A Russian warship has been spotted pursuing the USS Harry S. Truman around the Mediterranean.

Video shot by reporters from ITV shows the Russian warship Yaroslav Mudry in the distance following the US vessel.

'Russian warship 777 this is US Navy destroyer 75. Yankee victor one. Romeo uniform five.

Tack,' a sailor is heard saying at one point in the video, taking safety precautions as mandated by the Incidents at Sea Agreement between the then Soviet Union.

The mounting US debt is likely to grow by another $10 trillion in the next decade, according to estimates contained in the recent budget proposal.

According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the national debt will hit $29.9 trillion by 2028. The deficit will be equal to 101 percent of America’s GDP, the Watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget forecasts. The country’s current debt stands at a record $20.6 trillion – its highest level since shortly after World War II.

If current laws stand, widening budget deficits will increase that debt sharply over the next 30 years, with the deficit reaching 150 percent of GDP in 2047, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted last year.

Under the new budget, President Donald Trump is requesting a record $686 billion for the Pentagon – a 13-percent increase compared to the 2017 budget.

The military is investigating whether two special forces Marines played a role in the choking death of a Green Beret in Mali last year and the possible cover up of how it occurred, according to five U.S. defense officials.

Two Navy SEALs from the famed SEAL Team 6 are already under investigation for their involvement in the strangling death of Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar during the predawn hours of June 4, 2017. Melgar, 34, died in embassy housing he shared with other service members in Bamako, capital of the West African nation.

In 1999 NATO used ordnances containing depleted uranium in their bombardment of then-Yugoslavia in a bid to stop the killings of Albanians in Kosovo. According to Serbian data, they resulted in thousands killed and wounded civilians.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has slammed NATO's bombing campaign against then-Yugoslavia using munitions containing depleted uranium during the opening ceremony of the new Oncological Institute. According to him, Serbian doctors determined that such ordnances have severely affected the health of the country's young population.

"Today in the Oncological Institute I learned that more and more children are diagnosed with cancer in our country. I'll be honest, at first I didn't believe in the depleted uranium theories […] but today, after speaking with doctors, I realized that depleted uranium is among many of the factors that cause cancer during a young age," Vucic said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of using unnecessary aggression in Syria and blamed Tel Aviv for pushing the entire region toward full-scale war.

In an interview with BBC Arabic on Sunday, Erdogan said that Israel is "sowing fear and pushing" the Middle Eastern "region to war."

The Turkish leader also denounced an Israeli airstrike on Syria that took place three days ago, calling it an attack on the sovereignty of the beleaguered nation, now in its seventh year of civil war.

Have you ever known a hero? Well, you will meet one here. Also, what is the future of the Trans-Atlantic alliance in the era of Trump? And, the pre-history of the next war in the Middle East.

CrossTalking with Ray McGovern, Mark Sleboda, and Dmitry Babich.

Tensions are at an all-time high in the Middle East as Israel launched more than sixty missiles at Syria because Israel claimed that Iranian forces fired rockets into the Golan Heights, an Israel-occupied territory since the 1967 Six-Day War.

ran responded to the Israeli claims in a Zero Hedge report:

In the aftermath of one of the most severe Israeli attacks on Syria “in decades,” Iranian lawmakers said Thursday that Iran had no role in the attack, and that Shia nation doesn’t operate any bases in Syria.

Mohammad Javad Jamali Nobandegani, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said Israel’s claim that Iran had provoked Israel by firing first was “a lie,” adding that

“Israel’s history of carrying out unprovoked attacks in Syria has been well-documented.” “Iran does not have military base in Syria,” Nobandegani added

A Senate bill under consideration could allow Donald Trump to indefinitely jail American citizens without charge if they oppose U.S. military action, says Marjorie Cohn.

Under the guise of exercising supervisory power over the president’s ability to use military force, Congress is considering writing Donald Trump a blank check to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens with no criminal charges. Alarmingly, this legislation could permit the president to lock up Americans who dissent against U.S. military policy.

