The Pentagon has failed its 6th annual audit at a cost of $180 million tax payer dollars to process.
Once again the Pentagon cannot account for billions of tax payer dollars. But is this money really missing ?
Perhaps it is buried in the so called black programs funneled to contractors like the Skunk Works (Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs) (ADP) or even the Area 51 contractor EG&G thus the money is still hidden from Congress.
Don’t forget the salary of the pilots and the jet fuel used for flying the Janet flights into Area 51 every day. Let’s see that flight crew and passenger log book list and monthly expenditures. It’s classified higher than Jeffery Epstein’s flight logs.
But with that said the Pentagon has initiated a digital form (see link below) authorizing current or former government employees, contractors or military service members like myself to blow the whistle (ie) report knowledge of any U.S government programs related to “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”.
Now let’s analyze this new so called UFO transparency whistleblower form created by the Pentagon via the AARO.
This department under various names over the last 60 years plus have been hiding from the American people the location of advanced extra terrestrial technology, alien bodies and back engineered space craft since 1947 or earlier. My opinion.
This new government whistleblower form is pure fecal propaganda and is a massive red herring to keep Congressional investigators and Senators like the honorable Marco Rubio off their backs.
It’s also a form created to test those folks holding this UFO knowledge to see who can and who cannot keep these secrets.
The Pentagon running this program is called the AARO and they state that classified information cannot be submitted through this whistleblower portal.
They also state filing false information can be punished by big fines and or imprisonment or both.
Now remember all UFO technology and it’s residual back engineered knowledge is classified way above Top Secret. It’s even classified higher than our Nuclear Weapons technology at Los Alamos laboratory’s in New Mexico.
That means this form is totally useless and if anyone does file an accurate report let’s say about the UFO incident in Roswell NM in 1947 or Kingman Arizona it will be immediately designated as a false report and off to jail you go after the government dismantles your life branding you a nut case fines you and suspends your passport.
Ask Physicist Bob Lazar about his experience after he reported to the media in Las Vegas when he back engineered a propulsion system on a UFO at S4 in Nevada in 1989.
But this digital form satisfies the wants and needs of the July Congressional House Oversight Committee investigating UFOs. I mean UAPs.
If members of Congress or the US Senate really want to expose the truth about this Extraterrestrial advanced technology they should all charter a plane and fly to Area 51 in Nellis AFB Nevada then ride the bus south to S4 for 15 miles and take a tour of the UFOs being held there. My opinion again.
If you don’t hear from me again after sending out this useful information which hopefully protects my friends who are in the “know” then so be it. Then you know I was right.
When I left the US Navy in 2002 I signed a non disclosure agreement regarding my security clearance thus I will not disclose what I know.
I like my life the way it is. But I do warn folks who work on this advanced technology do NOT fill out this digital Pentagon form. There are other ways you can report your UFO knowledge and stay alive and or out of jail.
Ep. 42 For more than 80 years, the US government has hidden the existence of UFOs. The question is why. The answer is ominous. pic.twitter.com/JMskiaBEmR
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Geoff Rosshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngGeoff Ross2023-11-29 06:36:132023-11-29 08:50:06Beware of the Pentagon’s New ‘UFO Whistleblower’ Digital Form
“The riots over the summer, you know, I could make a case that those riots were riots organic to an aggrieved community that perceived that they had various injustices throughout their life,” General Mark A Milley told the J6 Committee. “It was sheer, unmitigated anger that expressed itself in the form of mass violence and rioting. And, okay, I get it, it’s illegal, it’s wrong.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had previously justified the study of “white rage”, went on to defend the riots and the double standard at the heart of the J6 Committee.
“I don’t think the intent of those riots was to overturn the United States Government and to destroy the Constitution of the United States of America,” he argued.
The mobs assaulting police officers, burning flags, attacking federal buildings in sieges, like the one in Portland, reminiscent of Fort Sumter, and calling for the destruction of America under the guidance of an organization of “trained Marxists” demonstrated that it was an insurrection.
And Gen. Milley’s testimony showed that he sympathized with the insurrectionists.
An account had described Milley pointing to a bust of Lincoln during the Black Lives Matter riots and telling Trump, “That guy had an insurrection. What we have, Mr. President, is a protest.”
The J6 testimony provided an opportunity to dig into Milley’s definition of an insurrection.
On the one hand, Gen. Milley conceded that, “All the President has to do is walk outside the White House and yell three times, you know, ‘Insurrectionists, disperse.’ And he just has to yell it, right? And then he can do it, according to the law of 1807 or whatever year it was, right?”
But Gen. Milley along with other woke brass did everything possible to dissuade Trump from doing so. Using a report assembled by his subordinates, he argued that an insurrection should have “significant national security implications”, which he claims that massive nationwide riots that included attacks on federal buildings and the White House somehow did not.
There, as so often, Gen. Milley contradicted himself, mentioning that, “I don’t want to go into anything classified, but there were other countries exploiting some of this stuff.”
A mass insurrection by Marxists, black nationalist secessionists and other domestic terror groups exploited by enemy nations is the definition of a national security threat. Gen. Milley knows this because Russian plans during the Cold War had included such scenarios.
Using his report, Gen. Milley contended that, “fifteen hundred people rioting in three or four cities of America at a moment in time” did not qualify as an insurrection, but somehow J6 did.
Gen. Milley’s definition of an insurrection involves scope and scale, but there’s no metric under which the Black Lives Matter riots at their peak were smaller in scope than J6.
And yet, Milley cheerfully told the J6 Committee that he began taking a step that he doesn’t appear to have taken during the BLM riots, that “immediately following the 6th, I knew the significance, and I asked my staff, freeze all your records, collate them, get them collected up.”
Why did records involving a riot need to be classified?
“The document — I classified the document at the beginning of this process by telling my staff to gather up all the documents, freeze-frame everything, notes, everything and, you know, classify it. And we actually classified it at a pretty high level, and we put it on JWICS, the top secret stuff. It’s not that the substance is classified. It was I wanted to make sure that this stuff was only going to go people who appropriately needed to see it, like yourselves,” Gen. Milley admitted.
On his own initiative, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had classified documents involving a political incident, not because of any innate need, but to make sure that only the politically correct would gain access to them.
What’s in those documents? Whatever is there is meant ‘for leftist eyes only’.
Throughout his testimony, Gen. Milley insisted that he was only a public servant.
“I cannot issue orders in my name. That’s illegal,” he told the J6 Committee, describing his position as an.”advisory role, not in the chain of command, but, yes, in the chain of communication And that applies to everything, by the way. I know the Speaker Pelosi call and some other things came under a variety of criticism, but that’s all part of the role of the Chairman, is to be part of the chain of communication, not part of the chain of command.”
Gen. Milley was asked about the call involving Trump, during which Pelosi said, “‘You know he’s crazy, don’t you,’and she is reported to have said, General Milley, that you agreed with her.”
In his response, Gen. Milley appeared to confirm that he did so.
While the China phone call has been widely reported, Gen. Milley apparently placed “50 or 60” other phone calls to the Russians, the French, the Japanese and even the Islamic terror state of Qatar which is an ally of Iran and a key backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, to convey “stability”.
That is a very long chain of communication.
Gen. Milley claims to be deeply concerned about the Constitution and civilian control of the military, yet he repeatedly undermined the president, cabinet members and other civilian appointees for his own political agendas. Under the guise of being a good advisor, he initiated processes, like the political classification of materials, the double standard on riots or the phone calls that usurped the constitutional authority of the executive branch. And he’s still at it.
While belligerent in congressional hearings toward Republicans, Gen. Milley was pathetically eager to help along the J6 Committee right down to selectively classifying documents for political reasons. He decries the politicization of the military, yet everything he’s done has been to further shift the military leftward. His only resistance to leftist political pressure came when he tried to dissuade Rep. Schiff from proposals to recall and court martial General Flynn.
“I’ve become a lightning rod for the politicization of the military. And I am constantly strung out as an individual and also with Secretary Austin and others, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Sergeant Major of the Army. There’s a whole bunch of us that have been,” Gen. Milley complained.
Secretary of Defense Austin is a political appointee. Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday has been among the most aggressive in pushing racism and hatred for this country.
“Some of it is comments that I made in testimony about critical race theory and white rage,” Gen. Milley conceded. “Months of this constant drumbeat that is very damaging, in my view, personally, to the health of the Republic, because there is a deliberate attempt, in my view, to smear the general officer corps and the leaders of the military and to politicize the military… and I think that’s something that we need to avoid.”
Gen. Milley once again gets it backward. Military leaders like him have the obligation not to politicize the military. Civilians have a right to be critical of military leadership: especially when it stakes out political territory and takes sides.
