Tag: Department of War

Where’s The Ammo?

The US has been giving away ordinance freely to the likes of Israel, Ukraine plus starting several wars that is using up the existing stockpile….

Trump administration officials have privately told lawmakers they’re weighing use of the Cold War–era Defense Production Act to push weapons makers to crank out more munitions as the war with Iran burns through US stockpiles, three sources tell NBC News. The law would let the government force defense firms to prioritize specific weapons, largely to refill air-defense and interceptor inventories. Sources tell the Washington Post the stocks are being depleted at speed: Those sources say the US military could be just “days away” from needing to prioritize which targets it intercepts. What you need to know:

  • Publicly, the White House and Pentagon insist the military has what it needs, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying stockpiles are sufficient to achieve Trump’s current goals “and beyond.” President Trump, however, has called on defense contractors to speed things up.
  • Seth Jones, the president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, paints a different picture for NPR: “The reality is neither Israel nor the United States have sufficient munitions, either offensive or defensive, for a war that really lasts weeks into months.”
  • Business Insider focuses on Patriot missiles, reporting the US is “leaning hard” on them to neutralize Iranian missile and drone bombardments. It flags a late 2024 assessment from Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, who said conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine had “eaten into” Patriot stockpiles, “and to say otherwise would be dishonest.”
  • Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, echoes that in comments to NBC: “We now have a lot of partners using Patriot systems,” among them Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “Those are all American systems, and so the backlog of countries that are going to need replenishment is going to be extraordinary, and they’ll need it quickly.”
  • NBC points out that the Defense Production Act has been invoked in recent years: by Trump during the pandemic to accelerate the manufacturing of personal protective and medical equipment, and by President Biden to deal with a baby formula shortage. Trump actually invoked it last month to boost the supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides.

Defense Production Act?

The Defense Production Act gives the federal government broad authority to direct private companies to meet the needs of national defense.

The act was signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1950 amid supply concerns during the Korean War. But over its now decades-long history, the law’s powers have been invoked not only in times of war but also for domestic emergency preparedness, as well as recovery from terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

One of the act’s provisions allows the president to require companies to prioritize government contracts and orders deemed necessary for national defense, with the goal of ensuring the private sector is producing enough goods needed during war or other emergencies. Other provisions give the president the ability to use loans and additional incentives to increase production of critical goods, and authorize the government to establish voluntary agreements with private industry.

The DPA is “one of the government’s most powerful and adaptable industrial policy tools,” said Joel Dodge, an attorney and the director of industrial policy and economic security at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.

Anthropic is the last of its AI peers to not supply its technology to a new U.S. military internal network. CEO Dario Amodei repeatedly has made clear his ethical concerns about unchecked government use of AI, including the dangers of fully autonomous armed drones and of AI-assisted mass surveillance that could track dissent.

The Defense Production Act gives the federal government broad authority to direct private companies to meet the needs of national defense.

The act was signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1950 amid supply concerns during the Korean War. But over its now decades-long history, the law’s powers have been invoked not only in times of war but also for domestic emergency preparedness, as well as recovery from terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

One of the act’s provisions allows the president to require companies to prioritize government contracts and orders deemed necessary for national defense, with the goal of ensuring the private sector is producing enough goods needed during war or other emergencies. Other provisions give the president the ability to use loans and additional incentives to increase production of critical goods, and authorize the government to establish voluntary agreements with private industry

If the Defense Department does invoke the DPA to give the military more authority to use Anthropic’s products without its approval, that could mean forcing the company to adapt its model to the Pentagon’s needs without built-in safety limits, or remove certain ethical restrictions from the company’s contract language.

Remove ethical restrictions….well that fits into Donny and Pistol Pete’s wheelhouse.

A side note:  the US lost about $2 billion in inventory the first few days of this stupid war,,,,

The US has lost nearly $2 billion worth of military equipment amid its military operations against Iran since Saturday, according to estimates and data compiled by Anadolu.

The chief driver of the cost is a US AN/FPS-132 early warning radar system at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, valued at $1.1 billion, which was hit with a missile strike by Iran on Saturday. Qatar confirmed that the radar was hit and damaged.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-lost-nearly-2b-worth-of-military-equipment-in-first-4-days-of-strikes-against-iran/3849091

Here is crazy idea take all the promised ordinance away from parasite states like Ukraine and Israel and tell them to buck up…..or better yet stop all these unnecessary wars as well.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“This Is Not Regime Change War”

The lame ass words of Pistol Pete of the War Dept…..(sorry cannot take this dick wad seriously)

The nation’s top two military officials gave their first public briefing about the military operation in Iran, and both declined to put a specific timeline on how long it may last, reports the New York Times. (Earlier, President Trump suggested four to five weeks.) Highlights from the press conference with defense chief Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

  • Hegseth said the campaign had a “clear, devastating, decisive mission” to “destroy the missile threats, destroy the navy, no nukes,” reports NPR. He also blamed Iran for years of attacks on US interests. “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it,” he said.
  • “This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change,” Hegseth said, referring to the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “And the world is better off for it.”

