Free Republic

A former US ambassador to Bolivia charged with spying for Cuba for four decades told a judge on Thursday sensationally admitted to the charges and said he'd been gathering information for the rogue state since 1981. Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in December for what US officials called 'one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent.' Rocha pleaded not guilty two weeks ago to charges of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government but he told Judge Beth Bloom at a pre-trial conference on Thursday that he wanted...

A whistleblower has come forward with an explosive new trove of documents, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Files and Facebook Files in scale and importance. They describe the activities of an “anti-disinformation” group called the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, or CTIL, that officially began as the volunteer project of data scientists and defense and intelligence veterans but whose tactics over time appear to have been absorbed into multiple official projects, including those of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The CTI League documents offer the missing link answers to key questions not addressed in the Twitter Files and Facebook Files....

A Navy SEAL is under investigation for suspected association with unspecified extremist organizations after photos and videos surfaced of him speaking with members of the Proud Boys at parental rights protests, according to media reports and the visual documentation.Chief Special Warfare Operator Bryce Henson, who also goes by the pseudonym Ben Richards, became a known figure in his community for participating in parental rights protests and advocating against LGBTQ+ indoctrination at school board and city council meetings, Military.com reported. A local photographer began compiling photos and videos of Henson standing with Proud Boys members and documenting allegations of verbal harassment.He’s...

The U.S. Army is set to make major reductions to its special operations forces, and going after the Army’s elite warriors is no accident. In an ever increasing effort by the Biden Administration to inject the U.S. military with as much woke propaganda as possible, special forces units remain among the few areas the woke warriors have failed to gain traction. Diversity is a strategic imperative critical to mission readiness and accomplishment. We were on site for the 2023 inaugural @DoD_ODEI Summit as DEIA experts led forums to advance the DEIA and DoD mission — because our people matter. pic.twitter.com/VX42BC1Imo...

US special operators have played an instrumental role in the fight against terrorists and insurgent groups over the past 20 years. Now, as the Pentagon focuses on preparing for a conflict a near-peer or peer military, like China and Russia, the special-operations community is looking for ways to remain relevant in a completely different type of war. Army special-operations units are particularly concerned, as they make up most of the US Special Operations Command's (SOCOM) numbers.

Retired Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher was on Steve Bannon's War Room this morning, the segment last about 6 minutes but in the interview Gallagher said he had recently spoken with a friend still active duty, which I assume means the guy is a current Navy Seal, according to Gallagher the Navy the NCIS is investigating Special Operators for Social Media posts, likes, voting patterns basically anything that would show disagreement the current administration and labeling them an extremist, which sounded to me like those people would be out of the military in short order or basically their career is over....One...

The United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) confirmed it has reinstated its chief of diversity and inclusion, Richard Torres-Estrada, following an investigation into politically charged social media posts he made, including one that compared former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. SOCOM reassigned Torres-Estrada in late March after some of his social media posts drew attention for their anti-Trump and anti-Republican leanings. For example, on June 2, 2020, he tweeted a meme that criticized Trump by comparing a photo of him to a doctored photo of Hitler. He added the caption: “Here I leave this and slowly retire (to continue...

(SOCOM announced his selection the same week it unveiled a diversity and inclusion plan with a vision to not only recruit more women and people of color, but to retain them and support them with the goal of diversifying the special operations community’s leadership.)Richard Torres-Estrada, the first-ever chief diversity and inclusion officer for the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), has been allowed to return to his duties this week after being investigated over past social media posts, including one comparing then-President Donald Trump to Hitler.“Mr. Torres-Estrada has resumed the duties of the Chief of Diversity & Inclusion for United States...

The new diversity and inclusion chief for the U.S. military’s Special Operations Command, Richard Torres-Estrada, has been reassigned pending the results of an investigation into politically-charged social media posts he made before he was hired, a spokesman told Breitbart News on Monday. “Mr. Torres-Estrada has been assigned other duties at USSOCOM pending the results of the investigation,” said SOCOM spokesman Kenneth McGraw in an email. He also confirmed the commander of SOCOM, Army Gen. Richard Clarke, has initiated an investigation into the social media posts, which included a meme comparing former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.

United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has hired as its first “chief of diversity and inclusion” a person who posted anti-Trump memes on his Facebook page, including one that compared the former president to Adolf Hitler. After his hire was announced, some of Torres-Estrada’s apparent social media posts began circulating. A Facebook account appearing to belong to Torres-Estrada posted on June 2, 2020: “Here I leave this and slowly retire (to continue working from home)…” along with a meme of then-President Donald Trump, holding up a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church after Black Lives Matter protesters set...

