Key word being focus, he'll be all in until something distracts him. Maybe Melania can dangle her keys in front of him.
USA's Unfinished Wars
- Thread starter Ocean Breeze
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Key word being focus, he'll be all in until something distracts him. Maybe Melania can dangle her keys in front of him.
He won’t get funding from congress regardless if he has the fortitude or not .
Iraq asks U.S. to set up mechanism for troop withdrawal
In a phone call on Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi asked the United States to send a delegation to Iraq to set up a mechanism for troop withdrawal from the country. The Iraqi parliament voted to expel thousands of U.S. troops following a drone attack on Iraq that killed senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...4058ea-32f8-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html
Winning hearts and minds!
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KABUL, Afghanistan — A drone attack carried out by U.S. forces earlier this month in western Afghanistan that apparently targeted a splinter Taliban group also killed at least 10 civilians, including three women and three children, an Afghan rights official and a council member said Wednesday.
According to the Afghan official, who is on the country’s Human Rights Commission, the strike took place in western Herat province, in the district of Shindanad. Five other civilians, including two children, were wounded, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
There was no immediate comment from the Afghan military or the U.S. forces. But Wakil Ahmad Karokhi, a provincial council member in Herat, said the Jan. 8 strike also killed the commander of a Taliban splinter group, known as Mullah Nangyalia, along with 15 other militants.
The commanders funeral the following day was held in the Herat provincial capital's Guzargah neighbourhood, and was attended by dozens of militants.
The Taliban today control nearly half of Afghanistan, and continue to stage near-daily attacks targeting Afghan and U.S. forces, even as they hold peace talks with Washington and have given a U.S. peace envoy a document outlining their offer for a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan.
Scores of Afghan civilians have also been killed in the crossfire and by roadside bombs planted by militants or in anti-Taliban operations undertaken by government forces assisted by American troops.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...1.23.20&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief
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KABUL, Afghanistan — A drone attack carried out by U.S. forces earlier this month in western Afghanistan that apparently targeted a splinter Taliban group also killed at least 10 civilians, including three women and three children, an Afghan rights official and a council member said Wednesday.
According to the Afghan official, who is on the country’s Human Rights Commission, the strike took place in western Herat province, in the district of Shindanad. Five other civilians, including two children, were wounded, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
There was no immediate comment from the Afghan military or the U.S. forces. But Wakil Ahmad Karokhi, a provincial council member in Herat, said the Jan. 8 strike also killed the commander of a Taliban splinter group, known as Mullah Nangyalia, along with 15 other militants.
The commanders funeral the following day was held in the Herat provincial capital's Guzargah neighbourhood, and was attended by dozens of militants.
The Taliban today control nearly half of Afghanistan, and continue to stage near-daily attacks targeting Afghan and U.S. forces, even as they hold peace talks with Washington and have given a U.S. peace envoy a document outlining their offer for a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan.
Scores of Afghan civilians have also been killed in the crossfire and by roadside bombs planted by militants or in anti-Taliban operations undertaken by government forces assisted by American troops.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...1.23.20&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief
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YEAR 18
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"KABUL, Afghanistan — Nearly half of all Afghans want U.S. and NATO troops to leave Afghanistan once a peace deal to end the country’s 18-year war is signed with the Taliban, according to a survey released Thursday.
The American Institute of War and Peace Studies also found that an overwhelming 80% of Afghans surveyed said a political solution was the only way to bring about an end to fighting. Twenty percent said a military solution was possible.
The survey found that 46% of Afghans want U.S. and NATO troops out of the country once a deal is struck, while 33% would have them stay.
The survey polled 5,038 Afghans in 34 provinces. It was conducted between Nov. 23-Dec. 20 and has a 5% margin of error. Sixty-one percent of participants answered online with the remaining 39% were interviewed in person.
While 57% of those surveyed wanted the Taliban to evict the foreign fighters among them. Many of those foreigners are believed to have links to al-Qaida and other militant organizations.
more
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...t-after-taliban-peace-deal/?utm_source=clavis
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O.K.then......
The ones who want US troop to remain know their goose is cooked for consorting with the invaders.
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"KABUL, Afghanistan — Nearly half of all Afghans want U.S. and NATO troops to leave Afghanistan once a peace deal to end the country’s 18-year war is signed with the Taliban, according to a survey released Thursday.
The American Institute of War and Peace Studies also found that an overwhelming 80% of Afghans surveyed said a political solution was the only way to bring about an end to fighting. Twenty percent said a military solution was possible.
The survey found that 46% of Afghans want U.S. and NATO troops out of the country once a deal is struck, while 33% would have them stay.
The survey polled 5,038 Afghans in 34 provinces. It was conducted between Nov. 23-Dec. 20 and has a 5% margin of error. Sixty-one percent of participants answered online with the remaining 39% were interviewed in person.
While 57% of those surveyed wanted the Taliban to evict the foreign fighters among them. Many of those foreigners are believed to have links to al-Qaida and other militant organizations.
more
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...t-after-taliban-peace-deal/?utm_source=clavis
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O.K.then......