After a couple of days a sixth American has been confirmed dead…

The US death toll from the US-Iran conflict has risen to six, CNN reports. US Central Command on Monday announced the new toll from an Iranian strike on a temporary American operations hub at Kuwait’s Shuaiba port after the remains of two previously missing service members were recovered from the wreckage. The six service members are the first US troops killed in action since Washington launched “Operation Epic Fury” against Iran over the weekend.

Speaking of the troops…. what are the chances of ground forces sent to intervene in the conflict?

Nobody knows when the war in Iran will end, but President Trump continues to prepare the nation for a conflict that will be measured in weeks and perhaps months, not days. “Whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, reports the New York Times. “Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”

  • Objectives: The president listed four goals, reports CBS News. “We’re destroying Iran’s missile capability, and we’re doing that hourly,” he said. The strikes were also “annihilating their Navy,” ensuring that the “sick and sinister regime” can never have a nuclear weapon, and ensuring that Iran can no longer coordinate terrorism abroad.
  • Ground troops: In a separate interview with the New York Post, Trump did not rule out the use of US ground troops. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground,” he said. “Like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it. I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.'”
  • Intensification: Trump also told Jake Tapper of CNN that the airstrikes will likely intensify. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard, the big wave hasn’t even happened,” he said. “The big one is coming soon.”

To be open and  fair….Iranian deaths are compounding….

The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said in a statement on Monday that at least 555 Iranians had been killed since the US and Israel began bombing Iran on Saturday morning.

Heavy US and Israeli strikes have been pounding targets across Iran since then, and President Trump vowed on Monday that the bombing would escalate. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” the president told CNN.

…

When asked about the reports of massive casualties at a girls’ school, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it was “looking into” the reports of civilian harm. According to The New York Times, satellite images show the school is near an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) base, which was also hit during the attack.  (That is Trump-speak for who gives a fuck).

Here we go again sports fans.

If all this is successful who will lead once the regime change is complete (if ever)….

Guess who.  The son of the shah that totally crapped all over the Iranian people for decades.

Iran’s exiled crown prince says the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has opened a door he’s been waiting on for nearly five decades. Speaking from Paris, Reza Pahlavi told CBS’ 60 Minutes that he believes Iran’s ruling system is now “bound to collapse” and that he is ready to serve as a temporary leader to guide the country toward a democratic government—though, he stressed, not as king or as an elected official, CBS News reports. “Many Iranians, often despite facing bullets, have called on me to lead this transition,” he wrote in an oped piece in the Washington Post published Saturday.

Pahlavi laid out four pillars for a post-theocratic Iran on 60 Minutes: keeping the country intact, separating religion from government, guaranteeing equal rights under the law, and letting voters decide the political system. He called for dismantling the country’s nuclear weapons program and said he envisions future partnership and peace with Israel. Pahlavi, who has lived in exile since his father, the last shah, was ousted in 1979, rejected criticism tied to his father’s rule and said millions now chant his name inside Iran. He praised President Trump for military action against Iran’s regime but said he does not expect formal US backing, contending that parts of Iran’s security forces are prepared to abandon what he called a sinking ship. “This is our chance now,” the opposition leader said.

Many Iranians?  Who?  Name names.

He does not expect formal US backing…..a total bullshit statement.

With all that said what can we expect with this ‘regime change’?

Barely an hour after the first U.S. and Israeli missiles struck Iran, President Donald Trump made clear he hoped for regime change. “Now is the time to seize control of your destiny,” he told the Iranian people in a video. “This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”

Doesn’t sound complicated. After all, with Iran’s fundamentally unpopular government weakened by fierce airstrikes, some of its top leaders dead or missing and Washington signaling support, how hard could it be to overthrow a repressive regime?

Possibly very hard. So says history.

Washington has a long, complicated past when it comes to regime change. There was Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, and Panama in 1989. There was Nicaragua in the 1980s, Iraq and Afghanistan in the years after 9/11, and Venezuela just weeks ago.

There was also Iran. In 1953, the CIA helped engineer a coup that toppled Iran’s democratically elected leader and gave near-absolute power to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But as with the shah, who was overthrown in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution after decades of increasingly unpopular rule, regime change rarely goes as planned.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-regime-change-us-trump-israel-khamenei-9cbccdf31b000f535997118df2b60738

This will not end well for the Iranian people….not that their lives were so perfect under the religious crap since 1979.

This war is not about democracy or the Iranian people….it was a business decision….plane and simple.

At what point is this meddling in affairs of other countries?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Money, More Money

With the successful raid on Venezuela and the arrest of Maduro Donny’s pathetic gang of minions set about threatening other nations if they do not play ball with the US…..Colombia, Iran, Cuba, Mexico and of course the BS du jour, Greenland.

