Women May Be Drafted

If the U.S. military prioritizes "true and pure equality," women might eventually have to register for the draft.

So, said Army Secretary John McHugh at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting in Washington on Monday, reports Military.com. 

McHugh added that the issue -- if and when it arises -- should be determined by Congress, not the Department of Defense.

"If your objective is true and pure equality, then you have to look at all aspects and at some point Selective Service will have to be one of those things considered very carefully," said McHugh, according to The Washington Examiner.

McHugh added he expects the issue would prompt much "emotional discussion and debate."

Women are not currently required to register for the draft, although a New Jersey woman earlier this year sued the U.S. Selective Service System in an attempt to change that policy.

In 2013, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lifted the ban on women serving in combat roles.

“If members of our military can meet the qualifications for a job -- and let me be clear, we are not reducing qualifications -- then they should have the right to serve,” Panetta said at the time.

He also speculated that the move could eventually lead to the inclusion of women in the Selective Service.

Note: 
I am sure that some women see serving in the military as their right and if that is what they want to do, then they should have that right... 

but, if women are simply drafted into the military like men have been in the past, I doubt that they will see being drafted as their right... 

being told that you have to do something is a whole lot different than volunteering to do something.

In a Budget Crunch

The "friendly fire" airstrike that killed five American soldiers in Afghanistan on June 9 is the first known case of a battlefield catastrophe that can be linked to automatic defense spending cuts that greatly curtailed prewar training.

A review of the worst American fratricide in the long Afghanistan War also shows that the military's official investigation faults a Green Beret commander, an Air Force air controller and the four-man crew on the B-1B bomber that conducted the errant strike.

But the investigation, headed by an Air Force general, does not question the use of a strategic bomber for close air support, even though experts say the tragedy illustrates why the big plane is misplaced in that role.

The Washington Times has reviewed the investigation and interviewed knowledgeable sources to compile a picture of the doomed operation in southern Afghanistan's Zabul province, as well as the political and military missteps that precipitated it. Key among them, according to defense experts, was the use of the strategic bomber.

The B-1B's sheer size required it to fly a wide orbit of five miles for optimum bombing as it made right turns over the nighttime battle site. This put it outside the range of night vision goggles. The goggles were the only equipment the bomber had to identify the infrared strobe lights worn by U.S. troops to distinguish them from the enemy and to keep them safe.

The pilot, looking out the right window, tried to see infrared flashes, apparently unaware that he was too far away. He reported to the ground controller that he saw no infrared strobes, which became confirmation that the U.S. troops were the enemy.

This misuse of night vision goggles directly led to the crew dropping two 500-pound bombs on five U.S. soldiers, two Green Berets and three accompanying soldiers.

Some had warned this might happen. Several lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Committee members Kelly Ayotte and John McCain, have criticized the Air Force for its decision last year to retire all A-10 Warthogs, the only aircraft devoted to close air support and a weapon loved by the infantry. 

Mr. McCain became incensed when he learned one of the A-10 replacements was the B-1B, saying the wide-winged aircraft was totally unsuited for close air support's requirement to sort out friendlies from the enemy in crowded combat.

When the Fighting is Over...

A former member of SEAL Team Six has become the poster girl for a Pentagon effort to include transgenders — people who have undergone sex-change operations — in the ranks.

Kristin Beck (above), formerly Senior Chief Petty Officer Christopher Beck, spoke recently at several high-profile events at intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to promote the integration of transgenders.

"Transgender service in the armed forces, yes it will happen soon," she said on Twitter.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, among the most politically correct Pentagon chiefs of the past several decades, fueled the effort within the Pentagon to integrate transgenders in May when he said the policy of banning transgenders should be reviewed continually. 

The transgender drive is the latest element of the Obama administration's social engineering within the U.S. military.

The Pentagon currently defines transgenders as sexual deviants.

Among Ms. Beck's recent appearances were speeches at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, according to the DIA and her Twitter feed.

She also was scheduled to speak to the Multicultural Heritage Committee at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, although one defense official said it is not clear how transgenderism fits within the multicultural spectrum.