Instead of acting to restore an apolitical military, Gen. Milley continues to help the Biden administration further politicize it while blaming retired officers and other critics of his actions.
“When 137 generals recently signed a letter that Secretary Austin and I are, you know, the worst thing since sliced bread and we’re lower than, you know, whale stuff and we should be court-martialed and treason and all that kind of stuff, all former retired flag officers — I will say, none of them were four-stars, though; we had a couple three-stars — that’s politicization,” he objected.
Retired officers are not politicizing the military when they express their opinions. Gen. Milley is politicizing the military when he states that, “if generals are out there writing editorials about politics, I think that’s an issue. If you want to be involved in politics as a general officer, retired general officer, or a retired commissioned officer, you ought to run for office.”
On Gen. Milley’s watch, active duty personnel have repeatedly been allowed to express leftist and even anti-American views, to clash with civilians on social media and berate journalists, even while any hint of criticism of the Biden administration has led to court martials.
Just compare the respective fates of Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller and Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley has used his position to, at worst, conduct and, at best, sign off on an insurrection that threatens the constitutional order he swore an oath to protect. The insurrection is cloaked in bureaucratic shenanigans like the selective classification, in providing misleading advice, using double standards and initiating treasonous actions.
Any serious investigation of the crimes committed in 2020 needs to begin with Gen. Milley.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2023-01-12 07:24:302023-01-12 07:26:05The Insurrection of General Milley
In any sane and patriotic American administration, the generals who enforced diversity and wokeness upon the U.S. military all summer instead of planning the details of a safe and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan would have already been fired and be facing trials for dereliction of duty and worse. But this is the Biden administration, and that means that Milley and company will probably just have to find space on their already crowded uniforms for a few more ribbons and medals.
“Does [the president] believe he was given bad advice? And will he ask for any resignations of his generals given the high cost of American and Afghan lives?”
Psaki’s response was unequivocal:
“No to both of those questions. I think that what the president looks at the events of yesterday as is a tragedy and one that was felt viscerally by the leaders of the military as well. Losing members of your men and women working for you from the service branches is devastating. It is a reflection on all of them and the people on the ground that they are continuing to implement this mission even under difficult and risky circumstances.”
So the White House is now on record: Old Joe Biden was not given bad advice. It was a terrific idea for the U.S. to abandon Bagram Air Base in the dark of night, without informing our Afghan allies. This made the commercial airport in Kabul the only option for getting Americans out of the country and set the stage for the bombings Thursday. Also setting the stage was the fact that Biden’s handlers decided to heed another bit of good advice, and didn’t prioritize getting Americans out, preferring instead to bring 30,000 Afghans to the U.S., vetted only by woke officials who fervently believe that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Terrific idea! Most of them will likely vote Democratic, and that’s what matters, right? The advice was all good!
And so no generals will be held responsible for the wrongheadedness and mismanagement that led to the murder of thirteen Americans on Thursday. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will not be asked to resign even though he admitted that he saw none of this coming, saying on August 18: “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2021-08-29 06:18:262021-10-07 20:19:48White House Says Woke Generals Will NOT Be Asked to Resign in the Wake of the Kabul Bombings
Green compounded his “Islamophobia”: “he also referred to the ‘Muslim horde’ that invaded Constantinople centuries ago.”
Why, how racist and bigoted! The conquerors of Constantinople were tolerant, pluralistic multiculturalists with big hearts full of love! Historian Steven Runciman notes that the Muslim soldiers “slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn. But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit.” (The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 145.)
Some jihadists “made for the small but splendid churches by the walls, Saint George by the Charisian Gate, Saint John in Petra, and the lovely church of the monastery of the Holy Saviour in Chora, to strip them of their stores of plate and their vestments and everything else that could be torn from them. In the Chora they left the mosaics and frescoes, but they destroyed the icon of the Mother of God, the Hodigitria, the holiest picture in all Byzantium, painted, so men said, by Saint Luke himself. It had been taken there from its own church beside the Palace at the beginning of the siege, that its beneficient presence might be at hand to inspire the defenders on the walls. It was taken from its setting and hacked into four pieces.” (P. 146.)
But don’t call them a “horde”!
Senator Mark Green
“Trump’s pick for Army secretary drops out amid criticism of LGBT, Islam remarks,” Fox News, May 5, 2017:
President Trump’s nominee to be the next Army secretary withdrew his name from consideration Friday, Pentagon officials confirmed to Fox News, after he was accused of making anti-LGBT and Islamophobic remarks.
Mark Green, a Republican state senator from Tennessee, stepped aside after what he called “false and misleading” attacks against him which had caused his nomination to become a “distraction.”
“Tragically, my life of public service and my Christian beliefs have been mischaracterized and attacked by a few on the other side of the aisle for political gain,” he said in a statement first reported by The Tennessean.
“While these attacks have no bearing on the needs of the Army or my qualifications to serve, I believe it is critical to give the President the ability to move forward with his vision to restore our military to its rightful place in the world,” he said.
Several Democrats and some Republicans including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had taken aim at comments he made in September in which he said transgender people are suffering from a disease. McCain called the comments “disturbing.”
Also in September, he said a stand needed to be taken against “the indoctrination of Islam” in public schools. He also referred to the “Muslim horde” that invaded Constantinople centuries ago….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Mark-Green-army-uniform.jpg348640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2017-05-07 05:43:462017-05-07 05:43:46President’s pick for Army secretary drops out: Objected to Islamic indoctrination in schools
Should Americans be comfortable with the current refugee vetting process?
Recently, the world was rocked by high profile Islamic terrorist attacks in far flung locales such as Paris, France and San Bernardino, California. Some Americans have begun to raise serious concerns about how well individuals coming into the United States are screened. Particularly, those streaming into our republic from such unfriendly places like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Northern Sudan are a justifiable cause for concern.
I have wondered if the vetting process is really any good in the present configuration, particularly in regard to checking out people who are dedicated to a religion that thrives on the deception of non-participants. Many passports certain people are using to get into our republic could and have at times been filled with false information. In fact, some Muslim refugees traipsing into our nation have been found to be carrying false information about themselves.
Many applicants seeking entry into America apply for refugee status through the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR). Then the applicants are forwarded to the traitorous U.S. State Department, which prepares these applications for adjudication by Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Once an applicant is referred to the State Department biometric and biographic checks are conducted against various United States security databases are incorporated in this process, they include.
Department of State
Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS)
Consular Consolidated Database (CCD)
Department of Homeland Security
TECS (a DHS Security System)
DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT)
National Counter Terrorism Center/FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center
Terrorist Identifies Datamart Environment
Terrorist Screening Database
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Extracts of the National Crime Information Center’s wanted Persons File, Immigration
Violator File, Foreign Fugitive File, Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File (and the Interstate Identification Index)
Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS)
Interpol
Drug Enforcement Administration
Department of Defense
Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS)
In addition, the refugee process requires a security advisory opinion to be completed by the FBI and the intelligence community on numerous refugee applicants who are considered higher risk. Similarly, inter-agency checks (IACs) are constantly being done in connection with a wide range of U.S. agencies.
After the series of background checks, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts a refugee interview. These interviews cover everything from refugee immigration matters to security and nation-specific inquiries.
For example, Syrian Refugees Offices must undergo a one week training course on Syrian-specific issues, including classified information. On top of that, scrutiny already is being applied to Syrians through the enhanced review for Syrian applicants process that put additional security and intelligence resources at the disposal of adjudicators.
Only at this point can an applicant be approved. For those that are approved, health screenings and orientations begin. The traitorous State Department and Office of refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services work with voluntary resettlement agencies to arrange for resettlement agencies to arrange for resettlement services and assistance. After an average of 12 to 18 months, this process ends with entry into the United States.
My concern amongst many is that President Obama in typical bigoted, progressive fashion has stepped up efforts to make sure tens of thousands of Muslims file into the United States, while denying entry to Christian refugees from Syria. It does not matter to Mr. Obama or other progressives in general that Christians are being slaughtered for sport, while the black African Christian that aren’t murdered are forced into brutal slavery, per instructions in the little quran.’
We must not forget that president Obama said that he wants to fundamentally change America. One of the efficient ways to change America fundamentally is to flood her with people who have nothing in common with and no desire to assimilate into our country or culture. In the case of dedicated Muslims, the vetting process is very detailed, but in a since fool-hearty. By the way, since Muslims have declared war on the United States and Israel, it would not be wrong to consider a long moratorium on allowing them into our republic, at least until hostilities are extinguished.
