DragonI

Trump Is Said to Be Preparing to Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia

Facing the end of his time in power, the president is pushing to accelerate withdrawals from counterterrorism conflicts. He campaigned on ending the longstanding wars.

www.nytimes.com

Under a draft order circulating at the Pentagon on Monday, the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan would be halved from the current deployment of 4,500 troops, officials said.

In Iraq, the Pentagon would trim force levels slightly below the 3,000 troops that commanders had previously announced. And in Somalia, virtually all of the more than 700 troops conducting training and counterterrorism missions would leave.

Shortly before Mr. Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper last week and installed Christopher C. Miller as the acting Pentagon chief, Mr. Esper had sent a classified memo to the White House expressing concerns about accelerating the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, a senior administration official said.

• ✔️ Crimea  ❌ Ukraine
• ✔️ Syria and Betraying Kurds
• ✔️ Trade War with China
• ❌ Pull the U.S. out of NATO
• ❌ Getting Russia back into the G7 (G8)
• ✔️ Trump is the reason why Turkey, NATO ally, purchased Russian missile systems
• ✔️ Russia put on a bounty on American soldiers and Trump said nothing — did nothing
• ✔️ Destroying Democracy — delegitimizing elections
• ✔️ Iraq — abandoned NATIO allies
• ✔️ Afghanistan — abandoned NATIO allies
• ✔️ Dismantle U.S. institutions
• ❓

Esper was asked about potential retribution for Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman during a trip to New York City. The defense secretary said the Pentagon "has protections for whistleblowers" who report waste, fraud or abuse.

He said Vindman or any other whistleblower "shouldn't have any fear of retaliation," according to a transcript of the exchange released by online publication Defense One.

Esper responded by saying the Pentagon "has protections for whistleblowers -- they're guaranteed in law. And he shouldn't have any fear of retaliation. That's DoD's position," referring to the Department of Defense.

Read the Trump Administration’s Warning Letter to Laura Cooper

The No. 2 Pentagon official told Ms. Cooper, the military’s Russia-Ukraine expert, not to talk to Congress. She did anyway.

www.nytimes.com

• former federal prosecutor who held senior positions in both Bush administrations. 
• He served as chief of staff to William P. Barr in his first stint as attorney general in the George Bush administration,
• Had several roles in the George W. Bush administration, including as chief of staff to Robert S. Mueller III, then the director of the F.B.I., and as the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

Ms. Cooper is a senior specialist in Russia-related issues for the Pentagon. A career official, she was one of many who tried to get the Trump administration to release a large package of American military aid to Ukraine, which Congress had appropriated to help the country resist Russian aggression.

SEE THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS The letter to Ms. Cooper and a subpoena from the House. 

Shep Smith Torches Trump Over Dorian Map: ‘It Was Fake News Defined’

“Some things in Trumplandia are inexplicable,” an exasperated Shep said Thursday.

www.thedailybeast.com

With President Donald Trump continuing to double down on his bizarre false claim that Alabama was at one point in the path of Hurricane Dorian, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith took the president to task on Thursday afternoon for his days-long obsession of insisting he’s right over obviously inaccurate information.

Noting that the president has since spent days using “fake visual aids” to prove he was right all along, Smith then pointed out that the whole kerfuffle began on Sunday morning when the president erroneously said on Twitter (and in comments later that day) that Alabama was in danger of getting hit by the storm.

“That was wrong,” Smith stated, explaining that Trump’s goof was serious enough to warrant a correction by the National Weather Service at the time.

The Fox News anchor, who is known for his methodical fact-checks of the president, went on to highlight Trump’s refusal to admit his mistake which climaxed with him flashing a doctored hurricane map during a White House briefing on Wednesday.

6 Compelling Reasons Climate Change Might Be A National Emergency

Six compelling reasons climate change rises to the level of a national emergency

www.forbes.com|Marshall Shepherd

• America spends $26 Billion a year on oil, gas and coal subsidies. 
• June 2015: “The IMF says we spend $5.3 trillion a year on fossil fuel subsidies.”