Ms. Beck, author of "Warrior Princess," spoke to the DIA on June 18 as part of the intelligence agency's annual "Pride Month" — formerly "Gay Pride Month" but now expanded to include a host of sexually related terms, including transgenders. 

She received an award from DIA Director Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at the event.

According to DIA's newsletter, Ms. Beck, in her remarks, pushed for allowing transgenders in uniform. She said the Pentagon should stop defining people by external appearances and accept what they say they are on the inside.

"We are all, all of us, created equal, and we all deserve equal justice," she said, explaining how she hid her true sexual identity during her military career.

As a man, Ms. Beck was part of SEAL Teams One, Five and Six and was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

Since sex reassignment last year, Ms. Beck has sought to promote gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender acceptance in the military.

China Grows Its Military Capabilities

Click on photo to enlarge

Away from the Chinese military’s expanding capabilities in cyberspace and electronic warfare, Beijing is growing the size and reach of its naval fleet, advancing its air force and testing a host of new missiles, the Pentagon recently said.

An annual report to Congress on China’s evolving military capability concluded that the modernization was being driven in part by growing territorial disputes in the East and South China seas, as well as by Beijing’s desire to expand its presence and influence abroad.

But the main motivation remains Beijing’s concern over the possibility of hostilities in the Taiwan Strait, according to the report, which downplayed the notion that a recent thaw in relations between China and Taiwan has done anything to seriously mitigate the threat of a military conflict between the two countries.

“Despite positive public statements about cross-Strait dynamics from top leaders in China following the re-election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in 2012, there have been no signs that China’s military disposition opposite Taiwan has changed significantly,” the Pentagon report said. 

“The [People’s Liberation Army] has continued to develop and deploy military capabilities to coerce Taiwan or to attempt an invasion, if necessary.”

The report’s release Thursday coincided with a visit to The Washington Times by Taiwanese diplomats, who said they want to renew their request to obtain some of the Pentagon’s coveted F-35 Joint Strike Fighters or, perhaps, its F-22 Raptor fighter jets.

The island country recognizes that it has an increasingly important role to play in the Obama administration’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. 

Click on photo to enlarge

And since Taiwan is an important ally of the United States, “it is important for the U.S. to think of a way to show its substantial support for Taiwan,” said Kwei-Bo Huang, Taiwan’s secretary general of the association of foreign relations.

A Defense Department official told reporters Thursday that the Pentagon remains vigilant about tracking the Chinese military progress toward modernizing its weapons and acquiring new ones. 

“We continue to monitor and document the Chinese military’s capabilities, particularly in the region of Taiwan,” the official said.

Breaking News...

China is considering building an island – so, with tensions already high between its many South China Sea neighbors, Beijing could further strain relations…  read more…

Suicide is a Crime

At least 22 veterans commit suicide each day, according to the Veterans Affairs Department. This adds up to more than 2,000 veterans killing themselves so far this year alone, and the military community is facing what advocates refer to as a suicide epidemic.

To help address the growing problem, Democratic Sen. John Walsh of Montana introduced legislation last week that includes provisions to force the Pentagon to reexamine troops who were discharged for PTSD-related behaviors—which can include nightmares, flashbacks, changes in personality, sleeping disorders, and suicidal thoughts.

The bill also expands veterans' eligibility to enroll in VA health care from five to 15 years after leaving the military. The current system doesn't take into account the fact that some veterans have a delayed reaction to trauma after they leave the service, according to veterans' advocates.

Walsh, who is one of the first Iraq War combat veterans to serve in the Senate, is also a member of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which backs the bill. Fifty-one percent of Iraq or Afghanistan War veterans know someone who has attempted or committed suicide, according to a recent Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation survey. 

"Red tape and government dysfunction have blocked access to the care that saves lives," Walsh said in a statement.

But a key hurdle remains for Walsh's legislation: how to pay for it.

A cost estimate has yet to be released from the Congressional Budget Office, but when asked about how Walsh planned to pay for the legislation, his spokesman said that Walsh has described the bill as part of "the cost of war."

But this approach is similar to the "paid in full" slogan Senate Democrats attached to a failed proposal earlier this year from Sen. Mark Pryor to reverse roughly $6 billion in cuts to veterans' pensions. And in Congress's fiscally conscious atmosphere, Republicans demanded that funding be offset by something.