Unfortunately, all dedicated Muslims who follow the tenets of their political/religious persuasion do not believe in assimilation into the countries they migrate to. Their ultimate goal is domination and reducing women to sharia law third class abused citizens. As we transition into a new year, let us as Americans rise together in unison from sea to shining sea in a Providentially guided effort to restore our nation under God with Liberty and Justice for all. Then we will free ourselves from the dastardly plans of those who seek to kill, steal from and destroy America via a fake vetting system and open borders.
Happy New Year, God bless you God bless America and may America bless God.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/vetting.jpg316619Ron Edwardshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRon Edwards2016-01-01 04:23:312016-01-01 04:25:16Vetting Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Moving from one spectacular failure to the next. Nothing that the US does to counter the Islamic State will succeed until officials examine its ideology realistically. Without that, every move to counter it effectively will founder on the unreality of the State Department’s analysis.
“US scraps its $500 million programme to train ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels after producing fewer than 80 soldiers, most of whom were either shot or ran away,” by Simon Tomlinson, MailOnline, October 9, 2015:
The U.S. has scrapped its $500 million program to train moderate rebels after it produced fewer than 80 fighters, most of whom had been killed or fled.
U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Washington would instead work more closely with capable Kurdish and other forces in Syria.
No details were immediately available, but the programme to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State group is widely considered a failure.
Carter said at a news conference in London that the work the U.S. has done with the Kurds is a good example of an effective approach with a capable, motivated ground combat force.
He did not provide more details.
U.S. officials have said the new effort would focus more on embedding recruits with established Kurdish and Arab units, rather than sending them directly into front-line combat.
Last week, a commander of one of the U.S.-trained rebel units turned over a half-dozen U.S. vehicles to extremist militants….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Ash-Carter1-e1444469728986.jpg370640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2015-10-10 05:36:512015-10-10 05:36:51U.S. scraps failed $500 million program to train ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels
“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” Excellent question. And no answer was forthcoming. Why not? Is it because there could be no possible explanation for this that makes sense in terms of American national security and that of the free world?
“Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps,” by Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon, August 28, 2015:
The Pentagon has not conducted airstrikes against an estimated 60 Islamic State (IS) training camps that are supplying thousands of fighters each month to the terror group, according to defense and intelligence officials.
The camps are spread throughout Islamic State-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria and are off limits in the U.S.-led international bombing campaign because of concerns about collateral damage, said officials familiar with planning and execution of the yearlong bombing campaign.
Additionally, the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) camps have been so successful that Islamic State leaders are considering expanding the camps to Libya and Yemen. Both states have become largely ungoverned areas in recent years.
The failure to target the training camps with U.S. and allied airstrikes is raising questions among some defense and intelligence officials about the commitment of President Obama and his senior aides to the current anti-IS strategy of degrading and ultimately destroying the terror group.
“If we know the location of these camps, and the president wants to destroy ISIS, why are the camps still functioning?” one official critical of the policy asked.
The camps are regarded by U.S. intelligence analysts as a key element in the terror group’s successes in holding and taking new territory. The main benefit of the training camps is that they are providing a continuous supply of new fighters.
An additional worry of intelligence analysts is that some of the foreign fighters being trained in the camps will eventually return to their home countries in Europe and North America to carry out terror attacks.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the failure to bomb the terror camps and referred questions to the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Roger M. Cabiness declined to say why no training camps have been bombed. “I am not going to be able to go into detail about our targeting process,” he said.
Cabiness said the U.S.-led coalition has “hit ISIL [an alternative abbreviation for the Islamic State] with more than 6,000 airstrikes.”
“The coalition has also taken out thousands of fighting positions, tanks, vehicles, bomb factories, and training camps,” he said. “We have also stuck their leadership, including most recently on Aug. 18 when a U.S. military airstrike removed Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, also known as Hajji Mutazz, the second in command of the terrorist group, from the battlefield.”
Efforts also are being taken to disrupt IS finances and “make it more difficult for the group to attract new foreign fighters,” Cabiness said in an email.
A Central Command spokesman also declined to provide details of what he said were “operational engagements” against IS training camps.
“Once a target is identified as performing a hostile act, or is part of an obvious hostile force, a training camp for example, we prosecute that target in accordance with the coalition rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict,” the spokesman said.
According to the defense and intelligence officials, one reason the training camps have been off limits is that political leaders in the White House and Pentagon fear hitting them will cause collateral damage. Some of the camps are located near civilian facilities and there are concerns that casualties will inspire more jihadists to join the group.
However, military officials have argued that unless the training camps are knocked out, IS will continue to gain ground and recruit and train more fighters for its operations.
Disclosure that the IS training camps are effectively off limits to the bombing campaign comes as intelligence officials in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of the conflict, have alleged that senior U.S. officials skewed intelligence reports indicating the U.S. strategy against IS is not working or has been less effective than officials have claimed in public.
The Islamic State controls large parts of Syria and Iraq and has attracted tens of thousands of jihadists in both countries and from abroad. The exact number of fighters is not known but intelligence estimates have indicated the numbers have increased over the past year.
The military campaign, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, appears to be floundering despite a yearlong campaign of airstrikes and military training programs aimed to bolstering Iraqi military forces.
A review of Central Command reports on airstrikes since last year reveals that no attacks were carried out against training camps.
Targets instead included Islamic State vehicles, buildings, tactical units, arms caches, fighting positions, snipers, excavators, mortar and machine gun positions, bunkers, and bomb factories.
The risk-averse nature of the airstrike campaign was highlighted last month by Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, chief of staff for what the military calls Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.
“The coalition continues to use air power responsibly,” Weidley said July 1. “Highly precise deliveries, detailed weaponeering, in-depth target development, collateral damage mitigation, and maximized effects on Daesh, are characteristics of coalition airstrike operation in Iraq and Syria.”
Daesh is another name for the Islamic State.
“The coalition targeting process minimizes collateral damage and maximizes precise effects on Daesh,” Weidley said earlier. “Air crews are making smart decisions and applying tactical patience every day.”
Other coalition spokesman have indicated that targeting has been limited to reaction strikes against operational groups of IS fighters. “When Daesh terrorists expose themselves and their equipment, we will strike them,” Col. Wayne Marotto said May 27.
The military website Long War Journal published a map showing 52 IS training camps and noted that some may no longer be operating because of the U.S.-led bombing campaign.
Islamic State training camps in Iraq and Syria. Source: Long War Journal.
According the map, among the locations in Iraq and Syria where IS is operating training camps are Mosul, Raqqah, Nenewa, Kobane, Aleppo, Fallujah, and Baiji.
The group MEMRI obtained a video of an IS training camp in Nenewa Province, Iraq, dated Oct. 1, 2014.
The video shows a desert outpost with tan tents and around 100 fighters who take part in hand-to-hand combat exercises, weapons training, and religious indoctrination….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/gay-marriage-Islamic-State-e1435488744640.jpeg370640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2015-08-30 05:57:052015-08-30 05:57:05Pentagon Not Targeting Islamic State Training Camps
Do U.S. troops fast during Yom Kippur? Lent? No? Why not? “U.S. Troops Face Eating, Drinking Restrictions During Ramadan,” by Jeryl Bier, Weekly Standard, June 26, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
A top commander in southwest Asia reminded U.S military personnel stationed in Muslim countries in the Middle East of the restrictions placed on them during Ramadan. According to a report by the U.S. Air Forces Central Command Public Affairs, Brig. Gen. John Quintas, 380th Air Expeditionary Wing commander in Southwest Asia, said that the U.S. is “committed to the concepts of tolerance, freedom and diversity.” But he added that soldiers should “become more informed and appreciative of the traditions and history of the people in this region of the world… [R]emember we are guests here and that the host nation is our shoulder-to-shoulder, brothers and sisters in arms, risking their lives for our common cause to defeat terrorism.”
During the 30-day religious celebration of Ramadan, even non-Muslims are expected to obey local laws regarding eating, drinking, and using tobacco in public. Violators can be fined up to $685 or receive two months in jail. A spokesperson for United States Central Command [CENTCOM] said that “we are not aware of any specific instances of anyone being arrested” for such violations.
\For [sic] military personnel outside of U.S.-controlled areas, the only exceptions for the rules are for those “performing strenuous labor.” Such personnel are “authorized to drink and consume as much food as they need to maintain proper hydration and energy.” It is unclear what constitutes “strenuous labor” or whether additional exceptions might be made during a heatwave affecting some areas of the region that has taken hundreds of lives.