The Defense Department today started the process of elevating special operations forces on par with military departments per authority from the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, according to the acting defense secretary. Christopher C. Miller directed the assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict to report directly to him. His announcement was made today to troops at Fort Bragg, N.C."This reform will immediately improve agility to the department and the command and will enable us to streamline information flow, enhance decision making, and more adaptively and adeptly support our commanders and their superb soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines," he...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A former Army Green Beret pleaded guilty Wednesday to divulging military secrets to Russia about his Special Forces unit's activities in former Soviet republics. Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, of Gainesville, Virginia, pleaded guilty to a charge under the federal Espionage Act at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in February. Debbins, a Minnesota native, had a 15-year relationship with Russian intelligence, dating back to 1996 when he was an ROTC student at the University of Minnesota and on a visit to Russia for...

If President Trump doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office. Last week I attended two memorable events that reminded me why we care so very much about this nation and also why our future may be in peril. The first was a change of command ceremony for a storied Army unit in which one general officer passed authority to another. The second event was an annual gala for the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) Society that recognizes past and present members of the intelligence and Special Operations community...

Deep in the dark North Carolina woods, a small white light flickers in the heavy underbrush. It’s after midnight and a soldier is taking a risk by turning on his headlamp to find his way.

Army Master Sgt. Matthew O. Williams will receive the Medal of Honor this month for his lifesaving actions in the frozen mountains of eastern Afghanistan’s Nuristan province during a 2008 mission to kill or capture a high-value target, the White House announced Thursday. President Donald Trump will award the nation’s highest military honor to the Green Beret in a White House ceremony Oct. 30, the administration said in a statement. The award will be an upgrade of the Silver Star that Williams initially received for his role in the fight that would become known as the Battle of Shok Valley....

It was only a matter of time… Since 2015, no woman has successfully made it through SFQC, or the Special Forces Qualification Course since Ash Carter, with a stroke of a pen, created the single greatest disaster in US military history, the authorization for women to serve in the combat arms and special operations units. But, that is about to change… The army’s leaders, which in 2017, consist mainly of social justice warriors, flaming liberals and back-stabbing ticket-punching, perfumed princes, have consistently demonstrated that they possess neither the warrior ethos nor the moral courage to challenge the social engineering insanity...

per the WeaponsMan Blog: I’m sorry to have to tell you all that my brother Kevin O’Brien, host of this blog, passed away peacefully this morning at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Let me start with some housekeeping. First, the email address hognosecommunity@comcast.net remains active and you may get more and better updates there. I say this because frankly I’m having trouble posting here. I don’t know Kevin’s WordPress password and I’m afraid that if I restart his computer, I will not be able to post any more because the password will not autofill. Therefore I can’t guarantee I...

A top US commander warns Caribbean and South American countries are unable to track 100 foreign fighters that could return from Syria. Americas The war in Syria has attracted roughly 100 foreign fighters from the Caribbean who could easily make their way to the United States, said the top U.S. military commander for the southern hemisphere. With little ability to track and monitor foreign fighters when they return, it would be relatively easy for those fighters to “walk” north to the U.S. border along the same networks used to traffic drugs and humans, according to Gen. John Kelly, commander of...

In 2001 a group of Castroite spies in south Florida known as the Wasp Network were convicted of charges ranging from espionage to conspiracy to commit murder (of U.S. citizens.) They were sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to two life sentences. According to the FBI’s affidavit, the charges against these KGB-trained Communist spies included: • Compiling the names, home addresses, and medical files of the U.S. Southern Command’s top officers and that of hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica Naval Station in Key West.• Infiltrating the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command.This past April, on Obama’s orders,...

A U.S. Navy SEAL killed by Islamic State militants during an "extremely heavy, extremely intense" firefight with U.S. forces and Kurdish Peshmerga troops in northern Iraq Tuesday was identified Tuesday evening by Arizona's governor. He was identified Tuesday evening by Gov. Doug Ducey as Charlie Keating IV. Ducey ordered all state flags be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset Wednesday in honor of Keating, who was a graduate of Phoenix's Arcadia High School. The 31-year-old Keating attended the Naval Academy before becoming a Navy Seal based out of Coronado, California Keating was the grandson of Charles Keating, Jr., the...