Haspel Says CIA Won’t Torture Again as Ray McGovern Is Dragged Out of Hearing
Likewise Eichmann was probed about his obedience when “ordered to do something blatantly illegal.” In a response that augured Haspel’s Senate testimony a half century later, Eichmann told his interrogators:

“You say illegal. Today I have a very different view of things…But then? I wouldn’t have considered any of those actions illegal… If anyone had asked me about it up until May 8, 1945, the end of the war, I’d have said: This government was elected by a majority of the German people…every civilized country on earth had its diplomatic mission. Who is a little man like me to trouble his head about it? I get orders from my superior and I look neither right nor left. That’s not my job. My job is to obey and comply.”

At face value, for Iran to inexplicably launch missiles at Israel, unprovoked and achieving no conceivable tactical, strategic, or political gain strains the credibility of Israel’s narrative even further.

But it is perhaps published US policy designating Israel as a hostile provocateur tasked with expanding Washington’s proxy war against Damascus that fully reveals the deadly and deceptive game Israel and the Western media are now playing.

For years, US policymakers admitted in their papers that the US desired regime change in Iran and sought to provoke a war to achieve it.

Israel Baits the Hook

The corporate-funded Brookings Institution – whose sponsors include weapon manufacturers, oil corporations, banks, and defense contractors – published a 2009 paper titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran,” and would not only spell out the US desire for regime change in Iran but devise a number of options to achieve it.

he U.S. Government Accountability Office is expected to rule soon on a disputed contract worth more than a billion dollars to supply food to American forces in the Middle East.

The big-dollar decision will mark the most recent twist in a battle over giant U.S. military logistics deals dating back nearly a decade, and includes allegations of sanctions busting, corruption, and fraud. The ruling could also prove troublesome for the Defense Department, which for years has faced criticism over its contracts with Gulf-owned logistics companies the military has used to feed deployed troops.

So what does all this add up to? In pulling the United States out of the international nuclear deal, Trump has heightened tensions with Iran on a number of issues unrelated to whatever nuclear ambitions that country may have. Netanyahu, who hated the nuclear deal from the start because it eased tensions and diminished pressure on Iran, now sees his opportunity to goad the Islamic Republic with pinprick airstrikes against Iranian positions in Syria. With Israel killing Iranians, a retaliatory response is inevitable, which is what Netanyahu wants. In this dangerous escalation of tensions, Trump has positioned his country on the side of Israel and against Iran; this will encourage further provocations by Netanyahu.

You don’t have to be Count Metternich to perceive where this is leading. It’s difficult to see how, under these circumstances, war can be avoided, while it’s easy to see how events could flip out of control and lead to war.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni army took control of the town of al-Bareh, west of Taiz, earlier this week. The fall of this town is less important than what comes next, as the army draws ever closer to the key port city of Hodeidah.

Hodeidah is the lone seaport under the control of the Shi’ite Houthi movement, and by extension is the only port through which humanitarian aid can flow for the entire northern half of the country. A vital humanitarian location, which to pro-Saudi forces is a vital military target.

Successfully conquering Hodeidah would, after all, mean the Houthi territory, including the capital city and many millions of people, would have no access to food or medical aid. This would be an opportunity for the Saudi invading force to really crack down on them.

They envision it forcing a surrender, but it may also could bring millions of malnourished people into outright starvation.

Let’s everyone take a breath. Yes, China presents a potential threat to American interests in the economic, cyber, and naval realms. The U.S. must maintain a credible defensive and expeditionary posture and be prepared for a worst case scenario. What we don’t need is to blunder into a regional, or, worse still, all-out war with the Chinese dragon. Not now, probably not ever.

“Trump’s reckless, unwarranted, utterly irrational action will pull Washington ever deeper into an incendiary Middle Eastern vortex of political and religious conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with the safety and security of the American people”.
— David Stockman, Former Congressman and Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director on Trump pulling out of the Iran nuke deal

“Sheldon Adelson, for his part, has advocated launching a nuclear attack against Iran as a negotiating tactic and threatening to nuke Tehran, a city with a population of 8.8 million people if Iran does not completely abandon their nuclear program”.
— Eli Clifton, Writer

A Japanese newspaper has raised the possibility of Chinese President Xi Jinping also travelling to Singapore when US President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for an unprecedented summit on June 12.