Numerous reports by military entities note the immediate threats of climate change to national security. The American Security Project website compiles a good list of recent reports and articles on this topic. A 2019 Defense Department report stated:

“The effects of a changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to Department of Defense (DoD or the Department) missions, operational plans, and installations.”

I served as an expert scientist and author on a National Academy of Sciences report on climate change impacts on U.S. Naval Operations so have a first-hand view of this challenge. A top admiral is also quoted as saying climate change is the biggest threat in the Pacific not North Korea.

An array of public health concerns can be linked to climate change: increased heat related illness, vector-borne diseases in places they have traditionally not thrived, water-borne disease in flood waters, cardiovascular stress, injuries from extreme weather events, respiratory problems, and so forth. The Centers for Disease Control website says:

“Climate change, together with other natural and human-made health stressors, influences human health and disease in numerous ways. Some existing health threats will intensify and new health threats will emerge. Not everyone is equally at risk. Important considerations include age, economic resources, and location.”

Sea Level Rise. According to NOAA, nearly 40% of the U.S. population lived in counties bordering shorelines in 2010. By 2020, that number could be closer to 50%. A NOAA Ocean Services website is clear:

Increased sea level causes transportation issues because of "blue sky" flooding, threatens drinking water supply because of saltwater intrusion in some locations, and amplifies risk from hurricane-related storm surge. Many U.S. military installations are also at or below sea level, which creates challenges for the Department of Defense.

Scientific studies suggest that agricultural productivity is extremely vulnerable to climate change. The executive summary of a 2013 U.S.Department of Agriculture report led with the following statement:

The most recent National Climate Assessment discussed how fish and seafood stocks were also threatened. I documented such concerns in a previous Forbes article also.

This is an area where there is likely potential room for bipartisan collaboration in the political world. Everyone recognizes the importance of roads, bridges, electrical grids, railways, and buildings. However, the 2014 National Climate Assessment offered a dire warning:

“Sea level rise, storm surge, and heavy downpours, in combination with the pattern of continued development in coastal areas, are increasing damage to U.S. infrastructure including roads, buildings, and industrial facilities, and are also increasing risks to ports and coastal military installations. Flooding along rivers, lakes, and in cities following heavy downpours, prolonged rains, and rapid melting of snowpack is exceeding the limits of flood protection infrastructure designed for historical conditions. Extreme heat is damaging transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail lines, and airport runways.”

We can't survive without water. Period. It is that simple. This is arguably the greatest threat of all. Much of the world is already water-stressed and in recent decades, this problem has not been restricted to the developing world. Parts of the southern and western United States are struggling with water issues. The EPA website suggests that:

“In many areas, climate change is likely to increase water demand while shrinking water supplies. This shifting balance would challenge water managers to simultaneously meet the needs of growing communities, sensitive ecosystems, farmers, ranchers, energy producers, and manufacturers. In some areas, water shortages will be less of a problem than increases in runoff, flooding, or sea level rise. These effects can reduce the quality of water and can damage the infrastructure that we use to transport and deliver water.”

Trump Didn’t Understand Why S. Korea Is A US Ally A Year Into His Presidency

Trump wouldn't understand why the US couldn't abandon important ally South Korea a year into his presidency.

www.politicususa.com

What The Post’s story Tuesday didn’t detail, though, is that this exchange didn’t happen early in Trump’s presidency; it came on Jan. 19, 2018 — almost exactly one full year into it. 

It came months after North Korea had threatened an attack on Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. It also came a couple months after North Korea said it had developed a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could reach the continental United States.

What got Mattis’s goat, according to the book, was that he felt like they’d had this exact conversation many times before, and Trump refused to either remember or process it. As Mattis explained the reasons for a U.S.-South Korean alliance, Trump repeatedly returned to the idea that the United States is running a trade deficit with South Korea — suggesting the alliance was hurting the American economy.

The problem is that Trump’s instincts are consistently terrible. He makes the wrong choices at every turn. If Donald Trump weren’t born rich, he would have been a failure in life.

Trump’s ignorance is a threat to the world, which is why he is blowing a gasket over Bob Woodward’s book.

