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Undated: ... on one of two golf
courses belonging to the
Trump National Golf Club on Lowes Island, Virginia ... on the course,
between the 14th hole and the 15th tee, Trump had a stone pedestal built with a
flagpole on it, and had a plaque placed on the pedestal
... with the inscription:
Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot,
"The Rapids", on the Potomac River. The casualties were so great that the water
would turn red and thus became known as "The River of Blood".
Historians say no such event ever took place at this site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Blood_%28monument%29 -- 2016 --
Back to top January 9:
From the moment 17-year-old Donald Trump was named a captain for his senior year
at New York Military Academy, he ordered the officers under his command to keep
strict discipline. Shoes had to be shined. Beds had to be made. Underclassmen
had to spring to attention.
Then, a month into Trump’s tenure in the fall of 1963, came an abrupt change.
The tall, confident senior with a shock of blond hair was removed from that
coveted post atop A Company and transferred to a new job on the school staff —
another prestigious assignment, but one with no command responsibilities. He
moved out of the barracks and into the administration building, swapping jobs
with a fellow high-ranking senior who took command of Trump’s old group.
Explanations vary as to what actually happened.
In Trump’s telling, he was elevated as a reward for stellar performance. “I had
total control over the cadets,” he said in a recent interview. “That’s why I got
a promotion — because I did so good.”
February 27:
... More than 120 retired U.S. generals and admirals urged Congress on Monday
to fully fund U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid, the same government functions
expected to be targeted for cuts in President Donald Trump’s first budget
proposal.
May 28:
Shortly after the Civil War,
Memorial Day
began as Decoration Day. "The reason for that is because it was a day on which
Americans, South and in the North, would decorate the graves of soldiers who
died in the Civil War" ...
Veterans Day, on
the other hand, was originally called Armistice Day, which commemorated the end
of fighting in World War I ...
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504781/words-youll-hear-memorial-day-dos-and-donts
June 16:
A $12 billion deal to buy U.S. F-15 fighter jets shows
Qatar has deep-rooted support from Washington, a
Qatari official said on Thursday, despite President
Donald Trump’s repeated accusations that Doha supports terrorism.
Qataris facing a severe economic and diplomatic boycott by Saudi
Arabia and its regional allies who cut ties last week, in the worst rift among
Gulf Arab states in years. They accuse Qatar of
funding terrorism, fomenting regional unrest and cosying up to their enemy Iran,
all of which Qatar denies.
The fighter jet deal came amid increased diplomacy to try to resolve the crisis.
Under both Presidents Bush 43
and Obama, decisions to send thousands more troops came from the top. ... Going
forward, the White House will have a diminished role [handing decision-making to
the Pentagon] in sounding off on military decisions that could have geopolitical
implications as well as political ramifications back home in the US.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/24/politics/trump-pentagon-shift-war-power-military/index.html
July 26: [The] 2016 study by the Rand
Corporation found the maximum annual medical costs for transgender services
would be around $8.4 million. By comparison, the military spent $84 million on
erectile dysfunction medications Viagra and Cialis in 2014, the Military Times
reported.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/congress-transgender-policy/index.html
July 26: During the presidential campaign,
Trump had pitched himself as a greater defender of the LGBT community than his
rival, Hillary Clinton.
July 26: A fight between conservative and
moderate Republicans over the government paying for gender reassignment
surgeries threatened to derail the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA),
prompting Republicans to lobby the White House to intervene,
according to Politico.
In a rebuke to Trump’s attempt to run the government and military via Twitter,
Gen Joseph Dunford, America’s top military officer, said on Thursday that the
armed forces would continue to permit transgender people to serve openly until
the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has received Trump’s “direction” to change
the policy and figured out how to implement it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/27/donald-trump-transgender-ban-troops-pentagon-us-military
August 4:Lawmakers on Thursday gave final
approval to the idea of a Global War on Terror memorial, clearing the path for
what is expected to be a years-long process of designing and building a tribute
to the latest generation of veterans.
In wrap-up work before their summer recess,
senators unanimously approved legislation that would allow planning of the
memorial to begin immediately, instead of the normally mandated 10-year wait
period after the end of a military conflict.
August 10: In 2014, President Obama ordered
American nuclear weapons to be modernized. His plan, expected to cost $400
billion through 2024 — and, according to outside estimates, more than $1
trillion over the next 30 years — calls for upgrades to nuclear weapons
facilities, improved warheads and the construction of new submarines, bombers
and ground-based missiles that can carry nuclear weapons.