The Mainichi Shimbun's Washington-based correspondent cited American diplomatic sources as saying there was a chance that Mr Xi may meet Mr Trump and Mr Kim in Singapore.

In the report published on Friday, the Mainichi quoted a senior international negotiator with the National Security Council as telling reporters that "there is a possibility" the leader of a third country may take part.

Mr Trump announced via a tweet on Thursday that his summit with Mr Kim will be held on June 12 in Singapore.

During the election, I wrote a little ebook titled “Donald Trump’s War on Islam.” In addition to pointing out Trump’s pandering to Islamophobia, I wrote about his association with a number of neocons, including Frank Gaffney and John Bolton, who is now his national security adviser. “I think John Bolton’s a good man,” Trump told the Hugh Hewitt Show.
“I watched him yesterday, actually, and he was very good in defending me in some of my views, and very, very strong. And I’ve always liked John Bolton. Well, we are thinking about it, Hugh [nominating Bolton as secretary of state]. I will say that. We are thinking about it. I mean, the negative is what I told you. But we are seriously thinking about it.”

Last month, warplanes belonging to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen repeatedly bombed a wedding party in the northern part of the country, killing more than 20 people, including the bride, and injuring dozens of others. In the days that followed, local media published a photograph of a bomb fragment with a serial number tying it to the U.S.-based weapons manufacturer Raytheon.
Now the State Department is taking preliminary steps toward a massive, multibillion-dollar sale of similar weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three congressional aides, a State Department official, and two other people familiar with the sales told The Intercept.

The State Department has yet to announce the exact details and dollar value of the package, but it is said to include tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions from Raytheon, the same company that was involved in producing the weapons used in last month’s strike.

At the beginning of the month (May 2018) the British Ministry of Defence seemingly on accident revealed for the first time that they are unloading horrifyingly inhumane, thermobaric weapons out of drones onto the people of Syria: and it wasn’t even in this recent April 2018 escalation of tension, but last year. They are doing it more often than they’d like to admit.

Somehow the use of thermobaric weapons seems less humane than ripping a person to shreds with shrapnel.

The weapons work by igniting oxygen surrounding the weapon.

A cloud of explosive chemicals is released, and upon impact the fuel-air mixture is detonated, exploding the lungs of animals and human beings in the vicinity, not damaging structures much but filling the lungs of all animals with fuel and burning them in what may be one of the most horrifying ways imaginable to die.

The Pentagon’s newly released 8-page report on the Niger incident had a very clear narrative. From the moment local commanders endorsed the mission to the recovery of the four bodies of slain US soldiers, the report goes out of its way to lionize everyone’s actions, and downplay errors.

This makes sense, because underlying these conclusions is the fact that the Pentagon has no intention of holding anyone to account for the mistakes made. Yet the summary report’s decision to tread very lightly on a lot of potentially embarrassing specifics means that it ultimately raises a lot more questions than it answered.

Fortunately, a lot of those answers exist, as this 8-page version was just a summary of a 180-page full report on the incident. The administration is keeping that carefully secret, however. They say that the report needs to be heavily reviewed, and redacted, before ever being made public.

Donald Trump has put America on a path to war in the Middle East. Future historians will look back on his decision to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal, and related actions, as a folly akin to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. The consequences could be equally catastrophic.

If you wish to understand what’s really going on, don’t just keep your eye on Trump, whose zigzag pronouncements on Mideast strategy have demonstrated a characteristic lack of intellectual coherence. Instead watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who thinks in straight lines. His aim is to get America to curtail Iranian power and influence in the region—a level of power and influence, it should be noted, that was greatly heightened by America’s 2003 Iraq invasion, supported avidly at the time by none other than Benjamin Netanyahu.

(Authored by Ty Joplin via Albawaba.com)

Erik Prince is the modern architect of private military firms

His latest venture is in training security personnel in China

But he's been all over the world, outsourcing militaries to cheap labor markets

Al Bawaba has provided a partial map to track Erik Prince's activities over the years.

Erik Prince, the brain behind the infamous private military firm Blackwater, is now in China training security forces.

