Free Republic

One thing that you can say for ISIS, the Middle-East terrorist army, is that it doesn’t have a recruitment problem. Young men are streaming to Syria and Iraq from all over the world to join the cause. And they come not just from the Muslim world, but also from England, France, Sweden, Australia, and the U.S.Perhaps hoping to put a dent in the appeal of ISIS, some Western newspapers have made much of the expensive stolen watch visible on the wrist of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during his first public appearance at the Grand Mosque in Mosul. According to...

The Pentagon recently notified members of Congress that it intends to transfer six low-level detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Uruguay soon, including a Syrian man who is legally challenging the manner in which the military force-feeds some prisoners, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The men — four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian — are among the more than 70 detainees who have long been cleared for release from the U.S. detention facility because they are not deemed an ongoing threat. The move would mark a significant step in the Obama administration’s long-stymied quest to shut down Guantanamo Bay, where...

In a callous and unreasonable act of complete disregard for our military, Obama’s Defense Department has sent pink slips to military officers serving on the battlefield in Afghanistan. This reminds one of the treatment of victims of Nadal Hassan in Ft. Hood, but it gets even more intriguing. While this is going on, the Pentagon and the military are looking to keep and employ more Muslims. According to a report by the World Tribune, officials said the ‘Defense Department has been keeping records and tracking Muslims so they can encourage their presence and continued advancement in the military.’

On Monday, the White House memo used to justify drone attacks on U.S. citizens was released, and it appears to confirm the worst suspicions of its libertarian critics. The Obama administration had sought to keep the memo secret, and now we know why: Because there are no checks and balances; there are no classified courts. Indeed, the memo reveals that the president of the United States ordered the targeting killing of U.S. citizens overseas — in violation of their constitutional right to due process — sans any type of oversight outside of the executive.

The Department of Defense has disbursed some funds to universities so that scientists might study the dynamics of civil unrest — and how the U.S. military might best respond. It’s called the “Minerva Research Initiative,” and it’s a program that was kicked off in 2008 to “improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.,” The Guardian reported. ~snip~ Those individuals targeted for questioning include political activists and members of non-governmental organizations — something that The Guardian pointed to as potential for concern. ~end snip~

"Last year, the DoD's Minerva Initiative funded a project to determine 'Who Does Not Become a Terrorist, and Why?' which, however, conflates peaceful activists with "supporters of political violence" who are different from terrorists only in that they do not embark on "armed militancy" themselves."

Tom Slear, who retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 2001, is a freelance writer in Annapolis. A few weeks ago, I mentioned to a receptionist in a physical therapist’s office that I was covered by Tricare, the military’s health-care program for service members, retirees and their families. (It has nothing to do with the troubled Veterans Affairs hospital system.) “Good deal,” I said. “You deserve it,” she responded. Really? If she only knew. Though I spent more than five years on active duty during the 1970s as an Army infantry officer and an additional 23 years in...

While many focus their disgust for the federal government towards the occupants housed in the IRS, DoJ, VA, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, this latest deserter-for-Taliban trade puts the spotlight on another particular building. ... It was the late Army Colonel David Hackworth who bestowed the title of “perfumed princes” on senior military leaders who stood not for the men and women in uniform but rather for their own career advancement. As we live through the decimation of our armed forces it’s difficult to say Vaughn doesn’t have a point. Vaughn believes “There is no way that the White House could...

That lukewarm reception Barack Obama received at West Point last week was indicative of the widely held view among the troops that the man is a truly incompetent commander in chief, or as the language-mangling Al Sharpton might say, “the Commander of the Chiefs.” Notice that I said the troops, not their senior leadership. If our Pentagon weren’t currently occupied by the perfumed princes of political correctness, we might be seeing some courageous generals and admirals falling on their swords and exposing this failure of leadership instead of enabling it. Those ambitious cowards should ponder the reality that neither “I...

To pull off the prisoner swap of five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the White House overrode an existing interagency process charged with debating the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and dismissed long-standing Pentagon and intelligence community concerns based on Top Secret intelligence about the dangers of releasing the five men, sources familiar with the debate tell TIME. National Security Council officials at the White House decline to describe the work of the ad hoc process they established to trade the prisoners, or to detail the measures they have taken to limit the threat the Taliban officials may pose....