This process will take years. In other words, the American nuclear arsenal is
just about the same as it was when Trump took office. Also, Trump claimed
nuclear modernization was his first order. It wasn’t. It came a week into his
presidency, after he had made nearly a dozen orders on other things.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/08/10/Here-s-Real-State-1-Trillion-US-Nuclear-Upgrade
August 17: Bernstein: Washington 'Consensus'
Questioning Trump's Abilities ... "There's considerable evidence that there's a
consensus developing in the military, at the highest levels, in the intelligence
community, among Republicans in Congress, including the leaders in the business
community that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is unfit to be
the president of the United States" ... "That's the undercurrent."
https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/carl-bernstein-donald-trump-unfit-president/2017/08/17/id/808136/
August 18: President Trump announced plans
Friday to elevate the Pentagon's Cyber Command to the status of a unified
combatant command next year, part of a strategic shift to emphasize cyber
offense for future combat and counterterrorism operations ... The decision to
create a separate cyber command "demonstrates our increased resolve against
cyberspace threats and will help reassure our allies and partners and deter our
adversaries," Trump said in a statement.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-trump-announces-plan-to-elevate-u-s-1503078609-htmlstory.html
August 26: Donald
Trump’s speech on his administration’s strategy in
Afghanistan — in which he announced the introduction of an unspecified number of
new combat troops, without a mission and without a specified end date, in a
strategy that abandoned nation building but entailed war-fighting — clearly
contravened the principles of his “America First” isolationist election campaign
promises.
https://www.salon.com/2017/08/26/afghanistan-is-now-officially-james-mattis-war_partner/
"I felt very, very badly about that," Trump said during a press availability in
the Rose Garden. "I always feel badly. It is the toughest calls I have to make
are the calls where this happens, soldiers are killed."
Trump claimed that past presidents -- including Barack Obama -- hadn't written
or called the families of slain service members, though Obama spoke publicly
during his term about his many interactions with the families of Americans
killed in action [he also visited the families in person].
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/16/politics/trump-niger-green-berets/index.html
Dave Zirin of The Nation reported the
news, noting Popovich's comments were in regard to Donald Trump claiming former
presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush failed to call the families of
soldiers who had died.
October 17: Trump administration officials
have described the changes as a deliberate effort to empower the military and
reverse the protocols that defined the Obama administration's oversight of
military campaigns that much of the top brass described as micromanagement that
needlessly hamstrung commanders ... some of those complaints also stemmed from
the era of President George W. Bush.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/17/politics/trump-isis-raqqa/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
October 18: Perhaps the two most symbolic
victories against ISIS have occurred
while Trump has been in office: the retaking of the Iraqi city of Mosul in
July, and now the liberation of Raqqa. U.S. officials have also claimed that the
recapturing of ISIS-held territory has accelerated under Trump. Special
Presidential Envoy McGurk—who held the same role in the Obama
administration—said that of the 27,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and
Syria reclaimed from ISIS since 2014, around
8,000 square miles have been retaken under Trump’s watch.
But ... Trump is simply reaping the benefits of the hard graft put in by the
former administration. The battle for Mosul, for example, commenced in October
2016 and lasted for nine months: Iraqi forces had liberated the whole of eastern
Mosul by January 24—four days into Trump’s presidency—with the remaining six
months consisting of a gruelling slog for the Old City.
... the most glaring omission from Trump’s comments on Tuesday was
acknowledgement of the role of local forces in the fight against ISIS. In Raqqa,
the fighting has been led by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mixture of
Arab and Kurdish fighters. The SDF has been backed by U.S. airpower and
occasionally accompanied by U.S. advisers, but has suffered the consequences of
leading the fight against ISIS at the heart of its caliphate, with hundreds of
casualties.
... Trump failed to recognize that he is building upon foundations established
long before he came to office and, perhaps most pertinently, failed to recognize
the overwhelming contribution made by local forces in ousting ISIS from its
former capital.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-isis-raqqa-isis-capital-687391
October 18: Trump denies telling widow of
fallen soldier, 'He knew what he signed up for'
Rep. Frederica Wilson said she was with Myeshia Johnson in a car
headed to Miami International Airport on Tuesday afternoon to meet the body of
Johnson's husband, Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson, who died in Niger this month,
when the president called.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, Wilson, D-Fla., relayed Myeshia
Johnson's conversation with Trump, saying, "Basically, he said, 'Well, I guess
he knew what he signed up for. But I guess it still hurt.' That's what he said."
