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The Pentagon will become more accommodating to individuals’ respective religions, according to updated instruction released today. A new Pentagon policy states that military departments will accommodate religious requests from individual service members unless a request would interfere with military readiness, a mission, unit cohesion, or good order and discipline. This would include religious clothing, facial hair, religious tattoos and piercings. The changes come after a Sikh American Army major complained to congressional staffers that fellow Sikhs should be able to wear a turban or maintain a beard while in uniform. Each request will be decided on a case-by-case basis, and...

The Pentagon on Wednesday relaxed its rules governing the religious apparel and facial hair that troops can wear or maintain while in uniform, permitting in some cases tattoos, body piercings and other religious items. The Defense Department issued the changes via a directive Wednesday afternoon. As part of the military's changing approach to making religious accommodations, the new policy will allow service members to sport different kinds of religious garb and hairstyles so long as they don't have an "adverse effect on military readiness, mission accomplishment, unit cohesion, and good order and discipline." The changes create several new categories, besides...

The Pentagon on Wednesday relaxed its rules governing the religious apparel and facial hair that troops can wear or maintain while in uniform, permitting in some cases tattoos, body piercings and other religious items.  The Defense Department issued the changes via a directive Wednesday afternoon. As part of the military's changing approach to making religious accommodations, the new policy will allow service members to sport different kinds of religious garb and hairstyles so long as they don't have an "adverse effect on military readiness, mission accomplishment, unit cohesion, and good order and discipline."  The changes create several new categories, besides...

With the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination this past November, I began revisiting the various conspiracy theories that have appeared over the years. I never put any stock in the Warren Commission and the establishment verdict of “Oswald as lone killer.” But among all the conspiracy portrayals put forth, none truly satisfied me as definitive. That is until I read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W. Douglass. There are hundreds of “JFK conspiracy” books in print, but Douglass takes the reader to places not visited by others eloquently and hauntingly. And...

War On Terror: By refusing to acknowledge the role of al-Qaida-linked terrorists in the Benghazi attack, the administration has kept our military from hunting down and killing people responsible for the deadly 2012 attack. There would seem to be no shortage of targets for America's fleet of drones after the Senate release of a report documenting, despite the efforts of the New York Times and others to revive the video lie, the presence and participation of terrorists from no fewer than four al-Qaida-affiliated groups on the ground in Benghazi. Among the al-Qaida-affiliated groups involved in the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist...

The Office of the Secretary of Defense has instructed the Navy to reduce its planned buy of the new Littoral Combat Ship from 52 to 32 ships, substantially limiting the size and scope of the emerging multi-mission, shallow-water ship program, according to reports. Defense News cites a Jan. 6 memo from Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox account announcing the decision pointing to budget guidance from the White House on some large acquisition decisions. Pentagon and Navy officials would not comment on the memo or the acquisition decision regarding LCS fleet size, citing budget deliberations as pre-decisional. “We continue to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon repeatedly waived laws banning Chinese-built components on U.S. weapons in order to keep the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program on track in 2012 and 2013, even as U.S. officials were voicing concern about China's espionage and military buildup. According to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters, chief U.S. arms buyer Frank Kendall allowed two F-35 suppliers, Northrop Grumman Corp and Honeywell International Inc, to use Chinese magnets for the new warplane's radar system, landing gears and other hardware. Without the waivers, both companies could have faced sanctions for violating federal law and the...

US President Barack Obama has signed a bill hindering the construction of GLONASS stations on the US territory. The document rules that the matter requires the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence to report the case to Congress first. Under the Republican-proposed bill, the Pentagon and CIA chiefs are to provide assurances that GLONASS stations will not be used for spying against the US or for improving the efficiency of Russian weapons, the New York Times says. The signing was preceded by protracted debates between various US agencies and departments. The bill reflects their authors’ suspicions towards...

Cards on the table: Obama Inc. is not only a criminal enterprise, but a regime gone completely wild. No amount of lipstick on a pig will change said ugly truths. Therefore, when enemies supplant friends and patriots become foes, the first targets of anti-American leadership are its front line defense – its armed forces! Why? Because without their forward arm there is no defense of the homeland. As such, doesn’t it make sense that anti-American leadership would target them first, in effect, making sure that demoralizing the troops is a priority? In tandem, U.S. military downsizing tops their list of...