Walsh is, however, open to adding a pay-for to his legislation.

A stalled omnibus veterans bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also has mental-health provisions, including extending combat eligibility and focusing on education and training for mental health professionals.

But senators blocked Sanders's legislation in February, with Senate and House Republicans alike criticizing the use of war funding to pay for the veterans bill.

Walsh's bill is the first part of a three-step, yearlong outreach program kicked off last week by IAVA to raise awareness about the suicide crisis.

IAVA President Paul Rieckhoff hopes President Obama will issue an executive order before Memorial Day by pressing the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department to integrate electronic health records. He also hopes the president will create a standardized method for tracking suicides and suicide attempts among veterans and military family members.

National tracking of veterans suicide rates is unreliable at best. Even the VA—whose 22-per-day estimate has become the go-to standard—had to build its nationwide statistic with information available from only 21 states.

The veterans advocacy group will also spend the year reaching out to communities across the country to help raise awareness.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told members of the Senate that the department is broadening how it tries to reach veterans, such as by expanding "telemental health capabilities," including a 24/7 crisis line—which the VA says has saved more than 35,000 lives. It's also available via text message. VA staffers respond to veterans who text on a range of issues including chronic pain, anger, and depression.

"It's getting the veterans who reach out where they are, in whatever medium is comfortable to them," said Caitlin Thompson, the VA's deputy director of suicide prevention.

The Department of Veterans Affairs requested a slight increase in its mental health funding in the 2015 budget request—up to $7 billion from $6.9 billion in fiscal 2014. The VA expanded its mental health funding by 64 percent between 2009 and 2014. It's also increased its mental health force by 2,400 people since 2012.

Thompson added that the VA has found that veterans who aren't in VA care are more likely to commit suicide than those who aren't. Of the 22 veterans that commit suicide every day, the VA estimates that only one in five of them are in VA health care.

Zach McIlwain, who served two combat tours with the Army in Iraq, is a part of that outreach. McIlwain, like many veterans, returned to the United States suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.

"Basically I found myself where I was slowly sinking in quicksand," McIlwain said, crediting his wife with urging him to get the help that saved him.

McIlwain also pointed out that communities can do much more to help veterans adapt to civilian life.

"It's not just Congress, it's not just the president—it's back in the local communities, welcoming these service member back home."

Attempting suicide is currently considered a crime under the military's rules, and something IAVA is hoping to get changed.

"A big piece of this is removing stigma ," McIlwain said. "There's concerns about, 

'Is this going to affect my employment, is this going to affect my security clearance when I'm in the military?' "

Iran Postures

Iranian warships headed to the U.S. coast pose little danger to the United States but could be a dry run for the future, according to former U.S. military and security officials.

The mission shows the danger Iran would pose if it possessed nuclear weapons, says John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and an arms negotiator during the Cold War.

"It shows they could put a weapon on a boat or freighter, and if (Iran) has ballistic missiles it could put it anywhere on the U.S. coast," Bolton said. "Down the road it could be a threat."

Chris Harmer, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War and a former military planner for the U.S. Navy in Persian Gulf, said one of the two ships is a military cargo ship that has visited China in the past and is suspected of delivering Iranian arms shipments to Sudan on multiple visits to that country in the past few years.

While it poses no tactical threat to the United States, Iran will likely use it to advance its relationship with its ally Venezuela, a U.S. adversary in the Caribbean.

"It shows the Iranians have worldwide ambitions and capabilities," Harmer said.

 Iran's military has successfully test-fired two new domestically made missiles, the defense minister said on Monday according to state television, ahead of talks with world powers to try to reach an agreement on curbing Tehran's nuclear program.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said one of them was a long-range ballistic missile with radar-evading capabilities.

"The new generation of long-range ground-to-ground ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead and the laser-guided air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missile dubbed Bina (Insightful) have been successfully test-fired," state television quoted him as saying.

"The Bina missile is capable of striking important targets such as bridges, tanks and enemy command centers with great precision."

Iran already has long-range surface-to-surface Shahab missiles (above) with a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles) that are capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East. 