And now to sure up his threats Donny wants to expand the ‘defense’ budget to $1.5 trillion….(yes that is a “T”)….

President Trump on Wednesday proposed setting US military spending at $1.5 trillion in 2027, citing “troubled and dangerous times.” Trump called for the massive surge in spending days after he ordered a US military operation to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and spirit him out of the country to face drug trafficking charges in the US, the AP reports. The 2026 military budget is set at $901 billion. Trump in recent days has also called for taking over the Danish territory of Greenland for national security reasons and has suggested he’s open to carrying out military operations in Colombia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ominously warned that longtime adversary Cuba “is in trouble.”

  • This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing his proposal. He said he arrived at the $1.5 trillion figure after “long and difficult negotiations with Senators, Congressmen, Secretaries, and other Political Representatives.”
  • The military just received a boost of some $175 billion in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending reductions that Trump signed into law last year. Insisting on more funding for the Pentagon is almost certain to run into resistance from Democrats who work to maintain parity between changes in defense and nondefense spending. But it’s also sure to draw objections from the GOP’s deficit hawks who have pushed back against increased military spending.
  • But Trump said he feels comfortable surging spending on the military because of increased revenue created by his administration through tariffs imposed on friends and foes around the globe since his return to office. He said tariff revenue would cover the massive increase. The New York Times labels the claim false, noting that while the US collected more than $200 billion from tariff revenue last year, Trump has already pledged to hand it to Americans feeling the effects of tariffs, including farmers. He has also promised $2,000 tariff rebate checks for most Americans.

“Troubled and dangerous times”….I agree but only because we have a mentally ill orange slug leading the way.

More money for the War Department?

Defense industry must be masturbating to the thought.

Seriously?

Those people cannot account for the money they already have….

Two days after the US Senate voted on a bipartisan basis to authorize just over $900 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year, the chief recipient of that taxpayer money—the Department of Defense—announced it failed an audit of its books for the eighth consecutive year.

The now-predictable audit result was announced Friday by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) after an examination of the agency’s roughly $4.6 trillion in assets. The OIG said it identified 26 “material weaknesses”—major flaws in internal controls over financial reports—in the Pentagon’s accounting.

…

The Pentagon remains the only US federal agency that has yet to pass an independent, department-wide audit, as required by law. But its repeated failures to return a clean audit haven’t deterred Congress from adding to its coffers each year.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/pentagon-8th-consecutive-audit

Yeah that is what is needed more money for the Pentagon can loss, misspend or steal.

What’s Donny’s game?

We all know what he is thinking….(is that possible with so many Big Macs in one’s diet)….

This is ludicrous….this is an offense to the people of this country….this needs to be flushed down the toilet with the rest of Donny’s crap.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Finally An EO That Makes Sense

Today Little Donny will make it official by using his Magic Sharpie yet again to sign an EO renaming the DoD as the Department of War….something I have been writing for several years….

President Trump plans to sign an executive order Friday to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, his latest effort to project an image of toughness for America’s military. The Republican president can’t formally change the name without legislation, which his administration would request from Congress. In the meantime, the AP reports that Trump will authorize the Pentagon to use “secondary titles” so the department can go by its original name. The plans were disclosed by a White House official, who requested anonymity ahead of the public announcement, and detailed in a White House fact sheet.

The Department of War was created in 1789, the same year that the US Constitution took effect. It was renamed by law in 1947, two years after the end of World War II. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted “DEPARTMENT OF WAR” on social media after the executive order was initially reported by Fox News. Trump and Hegseth have long talked about changing the name, and Hegseth even created a social media poll on the topic in March. Since then, he has hinted that his title as defense secretary may not be permanent at multiple public events, including a speech at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Thursday. He told an auditorium full of soldiers that it “may be a slightly different title tomorrow.”

In August, Trump told reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.” When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that “we’re just going to do it.” “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that,” he added.

he move is just the latest in a long line of cultural changes Hegseth has made to the Pentagon since taking office at the beginning of the year. Early in his tenure, Hegseth pushed hard to eliminate what he saw as the impacts of “woke culture” on the military by not only ridding the department of diversity programs but scrubbing libraries and websites of material deemed to be divisive.

This will take Congressional vote to become a permanent thing…..any bets on the outcome?

Yet more policies to return the US society to the years before WW2 when everything was good….women had few rights, segregation was the rule of the day, history was taught by mental midgets…..all just where Donny wants the country to be.

I agree with the decision to rename the DoD….I agree in principle but not in reasoning.

In case anyone is interested on why the War Department became the Defense Department in 1949 here is a bit of history and the thinking that was behind the original change.

“There was never a unified cabinet level defense secretary of war. There was a secretary of war, but that was the secretary of the Army,” Lee said. “The War Department did not run the nation’s wars. It ran the nation’s Army at war.”

https://taskandpurpose.com/history/what-is-the-department-of-war/

While I like the idea of naming the positioon because it is more in war than defense I do not see this as a positive step coming from this administration.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”