Free Republic

Assigns case to Muslim chaplain who graduated from radical Islamic school raided after 9/11. The Pentagon has agreed to formally review an anti-terror training program taught to special forces by a private contractor for material deemed offensive to Islam and Muslims, even though the Muslim group that lodged a complaint against the allegedly “Islamophobic” program has been accused by the Justice Department of supporting terrorism and is currently banned from outreach activities by the FBI. The instructor hired to teach the program says he fears his class might not get a fair hearing, because military brass have assigned the review...

The US Army has executed its grand rotary-wing aviation restructuring plan that saw the ousting of hundreds of Bell JetRanger derivatives from service—653 airframes in total. These included the Army's entire fleet of 187 TH-67 Creek primary trainers and the roughly 340 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance/armed scout helicopters that performed so brilliantly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, just months after the final Kiowa Warriors were officially retired, the US Army is whining about how badly they need...an armed scout helicopter. Under the same aviation plan, the OH-58D was partially "replaced" by far more complex and expensive AH-64E Apache Guardian...

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Picatinny Arsenal, New JerseyThe Picatinny Arsenal is an American military research and manufacturing facility located on 6,400 acres of land in Jefferson Township and Rockaway Township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, encompassing Picatinny Lake and Lake Denmark. The Arsenal is the headquarters of the United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center. It is known for developing the ubiquitous Picatinny rail, as well as being the army's center of expertise for small arms cartridge ammunition.Picatinny Arsenal is the Joint Center of Excellence for Guns and Ammunition, providing products...

FULL TITLE.........................'We are running out of bombs': US admiral warns military is hitting ISIS so heavily stocks are running low.................. US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris testified before a Senate committee He admitted intensive operations against ISIS have depleted stocks of bombs He also warned the US needed to improve anti-missile and ship defences Admiral Harris also told the Senate he needed a replacement for cluster bombs

The U.S. Army soon will begin searching for a 7.62mm rifle to become its formal squad designated marksman rifle for combat platoons and squads. A recent directed requirement from Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel Allyn prompted Army weapons officials to write a new requirement, and most likely they will conduct a competition that will result in the service equipping each combat arms squad with a new 7.62mm squad designated marksman rifle, Matt Walker, deputy for the Lethality Branch at the Maneuver Center for Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia, told Military.com. Equipping units with SDM rifles so they can shoot...

Advice for Trump: Revise U.S. Military Manuals Corrupted by Obama’s Pentagon One of President Donald James Trump’s and Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis’ primary endeavors should be to rollback the damage done to the Pentagon’s military manuals, curricula for training of officers and enlisted men, and the other material compromised by eight-years of political correctness seeping into the military. As part of former President Barack Obama’s mission to “win the hearts and minds” of people who despise the United States of America, including those who live in the U.S., the Pentagon released new military manuals that pleased groups...

The White House is giving the Pentagon greater flexibility to determine the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, in another move by President Trump to shift greater power to his military leaders. The decision will give Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to send more forces into Syria, to assist U.S.-backed local troops as they move to retake Raqqa from the Islamic State group, which has used the city as a de facto capital. It will also let him adjust the force numbers in Iraq, in the ongoing fight to oust ISIS from Mosul and stabilize it as...

President Trump's push for a big military buildup in legislation funding the government is likely to go unfulfilled next week, when Congress returns and quickly tries to agree on how to keep the government open after April 28. A $578 billion bill that funds the Pentagon through September and provides some modest increases has already been hammered out by lawmakers in both chambers and passed by the House. While there is talk of a week-long extension before the big bill is passed, the main bill is likely to be the basis of all defense spending for the rest of the...

The US military that won Desert Storm or Gulf War I in 1991 was a spectacular military, a gargantuan industrial age military with high tech weaponry and well trained personnel, that when called upon, achieved victory with the speed of Patton and the elan of Teddy Roosevelt. Overlooking the vast eight mile carnage on the Highway of Death in Kuwait, destruction that was caused by a US Air Force and Navy that bore almost no resemblance to the two services now, a sergeant in the 7th US Cavalry remarked, “America sure got its money’s worth from those Joes.” In 44...

... After USA dropped the GBU-43 bomb on Afghanistan, it’s been reported that at least 36 terrorists from ISIS have been killed. ... The GBU-43 is a large-yield conventional (non-nuclear) bomb developed by the United States and having a kill radius of 1.6 km. It weighs a massive 21,600-pound, and is GPS-guided. The bomb is designed to be delivered by a C-130 Hercules. The first testing of the GBU-43 was carried out on 11 March 2003 at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was again tested on 21 November 2003. ...