A White House veto threat — reiterated just hours before the vote — had little impact in an election year as lawmakers embraced the popular measure that includes a 1.8 percent pay raise for the troops and adds up to hundreds of thousands of jobs back home. The vote was 325-98 for the legislation, with 216 Republicans and 109 Democrats backing the bill. The National Defense Authorization Act calls for the addition of $175 million in funding for the Iron Dome system, which currently gets $176 million annually from the Pentagon. Much of the funding would be tied to a...

Pentagon is weighing allowing some immigrants brought illegally to the country as youths to serve in the military, a unilateral step by the Obama administration as immigration legislation remains stalled in the Republican-led House. The announcement came Tuesday as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, defended his election-year decision to rebuff a narrow immigration measure pushed by a GOP congressman to achieve a similar goal. The Pentagon consideration would apply to immigrants who arrived illegally as kids but already have received work permits and relief from deportation under a program President Barack Obama announced two years ago, called Deferred Action for...

Shame on Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama and Eric Shinseki. While honorably discharged veterans are dying from neglect in Veteran’s Administration hospitals, the Regime response is a sex change for Bradley Manning and new furniture for Veteran’s Administration headquarters. Last week, quisling Chuck Hagel spit in the face of sick and injured veterans throughout the country. In an insult to all of America’s veterans, Hagel has approved sending the traitorous Army Private Bradley Manning, now known as “Chelsea Manning,” to a civilian prison that will see that he gets a sex change operation. Manning was convicted of stealing and distributing classified...

CHINA’S top general blamed the Obama administration’s new focus on Asia for various disputes in the East and South China seas, claiming that “some neighboring countries” were using it as a chance to provoke problems. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday, the People’s Liberation Army’s Chief of the General Staff General Fang Fenghui also warned that the US must be objective about tensions between China and Vietnam or risk harming relations between Washington and Beijing. He defended China’s deployment of an oil rig in the South China Sea and said China had no intention of abandoning drilling despite...

The Department of Defense was put in the awkward position of having to defend cuts to military pay raises and housing allowances as well as increasing health care fees just one day before a report saying the Pentagon spent $150 a gallon on green jet fuels. Defense officials spent $150 on jet fuel made from algae that is approved for civilian and military use, according to a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office. […] HEFA, or Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids, comes from “renewable oil (e.g., vegetable oils, animal fat, waste grease, and algae oil) … processed using...

The Department of Defense (DOD) paid $150 per gallon for alternative jet fuel made from algae, more than 64 times the current market price for standard carbon-based fuels, according to a report released on Wednesday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its report that a Pentagon official reported paying “about $150 per gallon for 1,500 gallons of alternative jet fuel derived from algal oil.” GAO’s report examined the financial challenges facing increased purchases and use of alternative jet fuels by federal agencies. “Currently, the price for alternative jet fuels exceeds that of conventional jet fuel,” the report noted. The...

The Pentagon posted a narrow win Wednesday as a House panel endorsed leaving the authority to prosecute rapes and other serious crimes with military commanders. In an emotionally charged debate, the House Armed Services Committee rejected a measure that would have stripped the long-standing authority to decide whether to pursue a case, especially those related to sexual assault, and hand the job to seasoned military lawyers. The vote was 34-28. …

The agency that manages the Pentagon Police Department and also runs networks and computers for the Office of the Secretary of Defense experienced a “catastrophic network technological outage” on Jan. 3, and repairs may not be complete until January 2015, an obscure document on the Federal Business Opportunities website revealed. A Defense Department spokesman attributed the outage to the failure of a legacy component. The contracting document, posted on May 2, said the outage experienced by the Pentagon Life Safety System Network and Life Safety Backbone left the Pentagon Force Protection Agency “without access to the mission-critical systems needed to...

The top two officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency said Wednesday that they will retire from those positions in the coming months, part of a leadership shake-up at an agency that is under pressure to trim budgets and shift focus after more than a decade of war, current and former U.S. officials said. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn is expected to end his tenure as DIA director this summer, about a year before he was scheduled to depart, according to officials who said Flynn faced pressure from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and others in recent months....

The Pentagon says Russia’s defense chief has assured Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Russia will not invade Ukraine. […] Hagel also asked for Russia’s help in gaining the release of seven inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who are being held in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists. …