When asked if the restrictions were new or simply a continuation of past policy, a CENTCOM spokesperson replied:
There has been no change in policy… [W]hile the US does not have a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the UAE, it is common practice to ensure all Soldiers, Sailors, Airman, and Marines deployed to Muslim countries are culturally aware that during the month of Ramadan, practicing Muslims do not consume anything from sunrise to sunset as a pillar of their faith. Commanders throughout the AOR create policies to ensure their subordinates respect the laws and culture of our hosts at all times….
As we enter the preliminaries for the 2016 presidential election, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media… including such heretofore “fair-minded” journalists as Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday… are trotting out their favorite “gotcha” questions, reserved exclusively for Republican candidates. To date, their two favorites are: “Are you personally opposed to gay Americans or same-sex marriage? And, “If you knew then what you know now, would you have sent U.S. ground troops into Iraq in 2003?”
No less a liberal icon than Bob Woodward of the Washington Post has set the record straight on the buildup to the Iraq War. In a May 25, 2015, appearance on Fox News Sunday, Woodward agreed that George Bush may have made mistakes, but that to say he had lied to get us into war was “grossly unfair and inaccurate.” He said, “I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq… lots of mistakes… but it was Bush telling George Tenet the CIA director, ‘Don’t let anyone stretch the case on WMD.’ He was the one who was skeptical.”
Woodward continued, “And if you try to summarize why we went into Iraq, it was momentum. That war plan kept getting better and easier, and finally at the end people were saying, ‘Hey, look, it’ll only take a week or two.’ And early on it looked like it was going to take a year or eighteen months, and so Bush pulled the trigger. A mistake certainly can be argued, and there’s an abundance of evidence. But there was no lie in this that I could find.”
Throughout calendar year 2002, policy-makers in Washington and around the world searched for ways in which to eliminate the threat posed by the weapons development programs of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Finally, on November 8, 2002, the U.N. Security Council adopted, unanimously, Resolution 1441. Under Resolution 1441, the Security Council recognized “the threat Iraq’s noncompliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security.”
Resolution 1441 affirmed that Security Council Resolution 678 of November 29, 1990, authorized member nations to “use all necessary means (emphasis added) to uphold and implement Resolution 660 of August 2, 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to Resolution 660, and to restore international peace and security in the area.” It was the authority of the U.N. that member states relied upon in their decision to use military force against Iraq.
Few members of Congress were anxious to see American ground forces engaged in a ground war in the Middle East. Accordingly, during the summer of 2002, under the theory that no dictator can remain a dictator unless his people believe him to be both omnipotent and omniscient, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Porter Goss (R-FL), authorized funds for an “Infowar,” or SOFTWAR, offensive against Iraq… where SOFTWAR is defined as “the hostile utilization of global television to shape another nation’s will by changing its view of reality.” The goal of the SOFTWAR offensive was to remove one or both of the omnipotence/omniscience advantages from Saddam, advancing the day when the Iraqi people would find it beneficial to overthrow the dictator. (The SOFTWAR concept was the brainchild of my longtime friend, Chuck de Caro, an Information Warfare lecturer at the National Defense University and other agencies of the U.S. defense/intelligence establishment.)
The SOFTWAR offensive authorized by HPSCI, as a supplement to its FY 2003 defense authorization, read, in part, as follows:
SOFTWAR
The budget request contained $63.9 million in PE65710D8Z for Classified Programs for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence)…
The Committee notes that information operations (IO) is increasingly becoming a more significant weapon in modern military, and moreover, asymmetric operations…
The Committee is somewhat concerned that insufficient consideration is paid to developing a capability to shape the information sphere for asymmetric operations… The Committee understands that there has been proposed a concept called Infowar, in which intelligence analysis of the threat Infosphere is coupled with the knowledge management functions of television, and an offensive management plan is developed for execution. The Committee notes that this concept is different from more traditional IO approaches in that it does not “attack” the threat directly, but rather through the threat’s intended public information consumers. The Committee believes this is a worthwhile new approach and believes the Intelligence Community should pursue it vigorously.
Therefore, the Committee recommends $73.9 million in PE65710D8Z, an increase of $10.0 Million in Classified Programs-C3I, for the SOFTWAR program.
However, the U.S. Senate, comprised of 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, changed from Republican to Democratic control on May 24, 2001, when Sen. Jim Jeffords (R-VT) left the Republican Party to become an Independent, aligning himself with senate Democrats. As a result, when the HPSCI authorization arrived in the U.S. Senate as a supplement to the FY 2003 Defense Appropriations bill, senate Democrats decided that it was more important for them to have a political issue to use against George W. Bush in his 2004 reelection campaign than to avert a ground war in Iraq.
During the months of September and October, 2002, when the HPSCI proposal was hopelessly stalled in the U.S. Senate, I assisted Chuck de Caro in lobbying key senators, seeking to gain their support for HPSCI’s SOFTWAR offensive. We met with senior staff aides to then-Senator Dick Shelby (R-AL), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and then-Senator John Warner (R-VA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And we met on several occasions with senior aides to then-Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who, along with the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, were the key players in the effort to fund the SOFTWAR offensive in Iraq. But the enthusiasm of aides to Rockefeller and Byrd were not in sync with the political games that their employers were playing.
While Democrats made impassioned speeches on the floor of the senate, insisting that the Congress could not give George W. Bush the war powers he sought, and that a way had to be found to remove Saddam Hussein through non-violent means, they were busy behind closed doors instructing the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee to kill the HPSCI SOFTWAR authorization… our last best hope of averting a ground war in Iraq. Senate Democrats were so intent upon creating an issue to use against George W., Bush that when they were asked to fund the project for a single dollar, just to get the offensive “in the pipeline,” with supplemental funding to be added during the 108th Congress, they refused even that.
Thus, as coalition forces prepared for war with seeming unstoppable momentum, the Iraq War Powers Act, P.L. 107-243, passed the Republican-controlled House on October 10, 2002, by a vote of 296-133, and the Democrat-controlled Senate on October 11 by a vote of 77-23. Twenty-eight Democrats, including Senators Rockefeller, Clinton, Kerry, and Biden voted in favor of the war powers resolution.
But that was not the last we heard of Sen. Rockefeller’s role in sabotaging the Iraq war effort. In the December 3, 2005 edition of the Canada Free Press, writer Joan Swirsky published an article describing events before and during the Iraq War, titled, “Rockefeller’s Treachery,” republished in the May 21, 2015 edition of the Renew America website.
Ms. Swirsky reminds us of Rockefeller’s November 14, 2005 appearance on Fox News Sunday, during the period in which he served as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In that interview, Rockefeller recalled, “I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 (months before the HPSCI proposal was approved by the House of Representatives) to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq – that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.” It was an entirely baseless charge.
Ms. Swirsky went on to say, “By himself, and fully armed with America’s most sensitive intelligence, Sen. Rockefeller decided to go to three Arab countries – including Syria, which is on the State Department’s list of terrorist regimes and a close ally of Saddam Hussein – and literally alert them to what might befall a neighboring Arab state.” Putting this sharply into context, Ms. Swirsky reminds us that, “This was Sen. Rockefeller’s judgment only four months after September 11th and a full year before President Bush expressed any intention to go to war.”
Finally, on March 20, 2003, with all multi-national coalition forces in place, the invasion of Iraq commenced. And while Democrats continue to this day to try to convince the American people that George Bush and Dick Cheney lied to launch the Iraq War, there is a strong case to be made that it was their own politically-motivated treachery that was most responsible for our entrance into the war. In that war, some 4,500 American men and women, and countless Iraqis, paid with their lives. Clearly, their blood is on Democrat hands, not on Bush and Cheney’s hands.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Shutterstock.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/shutterstock_145325392.jpg426640Paul R. Hollrahhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngPaul R. Hollrah2015-06-08 05:55:332015-06-12 08:35:12Democratic Treachery
This makes his blaming of the freedom of speech — his attribution of the attack to a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video — frankly insidious. What anti-free speech initiative was he hoping to implement in the wake of the attack?
“JW: Obama Admin Knew About Benghazi Before It Happened,” Judicial Watch, May 18, 2015:
Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq
Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance. Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, and is serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts. The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria. The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria.
The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders “on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi.”
Spelling and punctuation is duplicated in this release without corrections.
A Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group “to kill as many Americans as possible.” The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Obama White House National Security Council. The heavily redacted Defense Department “information report” says that the attack on the Benghazi facility “was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR).” The group subscribes to “AQ ideologies:”
The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.
“A violent radical,” the DIA report says, is “the leader of BCOAR is Abdul Baset ((AZUZ)), AZUZ was sent by ((ZAWARI)) to set up Al Qaeda (AQ) bases in Libya.” The group’s headquarters was set up with the approval of a “member of the Muslim brother hood movement…where they have large caches of weapons. Some of these caches are disguised by feeding troughs for livestock. They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS…they train almost every day focusing on religious lessons and scriptures including three lessons a day of jihadist ideology.”
