Category Archives: US Military

Biden says ‘I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan’ – live

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Michael Avenatti, the former lawyer to Stormy Daniels who repeatedly clashed with Donald Trump during his presidency, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for trying to extort Nike.

Reuters reports:

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said Avenatti, 50, ‘had become drunk on the power of his platform’ in betraying his client, a youth basketball coach, in order to obtain riches for himself.

The sentencing caps a precipitous downfall for a once-obscure lawyer who in 2018 became a cable news fixture, disparaging then-President Trump and even flirting with a White House run himself.

Joe Biden rejected comparisons between the end of the Vietnam War and the conclusion of the war in Afghanistan, insisting the two events are nothing alike.

However, some American veterans have said they feel the US military is leaving a job undone in Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam. Some also fear that Kabul will soon fall to the Taliban, as Saigon fell after US troops departed Vietnam.

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Afghan anger over US’s sudden, silent Bagram departure

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Military officials say troops turned off power and slipped away without notifying new commander

US forces plunged their main operating base in Afghanistan into darkness and abandoned it to looters when they slipped away in the middle of the night after two decades at the site without notifying their Afghan allies.

The furtive departure from Bagram airbase, which is vital to the security of Kabul and holds about 5,000 mostly Taliban prisoners, infuriated the Afghans. Many saw it as emblematic of a withdrawal they say is being carried out entirely to fit an American political schedule, with no heed for the collapsing security situation on the ground.

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US strikes hit Iran-backed militia facilities in Iraq and Syria

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Pentagon says air strikes were in response to drone attacks against US personnel in Iraq

The US has carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria, in response to drone attacks against US personnel and facilities in Iraq.

The strikes on Sunday targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, the Pentagon said.

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‘I want to understand’: top US general defends studying critical race theory in military – video

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Top Pentagon leaders on Wednesday passionately defended the military's approach to addressing racism and said that it was important for personnel to study critical race theory, after Republican rep Matt Gaetz and others questioned them about it, saying it was lowering moral.

Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said the military need not apologize for fostering open-mindedness and that he wants to  'understand white rage'.

Critical race theory is a concept developed by academics and leading scholars of jurisprudence, with intellectual origins in the 1960s which were organized officially in the late 1980s. The theory states that racism is embedded both in US history and modern American law. It holds that legal institutions in the US are inherently racist.

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Mysterious packages washed ashore at Cape Canaveral turn out to be cocaine

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Wildlife manager discovers nearly 20 packages at Florida space force station

The mystery of more than 20 unidentified floating objects that washed up on the beach at Florida’s Cape Canaveral space force station was solved when the contents turned out to be more than 60lb of cocaine, apparently lost from a passing trafficker’s boat.

The discovery was made by a wildlife manager who was surveying turtle nests and spotted one of the square packages, bound tightly in plastic wrapping, lying on the sand.

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‘Get to work’: US defence chief tells Pentagon to sharpen China focus

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Lloyd Austin says directive is about ensuring that dealing with the threat from Beijing remains a priority

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has directed the Pentagon to sharpen its focus on China, which the United States has tagged as its top strategic rival.

“Now, it is up to the department to get to work,” Austin said on Wednesday after issuing an internal directive to the Pentagon bureaucracy.

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US government report finds no evidence UFOs were alien – but doesn’t rule it out

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Officials cannot explain strange movements in skies that baffle the US military and scientific establishment, New York Times reports

US intelligence authorities have not found any evidence that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) seen by navy pilots in recent years were otherworldly alien spacecraft– but apparently did not rule it out, either.

Officials cannot explain the strange movements in the skies that continue to baffle the US military and scientific establishment, the New York Times has reported, based on information from senior administration officials who were briefed on the outcome of a much-awaited government assessment about these phenomena.

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Microwave weapons that could cause Havana Syndrome exist, experts say

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Russia and possibly China have developed technology capable of injuring brain and a US company made a prototype in 2004

Portable microwave weapons capable of causing the mysterious spate of “Havana Syndrome” brain injuries in US diplomats and spies have been developed by several countries in recent years, according to leading American experts in the field.

A US company also made the prototype of such a weapon for the marine corps in 2004. The weapon, codenamed Medusa, was intended to be small enough to fit in a car, and cause a “temporarily incapacitating effect” but “with a low probability of fatality or permanent injury”.

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How the ‘good war’ went bad: elite soldiers from Australia, UK and US face a reckoning

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As coalition troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years, former soldiers, key officers and the public are asking what went wrong with some special forces

“Whatever we do … ,” one Australian special forces soldier said of his service in Afghanistan, “I can tell you the Brits and the US are far, far worse.

