Military Aviation

Trump: No Options Off the Table in Response to Syria Gas Attack

President Trump, minced no words on Monday as he said, the United States is pondering its options for a military strike against the rogue regime of President Assad in Syria. After Syrian forces gassed their own civilians in the city of Douma, Trump vowed that any country involved in the attack will “pay a price.”

As he began a Monday evening meeting with military leaders at the White House, Trump promised to “make a decision tonight or very shortly thereafter.” He said: “We have a lot of options militarily, and we’ll be letting you know pretty soon. Probably after the fact.”

The White House sharply rejected any suggestion that Trump’s own words about pulling U.S. troops out of Syria had opened the door for the attack, which killed more than 40 people, including children.
Trump, asked at midday whether Russian President Vladimir Putin bore any responsibility for the weekend attack, responded: “He may, yeah, he may. And if he does it’s going to be very tough, very tough.” He added: “Everybody’s gonna pay a price. He will. Everybody will.”
Then, during the meeting with top military leaders, he said the weekend assault “will be met and it will be met forcefully.” Those at the meeting included Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford.
Amid the tough talk at the White House, the U.S. military appeared to be in position to carry out any attack order. A Navy destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, was underway in the eastern Mediterranean after completing a port call in Cyprus. The guided missile destroyer is armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the weapon of choice in a U.S. attack one year ago on an airfield in Syria following an alleged sarin gas attack on civilians.

As the U.S. ponders its next move, tensions are getting higher between the U.S. and Russia, the highest since the days of the Cold War. President Trump reiterated that no stone will remain unturned. “If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out.”

To read the entire article from Chicago Examiner, click here:

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US Claims That It was Not Behind Missile Attack in Syria

Syrian state-run media has announced a missile attack early Monday morning on an airbase in Homs province. The Syrians pointed the finger at the U.S. for the attack on the T4 airbase where 14 people including Iranians were killed.

Russian officials claimed that the planes attacking the base were Israeli F-15s and that they shot down all of the missiles.

U.S. officials said the United States was not responsible for the strikes in Syria. The French news agency reports that France’s military has also denied responsibility for the strikes.
“However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable,” Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood said in a statement.
Syria has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons throughout the conflict that began in 2011, including the most recent suspected chemical attack Saturday in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus that killed at least 40 people.
Late Sunday, the White House said President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron strongly condemned chemical attacks in Syria and agreed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government “must be held accountable for its continued human rights abuses.”
“They agreed to exchange information on the nature of the attacks and coordinate a strong, joint response,” the White House said about a phone call between the two leaders.
Macron’s office added that the two sides “exchanged information and analysis confirming the use of chemical weapons.”
Trump further called for Syria to open the area of the alleged chemical attack to allow in verification and medical teams.
The Russian foreign ministry rejected claims of a chemical attack, saying, “The spread of bogus stories about the use of chlorine and other poisonous substances by (Syrian) government forces continues.
“We have warned several times recently against such dangerous provocations,” the Moscow statement said. “The aim of such deceitful speculation, lacking any kind of grounding, is to shield terrorists and to attempt to justify possible external uses of force.”

The attack in Ghouta where hundreds of families were gassed in their basements came hours after the Syrian government supposedly reached an agreement with the rebel forces there to exchange prisoners and leave the city.

Trump in a rare rebuke of Putin lashed out at him and Russia for the support of “the animal Assad” and vowed that there would be “a big price to pay” for the attack.

To read the entire article from Voice of America, click here:

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Working on DOD AI Project Left Some Google Employees “Livid”

More than 3100 Google employees have written a letter to their CEO Sundar Pichai demanding that the company immediately cancel its contract with the U.S. military on a drone program known as Project Maven.

