to do and who he would task to do it.

In that same span of time, Jason was getting close to making something happen, but it was the Federal Bureau of Investigation that first took offense to his efforts. Not the Army. The FBI argued that hostage recovery -- in a warzone or not -- was entirely under their purview even if the agents in charge of certain cases never stepped foot in Afghanistan. And forget that Jason had personal relationships at the highest levels of the Afghan government as well as other close and well-placed friends in the region. None of it mattered to the FBI.

So what did the FBI do? They "informally" suggested to the Army that it look at Amerine for sharing classified information. They needed Amerine back in his lane, and the quickest and easiest way to do that was to sideline him through an investigation. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, honestly, because this type of stuff happens every day in government. People are always trying to protect their turf at the expense of others.

Link

Government

Report: Congress 'Misled' About Taliban Five to 'Settle a Campaign Promise'

2015-12-13

[PJ Media] As the House Armed Services Committee released a lengthy report on President Obama's swap of five Taliban detainees for Bowe Bergdahl, one former Guantanamo detainee took a bow this week as a new spokesman for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The House report covers the transfer of Taliban communications chief Mohammad Nabi Omari, deputy minister of intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq, interior minister Khairulla Said Wali Khairkhwa, deputy minister of defense Mohammad Fazl, and senior military commander Mullah Norullah Noori in May 2014 to Qatar.

Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) noted that since that moment, the committee has been conducting an investigation into the actions of then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and senior Pentagon officials.

Link

Government

U.S. Army to cut 40,000 troops over next 2 years.

2015-07-07

[Rooters] The U.S. Army plans to cut 40,000 troops over the next two years, affecting all its domestic and foreign posts, USA Today reported on Tuesday, saying the Army also planned to cut 17,000 civilian employees.

The cuts would reduce the active-duty Army from its current size of about 490,000 soldiers to about 450,000, its smallest number since before the United States entered World War Two.

The troop reductions were initially announced in February 2014 when then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled the Pentagon's budget for the 2015 fiscal year. The figures were also included in the Pentagon's four-year planning document, the Quadrennial Defense Review 2014.

Defense officials confirmed on Tuesday the Army was moving ahead with the plan to reduce uniformed and civilian personnel and was expected to announce details on Thursday about which units would be affected by the cuts.

The personnel cuts come as the Pentagon is attempting to absorb nearly $1 trillion in reductions to planned defense spending over a decade.

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Lying to Ourselves: The Demise of Military Integrity

2015-03-12

[War on the Rocks] Leaders lie "in the routine performance of their duties," and "ethical and moral transgressions [occur] across all levels" of the organization. Leaders have also become "ethically numb," using "justifications and rationalizations" to overcome any ethical doubts. This "tacit acceptance of dishonesty... [facilitates] hypocrisy" among leaders.

These quotations sound like they are ripped from the headlines about some major corporate scandal. But they're not describing Enron before its collapse in 2001, or firms like Lehman Brothers and Countrywide before the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, they describe one of the country's most respected institutions: the U.S. Army.

Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, who are both professors at the U.S. Army War College, just published a devastating study called Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession. They state up front that indications of ethical and moral problems can be found throughout the entire U.S. military, not just in the Army. These include (but certainly are not limited to) U.S. Air Force personnel cheating on tests about nuclear launch systems, and U.S. Navy admirals and others sharing classified information in exchange for gifts and bribes. Last year, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel appointed a two-star admiral as the first Senior Advisor for Military Professionalism to address mounting concerns about ethical issues throughout the force.
Both lengthy and thought provoking.

Link

China-Japan-Koreas

U.S. envoy to Seoul injured in razor attack

2015-03-05

SEOUL -- U.S. Amb. to South Korea Mark Lippert was injured Thursday in an attack by a razor-wielding assailant who said he was against the ongoing military drills between the two countries, police said.

That makes it WoT right there.

The male suspect, identified as 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong, cut Lippert's face and wrist with a razor blade around 7:40 a.m., as the envoy was preparing for a lecture at a venue in downtown Seoul, police said. Lippert, bleeding, was rushed to a nearby hospital, police said, adding Kim was arrested immediately.

Witnesses said Kim, coming from behind, pushed Lippert onto the table and started assaulting him. The envoy was about to start his meal at the breakfast meeting preceding his speech, police said.

It is the first time a U.S. ambassador has been attacked in South Korea.

Lippert, 42, took office last year as the youngest-ever U.S. ambassador to South Korea. His wife gave birth to a son here in late January and the couple gave him a Korean middle name. He was formerly the assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs from 2011 to 2012. He also served as the chief of staff to former U.S. defense secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon.

The suspect shouted his opposition to the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises that started Monday, police said. The exercises are part of Seoul and Washington's efforts to better deter threats from North Korea.

So a Nork sleeper agent or a nutty SKor leftist?

Police said they were questioning the suspect to determine the exact motive for the attack.

The assassin said what his motive was...

In July 2010, Kim received a suspended two-year prison term for throwing two pieces of concrete at a Japanese ambassador to Seoul. He published a book last year in which he details his assault on the Japanese envoy, Tosinori Shigeie.

Kim is the head of a liberal organization that protests Japan's territorial claims over South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. He changed the address of his family register to Dokdo in 2006 after the Japanese prefecture of Shimane designated a day named after Takeshima, which is what the islets are called in Japan.

According to recent blog posts, Kim appears to have shifted his attention from the islets issue to the role the U.S. plays in inter-Korean relations. On Tuesday, Kim wrote a post that condemned the military drills between South Korea and the U.S., calling it "the reason why the union between family members (separated by the 1950-53 Korean War) couldn't take place."

"If the two countries reduce the scale and period of the exercises, North Korea would respond accordingly," he wrote.

The U.S. said it "strongly (condemns) this act of violence" in a statement by State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf.

But who listens to her...

"The Ambassador is being treated at a local hospital. His injuries are not life-threatening. Embassy Seoul is coordinating with local law enforcement authorities. We do not have any additional details to share at this time," she ~~harfed up~~ said.

Police said they will strengthen the security around U.S.-related facilities and personnel from now on to prevent similar attacks in a measure criticized as being too late.

The organizer of the event where Lippert was to give a speech apologized for the loose security and condemned the attack as "anti-humanitarian terrorism."

"We send our deepest apologies to the governments of South Korea and the U.S.," the Korea Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation said in a statement. "We wish for the speedy recovery of Mr. Lippert and send our deepest condolences to his family."

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Home Front: WoT

Obama takes inside hit from new Defense Secretary

2015-03-05

[LegalInsurrection] This isn't the first time we've seen a DefSec push back against the aspirational foreign policy goals of the Obama Administration. Before he was sloppily deposed, Chuck Hagel went on the record several times with information that contradicted the Administration's talking points about ISIS, Syria, and the continuing regional conflicts in the Middle East. Hagel refused to downplay the threat that ISIS poses to the international community, and both he and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey remained publicly at odds with the Administration over pledges to keep US troops out of combat.

Carter is now in the same boat, but he's taken it a step further by criticizing the one provision in President Obama's request that served to ease the fears raised by yet another foray into Middle Eastern conflict.

Obama is quickly losing control of any remaining influence he has on the international stage, and it's not the fault of Carter, or Netanyahu, or any other Choose Your Own Fall Guy; but if there's one thing we've learned over the past few weeks, it's that control is the one thing this Administration thrives on. It doesn't matter if we're looking at good plans, bad plans, or no plan at all, as long as they are the ones with control over the direction of the speeding train.

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