“I’ve watched our young guys stand by and hero worship what they were doing, salivating at how the US were torturing people. You just stand there and roll your eyes and wait for it to end.”

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‘Democracy itself is in peril’: Biden delivers Memorial Day speech – video

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Joe Biden warned in a speech commemorating the US's war dead on Memorial Day that American democracy was 'in peril' and called for empathy among his fellow citizens.

Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, the president, joined by the first lady, Jill Biden, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and her husband, paid tribute to America’s war dead

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Man in Black at 50: Johnny Cash’s empathy is needed more than ever

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The country star is not always remembered for his politics, but his about-face to withdraw support for Nixon and the Vietnam war may be his finest moment

“I speak my mind in a lot of these songs,” Johnny Cash wrote in the liner notes to the album Man in Black, released 50 years ago today. He might be better known now for the outlaw songs of his youth or the reckonings with death in his final recordings, but Cash used his 1971 album to set out his less-discussed political vision: long on feeling and empathy, and short on ideology and partisanship. The United States seemed hopelessly polarised, and Cash confronted that division head-on, demanding more of his fellow citizens and Christians amid the apparently endless war in Vietnam.

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Whistleblower who spoke out on UFOs claims Pentagon tried to discredit him

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  • Luis Elizondo lodges complaint with defense inspector general
  • Defense department accused of disinformation campaign

A Pentagon whistleblower known for speaking out about UFOs is accusing his former agency of waging a disinformation campaign against him, a report says.

Luis Elizondo, who headed the Pentagon’s now-defunct Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, lodged a complaint with the defense department’s inspector general claiming malicious activities, professional misconduct and other offenses at the agency, according to Politico.

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US ship fires 30 warning shots after Iranian vessels approach fleet

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Coast guard vessel takes action after 13 Iranian fast boats come within 150 yards in strait of Hormuz

A US coast guard ship fired about 30 warning shots as a group of 13 Iranian fast boats sped toward US navy vessels in the strait of Hormuz, in what the Pentagon called “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuvers by the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGCN).

The incident marked the second time within the last month that US military vessels have had to fire warning shots because of what they said was unsafe behavior by Iranian vessels in the region, after a relative lull in such interactions over the past year.

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Thousands of Afghans flee as fighting erupts after US troop withdrawal begins

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Fighting between government forces and the Taliban has broken out in Helmand province

Thousands of Afghans have fled their homes in Helmand province as fierce fighting between government forces and the Taliban erupted after the US military began withdrawing its remaining troops.

Afghan forces pushed back a string of insurgent attacks on checkpoints across the southern province, where the US military on Sunday handed over a base to government forces as part of its formal pullout that began on 1 May.

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The US is pulling out of Afghanistan. But it will never leave those of us who served there

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Historians will judge America’s longest war. Now, the sounds of helicopters over my home take me back to Losano Ridge, Gardez, the men I fought for and those who did not return

I am one of more than 800,000 American military veterans who have served in Afghanistan since 2001. Tens of thousands more served in other capacities, from intelligence and diplomacy to aid and development. It’s fair to ask whether the end of the war affects how one views his or her own small role in the effort. If we didn’t “win”, whatever winning means in a war like this, did we matter? Were the sacrifices in vain?

Related: Damned either way, Biden opts out of Afghanistan as US tires of ‘forever wars’

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Pentagon confirms leaked photos and video of UFOs are legitimate

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US defense department says images of blinking triangular object in the sky and other UFOs were taken by navy personnel in 2019

Furthering the growing interest in unidentified flying objects, or what the US government refers to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), the Department of Defense confirmed on Thursday that recently leaked photos and videos of UFOs were legitimate and taken by navy personnel.

Sue Gough, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, confirmed to CNN that images and footage of a blinking triangular object in the sky, along with other UAPs that were categorized as a “sphere”, “acorn” and “metallic blimp”, were taken by navy personnel in 2019.

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US has ‘low to moderate confidence’ in reports of Russian bounty on US troops

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  • US intelligence evaluates claims of Afghanistan bounties
  • Press reports sparked outrage and calls to confront Kremlin

US intelligence agencies have only “low to moderate confidence” in reports last year that Russian spies were offering Taliban militants in Afghanistan bounties for killing US soldiers.

The reports in the press citing intelligence sources sparked outrage and demands from Democrats for the Trump administration to confront the Kremlin over the issue.

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Joe Biden: ‘It’s time for American troops to come home from Afghanistan’ – video

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Joe Biden has declared that it is time ‘to end America’s longest war’, announcing that nearly 10,000 US and Nato troops would return home in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Biden said he was the fourth US president to serve in office during the US-led fight against the Taliban. ‘I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth,’ he said

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