Prince is partially responsible for modernizing the private army for the post 9/11 world, outsourcing militaries to cheap, specialized labor pools and skirting traditional regulations meant to ensure accountability for armed forces.

His journey from hiring mercenaries to help bolster the U.S. occupation in Iraq to China is long, dizzying and includes stops around the world to train Colombian mercenaries to help make a private army for the U.A.E. and outfitting crop duster planes with missiles to be fired at Armenians.

America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars

The escalation of violence near the Golan Heights and Damascus this week is part of a neoconservative plan to lasso the US into war with Iran, an expert told Sputnik.

Mark Sleboda, a security and international affairs analyst, says the most recent escalation of violence between Israel and Syria shows Israel intends to start a conflict with Iran and seek US support for a larger war campaign.

?What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "wants, more than anything else, is to get the US into a war with Iran," Sleboda told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Thursday.

"There are plenty of neocons in Washington surrounding [US] President [Donald] Trump that want the same thing and are all too willing to play along with this," the analyst said.

Using the Google search tool, I was able to find things in 2014 and 2015 in the foreign press that were real eye-openers. There were several articles in the Israeli and British press from 2003. I learned several new facts. I learned about an oil agenda and the players involved, but the most important was that I learned motives. I had many sleepless nights. I learned that a person cannot sleep when they are angry and the more I learned, the angrier I became. I had been a volunteer for all of my time in Iraq. I risked my life for seventy-five months in Iraq working for what I thought were noble reasons. The more I learned the more I realized that there was an oil agenda and I was just an unknowing participant.

An Israeli newspaper (Haaretz) had an opinion piece titled "Trump Tells
World to Drop Dead as Netanyahu Dictates His Nixing of Iran Deal." But it
is not just Netanyahu, it is the whole Zionist establishment that took the
decision to challenge a deal agreed to by much of the world and continue to
try to start new wars and sacrificing gullible gentiles on the alter of
Zionism. Most of the world now understands the ramifications. Israel has
nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, violates
international law, invades other countries. Israel is still illegally
occupying the Syrian Golan and colonizing Palestine. It violates
international law with impunity and engages in war crimes and crimes
against humanity. But its attack on Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, and Yemen (by
proxy) will now escalate to direct confrontation with Iran. Israel hopes
Trump will provide all needed military cover even at risk of WWIII.

Russia has completed the delivery of the first regimental set of the air defense system S-400 to China. A third ship carrying missing support equipment has arrived at its port of destination. China will begin acceptance procedures at the end of May, a military-diplomatic source told TASS.

"The last batch of military equipment for the first regimental set of S-400 systems has been delivered by sea from Ust-Luga, the Leningrad Region, to China," the source said. "The ship has brought the equipment not damaged during a December storm in the English Channel and the damaged equipment after repairs."

Today President Trump announced that he was canceling US participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPCOA) otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. The president’s assertions were ludicrous and factually incorrect, but the neocons who were no doubt behind the speech have never been all that wedded to the truth. It became obvious fairly on that Trump’s rationale was not to be taken seriously, when he cited last week’s comical stage performance by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “Iran Lied” about its nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s fairy tale required us to believe that the Iranians were storing their most sensitive national security (paper) documents and compact discs in an unguarded desert hut, which the crack Israeli team of intelligence operatives were able to discover and remove by the truckload right under the noses of what they claim is among the most totalitarian “regimes” on earth.

Judicial Watch today announced that the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has affirmed a U.S. Magistrate Judge’s April 11, 2017, dismissal of criminal charges against Judicial Watch client Robert L. Rosebrock, who was prosecuted for allegedly taking “unauthorized” photographs of American Flags at an entrance to a park on the Los Angeles VA campus (United States of America v. Robert L. Rosebrock (No. 2:17-cr-00262)).

The magistrate judge ruled in Rosebrock’s favor on First Amendment grounds. The District Court affirmed the magistrate judge’s dismissal of the charges, but held that the plain language of the regulation under which Rosebrock was prosecuted did not prohibit unauthorized “news” photography anywhere on VA property.

A massive military parade was held in Moscow to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) against Nazi Germany in the European theater of World War II; Russia showcased many of its advanced, recently-developed weapons and displayed the might of its armed forces to the world.