October 19: Wilson returned fire by calling
Trump “a liar” and saying that the conversation had been put on speakerphone and
overheard by four witnesses.
October 18: ... it's absolutely plausible
that Trump expressed a real sorrow somewhat inarticulately, leaving Johnson's
widow and Wilson upset. And that Trump did so entirely unintentionally ...
This moment should be about the four soldiers who gave their lives in service to
the country. Instead it's a he said/she said fight with the President of the
United States right smack dab in the middle of it.
October 18:
Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, told The Washington
Post that she was present during the call from the White House on Tuesday to
Johnson’s widow, Myeshia Johnson. She also stood by an account of the call from
Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) that Trump told Myeshia Johnson that her
husband “must have known what he signed up for.”
October 17: Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled
down on his claim that
Barack Obama did not routinely call the families of servicemen and women
killed in battle. He also warned John McCain, a decorated war hero with whom he
has clashed before, that he might “fight back” after the senator said America’s
“leadership and ideals are absent”.
October 17: Former President Obama hosted
now-chief of staff
John Kelly at a breakfast about six months after Kelly's son died in
Afghanistan.
Kelly attended the breakfast — held in May 2011 — for the relatives of U.S.
troops killed in action,
The Associated Press reported, citing White House visitor records.
October 17: A former Obama official said
Trump's Monday Rose Garden statement – and not specifically addressing the claim
about Kelly -- was "unequivocally wrong." ... "President Obama engaged families
of the fallen and wounded warriors throughout his presidency through calls,
letters, visits to Section 60 at Arlington, visits to Walter Reed, visits to
Dover, and regular meetings with Gold Star Families at the White House and
across the country," the former Obama official said in a statement to ABC News.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-call-john-kelly-marine-son-died-action/story?id=50533292
October 17: ... a former Obama official said in a statement to ABC News
...
“President Obama engaged families of the fallen and wounded warriors throughout
his presidency through calls, letters, visits to Section 60 at Arlington, visits
to Walter Reed, visits to Dover, and regular meetings with Gold Star Families at
the White House and across the country.”
October 19: [Trump's] remark set many in the
military community seething. Kelly is the most senior U.S. military officer to
lose a child in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"I
would be surprised if he comes in and starts allowing people to use his family
as a tool," said Charles C. Krulak, a former Marine Corps commandant who has
known John Kelly since the mid-1990s.
October 19: Former President Barack Obama
returned [to] the campaign trail Thursday with a warning about the current state
of politics in America.
"Some of the politics we see now, we thought we'd put that to bed. I mean,
that's folks looking 50 years back. It's the 21st century, not the 19th
century," Obama said during a rally in New Jersey ...
"We are rejecting a politics of division. We are rejecting a politics of fear,"
Obama continued. "We are embracing a politics that says everybody counts, a
politics that says everybody deserves a chance, a politics that says everybody
has dignity and worth -- a politics of hope."
"We're at our best not when
we're trying to put people down, but when we're trying to lift everybody up,"
the former president remarked. "Folks don't feel good right now about what they
see. They don't feel as if our public life reflects our best. Instead of
politics reflecting our values, we have politics infecting our communities."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/politics/obama-back-on-the-campaign-trail/index.html
October 21: President Donald Trump on
Saturday continued to lash out at Rep. Frederica Wilson, calling her "wacky" and
fueling a now days-long controversy that involves a dead American soldier,
husband and father.
October 22: Sen. John McCain, in an
interview about the Vietnam War, appeared to take a swipe at President Donald
Trump when he criticized people from "the highest income level" who avoided the
draft by finding a doctor who "would say that they had a bone spur."
October 23: "One aspect of the conflict, by
the way, that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest-income
level of America, and the highest-income level found a doctor that would say
that they had a bone spur," McCain said, in an apparent reference to the
diagnosis that allowed Trump to be medically disqualified for service in 1968.
On Twitter: ISIS just claimed the Degenerate
Animal who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side,
was "their soldier."
Based on that, the Military has hit ISIS "much harder" over the last two days.
They will pay a big price for every attack on us!"