The Defense Department reported the group maintained written documents, in “a small rectangular room, approximately 12 meters by 6 meters…that contain information on all of the AQ activity in Libya.”
(Azuz is again blamed for the Benghazi attack in an October 2012 DIA document.)
The DOD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:
Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.
During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.
The DIA document further details:
The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]
The heavily redacted document does not disclose who was shipping the weapons.
Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The growing sectarian direction of the war was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, which included the “grave danger” of the rise of ISIS:
The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:
This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.
Some of the “dire consequences” are blacked out but the DIA presciently warned one such consequence would be the “renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.”…
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/benghazi-four.jpg361640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2015-05-19 06:32:252015-05-19 06:36:55Obama knew jihadis were planning Benghazi attack 10 days in advance
By evaluating an overwhelming amount of evidence that has been building for 6 ½ years, the obvious conclusion personnel with extensive military experience will come to, is that Obama’s military policies have been degrading the finest U.S. military fighting force in history. Over the last 6 ½ years, the U.S. Armed Forces has been hollowed out by Obama, his Social Experiment On Diversity has severely fractured unit cohesiveness, his “Politically Correct Policies” have negatively affected unit morale, and the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. military is being degraded. Tip of the spear combat units are being compromised by preventing military combat veterans, with a great deal of combat experience, from providing their invaluable operational experience being considered and evaluated, in the debate within the Obama administration, over whether female military personnel should be exposed to hand to hand combat against highly trained enemy infantry units and enemy special operations personnel. None of the below highlighted actions, which have been degrading the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. Armed Forces, for the last 6 ½ years, could have been instituted without the willing support of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who should have resigned, rather than execute Obama’s below listed policies that have been degrading the U.S. Armed Forces.
The Flag and General Officer Corps have been prevented from opposing and challenging the hollowing out of the U.S. Armed Forces and the degrading of the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US military by the occupant in the Oval Office. A total of 195 Flag, General, and Senior Military Officers, who may have disagreed with Obama’s “Politically Correct Policies’ and his “Social Experiment on Diversity” that was negatively affecting unit cohesiveness, the moral, and the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. Armed Forces, were purged. Senior enlisted military personnel who utilized their right to complain thru the chain of command about many of the new policies, to express their concerns, were also been purged, and in some cases were court martialed and dishonorably discharged.
The U.S. Army is being reduced to the manning level that existed prior to WWII. The U.S. Navy is being reduce to the number of ships it had prior to WWI down from President Regan’s 584 ship Navy to Obama’s 284 ships Navy today (1/3 of those ships are going thru shipyard availability and modernizations programs). Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told lawmakers that the Navy would need a 450-ship fleet, in order to meet the global needs of combatant commanders. The most effective long range offensive missile in the U.S. Navy arsenal, the Tomahawk Missile (TLAM), is being scrapped by Obama. The TLAM combines accuracy, range lethality, mobility defense against being jammed, is relatively low cost, and is simple to fix and change targets.
When the Navy reordered 980 TLAMs to bring its inventory current, with the most up-to-date models, not only was the request denied by Obama’s civilian appointees at DOD, the decision was taken to completely end production of all TLAMs in fiscal 2016. No orders for the TLAM will be allowed to be placed after autumn 2015, and there is no replacement missile system under development or in the works to take its place.
NO STRATEGIC JUSTIFICATION HAS BEEN OFFERED TO THE US NAVY BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO ACCOUNT FOR THE CANCELLATION OF THIS VERY EFFECTIVE WEAPON. The TLAM’s usefulness as a weapon system in combat will expire in 5 years.
In violation of a Federal Law which requires the President to seek approval from Congress in advance of the release of prisoners from the Naval Prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO), Obama released 5 dangerous Radical Islamic Taliban Terrorist Generals from GITMO for an Army deserter, Sgt Bowe Bergdahl. According to an elected Combat Veteran For Congress, Representative Duncan D. Hunter, Maj-USMCR (D-CA-52), a ransom was paid in February 2014 to an Afghanistan middleman by Spec Ops personnel which was another violation of Federal Law by Obama. Obama doubled down and released 5 more dangerous terrorists from GITMO while Americans were distracted by the massive press reports of Obama’s Executive Order preventing ICE from deporting 5 million Illegal Aliens, an in effect cancelling all deportation except in some very special cases. The occupant of the Oval Office then released an additional 6 dangerous terrorist from GITMO, labeling then as refugees—now terrorists are designated as refugees by Obama. Those releases are an assault on the U.S. military who captured them, sometimes at a loss of life, because they will soon be killing American servicemen again.
The “Justification” given by the Obama administration for the exchange of 5 dangerous Radical Islamic Taliban Terrorist Generals was “We leave no military personnel behind”:
(1) Obama and Hilary Clinton left 4 Americans behind, including 2 Navy SEALs, to be murdered in Benghazi by Radical Islamic Terrorists, while there were armed aircraft less than 2 hours away that could have saved their lives, but the US Armed Forces was prevented from rescuing of the 4 Americans, because Obama refused to execute “Cross Border Authority” which would have been required to authorize a military rescue mission—violating the. Sacred trust “We leave no military personnel behind.
(2) Obama left Sgt Andrew Tahmooressi, USMC behind (an Iraqi War Combat Marine Veteran suffering from PTSD) to be torturedin a Mexican prison for over 7 months; his only crime was to mistakenly cross the wide open southern border because of bad signage on the US side of the border— violating the. Sacred trust “We leave no military personnel behind”:
(3) Since January 2012, for over 1600 days, Obama has left Sgt Amir Hekmati, USMC behind (an Iraqi War Combat Marine Veteran) to be tortured in an Iranian prison; his only crime was to seek and obtain permission form the Iranian Government, in advance, to visit his dying grandmother—- violating the. Sacred trust “We leave no military personnel behind”.
In January of 2013, the Obama administration announced its decision to make female military personnel eligible for assignment to direct ground combat units by January 2016, including the infantry. The Obama civilian appointees in the Pentagon are forcing the U.S. Army to insert women into the one of the most grueling training regimens in the entire military establishment, the U.S. Army Rangers. They are planning to reduce the physical requirements for military personnel to qualify as a Ranger so that women will be able to pass the rigorous training and qualifications; that will negatively affect the “Combat Effectiveness” of one of the most important tip of the spear units in the Army.
A study was conducted by the British Ministry of Defense, which tears to shreds the case for women in close ground combat. One of the findings of the study was that under conditions of high intensity close quarter battle, “team cohesion is of such significance that the employment of women in this environment would represent a risk to the “Combat Effectiveness” and there would be no gains in terms of “Combat Effectiveness” to offset it.” The question is whether women should purposely be placed in situations where they must close with the enemy, one on one, in extremes of physical endurance, climate, and terrain, brutal and violent death, injury, horror, and fear, just to satisfy the “Politically Correct” feminist agenda.
Obama is planning to compromise extremely high standards of tip of the spear units that have resulted in outstanding combat results for the last 75 years, Obama’s compromise of those tip of the spear units will be destruction to the “Combat Effectiveness” of units like the U.S. Marine Corps Infantry, US Army Rangers, the Green Berets, Delta Force, and U.S. Navy SEALs, and will disrupt the “Warrior Spirit” and “Ethos” so carefully nurtured over the years by the finest military force in the world.
China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and the American people are fully aware that the military strength has been systematically degraded by Obama for 6 ½ years, and believe that the National Security of the United States has been severely compromised by Obama’s hollowing out of the U.S. Armed Forces, and by Obama’s willful intent to ignore the external military threats to the Republic. At the same time, during those 6 ½ years, China, Russia, and Iran have been building modern conventional and nuclear military weapons systems——the US military has not be able to keep pace because of sequestration and being bogged down fighting al Q’ieda, the Taliban, and ISIL. While ISIL expands, is prosecuting the genocide of Christian, and developing sleeper cells in all 50 states, Obama does very little (ISIL recently stated they now have 71 trained Radical Islamic Terrorists operating in the U.S.).
