Free Republic

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley attempted to speak with his Russian counterpart on Tuesday following a missile-caused explosion in Poland but was unable to get through, the top military official revealed Wednesday. Milley said his staff tried to connect him with Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov but they were “unsuccessful in getting me linked up. He instead spoke several times with his Ukrainian counterpart, with his Polish counterpart and with other chiefs of defense in Europe, Milley told reporters at the Pentagon U.S. officials are still waiting on more information as to the exact origin of a Soviet-era...

Afghanistan: At least 5 dead in jihad suicide attack on American aid group because they promoted gender equality “The Taliban have killed at least five people in a suicide attack” on the offices of a US aid group, Counterpart International” in the heart of Kabul. The reasons cited for the attack is that “one of its programmes was promoting open inter-mixing between men and women'” and other “harmful Western activities”. In Islamic doctrine, gender equality is non-existent. In full sharia style, “when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, before the US-led campaign to topple them in 2001, they barred women from education...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is a hard man to reach these days—especially if you’re Hillary Clinton. The U.S. Secretary of State tried for twenty-four hours to get Mr. Lavrov on the phone to discuss a draft resolution on Syria, with no luck, according to the transcript of a State Department briefing. Britain, France and the U.S. plan to make their strongest effort yet to push through a draft resolution calling for Syrian President Bashir Assad’s resignation. At least 5,400 people have been killed in the country’s 10-month long crackdown on protestors. Mr. Lavrov, who was in Australia when Mrs....

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (NNS) -- For the first time in the global war on terrorism, a reserve Seabee regiment is scheduled to relieve its active-duty counterpart in Iraq about mid-spring. Following the completion of Seabee readiness training at Naval Base Ventura County, the 9th Naval Construction Regiment (NCR) is slated to take the job of providing construction engineering support to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Forward (MEF) from the 30th NCR in Western Iraq. Cmdr. Mark Bellis, operations officer for the 9th NCR, said the reserve regiment is preparing to manage joint coalition construction assets over an area about the...