I wonder how many people, not just Americans but those in other countries, have come to the conclusion that the United States today is a less free and less aware society than the societies in the dystopian novels of the 20th century or in movies such as The Matrix and V for Vendetta. Just as people in the dystopian novels had no idea of their real situation, few Americans do either.

What are we to make of the extraordinary war crimes committed by the United States in the 21st century that have destroyed in whole or part seven countries, resulting in millions of dead, maimed, orphaned, and displaced peoples? Consider, for example, the latest Washington war crime, the illegal attack on Syria. Instead of protesting this illegality, the American media egged it on, cheering impending death and destruction.

The Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy’s costliest warship, suffered a new failure at sea that forced it back to port and raised fresh questions about the new class of aircraft carriers.

The previously undisclosed problem with a propulsion system bearing, which occurred in January but has yet to be remedied, comes as the Navy is poised to request approval from a supportive Congress to expedite a contract for a fourth carrier in what was to have been a three-ship class. It’s part of a push to expand the Navy’s 284-ship fleet to 355 as soon as the mid-2030s.

It was the second failure in less than a year with a “main thrust bearing” that’s part of the $12.9 billion carrier’s propulsion system. The first occurred in April 2017, during sea trials a month before the vessel’s delivery.

One of the busiest F-35 Joint Strike Fighter training units is hoping the U.S. Air Force can help relieve some of the pressures of training student pilots with ineffective resources.

The 33rd Fighter Wing, the leading training wing for F-35 student pilots, hopes it will receive additional F-35A aircraft, along with considerable upgrades to its existing fleet, to keep up with training demands, said Col. Paul Moga, commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing here.

"Right now, production is king. We've got to find ways to solve this aircrew crisis, and our contribution to that is getting our students through the training program as quickly as possible," Moga said, referring to the service's ongoing pilot shortage.

In the wake of a series of troubling aircraft mishaps and crashes ? several of which have been fatal ? Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein has ordered a one-day safety stand down for all flying and maintenance wings.

“I am directing this operational safety review to allow our commanders to assess and discuss the safety of our operations and to gather feedback from our airmen who are doing the mission every day,” Goldfein said in the Tuesday news release.

The Air Force said the service “is taking swift action to ensure the safety of its force” following the recent crashes, including the May 2 crash of a WC-130 Hercules that killed nine airmen from the Puerto Rico Air National Guard.

With the U.S. military facing a rising tide of aviation mishaps, the decision to cut maintenance budgets in 2013 continues to loom large as a potentially historic moment for the Pentagon.

While it is not the sole culprit, voices both inside and outside the Pentagon concede the mandatory budget cuts imposed in 2013 by sequestration caused significant damage to the military’s ability to sustain and maintain its aircraft, contributing to year-over-year increases in aviation mishaps.

Eric Fanning was acting secretary of the Air Force when sequestration became law of the land. He had a first-hand look at the process the service experienced. In a recent interview with Defense News, he acknowledged the operations and maintenance accounts were disproportionately impacted by the cuts ? but said there was no other realistic option.

Former Israeli defense ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Moshe Arens emphasized on Tuesday the importance of conducting “war between wars,” in order to maintain Israel’s readiness for future military conflicts against its enemies.

Ya’alon, speaking alongside three-time defense minister Arens at the IDC Herzliya Conference, said that the Israeli security establishment had progressed from its “conceptual limitation of always preparing for the previous war” and is no longer resting on its laurels, and is instead looking towards evolving, future threats.

The US Congress has directed the Pentagon to improve the military’s knowledge of Russian but mistakenly listed the language as “East Asian” – along with Chinese and Korean.

The House Armed Services committee demanded that the Pentagon chief James Mattis take charge of improving the troops’ command of Chinese, Korean and Russian, as it unveiled a proposal for a new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the Fiscal Year 2019.

There are increasing concerns Iran is on the cusp of an attack against Israel, several US military officials told CNN.

Intelligence is not clear on when an attack could come and what form it would take, they said, with one official noting that "if there is an attack it might not be immediately clear it's Iran."