November 3
@realDonaldTrump
November 3:
It was not immediately clear if any missions were conducted specifically as a
result of this week’s terror attack. Targets are typically struck because they
are planned or suddenly pop up, so it’s unlikely that the New York incident
would have altered existing military planning. In some cases, airstrikes have
been down due to weather and a lack of ISIS targets as the terror group retreats
from its strongholds in the Middle East.
http://ktla.com/2017/11/03/trump-says-u-s-military-hitting-isis-much-harder-after-nyc-attack/
November 6: The Air Force failed to flag
Devin Kelley as banned from buying the weapons he used to kill 26 people and
wound 20 more worshipers at a South Texas church on Sunday, the Air Force
acknowledged late Monday.
Kelley’s domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal
Information Center database by Air Force officials at Holloman Air Force Base
where he had served, Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman, said in a
statement.
The review, which may allow Trump to put his mark on the nuclear inventory for
decades to come, could lead to more than $1 trillion in spending over nearly 30
years. There have been three such reviews since the end of the Cold War, the
most recent in 2010 under President Barack Obama.
https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10141955283
January 11: Trump Is On His Way to
Record-Setting Defense Spending in 2018
January 23: The trouble with Trump leaving
climate change to the military
Late last week, the Pentagon released the
unclassified summary version of America’s new National Defense Strategy. For
the first time since 2008, it makes no mention of climate change.
The administration didn’t cite climate change in its
National Security Strategy release in December, either. After that, a
bipartisan group of 106 lawmakers
begged Trump to reconsider, but at this point, there is no reason to think
he or his appointees plan to listen. At least formally, they plan to ignore
climate change in security and military policy.
February 7: A US Air Force B-52 bomber
launched a record-setting series of strikes this week in northern Afghanistan --
dropping 24 precision-guided munitions on Taliban fighting positions during 96
hours of air operations "to destroy insurgent revenue sources, training
facilities, and support networks," according to US Forces Afghanistan.
February 7: Senate leaders strike budget
deal ahead of government shutdown deadline
The measure, negotiated between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, increases domestic spending by $63
billion and military spending by $80 billion for 2018 with larger increases in
2019. The spending levels completely eliminate the mandatory spending caps,
otherwise known as sequestration, that have been imposed on both military and
domestic spending since 2011.
“The budget caps agreement includes many Democratic priorities,” Pelosi said in
a statement. “This morning, we took a measure of our Caucus because the package
does nothing to advance bipartisan legislation to protect Dreamers in the House.
February 12: After a former airman
killed 26 people in a
Texas church in November, the United States military rushed to add the names
of 4,284 dishonorably discharged military members to a national list of people
banned from owning firearms, a report said Monday.
The gunman in the Sutherland Springs mass shooting had been
tossed out of the Air Force for assaulting his wife and shouldn’t have been
able to buy an automatic rifle under federal law.
February 12: Trump seeks nuclear readiness
for US military
President Donald Trump said his administration is going to build a nuclear
arsenal “like you’ve never seen before,” as part of a military buildup provided
for under the newly released fiscal year 2019 budget proposal.
March 13: Trump praises military, calls for
'Space Force' as new branch of armed forces
“For too long, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces have been
asked to do more with less,” Trump said, listing “underinvestment,” deferred
modernization and maintenance, old equipment and having “fewer ships than we
should, fewer planes than we should, and fewer of you than we should.”
“Today I am very proud to report that all of that is changing, and as you have
seen, all of that is changing quickly,” Trump said, noting that his
administration sees “peace through strength.”
“I’m talking the largest military buildup since Ronald Reagan, and one of the
largest buildups in the history of our nation,” Trump said, noting that the
proposed military budget would be $716 billion in 2019. “We are investing in the
greatest weapon, the most beautiful weapon. Our most brilliant weapon — you.”
April 11:
President Donald Trump's morning declaration that
"nice and new and 'smart'" missiles would soon be fired toward Syria caught
most of his aides off guard and came before an agreement had been reached
between key US allies, multiple American and Western officials said on
Wednesday.
May 12:
Trump administration struggles to
deal with US enemy combatant
The Trump administration is weighing how to proceed with a U.S. citizen it has
held as an enemy combatant since September in a unusual case that could threaten
the legal underpinnings of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
(ISIS).
The man, known only as John Doe, has presented a difficult case for the
administration since he was first picked up by Syrian Democratic Forces as an
alleged ISIS fighter and turned over to the U.S. eight months ago.