The myth of Donald Trump is being debunked and exposed.

Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

It’s been nearly three months since many Google employees—and the public—learned about the company’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as Project Maven, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people. Now, about a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company’s continued involvement in Maven.

gizmodo.com|Kate Conger

The employees who are resigning in protest, several of whom discussed their decision to leave with Gizmodo, say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions and seem less interested in listening to workers’ objections than they once did. In the case of Maven, Google is helping the Defense Department implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones. But some employees believe humans, not algorithms, should be responsible for this sensitive and potentially lethal work—and that Google shouldn’t be involved in military work at all.

In addition to the resignations, nearly 4,000 Google employees have voiced their opposition to Project Maven in an internal petition that asks Google to immediately cancel the contract and institute a policy against taking on future military work.

However, the mounting pressure from employees seems to have done little to sway Google’s decision—the company has defended its work on Maven and is thought to be one of the lead contenders for another major Pentagon cloud computing contract, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, better known as JEDI, that is currently up for bids.

More than 90 academics in artificial intelligence, ethics, and computer science released an open letter today that calls on Google to end its work on Project Maven and to support an international treaty prohibiting autonomous weapons systems. Peter Asaro and Lucy Suchman, two of the authors of the letter, have testified before the United Nations about autonomous weapons; a third author, Lilly Irani, is a professor of science and a former Google employee.

Pentagon Accidentally Exposes Web-Monitoring Operation

Anyone with a free AWS account could have accessed the data, which was stored on three cloud-based storage servers.

www.pcmag.com

DOD was reportedly collecting BILLIONS of public internet posts from social media, news sites, and web forums and storing them on Amazon S3 repositories. But it neglected to make those storage servers private. So anyone with a free Amazon AWS account could browse and download the data, according to Chris Vickery, a security researcher at UpGuard.

Vickery noticed the problem in September. "The data exposed in one of the three buckets is estimated to contain at least 1.8 billion posts of scraped internet content over the past 8 years," UpGuard said in a Friday report.

Much of the data was scraped from news sites, web forums, and social media services such as Facebook and Twitter. The information includes content relating to Iraqi and Pakistani politics and ISIS, but also social media posts made by Americans.

Why the Defense Department was collecting this information isn't clear. But it certainly raises eyebrows at a time when concerns persist about US surveillance programs.

Department of Defense creates new cyberunit in Silicon Valley

www.engadget.com

In order to better combat cyberthreats to national security, the US Department of Defense is setting up shop in Silicon Valley. At a lecture today at Stanford University, Defense Secretary Ash Carter outlined the department's new focus on cyberdefense, including tapping into the ecosystem of Silicon Valley to drive innovation against cyber attacks against "US interests." Carter announced that he's setting up the Defense Innovation Unit X (X stands for Experimental) inside the DOD, staffed by active-duty and military personnel alongside reservists. "They'll strengthen existing relationships and build new ones; help scout for new technologies; and help function as a local interface for the department," Carter explained. "Down the road, they could help startups find new work to do with DOD."

"But in addition to dangers, there are also really great opportunities to be seized through a new level of partnership between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley -- opportunities that we can only realize together," Carter continued. He went on to cite projects like Google's self-driving car and Apple's Siri that have roots in government-backed projects.

By 2018, the DOD wants to have a Cyber Mission Force of 133 teams in place. The teams are divided into four groups: National Mission, Cyber Protection, Combat Mission and Support. National Mission teams will "defend the United States and its interests against cyberattacks of significant consequence" while Cyber Protection keeps close watch on the DOD systems and networks. As you might expect, Combat Mission teams support those in combat on the internet front, and Support teams lend a hand to both National and Combat mission teams as needed.

If you'll recall, the Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it would set up a satellite office in Silicon Valley, too. It, like the DOD, is looking to strengthen relationships with tech companies in the area and recruit new talent. For the Department of Defense, attracting said talent means expanding its Fellows Program to allow one year of work in the government and a second in the private sector at companies like Oracle and Cisco.

These are all the countries where the US has a military presence