Obama is keeping his promise, made to Russian Prime Minister in an overheard comment on an open mike prior to the 2012 election, when he said that his hands would not be tied after the election. Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine after its successful the naked aggression and conquest of Crimea; that has all but been ignored by Obama and Ukraine’s request for major defensive weapons systems for over 2 years have fallen on deaf ears in Washington. Russia announced it is shipping S-300 anti-air missiles to Iran to prevent Israel from striking its nuclear weapons development facilities; Obama’s only comment was that he is not surprised. Russia is upgrading its Naval base in Cuba, while Obama removes Cuba from the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsored terrorist nations and recognizing Cuba while Cuba is supporting the terrorist activities of FARC and Venezuela in South America
The Department of Homeland issued a bulletin to all police agencies in 2009, naming all military Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as potential terrorist. At the same time Obama is allowing hundreds of thousands of Muslims to enter the U.S. thru the UN Muslim Refugee Resettlement Program while preventing intelligent analysts from checking their backgrounds for possible ties to ISIL and Al Q’ieda Radical Islamic Terrorists. At the same time, the Greek Catholic Relief Agency has stated over 300,000 Syrian and Assyrian Christian refugees are being prevented from entering the U.S.
Obama has imposed new and dangerous Rules Of Engagement (ROE) for the U.S. Armed Forces executed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and retained by his replacement General Martin Dempsey. Each year since 2008 when the new ROE took effect, 2049 more military personnel per year have been Wounded In Action, each year, for 5 years (a total of 10,245 more personnel have been wounded and/or maimed for life), an increase of 378%. Each year since 2008 when the new and “dangerous” ROE took effect, 368 more military personnel have been Killed In Action, each year, for 5 years (a total of 1840 more personnel have been killed), an increase of 458%.
Obama has been launching attacks on the profound religious beliefs of Christians in the U.S. Armed Forces, in violation of the Freedom of Religion guaranteed to every American in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Chaplains are having their sermons and even places where they can pray censored to be sure they are Politically Correct. Chaplains reading letters from Cardinals to their parishioners in the pulpit have been prevented from doing so. Military personnel are prevented from having bibles in their work places. Chaplains are being prevented from offering bibles to patients in military hospital rooms, unless they specifically ask for them. Base commanders on military installations are prevented from allowing bibles to be placed in the base hotel rooms. The massive 6 ½ year assault on Christians in the US Military by the Obama Administration is outlined in the video that can be watched by clicking on this link from the Thomas More Law Center; http://bit.ly/HAfq8Z. It is a dangerous and extreme anti-Christian program being driven by Obama himself against members of the US Armed Forces; Obama has not stopped this unprecedented assault. What would President George Washington, President Lincoln, President Teddy Roosevelt, President Truman, President Kennedy, President Eisenhower, and President Reagan have to say about Obama’s shameful assault on “Freedom of Religion” in the U.S. Armed Forces?
Open homosexuality in the US Armed Forces has been decreed by Obama, in violation of General George Washington’s 238 year old US Military Regulations. Gay Rights Political Events are now held on U.S. Military bases in violation of U.S. Military Regulations which prevent any political activities on any military installation. U.S. Military Color guards and military personnel in uniform have been ordered to march in Gay Rights parades (apolitical event) in violation of U.S. Military Regulations. The civilian appointees of the Obama administration in the Pentagon, have been trying to cover up the fact that 10,400 straight military male enlisted personnel have been sexually assaulted by gay male military personnel in their barracks and on their ships—creating retention problems, and that thousands of straight female members in the military hae been sexually assaulted by lesbian military personnel.
Poster in Officer’s Club, Vandenberg AFB, CA:
During the 2010, 2012, and 2014 elections, the Obama administration, through Attorney General Eric Holder, actively encouraged State Secretaries of Democratically controlled states, to disregard Federal Voting Laws that required the timely mailing out absentee ballots to active duty military personnel, so they can receive the ballots on time, in order to return them on a date specific, so they can be counted on election day. As a result, hundreds of thousands of military votes have never been counted, denying members of the U.S. Armed Forces their basic fundamental American rights to vote.
Although the Veterans Administration is supposed to support the interests of military veterans, yet it has slowed down the process of allowing veterans to file claims for benefits to the point where veterans are waiting for months and even years to have their claims processed. When veterans go to the VA, because of new regulations imposed by Obama, they are being asked if they own firearms, if they have ever been depressed, and if their spouses handle the family finances which is against privacy laws. Then that information is being used to declare them mentally incompetent and deny them their Constitutional rights to own, purchase, or possess firearms in accordance with the 5th and 2nd Amendments to the US Constitution. Eric Holder’s Justice Department has put them on a list of Americans who are prevented from owning firearms in violation of their 2nd Amendment rights. Many Veterans cannot get help with their medical issues, and have to wait hours on the phone to get any response at all; an average of 23 Veterans are committing suicide each day.
The Army ROTC cadets at Arizona State University were recently humiliated by being forced to walk around on campus in full military uniforms wearing Red Pumps for an event called “Walk A Mile in Her Shoes” to raise awareness of sexual violence against women on college campuses. As reported by the Washington Times, in 2014, the Army encouraged participation in the April 2015 event. However: this year, the ROTC candidates at ASU were faced with a volunteer event “that became mandatory.” Or, they were “voluntold” they have to participate or be faced with discipline action. The Cadets were forced to walk around out of uniform (because they were not wearing military boots) in violation of Army Regulation AR670-1, entitled Wear and Appearance of Army Uniform and Insignia—“A military member must wear his or her uniform in a way that projects an image of discipline and order and is prohibited from wearing a combination of civilian and military clothing.”
A twelve month survey of internal data of personnel in the U.S. Army from the period through early 2015 was obtained by “USA Today”, it shows starling negative findings of their very low morale, including in the findings are the following:
More than half of some 770,000 soldiers (52% or 403,564 soldiers) are pessimistic about their future in the military, agreeing with statements such as “I rarely count on good things happening to me.”
48%or about 370,000 soldiers are unhappy in their jobs, have little satisfaction in or commitment to their jobs, and would have chosen another if they had it to do over again. Only 28% felt good about what they do.
More than half reported poor nutrition and sleep. Only 14% said they are eating right and getting enough rest.
Two-thirds were borderline or worse for an area called “catastrophic thinking,” where poor scores mean the soldier has trouble adapting to change or dwells on the worst possible things happening.
Nearly 40% or about 300,000 soldiers didn’t trust their immediate supervisor or fellow soldiers in their unit or didn’t feel respected or valued. Only 32% felt good about bosses and peers.
General Martin Dempsey has been trying to push the U.S. Marine Corps to lower standards for women in order to let them pass the Infantry Officer’s Course, regardless of how it will affect the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. Marine Corps. If a lower standard for Infantry Officers is forced upon the US Marine Corps, it would result in weakening the infantry arm of the U.S. Marine Corps needlessly, in order to comply with Obama’s “Political Correctness.” Senator John McCain told Fox News’ American Newsroom, “General Dempsey is the most disappointing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that I have ever seen. and I have seen many of them. He has supported the plan to completely withdraw from Afghanistan. He’s basically been the echo chamber for the president, and one of the reasons why we are in the situation that we’re in, in the world today…..is because of his lack of either knowledge or candor about the situation in the Middle East, and it has done great damage.”
The real threat to the National Security interests of the United States and the American citizens is the internal threat, the occupant of Oval Office who has repeatedly said he doesn’t want the United States to be the only Superpower in the world..
Please watch this very important video:
We strongly encourage you to read the article below.
The U.S. military is shedding so many troops and weapons it is only “marginally able” to defend the nation and falls short of the Obama administration’s national security strategy, according to a new report by The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday.
“The U.S. military itself is aging. It’s shrinking in size,” said Dakota Wood, a Heritage analyst. “And it’s quickly becoming problematic in terms of being able to address more than one major conflict.”
President Obama’s latest strategy is to size the armed forces pledged in 2014 so that the four military branches have sufficient troops, ships, tanks and aircraft to win a large war, while simultaneously acting to “deny the objectives of — or impose unacceptable costs on — another aggressor in another region.”
In other words, the Quadrennial Defense Review says the military can essentially fight two major conflicts at once. It could defeat an invasion of South Korea by the North, for example, and stop Russia from invading Western Europe or Iran from conquering a Persian Gulf state.
But Heritage’s “2015 Index of U.S. Military Strength” took a look, in detail, at units and weapons, region by region, and came to a different conclusion.
“The U.S. military is rapidly approaching a one-war-capable force,” said Mr. Wood, a former Marine Corps officer and strategic planner. “So [it is] able to handle a major war and then having just a bit of residual capability to handle other minor crises that might pop up. … But it is a far cry from being a two-war force.”
“The consistent decline in funding and the consequent shrinking of the force are putting it under significant pressure,” the report concluded. “The cumulative effect of such factors has resulted in a U.S. military that is marginally able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests.”
The index report is part scorecard, part research tool.