May 18: The disappearance of a machine gun
and a box of grenades from an Air Force base in North Dakota has prompted
military officials to order a full, command-wide inventory and investigation to
establish that weapons used by security personnel at eight military bases are
accounted for, according to a US military official familiar with the details of
the situation.
The full, command-wide inventory at eight bases under the Air Force Global
Strike Command will cover all small arms, machine guns, pistols, rifles and
grenades, according to the official. Routine inventories of military armories at
the bases are conducted three times a day and weapons are matched against serial
number records.
May 27: Damage to the USS Arizona Memorial
at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu was worse than expected and it will remain closed
indefinitely, officials said.
Boat transportation to the attraction was suspended May 6 after one of the
vessel operators noticed a crack on the outside of the memorial, Hawaii News Now
reported .
Engineers are working to figure out possible long-term solutions.
June 1: Google says it
will not renew a controversial contract with the Defense Department, bowing to
public and internal pressure over its contribution to Pentagon drone strikes.
Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene told employees Friday that Google would honor its
commitment to the Pentagon's Project Maven program through March 2019, but would
not seek a new contract at that time, a source familiar with the matter told
CNN.
June 18: Trump's Space Force Threatens
Increases In Problematic Military Programs
... Trump’s positions do not necessarily reveal more than that he thinks the
words “Space Force” make good copy. There already is a quite robust Space
Command in the Air Force, with 36,000 personnel. Congress is considering an
Administration budget request for fiscal year 2019. It continues the increasing
Air Force Space Command budgets, for unclassified programs, of last year and
this year: the unclassified programs in the budget includes $8.5 billion for
investments in new systems. Over the next five years, the Air Force projects to
invest $44.3 billion in those space systems.
July 27: Wife of a former US Marine is
facing deportation to Mexico
The Davenport resident has no criminal record but faces a removal order over her
1998 illegal entry into the United States, Soto said. She's married to a former
Marine and Iraq War veteran, and they have two girls, ages 8 and 16, who are US
citizens.
August 17: The bomb used by the Saudi-led
coalition in a
devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was sold as part of a US State
Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia, munitions experts told CNN.
Working with local Yemeni journalists and munitions experts, CNN has established
that the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9 was a 500-pound
(227 kilogram) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top
US defense contractors.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html
September 17: The Air Force must expand its
operational squadrons by some 25 percent in the coming years, officials say, to
deal with the growing military might of China and Russia and to protect the
homeland and continue to fight violent extremists.
October 29: President Donald Trump
characterized a group of migrants headed toward the United States as an invading
force, adding that the U.S military would meet them at the border.
"Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading
to our Southern Border," the president tweeted Monday. "Please go back, you will
not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process.
This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!"
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/29/trump-military-caravan-migrants-945683
November 3:
The total price of President Trump’s military deployment to the
border, including the cost of National Guard forces that have been there since
April, could climb well above $200 million by the end of 2018 and grow
significantly if the deployments continue into next year, according to analyst
estimates and Pentagon figures.
November 19: President Donald Trump's attack
on the Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the raid against Osama bin Laden is
drawing new attention to the seesaw dynamic of a President who lavishes praise
on the military even as he goes after its leaders and heroes.
The President dismissed the highly respected Adm. William McRaven as a "Hillary
Clinton fan" and backer of former President Barack Obama in a Sunday interview
with Fox News.
The comments drew sharp criticism from former officials, rumbles of
dissatisfaction from veterans and veiled expressions of concern that Trump -- or
the highly charged political atmosphere under his administration -- may be
nudging the strictly nonpartisan military into the arena of politics.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/19/politics/trump-military-insults-compliments/index.html
November 20: ... we ... don't think there'll
be any additional troops heading there. At one point, Defense Secretary Mattis
said, you know, we could send more troops. But at this point, it looks like it's
going to stick at roughly the 5,900 troops. And actually tonight, those troops,
the cost of them - the Pentagon just put out tonight the cost of this deployment
of 5,900 troops through December 15 - $72 million.
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=669761220
November 26: Jared Kushner pushed to inflate
Saudi arms deal to $110 billion: Sources
The state official described the five-page list of potential arms sales as items
the Saudi officials had signaled interest in or were deemed among their needs by
U.S. defense analysts.