There’s a motto at Google: “Don’t be evil.”
Today, more than 3,000 Google employees fear their company is on the verge of breaching that code by helping the U.S. military improve its spy drone software.
“We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” the letter states. “Therefore we ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicize and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.” [The 22 Weirdest Military Weapons]
Project Maven, which Google signed onto last month, fits into the DOD’s larger goal of improving America’s ability to “[win] wars with computer algorithms and artificial intelligence,” DOD officials said in a statement. Google agreed to help with this mission by developing artificial intelligence software capable of rapidly scanning thousands of hours of surveillance drone footage and automatically detecting “38 classes of objects” that military analysts regularly look for.
Despite a Google spokesperson’s assurance that their new tech would be “for non-offensive uses only,” many Google employees were instantly wary of the partnership, Gizmodo reported. In the new complaint letter, which is currently circulating within Google, employees voiced their concerns about the tech’s potential applications in warfare.
“The technology is being built for the military,” the letter says, “and once it’s delivered it could easily be used to assist in [lethal] tasks.”

Part of the letter also sought assurances from the DOD that Project Maven would not be used for offensive purposes. There are no signs from Google, however, that they intend on canceling their contract.

To read the entire article from Live Science, click here:

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The Atomic Bomb That Fell on a Farm in South Carolina

Not many farmers can say a nuclear bomb fell less than 100 yards from the farmhouse and remained to tell the story but a family in South Carolina can.

Sixty years ago, on March 11, 1958, an Air Force bomber dropped a nuclear weapon on a farm in the rural Mars Bluff community outside Florence. The radioactive payload either wasn’t loaded in the warhead or didn’t detonate — the stories differ.
But the TNT trigger for the bomb blew a crater in Walter Gregg’s garden some 24 feet deep and 50 feet wide. The blast shredded his farmhouse about 100 yards away. Hudson, a cousin, had been playing with two of Gregg’s children in the backyard.
The atomic warhead would have been 30 kilotons — twice as powerful as the bomb that devastated Hiroshima in World War II. Florence, five miles away, would have been obliterated. Most of the rest of the 30,000 residents of Florence County would have been wiped out or sickened by radiation.
You’d think the crater site would be one of those ghoulish attractions that become a heavily promoted tourist site. But today it sits almost in obscurity on private property, in the woods at the edge of the backyard of a home in a modest neighborhood near Francis Marion University.
An information kiosk and a wooden silhouette of the 10-feet-tall, 7,600-pound bomb stand near what’s left of the hole, which is silting in. Hurricane debris limbs have been tossed along its rim and a few Pepsi and Bud Lite cans are scattered around. There’s no sign from the road to show it’s there.
No one died or was seriously injured in the Mars Bluff blast. But the Gregg family came away with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Walter Gregg eventually sued and was awarded $36,000, according to the exhibit at the Florence County Museum. That wasn’t enough to rebuild the house, much less replace the possessions lost or stolen in the aftermath, Holladay said.
“My daddy resented it all his life.”

The military had several mishaps with nuclear weapons in the 1950s including another drop outside Tybee Island, GA where a nuclear weapon was dropped and landed in the silt where it remains offshore.

To read the entire article from Charleston Post & Courier, click here:

Photo courtesy AP

What Trump’s $700 Billion in the Defense Budget Pays For

The new omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill that President Trump signed last week, the Pentagon’s budget rose to the most in their history, $700 billion.

The military budget approved on Friday is packed with funding for new weapons as well as upgrades for older systems.

On Tuesday, CNN reported that Trump has privately floated the idea of using that military budget to fund construction of a border wall with Mexico. Trump discussed that idea in a private meeting last week with House Speaker Paul Ryan, a source familiar with the conversations said, as he reviewed the omnibus spending bill, which does not include funding for construction of a wall.
It was not immediately clear how serious Trump was about pursuing this option, but the move would likely face steep hurdles with appropriators in Congress.
Trump said the military spending was one of the major reasons he signed the bill, which had earlier threatened to veto.
“Our military is very depleted, but it’s rapidly getting better. And in a short period of time it will be stronger than it has ever been,” Trump said, touting some weapons systems as the best the world has ever seen.
“We in the military are humbled and grateful to the American people for their sacrifices on behalf of this funding,” Secretary of Defense James Mattis said. “Now it’s our responsibility in the military to spend every dollar wisely in order to keep the trust and the confidence of the American people and the Congress.”
In the cases of several items, Congress gave the Pentagon even more than it asked for.