China’s military forces are showing no signs of increased alert status or readiness for conflict despite high tensions with Japan over Beijing’s air defense zone overlapping U.S. and Japanese air defense coverage of the disputed Senkaku islands. A senior defense official said U.S. military monitors observed “no unusual military movements” by the Chinese military since the Nov. 23 declaration of the air defense identification zone, which the Pentagon has called “destabilizing.” Imposition of the new air defense zone has sharply increased tensions in East Asia. China has scrambled jets to patrol airspace that includes the Senkakus, which China is claiming....

<p>It must be understood, the Pentagon, under the reign of Barack HUSSEIN Obama, is less of a forward arm for America’s defense than a helpmate to its enemies. There you have it.</p>

China’s military imposed a destabilizing air defense zone over the East China Sea without consulting the United States, and top Pentagon leaders said Wednesday there have been no contacts with their Chinese counterparts since the zone was set up Nov. 23. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press conference at the Pentagon that the Chinese air zone is destabilizing the region. However, both leaders declined to urge China to roll back the air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, as Japan’s government has demanded of the Chinese. The lack...

Big-ticket weapons like aircraft carriers and the F-35 fighter jet have to be part of any conversation about cutting Pentagon spending to satisfy the mandatory budget reductions known as the sequester. But compensation for military personnel has to be on the table, too — even though no other defense issue is more politically volatile or emotionally fraught. After a decade of war, the very idea of cutting benefits to soldiers, sailors and Marines who put their lives on the line seems ungrateful. But America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is over or winding down, and the Pentagon is obliged to...

For two decades, the U.S. military has been unable to submit to an audit, flouting federal law and concealing waste and fraud totaling billions of dollarsLinda Woodford spent the last 15 years of her career inserting phony numbers in the U.S. Department of Defense’s accounts. Every month until she retired in 2011, she says, the day came when the Navy would start dumping numbers on the Cleveland, Ohio, office of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Pentagon’s main accounting agency. Using the data they received, Woodford and her fellow DFAS accountants there set about preparing monthly reports to square...

Political Correctness: A healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian man has unfair advantages in the U.S. military over other soldiers, says a training manual approved by the Pentagon, warning in great detail about a so-called White Male Club. Those who thought the U.S. military was already the ultimate level playing field, a place where skill and fighting ability were what mattered, not gender, race or religious belief, were sadly mistaken, at least according to a 600-plus-page manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers. According to the manual, put together by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), and...

<p>The number of sexual assaults reported in the military saw a double-digit surge over the last year — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that members are suffering more attacks, the Pentagon said, in its latest report.</p> <p>Instead, most of the 46 percent hike can be attributed to “victim confidence in our response system,” the Pentagon made clear, United Press International reported.</p>

The military must prepare for major upheaval, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Tuesday, because meeting the budgetary and security challenges of the future will “require significant change across every aspect of our defense enterprise.” And deep cuts in end strength could be just one of the results. (snip) “We may have to accept the reality that not every unit will be at maximum readiness, and some kind of a tiered readiness system is perhaps inevitable,” Hagel said. “This carries the risk that the President would have fewer options to fulfill our national security objectives.” (snip) “We will need to...

Senior military officials are leaning towards removing the National Security Agency director’s authority over U.S. Cyber Command, according to a former high-ranking administration official familiar with internal discussions. Keith Alexander, a four star general who leads both NSA and Cyber Command, plans to step down in the spring. No formal decision has been made yet, but the Pentagon has already drawn up a list of possible civilian candidates for the next NSA director, the former official told The Hill. A separate military officer would head up Cyber Command, a team of military hackers that trains for offensive cyber attacks and...

Doctors say a number of military personnel are turning to liposuction to remove excess fat from around the waist so they can pass the Pentagon’s body fat test. Some service members say they have no other choice because the Defense Department’s method of estimating body fat is weeding out not just flabby physiques but bulkier, muscular builds. …

The U.S. Army has appeared to do an about-face on some derogatory information recently released about the Christian conservative American Family Association (AFA). Fox News reported that in early October dozens of active duty and reserve Army troops were informed during a briefing at Camp Shelby in Mississippi that the respected pro-family organization should be classified as a hate group. According to Fox, during a slide presentation at the briefing the AFA was listed “alongside domestic hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam.” But after the story about the misinformation gained...