Brookings Institute defense strategy expert Michael O'Hanlon, who has seen the
photograph of the letter of intent provided by ABC News, called it “amateurish
quality.”
“It acknowledges it's not binding,” O’Hanlon told ABC News.
“It's a multi-billion dollar transaction with three short lines of information
as if that's meaningful. It's like you're taking notes on the back of a napkin
over dinner. It's not a contract. It’s the idea of putting all of these numbers
in the interest for the biggest number you can find.”
November 28: President Trump is expected to
extend the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border into
January rather than withdrawing the personnel in the middle of December,
Pentagon officials tell NPR.
News that the deployment will likely extend through the holidays comes days
after U.S. agents
fired tear gas at migrants who tried to cross into the United States from
Tijuana, Mexico, on Sunday.
the troops are meant to support Customs and Border Protection agents and provide
logistical help — everything from installing barbed wire to moving personnel to
where they're needed. The troops include military engineers and military police,
who are supposed to leave any actual law enforcement duties to CBP officials.
December 16: President Donald Trump said
Sunday that he will be “reviewing” the case of a
former U.S. Army commando being charged with murder, raising questions about
the possibility he could jeopardize the ongoing military legal proceedings.
Trump tweeted that “at the request of many” he will examine allegations that
Mathew Golsteyn hunted down and killed a suspected bomb-maker in
Afghanistan. The president tweeted that Golsteyn is a “U.S. Military hero” who
could face the death penalty “from our own government.”
Any review or intervention by Trump could constitute
unlawful command influence and could threaten the case against the former
Green Beret.
[... some support entities other than
ground troops will remain in Syria]
December 19: ... the Pentagon still says
that ISIS has as many as
17,100 fighters in Syria, and about 30,000 total between Syria and Iraq.
That’s about how many militants the group had at its peak strength in 2014.
December 19:
A State Department official says that
department's staff members who have been working to stabilize the area — helping
with water, electricity, schools and other basic needs — will be leaving Syria,
and that it has advised U.S. citizens in the country to do the same. The
official says their withdrawal was a White House decision.
On Twitter, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voiced his displeasure with a troop
withdrawal plan.
"Withdrawal of this small American force in Syria would be a huge Obama-like
mistake," Graham
tweeted.
"With all due respect, ISIS is not defeated in Syria, Iraq, and after just
returning from visiting there — certainly not Afghanistan. President @realDonaldTrump
is right to want to contain Iranian expansion. However, withdrawal of our forces
in Syria mightily undercuts that effort and put our allies, the Kurds at risk."
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/19/678150756/reports-white-house-intends-to-pull-u-s-troops-from-syria
December 19:
... declaration of victory is
far from unanimous, and the withdrawal decision immediately triggered demands
from Congress -- including Republicans -- for more information and a formal
briefing on the matter. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., who just returned from
Afghanistan, said he was meeting with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis late in the
day.
December
27: Trump’s secret trip to Iraq didn’t quite go as planned
He failed to meet with any Iraqi officials and may have also exposed a covert
Navy SEAL team.
Though the trip had reportedly been planned for weeks, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil
Abdul-Mahdi was invited to meet the president only two hours in advance, and was
unable to make it to the event. The two leaders spoke over the phone instead,
and the prime minister later said that the meeting was canceled because of a
disagreement over how to conduct the session.
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/27/18157575/donald-trump-iraq-secret-trip-us-troops
The president also reportedly exposed a covert Navy SEAL deployment. According
to
Newsweek, Trump posed with members of a special operations unit for
photographs and then posted a video including this scene on Twitter without
blurring out their faces or obscuring their identity — which violates accepted
security protocol.
December 28:
MAGA hat, campaign rhetoric cast
cloud over Trump Iraq visit
By injecting a heavy dose of campaign-style rhetoric and partisan optics into
this week's holiday visit with troops in Iraq -- his first trip to a war zone
since taking office -- President Donald Trump has once again proved he has no
problem blurring the lines between politics and his relationship with the US
military, according to military experts and a top Democratic lawmaker.
Traditionally, US presidents have sought to preserve the military's standing as
an apolitical institution by avoiding partisan issues while visiting with
service members, wary of putting troops in any situation that could be construed
as an endorsement of specific political candidates.
December 28:
Trump’s Politicized Visit To Iraq
‘Embarrassing,’ Retired 4-Star General Says
“God, he’s talking to special operations soldiers in Iraq. It’s sort of
embarrassing,” former Gen. Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC.