The F-35 and F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, an improved AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, the Ford-class aircraft carrier and the Littoral combat ship are just some of the big-ticket items on the slate for the Pentagon with this budget.

To read the entire article from CNN, click here:

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US Helicopter Crashes in Iraq With Seven Troops on Board

U.S. officials have confirmed that a U.S. military helicopter with seven troops on board has crashed in western Iraq. Reports state that there is no indication currently that the aircraft was shot down.

The HH-60 Pave Hawk is an aircraft that the U.S. Air Force uses for combat search and rescue and was in transit from one location to another when it went down Thursday afternoon near the U.S. base in al-Qaim in Anbar Province.

The U.S. officials said rescuers were responding to the location, but other details were not yet available.
Government officials in Baghdad told CBS News the Iraqi Army 8th division was assisting U.S. forces to secure the crash site.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who was traveling back to the U.S. from Bahrain, was briefed on the crash.
The U.S.-led coalition battling insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has an outpost in al-Qaim, which is located near the Syrian border. The anti-ISIS campaign accelerated through much of last year, as coalition and Iraqi forces battled to take back a string of cities and towns.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over IS in Mosul in July. In the following months Iraqi forces retook a handful of other IS-held towns including Tal Afar in August, Hawija in September and Qaim in October.
The U.S.-led coalition has continued to work with Iraq and Syrian Democratic Forces to shore up the border region to make sure that foreign fighters and insurgents can’t move freely across the region.

“Rescue teams are responding to the scene of the downed aircraft at this time,” a statement from Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, part of the U.S. Central Command said.

There are no reports available for casualties at the present time.

To read the entire article from CBS News, click here:

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Starship Troopers? Trump Calls for New Military “Space Force”

President Trump spoke in front of thousands of military members in California on Tuesday and heaped lavish praise on their dedication and successes and promised that his administration is planning on bestowing the “largest pay raise in over a decade,” and even suggested the creation of a new military branch — the “Space Force.”

The president spoke to thousands of military men and women at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Calif., Tuesday, following his visit to review border wall prototypes.
“I have a message for you straight from the heart of the American people, and you know what that is — we support you, we love you and we will always have your back like you have ours,” Trump said, also praising military spouses and families for their service.
“For too long, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces have been asked to do more with less,” Trump said, listing “underinvestment,” deferred modernization and maintenance, old equipment and having “fewer ships than we should, fewer planes than we should, and fewer of you than we should.”
“Today I am very proud to report that all of that is changing, and as you have seen, all of that is changing quickly,” Trump said, noting that his administration sees “peace through strength.”
“We are finally going to lead again. Very soon, we’re going to Mars —you wouldn’t be going to Mars if my opponent won. You wouldn’t even be thinking of it,” Trump said, in a swipe at Hillary Clinton.
That’s when the president went on to introduce his “new national strategy for space.”
“Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” Trump said. “We may even have a Space Force — we have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force, you know, the Army, the Navy.”
He added: “I said, maybe we need a new force, I was not really serious, but now I’m thinking that’s a great idea. We’re making a Space Force. Tremendous.”
The president noted that astronauts have been “soldiers and sailors,” and said that service members will be “vital” to “ensuring America continues to lead its way into the stars.”

The president then went on to praise the work of the military in defeating the Islamic State stating “ISIS never thought this would happen.” It was a busy day for the President, earlier he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replaced him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and tagged career CIA employee Gina Haspel for the top spot in the agency replacing Pompeo.

Democrats in Congress are already aligning against her for her running a CIA site of an “advanced interrogation site” which was accused of torture during the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

To read the entire article from Fox News, click here:

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Russia Test Fires Hypersonic Kinzhal Nuclear-Capable Missile

The Russian military successfully test-fired a new, nuclear-capable hypersonic missile which was announced by President Putin earlier this month.

Putin showed video graphic where nuclear missiles were raining down on the state of Florida in the United States.