However, analysts have challenged some of Iran's military assertions, saying it often exaggerates its capabilities.

President Hassan Rouhani issued a congratulatory message saying: "Iran's children successfully test-fired a new generation of missiles," the television reported.

The news comes as the United States and other world powers prepare to meet Feb. 18 with Iranian diplomats in Vienna to seek a comprehensive agreement about Iran's disputed nuclear program. 

Iran seeks an agreement that would eliminate economic sanctions over its nuclear program that have crippled its economy. The United States seeks to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Parts is Parts

The Pentagon has 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 F-35 program could have faced further delays.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is examining three such cases involving the F-35, the U.S. military's next generation fighter, the documents show.

The GAO report, due March 1, was ordered by U.S. lawmakers, who say they are concerned that Americans firms are being shut out of the specialty metals market, and that a U.S. weapon system may become dependent on parts made by a potential future adversary.

The waivers apply to inexpensive parts, including $2 magnets, installed on 115 F-35 test, training and production aircraft, the last of which are due to be delivered in May 2014. Lawmakers noted that several U.S. companies make similar magnets.

Lockheed is developing the F-35, the Pentagon's costliest arms program, for the United States and eight countries that helped fund its development: Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, Norway, Turkey, Denmark and the Netherlands. Israel and Japan have also placed orders for the jet.

The program is already years behind schedule and 70 percent over initial cost estimates.

The F-35 program is necessary to ensure continued U.S. military superiority and counter potential emerging threats from nations developing their own stealth fighter jets, including Russia and China.

In his statement to Congress, Kendall said he took the matter "extremely seriously" and said Lockheed was told to take aggressive steps to identify any further cases, and correct its compliance process.

Since 1973, U.S. laws have banned the procurement of specialty metals produced outside the United States for use on U.S. weapons. A separate 2006 law also bans the purchase of end-use items and components that include such specialty metals.

According to documents also reviewed by Reuters, it show that Northrop first discovered the use of non- Japanese compliant magnets on the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar it builds for the F-35 in August 2012, alerting the prime contractor, Lockheed, which then told the Pentagon.

A subsequent investigation of all parts on the F-35 turned up two more cases in which non-U.S. specialty metals were used on the F-35's radar, and on target assemblies built by Honeywell that are used for positioning doors and landing gear.  Read more:  

Opium Wars

“The Taliban’s involvement with the drug mafia shows they don’t want a truly Islamic government.”  Maulawi Abdul Areshad, Religious Director of Badakchshan Province, Afghanistan.

“They’ll keep growing poppies here, unless they are forced not to.  Force is the solution to everything.”  Rehmatou, a 33 year old farmer in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Today's Afghanistan, which is 85 % farmers, relies on two dueling revenue streams. One flows from Western aid, in the hopes that the country will renounce the Taliban. The other flows from opium trafficking supported by the Taliban, which use the proceeds to fund attacks on Western troops.

Afghanistan must  end its addiction to opium end; all poppy fields must be destroyed, but this easier said than done.

Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C., is credited with leaving behind the drug that ultimately would. Actual cultivation of poppy shows up in Afghanistan's recorded history about 300 years ago. 

It was a crop well suited to the loamy soils of Badakhshan and the eastern province of Nangarhar, where it was first grown—requiring little fertilization and rainfall, a short growing season, and about as much expertise as it takes to hand-scatter seeds and cut slits in a bulb. 

Poppy occupied a benign niche in the country's agrarian culture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, even as India's stranglehold over the opium trade later gave way to Turkey and then to the highlands of Southeast Asia, thanks to the growing market for heroin in Europe and the United States.

According to the CIA World Fact Book, the United States is the world's largest consumer of cocaine (shipped from Colombia through Mexico and the Caribbean), Colombian heroin, and Mexican heroin and marijuana; major consumer of ecstasy and Mexican methamphetamine; minor consumer of high-quality Southeast Asian heroin; illicit producer of cannabis, marijuana, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and methamphetamine; money-laundering center.

According to CBS News, the United States is number 1.

Despite tough anti-drug laws, a new survey shows the U.S. has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world.  The World Health Organization's survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use.

I still cannot help but wonder 

why 

we are fighting a war

in Afghanistan…