For the first time in his life, President Donald Trump
visited service members in a combat zone and made it about himself, retired
four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey said.
Speaking to
MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian on Thursday, McCaffrey ― the
recipient of two Silver Stars, two Distinguished Service Crosses and three
Purple Hearts ― credited Trump for going to Iraq the day after Christmas but
said he used it mostly as a political rally.
February 13: US
prosecutors have accused a former US Air Force officer of spying for Iran in an
elaborate operation that targeted her fellow intelligence officers.
Monica Witt, who allegedly defected to Iran in 2013, had previously worked as a
US counterintelligence officer.
Four Iranian citizens have also been charged with attempting to install spy
software on computers belonging to Ms Witt's colleagues.
According to the FBI, Ms Witt was last seen in southwest Asia in July 2013.
Prosecutors say Ms Witt had been granted the highest level of US security
clearance and worked in the US Air Force from 1997 to 2008.
"It is a sad day for America when one of its citizens betrays our country, said
Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the head of the justice department's
national security division.
April 29: The Russian Navy Might Be
Recruiting Whales as Spies
A group of fishermen in Norway found a whale wearing a harness from St.
Petersburg. It wouldn't be the first time a navy relied on animals for
reconnaissance.
A group of Norwegian fishermen
made a strange discovery last week: a beluga whale wearing a harness
floating in the waters just off the side of their boat. The whale seemed
incredibly tame and comfortable in the presence of humans, but the harness it
was wearing looked far too tight. The fishermen were concerned with the whale’s
safety, so they contacted a group of scientists to see if they could try and
save it.
The scientists located the whale and managed to remove the harness. When they
did, they spotted some text: "Equipment of St. Petersburg." The scientists
believe that this whale was part of a Russian Navy project using tamed whales
for reconnaissance.
At first the Norwegian scientists suspected the whale and the harness could have
been some experiment at the University of St. Petersburg, but researchers at the
university confirmed they had nothing to do with it. That led the researchers to
suspect the Russian Navy at Murmansk. Of course, it’s tough to know if the
Russian Navy really is behind this, as they have yet to confirm anything and
likely never will.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a27311420/beluga-whale-russia-spy/
May 25:
Can a Pardon Be a War Crime?: When Pardons
Themselves Violate the Laws of War
President Donald Trump’s inclination to grant pardons to several military and
contractor personnel accused or convicted of war crimes may itself be a
violation of the laws of war, if not a war crime. In an extraordinary
public statement issued Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) – an international organization that usually acts through confidential
communications with parties to armed conflict – explains the distinction between
pardons and amnesties. The ICRC does not comment on specific cases, and in this
statement, does not opine on the legality, let alone the possible criminality,
of any particular grant of pardon/amnesty. But the fact that the organization
chose to weigh in on such a hot button issue suggests how serious a threat such
action by President Trump would be to the system of international law.
May 26:
The
President of the United States is erratic, illiterate, and doesn’t want to
know what he doesn’t know. The President has alienated former allies, befriended
or courted murderous dictators, and has repeatedly brought the country to the
brink of nuclear confrontation. The President lies constantly, knows that he is
lying, and demands that Administration officials lie for him, and often they do.
The President has waged war on the institutions of government, overseeing the
gutting of the State Department and the destruction of other federal agencies by
their own leaders, and effectively shut off media access to the Pentagon, the
State Department, and the White House. The President has acted to thwart
oversight of the Administration by other branches of government. The President
has never made a secret of despising the government itself: he has called it a
“swamp” and gleefully shut it down for thirty-five days, during a temper
tantrum. The President has not only failed to divest himself of his businesses
but has installed his children in and near the White House, openly using his
office for personal financial gain. The President has debased political culture
and language, using his bully pulpit to spew lies, hate, and personal insults
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-nancy-pelosis-tactics-affirm-the-trumpian-style-of-politics
May 31: "Fox &
Friends" celebrates release of accused war criminal Trump wants to pardon:
November 21:
The U.S. Navy said Thursday that it will proceed with a hearing to consider the
expulsion of Special Operations Chief Eddie Gallagher from the Navy SEALs,
despite his support from President Trump.
"The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's
Trident Pin," said Trump in a
tweet
earlier Thursday. "This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back
to business!"
The Trident Pin is a symbol of membership in the SEALs.