The country’s defence ministry released video footage showing the missile detaching from a fighter jet and leaving a fiery trail behind it.
It said the intended target was hit.
On 1 March, Mr Putin described the Kinzhal missile – named after a type of dagger – as “an ideal weapon”.
He said it was part of a new stockpile of “invincible” weapons.
The Kinzhal is said to travel at 10 times the speed of sound and have a range of 2,000km (1,200 miles).
The defence ministry said the missile was launched from a MiG-31 jet that took off from an airfield in south-west Russia on Saturday.
“The launch went according to plan, the hypersonic missile hit its target,” the ministry said.
Mr Putin is widely expected to be re-elected as Russia’s president in a week’s time.
As part of his annual state of the nation speech on 1 March, Putin played a video graphic that appeared to show missiles raining down on the US state of Florida.
The US state department said this was not “the behavior of a responsible international player”.

With Putin’s election all but assured, his boldness is coming thru, from an attack on U.S. troops in Syria by Russian contractors, the unsafe buzzing of American aircraft in international airspace, the nerve gas attack on an ex-Russian spy in Britain…now showing graphic video of a nuclear attack on Florida.

To read the entire article from the BBC, click here:

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USS Lexington, “The Lady Lex” Found in the Pacific

The aircraft carrier USS Lexington, sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, has been found by a team of wreck-hunters led by the billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

The Lexington was the first aircraft carrier ever to be sunk in combat. But during the battle, her planes also sunk the Japanese carrier Shoho and stopped a Japanese drive on Australia. A month later, the Japanese lost four carriers in attempting to invade the tiny island of Midway. It would alter the course of the war.

Allen’s team of researchers found the USS Lexington’s sunken wreckage 500 miles off Australia’s eastern coast in the Coral Sea, about 3km below the surface, resting on the floor.
“To pay tribute to the USS Lexington and the brave men that served on her is an honor,” Allen said in a statement on his website announcing the discovery.
“As Americans, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to everyone who served and who continue to serve our country for their courage, persistence and sacrifice.”
Lady Lex was launched in 1925, four years after construction work started. Less then two decades later, she would be fatefully deployed in the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
“Lexington was on our priority list because she was one of the capital ships that was lost during WWII,” said Robert Kraft, director of subsea operations for Allen.
“Based on geography, time of year and other factors, I work with Paul Allen to determine what missions to pursue. We’ve been planning to locate the Lexington for about six months and it came together nicely.”

Because over 200 of her crew died defending the ship and still on-board no attempt will be made to raise it. The Japanese had severely crippled the ship during attacks and after the crew abandoned ship, the Lexington was scuttled by US torpedoes.

To read the entire article from Newsweek, click here:

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Russian Plane Crash in Syria Kills 39 on Board

A Russian transport plane crashed in Syria, killing 39 passengers and crewmembers as it was attempting to land at Hmeimin air base in northwest Syria, Russian state media reported.

Initial reports put the crash as a technical malfunction and not combat related. Hmeimin is located about 150 miles north of Damascus and is home to the Russians largest base in Syria.

All 33 passengers and six crew members were killed in the crash, state-run RIA-Novosti reported, citing the Defense Ministry. Earlier, it had been reported that 32 people had died.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the incident by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a working visit to Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, the Kremlin said in a statement.
The crash occurred as the Antonov-26 transport plane came down 500 meters (about 550 yards) short of the runway, the Defense Ministry said in a statement quoted by the state-run news agency, Tass.
The ministry said it was investigating the crash, adding that “preliminary data suggests it could be a technical malfunction.” It also ruled out the possibility that the plane had been fired upon.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case over the crash, committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko told Tass.
Tuesday’s crash was not the deadliest air incident related to Russia’s military intervention in Syria.
In December 2016, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft crashed after taking off from the Adler airport near the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, killing 84 passengers and eight crew members. The plane was carrying more than 60 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, the Russian army’s official dance and choir company, on its way to Syria to give a holiday performance for troops.
Putin visited Hmeimin in December, using the opportunity to meet with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad.

Most Russian people support their involvement in the war in Syria, but opposition politicians were quick to point fingers at the Putin administration.

“How does the draw-down of forces look now? For the sake of what are these people dying? When will this senseless war end?” Dmitry Gudkov, a former member of parliament said on social media.

To read the entire article from CNN, click here:

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