The ones who want US troop to remain know their goose is cooked for consorting with the invaders.
How much of the country did you report in your article above report that the Taliban controlled? Coincidentally the same percentage as the article you just posted makes sense why 50% of Afghanistan want them out.
Would America Iraqi allies attack the hand that feeds them, or turn over F-16 to Iran or, God forbid, the Ruskies?
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"Security relations between the United States and Iraq, a critical U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group and efforts to counter Iranian influence in the region, have been tested in recent weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump approved a Jan. 3 drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani on Iraqi soil. Suleimani’s death sparked outrage across Iraq, prompting the Iraqi parliament to vote on a nonbinding resolution to expel U.S. troops from the country.
Tensions only increased after Iran launched a retaliatory missile strike against U.S. and coalition targets in Iraq on Jan. 7, sending U.S. forces and their Iraqi counterparts scrambling and leaving more than 50 U.S. troops with various degrees of traumatic brain injuries. Tehran has since signaled an end to direct military action, but Iraqi militia groups linked to Iran such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) continue to conduct lower-level attacks on outposts across the country. U.S. and Iraqi forces are on high alert; the State Department has urged all nonmilitary U.S. personnel to leave the country.
Since the contractors left Balad, some officials are concerned that the weapons, technology, and components associated with the F-16s could be vulnerable. Some say it’s only a matter of time before PMF militias—Asaib Ahl al-Haq is active in the area around Balad, according to Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—can access Balad Air Base, and quite possibly the weapons the contractors were there to protect.
One U.S. official familiar with the F-16 program told Foreign Policy the “biggest concern” is securing the F-16’s sensitive technology. “We just have absolutely no way to verify what they are looking at, what they’re carrying away,” the official said.
“Right now, at Balad, there’s nothing. There’s no U.S. personnel at all providing security,” the official told Foreign Policy. “As far as the technology, once that’s compromised, that’s compromised and there’s nothing we can do,”
“Nobody’s going to stop them,” one former Iraqi Air Force F-16 pilot told Foreign Policy.
Other American officials are more confident about the security of the systems. One U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said the planes and related equipment are being “well guarded” by Iraqi soldiers. "
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a lot more bla-bla in betwixt
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"After 10 years of supplying the Iraqi Security Forces with billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and training, the report cautions, “an irregular army of lightly equipped ISIS terrorists defeated the internationally supported and equipped ISF, murdered Iraqi leaders, and brutalized Iraqi citizens with very little resistance,” with Islamic State forces taking advantage of Iraqi assets.
The desire of the Iraqi government to maintain the mirror-image military that the United States has tried so fervently to stand up is in doubt, too, according to one former senior U.S. official.
“In the past few years, Iranian-influenced members of the Iraqi parliament have sought to reduce funding for the main line Iraqi defense forces—the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Counterterrorism Service—and increase funding to the irregular Popular Mobilization Forces,” the former senior official said. "
MAGA !
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/3...1.31.20&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief
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"Security relations between the United States and Iraq, a critical U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group and efforts to counter Iranian influence in the region, have been tested in recent weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump approved a Jan. 3 drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani on Iraqi soil. Suleimani’s death sparked outrage across Iraq, prompting the Iraqi parliament to vote on a nonbinding resolution to expel U.S. troops from the country.
Tensions only increased after Iran launched a retaliatory missile strike against U.S. and coalition targets in Iraq on Jan. 7, sending U.S. forces and their Iraqi counterparts scrambling and leaving more than 50 U.S. troops with various degrees of traumatic brain injuries. Tehran has since signaled an end to direct military action, but Iraqi militia groups linked to Iran such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) continue to conduct lower-level attacks on outposts across the country. U.S. and Iraqi forces are on high alert; the State Department has urged all nonmilitary U.S. personnel to leave the country.
Since the contractors left Balad, some officials are concerned that the weapons, technology, and components associated with the F-16s could be vulnerable. Some say it’s only a matter of time before PMF militias—Asaib Ahl al-Haq is active in the area around Balad, according to Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—can access Balad Air Base, and quite possibly the weapons the contractors were there to protect.
One U.S. official familiar with the F-16 program told Foreign Policy the “biggest concern” is securing the F-16’s sensitive technology. “We just have absolutely no way to verify what they are looking at, what they’re carrying away,” the official said.
“Right now, at Balad, there’s nothing. There’s no U.S. personnel at all providing security,” the official told Foreign Policy. “As far as the technology, once that’s compromised, that’s compromised and there’s nothing we can do,”
“Nobody’s going to stop them,” one former Iraqi Air Force F-16 pilot told Foreign Policy.
Other American officials are more confident about the security of the systems. One U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said the planes and related equipment are being “well guarded” by Iraqi soldiers. "
.........................
a lot more bla-bla in betwixt
.......