It grades the Army, which is shrinking from 570,000 soldiers to 440,000 or lower, and the Navy, which is failing to achieve a 300-ship force, as only “marginal” in military power. The Air Force’s fleet of fighters and long-range bombers is judged “strong.”
Heritage says the military cannot fight two wars at once.
The report said the Army historically commits 21 brigade dombat teams to one war. Several years ago, that left just 21 more brigades for a second war and none for strategic reserve.
But the problem is more acute. The Army announced in 2013 it may go as low as 33 brigades, far short of the 50 brigades Heritage says are needed.
The Army has been battered by automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration.” A bipartisan budget deal provided some relief last year, but the slashing could come back in 2016 without another agreement.
Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, has said that if the active force is squeezed down to 420,000 soldiers, it could not carry out all global commitments.
The Navy would need 346 ships to carry out two large campaigns, Heritage said, but its fleet is only 284.
At the report’s release, Rep. J. Randy Forbes, Virginia Republican, talked of all the technological advancements that led to complete air superiority in the 1991 Desert Storm operation over Iraq.
Today, the House Armed Services Committee member said the Air Force “would say we are dangerously close to no longer being able to guarantee that air dominance that we could guarantee in Kuwait.”
“If you listen to the Army, they will give testimony they can no longer guarantee. You talk about two wars — they testified they can’t guarantee that we could win one war,” Mr. Forbes said. “The Navy will tell you if we get to 260 ships, we cease to be a superpower; we become a regional power.”
The Pentagon’s base budget, minus overseas war costs, has decreased under Mr. Obama, from $527 billion in 2010 to about $496 billion in each of the last three budgets. The president is asking for an increase in 2016 to $534 billion.
“The enemies that we have out there, and competitors, are making very smart investments accounting for their strategic objectives and interests,” Mr. Wood said.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/0420-0905-2603-0613_soldiers_in_training_m.jpg427640Joseph R. Johnhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJoseph R. John2015-05-08 07:40:202015-05-08 07:45:55Obama’s Policies degrading the “Combat Effectiveness” of the U.S. Armed Forces
On August 29th, President Obama sent a letter notifying Congress that he is using his authority under law to cap the active duty military pay raise at 1 percent in 2015.
Typically the active duty pay raise is determined by private sector wage growth, measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index (ECI). The ECI calls for a 1.8 percent pay raise in 2015.
However, the President has executive authority to make an alternative pay adjustment if he considers it necessary due to national emergency or economic concerns.
This is the second consecutive year the President used his authority to implement a lower pay raise.
From 2000 to 2012, Congress worked hard to eliminate a 13.5 percent military pay gap with the private sector caused by repeatedly capping military raises in the 1980s and ‘90s.
But the restoration of military pay comparability with the private sector is under threat. Pay has been capped for two years, and the administration’s FY 2015 budget proposes to continue caps for a total of six years.
Earlier this year, the House rejected the administration’s pay cap and authorized a 1.8 percent raise in its version of the FY 2015 defense authorization bill and appropriated funding to pay for it. The Senate Armed Services Committee supported the administration’s 1.0 percent cap.
To reverse the President’s decision to cap pay in 2015, Congress would need to override the President’s authority to alter the pay raise from the ECI.
Military Officers Association of America President Vice Adm. Norb Ryan, U.S. Navy (Ret.) responded to the President’s announcement, saying “Pay raises for the military, just like those of average Americans, are important for retention. It’s a fundamental principle of sustaining the all-volunteer force… History has shown that once Congress starts accepting proposals to cap military pay below private sector growth, those caps continue until retention and readiness are compromised.”
Comparability can’t work unless it’s sustained through both good and bad budget times.
EDITORS NOTE: MOAA is asking concerned citizens and veterans to send a MOAA-suggested message and ask Congress to support a 1.8 percent raise that keeps military pay on pace with private sector wage growth.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/soldiers-at-twilight.jpg380580Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2014-09-07 10:31:222014-09-07 10:38:01Obama cuts military pay for a second year in a row
Many Americans were shocked by the Islamic State video of the beheading of the photo journalist James Foley. Perhaps they had already forgotten the decapitation of Wall Street Journal journalist, Daniel Pearl in 2002. Most certainly, the memory of the murder of nearly 3,000 on September 11, 2001 with the destruction of the World Trade Towers has begun to recede.
What most do not know is that decapitation is a requirement in the Islamic holy war and holy book, the Koran.
“So when you meet in Jihad in Allah’s cause those who disbelieve, smite their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them…” (Surat 47, al-Qital—the Killing–, Ayat 4.
“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks and smite them over all their fingers and toes.” – Surat al-Anfel (The Spoils), Ayat/Verse 12.)
If I were a jihadist who wanted to undermine the capacity of the United States of America to both defend itself and/or to wage war on those who regard us as their enemy, I would welcome what is currently occurring to weaken our military. It is exactly what President Obama and a compliant Congress has been doing for some time now.
In the name of the “sequester”, an across-the-board reduction in federal spending, the military has suffered the most despite being the single key factor to defend the nation and to project our power to protect our allies.
An August 26 article in Politico reported that the five leading U.S. defense firms, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing’s defense unit, and Northrop Grumman, have eliminated 70,000 jobs since 2008 through layoffs, buyouts, attrition, or, as Boeing did, moving employees to the commercial side of its business. “There’s little momentum in Congress to undo the current caps on discretionary federal spending and, facing a war-weary public, U.S. officials are pledging to avoid sending combat troops to today’s hotspots, including Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine.”
As reported by Bloomberg News in July, “The U.S. Navy can’t meet its funding needs for surface warships and a new class of nuclear attack submarines from 2025 to 2034 according to the service’s latest 30-year shipbuilding plan.” The Navy is just one element of the Pentagon’s current five-year funding plan “in an era of declining defense spending.” It will impact the need for new submarines, the planned full production of F-35 fighter jets, and a new long-range strike bomber.
In March The Washington Times reported that “President Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.” Obama wants to eliminate the famed Tomahawk and Hellfire missile programs. Why?
We have, however, billions for a variety of welfare programs, those devoted to “environmental research”, and countless other examples of sheer waste.
In January, commentator Mike Snyder raised the question, “Why are Dozens of High Ranking Officers Being Purged from the U.S. Military?” He noted that “Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented. Things have gotten so bad that a number of retired generals are publicly speaking out about the ‘purge’ of the U.S. military that they believe is taking place.”
Retired Major General Paul Vallely was quoted as having said, “He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon, and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”
Recognizing the threat that the Islamic State represents, even Secretary of State, John Kerry, has spoken of the need to destroy it, but he has for too long been saying that “climate change” is the most serious challenge the world is facing.
The U.S. has a full range of enemies such as Iran which since 1979 has declared the U.S. its enemy and continues a program to make its own nuclear weapons. Additional challenges include Russia’s actions in Russia in the Ukraine and China’s military power.
In July, Rowan Scarborough, a Washington Times columnist, warned that “An independent panel appointed by the Pentagon and Congress said that President Obama’s strategy for sizing the armed services is too weak for today’s global threats.” The National Defense Panel called on the President to “dump a major section of his 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review and write a broader strategy that requires the military to fight on multiple fronts at once.” That alone would require a larger military than we have now; one that is the size it was prior to World War Two!
How stupid is the Obama-Kerry climate change policy? In June, The Washington Times reported that “Some critics say such alarmist reports are causing the Pentagon to shift money that could be used for weapons and readiness. It is making big investments in biofuels, for example, and is working climate change into high-level strategic planning.”
The article quoted Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, as saying “The president’s misguided priorities with our national security can be seen in the $1 trillion defense cuts he has put into motion since taking office and then using the limited defense budget to support his green agenda.” Everything the President has said about climate change has been a lie.
President Obama has taken steps to open the military to homosexuals, a practice that was avoided for most of the nation’s history because of its effect on morale and he has advocated women in combat units in the name of “diversity.”
Questioned about it in 2013, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Joint Chiefs Chairman, referred to the requirement to introduce a “critical mass” or “significant cadre” of women into previously all-male units. Wars are not won by diversity. They are won by men who meet the physical standards and requirements of combat.
In May, The Washington Times reported that “These days, the U.S. military is only taking twenty percent of the applicants who walk into their local recruiter’s office intent on enlisting in the armed forces” noting that “the tough environment for potential recruits is due in large part to troop reductions in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Pentagon’s plans to cut the size of the active duty Army.” Cut the size? At a time when we may need “boots on the ground” again in Iraq and a possible incursion into Syria?
Whether it is weapons systems needed by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, the Obama administration has waged its own war on America’s capacity to meet the needs of our national security currently and in the years ahead. It has waged an effort to alter the makeup of our military personnel, to reduce portions of it, and to eliminate many top officers to lead it.