The venerable Tomahawk cruise missile, used in conflicts big and small since 1991, took center stage once again in an April 7 strike that rained some five dozen of the weapons upon a Syrian airfield believed to have launched a chemical attack. But its end is in sight, if not exactly imminent. The U.S. Navy, which currently has some 4,000 Tomahawks, plans to stop buying the venerable weapon in the next few years. Service leaders haven’t fully articulated their plans to replace it, but they have started talking about the need for a “Next Generation Land Attack Weapon” slated to...

Army chief Gen. Mark Milley had just warned the House Armed Services Committee that if Congress punts on a new defense budget at the end of this month, it will result in American deaths on the battlefield. . . . Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., cut off the general during his answers and argued that lawmakers should not have to approve new war funding without details on how it will be spent. "General, where is the war plan for ISIS? You were told to have it done in 30 days," Garamendi said. Milley declined to discuss what he said is classified...

Even before her now-famous MSNBC comments explaining why "you have the leaking" on alleged ties between Trump officials and Russia, former defense official Evelyn Farkas had undertaken a media campaign to pressure her old colleagues in the Obama administration -- even Barack Obama himself -- to disclose what they knew. Farkas, who left the administration in 2015 after serving as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, raised eyebrows in the March 2 interview on MSNBC when she said there had been a rush to share information before President Trump took office. “I was urging my former colleagues, and frankly speaking,...

The Islamic terrorist front group that transformed the way U.S. law enforcement agencies conduct anti-terrorism training is ordering the Air Force to sever ties with an instructor it considers to be anti-Muslim. The question is will the Trump administration cave into its demands? Under Barack Obama, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that reportedly raises money for Hamas, wielded tremendous power and managed to bully law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal level to alter counterterrorism training materials deemed by the group to discriminate against Muslims. This includes getting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to...

Late last week, after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed the White House of the likely fall-out from the WikiLeaks cable dump, the White House came back with a question: "What's our corrective action?" Clinton's undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy, had a simple suggestion: pull the plug on SIPRNet, the classified DoD network that PFC Bradley Manning reportedly used to download the cables from State's inhouse classified database. "The White House said do it," says a senior administration official. The publication by WikiLeaks of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, many of them classified, is forcing an administration-wide intelligence retrenchment as...

Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis wants to nominate a senior fellow at a Soros-funded think tank as undersecretary at the Pentagon, as the embattled Cabinet official continues to clash with the White House over prospective nominees. Politico reports that Mattis wants Rudy deLeon — a senior fellow at the far-left Center for American Progress (CAP) — to come on board as undersecretary for personnel and readiness. DeLeon previously served in the Clinton administration as deputy secretary of defense. During that time, Gen. Mattis served as his senior military assistant. DeLeon worked for Boeing as senior vice president from 2001 to...

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real, and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves. In unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis said it was incumbent on the U.S. military to consider how changes like open-water routes in the thawing Arctic and drought in global trouble spots can pose challenges for troops and defense planners. He...

<p>Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn retired senior diplomat Anne W. Patterson as his choice for undersecretary for policy after the White House indicated unwillingness to fight what it said would be a battle for Senate confirmation.</p> <p>U.S. officials said that two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), were strongly opposed to Patterson’s nomination because she served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013, a time when the Obama administration supported an elected government with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that was ultimately overthrown by the Egyptian military.</p>

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ pick for undersecretary of defense for policy, Anne Patterson, is problematic. Politico briefly explains why: If nominated and confirmed, Patterson would hold the fourth most powerful position at the Pentagon -- and would effectively be the top civilian in the Defense Department, since both Mattis and his deputy, Robert Work, were military officers. As ambassador to Egypt between 2011 and 2013, Patterson worked closely with former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Islamist government. She came under fire for cultivating too close a relationship with the regime and for discouraging protests against it -- and...

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ pick for undersecretary of defense for policy, Anne Patterson, is problematic. Politico briefly explains why: If nominated and confirmed, Patterson would hold the fourth most powerful position at the Pentagon -- and would effectively be the top civilian in the Defense Department, since both Mattis and his deputy, Robert Work, were military officers. As ambassador to Egypt between 2011 and 2013, Patterson worked closely with former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Islamist government. She came under fire for cultivating too close a relationship with the regime and for discouraging protests against it -- and...