"After 10 years of supplying the Iraqi Security Forces with billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and training, the report cautions, “an irregular army of lightly equipped ISIS terrorists defeated the internationally supported and equipped ISF, murdered Iraqi leaders, and brutalized Iraqi citizens with very little resistance,” with Islamic State forces taking advantage of Iraqi assets.
The desire of the Iraqi government to maintain the mirror-image military that the United States has tried so fervently to stand up is in doubt, too, according to one former senior U.S. official.
“In the past few years, Iranian-influenced members of the Iraqi parliament have sought to reduce funding for the main line Iraqi defense forces—the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Counterterrorism Service—and increase funding to the irregular Popular Mobilization Forces,” the former senior official said. "
MAGA !
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/3...1.31.20&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief
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Iran did it.... NOT !!! (Borat voice).
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The wreckage of a U.S. military plane that crashed and burned in a snowy mountainous region in Afghanistan on Monday was still fresh when Iranian state TV ran a story claiming a top CIA officer was among the dead. Like all good propaganda, the story was mostly false, but with a scintilla of truth. Two American service members had been killed when the U.S. Air Force jet slammed into the snowy ground, but U.S. officials insist there was no CIA onboard.
A combination of bad weather and Taliban gunfire kept U.S. and Afghan forces from reaching the site for more than a day. By the time the U.S. military put out a brief statement saying that the downed plane carried two U.S. Air Force pilots, the dubious story had spread around the globe.
After a couple of fringy Iranian and pro-Kremlin news outlets reported that Michael D’Andrea, head of the CIA’s Iran Mission Center, was onboard the E-11A communications jet, the story was picked up in The Daily Mail, a major British tabloid, and a second British newspaper, The Independent, carried the news of D’Andrea’s alleged demise to London, albeit with some skepticism. While the Pentagon confirmed to TIME on Friday that there were only two Air Force officers on the plane, none of the official public statements say they were the only passengers. And the CIA has refused to comment on whether D’Andrea or any other CIA personnel were onboard.
The U.S. military says it could not have gotten the news out sooner. But the Iranian version of events that circulated in the information vacuum had people inside and outside the U.S. wondering who to believe. The Trump Administration’s now-familiar pattern of slow, incomplete and sometimes disingenuous responses to events has ground down public and internal trust of its messaging and created an opportunity for adversaries like Iran and Russia to spread disinformation and sow confusion among allies and U.S. officials. The wrong information can spread about an event whether it happened on a remote Afghan mountainside or a maximum-security American compound. “If false reports are not authoritatively or convincingly disproven, they can take on a life of their own,” James Cunningham, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan told TIME. “Once that happens, it’s very hard to undo that.”
https://time.com/5775758/military-crash-cia-disinformation/
........................................................
The wreckage of a U.S. military plane that crashed and burned in a snowy mountainous region in Afghanistan on Monday was still fresh when Iranian state TV ran a story claiming a top CIA officer was among the dead. Like all good propaganda, the story was mostly false, but with a scintilla of truth. Two American service members had been killed when the U.S. Air Force jet slammed into the snowy ground, but U.S. officials insist there was no CIA onboard.
A combination of bad weather and Taliban gunfire kept U.S. and Afghan forces from reaching the site for more than a day. By the time the U.S. military put out a brief statement saying that the downed plane carried two U.S. Air Force pilots, the dubious story had spread around the globe.
After a couple of fringy Iranian and pro-Kremlin news outlets reported that Michael D’Andrea, head of the CIA’s Iran Mission Center, was onboard the E-11A communications jet, the story was picked up in The Daily Mail, a major British tabloid, and a second British newspaper, The Independent, carried the news of D’Andrea’s alleged demise to London, albeit with some skepticism. While the Pentagon confirmed to TIME on Friday that there were only two Air Force officers on the plane, none of the official public statements say they were the only passengers. And the CIA has refused to comment on whether D’Andrea or any other CIA personnel were onboard.
The U.S. military says it could not have gotten the news out sooner. But the Iranian version of events that circulated in the information vacuum had people inside and outside the U.S. wondering who to believe. The Trump Administration’s now-familiar pattern of slow, incomplete and sometimes disingenuous responses to events has ground down public and internal trust of its messaging and created an opportunity for adversaries like Iran and Russia to spread disinformation and sow confusion among allies and U.S. officials. The wrong information can spread about an event whether it happened on a remote Afghan mountainside or a maximum-security American compound. “If false reports are not authoritatively or convincingly disproven, they can take on a life of their own,” James Cunningham, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan told TIME. “Once that happens, it’s very hard to undo that.”
https://time.com/5775758/military-crash-cia-disinformation/
The idea that making war on and occupying someone leads to the enemy making use of your own technology and know-how against you is really worth exploring.
I would help explain how the Taliban is right back in charge of Afghanistan again - and this time they will be even harder to displace
I would help explain how the Taliban is right back in charge of Afghanistan again - and this time they will be even harder to displace
Turn the F-16 over to Iran?
LMAO... go ahead... we can give them an F4U Corsair as well.
They can barely keep the F-14s we gave them in the air.