It isn’t just the Islamic State’s American hostages that are being decapitated. It is the U.S. military.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/soldier-helicopter-sunset-e1409255493246.jpg399640Alan Carubahttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAlan Caruba2014-08-28 15:51:422014-08-28 15:51:42Decapitating the U.S. Military
Listening to President Obama respond on May 21 to the latest scandal regarding something about which he knew and did nothing—the mess at the Veterans Administration—was such a familiar event that I have reached a point of exhaustion trying to keep up with everything that has been so wrong about his six years in office. As he always does, he said was really angry about it.
Writing in the May 20 Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said, “Forget ideology for a moment. Whether you are liberal or conservative, the Obama presidency’s parade of miscues is jaw-dropping.”
Stacked against the list of Obama scandals and failures, Rubin could only cite the Bush administration’s 2005 handling of Hurricane Katrina, the seventh most intense ever, and, as anyone familiar with that event will tell you, the failure of FEMA’s response was matched by the failures of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Bush had declared a national emergency two days before it hit the Gulf coast.
Rubin concluded that the Obama administration scandals “reflect the most widespread failure of executive leadership since the Harding administration”, adding “The presidency is an executive job. We hire neophytes at our peril. When there is an atmosphere in which accountability is not stressed you get more scandals and fiascos.”
Obama spent his entire first term blaming all such things on his predecessor, George W. Bush, until it became a joke.
One has to wonder about the effect of the endless succession of scandals and fiascos have had on Americans as individuals and the nation as a whole.
While it is easier to lay all the blame on Obama, the fact is that much of the blame is the result of a federal government that is so big no President could possibly know about the countless programs being undertaken within its departments and agencies, and all the Presidents dating back to Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive initiatives have played a role in growing the government.
It is, however, the President who selects the cabinet members responsible to manage the departments as well as those appointed to manage the various agencies. Kathleen Sebelius, the recently resigned former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for the implementation of Obamacare, comes to mind. She had solicited donations—against the law—from the companies HHS regulates to help her sign up uninsured Americans for Obamacare and signed off on the millions spent on HealthCare.gov and other expenses leading up to its start.
For a larger view click on the graphic.
There are lists of the Obama scandals you can Google. One that continues to fester is the attack on September 11, 2012—the anniversary of 9/11—that killed an American ambassador and three security personnel in Benghazi, Libya. It has been and continues to be investigated, mostly because of the lies told by Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of “What difference at this point does it make?” fame. Clinton was asked what she had accomplished in her four years as Secretary and was unable to name anything.
Eric Holder, our Attorney General, continues in office despite having been held in contempt of Congress, professing that he knew nothing about “Fast and Furious”, the earliest scandal involving a gun-running scheme to Mexican drug cartels by the ATF presumably to track them, but they lost track and many were used in crimes including the killing of a Border Patrol agent.
Holder also told Congress that he was not associated with the “potential prosecution” of a journalist even though he had signed the affidavit that named Fox News reporter, James Rosen. as a potential criminal. Holder was also in charge when the Justice Department culled the phone records of Associated Press reporters to find out who they deemed was leaking information.
Keeping track of the solar power and other “renewable” and “Green” energy companies like Solyndra that received millions in grants and then rather swiftly went bankrupt became a fulltime effort and, of course, there was the “stimulus” that wasted billions without generating any “shovel ready jobs” qualifies as a fiasco.
In the midst of the recession that was triggered by the 2008 financial crisis various elements of the Obama administration continued to spend money in ways that suggested their indifference. In 2010 the General Services Administration held a $823,000 training conference in Las Vegas, complete with a clown and mind readers.
An Agriculture Department program to compensate black farmers who allegedly had been discriminated against by the agency turned into a gravy train that delivered several billion dollars to thousands of recipients, some of whom probably had not encountered discrimination.
The Veterans Affairs agency made news when it spent more than $6 million on two conferences in Orlando, Florida, and is back in the news for revelations about alleged falsified records concerning the waiting times veterans faced amidst assertions that many died while waiting for treatment surfaced. This was a problem of which the then-Senator Obama was already aware, but six years into his presidency it still existed despite his early promises to fix it.
Obama has been the biggest of Big Government Presidents since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, and Obamacare put the federal government in control of one sixth of the nation’s economy while putting the government in charge of the care Americans expect to receive. Obamacare will dwarf the problems associated with the Veterans agency.
Meanwhile, we have been living with a President who is so indifferent to working with Congress that he has gained fame for his use of executive orders such as the decision to not deport illegal immigrants. His aides have promised more executive orders.
All this over the course of the last six years has left Americans exhausted by the incompetence and wastefulness of an administration that now presides over the highest national debt in the history of the nation and the first ever downgrade of our credit rating.
It has also left them angry if they were conservatives and disillusioned if they were Obama supporters. The Veterans Administration scandal is likely a tipping point for the independent voters and even for longtime Democrats who will want a change.
It is increasingly likely that the November midterm elections give the Republican Party control over the Senate as well as the House and then to hope that it will begin to rein in the spending and save the nation from a financial collapse that will rival the one in 2008.
Most Americans agree that the federal government is totally out of control, that it is too large, spends too much money, and should be reduced in size. In fact, a recent headline for a Rasmussen Poll reported that “73% Think Federal Government Should Cut Spending to Help Economy.”
There are too many government agencies, too many regulations, too many federal employees, and too much waste. As new regulations are created, new employees are hired to enforce the regulations—then those employees expand their area with more regulations, which requires the hiring of even more federal employees—and the government grows and grows. If we had perpetual motion it would be a government agency. As Heritage Foundation budget expert, Romina Boccia stated, “you have so much waste in the federal government, it is really outrageous and we need to be cutting the federal budget, not increasing it.”
“A new study of government data says that since Oct. 1, federal workers, including bureaucrats and members of Congress, have worked less than three-fourths of the time… Compared to civilian workers, federal employees are underworked. Rather than criticize them for working so little, maybe we should see this as an opportunity. If they can cut back on work with so little impact on the rest of us, why don’t we simply cut government employment by 25%? If the country can survive the government working 25% fewer hours, doesn’t it make sense to cut an equivalent amount and make those still on board work full-time like the rest of us?”
How do we cut the federal budget? First, we need to study all government departments/agencies and assure that none of them receive more funding than they received in the last fiscal year. To accomplish this, we must establish a commission similar to the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), which has been effectively used throughout the Department of Defense (DOD).
I mention a BRAC-like commission because it could get much more done to trim government than any group within Congress. Historically, Congressional legislation only adds federal agencies or increases their size. We need a commission with a mission to review all agencies for current need, consolidation, efficiency, elimination, etc. Otherwise, we’ll continue to have growing waste in an ever-expanding federal government.
Since BRAC was used successfully in the DOD, which is one of the most important and necessary of the many government agencies, it could be just as useful in other agencies that are less important to our survival as a nation. Defense is a constitutional requirement, not some questionable freebie program that rewards citizens, and in many cases non-citizens, for not working. Coming in second in defense of the nation is unacceptable! And the survival of the nation and our Constitution is, or should be, the most important function of government.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is a perfect example of the problem. The USPS defaulted on its debt last year—after seven straight years of deficits. It’s saddled with billions owed in retiree benefits while its customers are sending less and less mail with each passing year. If it is to survive, the USPS realizes that big reforms are needed, and it has recommended some cost-cutting changes. But in the omnibus spending bill, Congress blocked two money-savers: discontinuing Saturday delivery and closing some rural post offices. BRAC would not be saddled with such Congressional politics and would have the authority to solve the problem as needed.
Our second step in cutting federal spending should be a Balanced Budget Amendment. This would allow us to budget only what is needed and exclude unnecessary functions within the current government structure.
The nation wants to see action, not just rhetoric. In baseball, a base hit excites fans when it happens, but if it doesn’t result in a score, it is just another statistic. Likewise, the taxpayers were happy with all the proposals to reduce the federal budget, but the talk did not materialize into a serious reduction in the budget. The job is not done until we see these major reductions.
Congress must get aggressive in controlling government growth and spending by first establishing BRAC for all areas of the three branches of the federal government (except the DOD where it has already been used), and secondly, by passing a Balanced Budget Amendment. As the Rasmussen Poll shows, the taxpayers want government spending cut.
This is critical, and failure of the Congress to act accordingly is a gross neglect of its responsibilities to the taxpayers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Seal_of_the_United_States_Congress.svg_.png500500Don O'Neskyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDon O'Nesky2014-02-23 07:37:012014-02-23 07:37:01How Do We Cut Federal Growth and Spending?