The US is watching very closely to see if Iranian-backed actions could come from inside Syria or Lebanon, or even from inside Iran itself, though that would be considered a major military escalation.

I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.

The United States fought the American Revolution primarily over King George III's Currency act, which forced the colonists to conduct their business only using printed bank notes borrowed from the Bank of England at interest.

Benjamin Franklin, acting as the colonies' representative to Britain, argued against this move in 1763.

In recent months, many Americans have been surprised to learn that the U.S. has an extensive military presence in Africa. An intelligence snafu over fitness tracker data produced by U.S. soldiers using Fitbits and other devices while running laps provided a clear snapshot of their deployments. In November 2017, fitness database Strava produced a Global Heatmap showing popular exercise routes as glowing yellow streaks. The streaks revealed loops around airstrips in remote areas across sub-Saharan Africa that are the undeniable traces of U.S. or European troops staying in shape.

Israeli security officials believe Iran may be preparing a missile attack in retaliation for the April 9 strike on Syria’s T-4 airbase, in which seven Iranians were killed.

Israeli media reported Sunday, citing defense officials, that Tel Aviv is bracing for possible missile strikes by Iran from sites inside Syria.

According to security personnel, Iran is likely to attempt a retaliatory missile attack against military targets in northern Israel following last month's strike on the T-4 base in Syria.

In Sept. 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.

Things to Know About Israel's Alleged Top-Secret Nuclear Program

The U.S. imposed restrictions on the use of Javelin anti-tank missile systems in the Donbas, which Washington supplied to Ukraine, as stated by Georgiy Tuka, the deputy minister for the temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons of Ukraine, on the Pryamoy channel.

According to him, one of the terms of the contract to supply the missile systems was “not to use these complexes directly on the contact line.”

President Trump will announce Tuesday that he is withdrawing from the international nuclear deal with Iran and reimposing U.S. sanctions against Tehran, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump’s decision, to be announced at the White House at 2 p.m., follows the failure of last-ditch efforts by Britain, France and Germany to convince him that his concerns about “flaws” in the accord could be addressed without violating its terms or ending it altogether.

The death toll following Saudi coalition airstrikes targeting the presidential in the densely populated neighborhood of Al-Tahrir in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, has risen to more than 90 people, including schoolchildren, according to a statement to MintPress by an official from Yemen’s Ministry of Health. Local hospitals received 86 injuries, but rescuers are still struggling to retrieve bodies from the rubble, so the number of victims could rise.
The destruction in Tahrir, the second largest residential and commercial area in Sana`a, was extensive. Two airstrikes hit the building, located near a hotel, a bank and several shops, and not far from the central bank, which was bustling with employees at that time.

The principal of the Gamal Abdel Nasser School, close to the presidential compound, told MintPress that a number of students sustained injuries, adding that the huge blasts threw students into a sudden panic, prompting school authorities to suspend ongoing exams.

In the near future, Congress will debate a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). I use the word “debate” lightly. So far, no hearings have been scheduled, and no testimony is likely to be heard unless something changes. That’s a shame, because this is a serious matter, and this is a deeply flawed AUMF.

For some time now, Congress has abdicated its responsibility to declare war. The status quo is that we are at war anywhere and anytime the president says so.

So Congress—in a very Congress way of doing things—has a “solution.” Instead of reclaiming its constitutional authority, it instead intends to codify the unacceptable, unconstitutional status quo.

It is clear upon reading the AUMF, put forward by Senators Tim Kaine and Bob Corker, that it gives nearly unlimited power to this or any other president to be at war whenever he or she wants, with minimal justification and no prior specific authority.

How many Americans are aware that every two years the United States military engages in large scale exercises with the Israeli Defense Forces that simulate wars against Israel’s neighbors? Three thousand American soldiers are in Israel right now involved in maneuvers that are focused on countering a missile attack from Lebanon. When the exercise, known as Juniper Cobra, was run in 2016 the U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Timothy Ray, who appeared to confuse American national security with that of a small Middle Eastern state, described it as the European Command’s “highest priority” drill that year. He then added that “this exercise increases our military readiness, but just as importantly it also signals our resolve to support Israel.”

A Minnesota congressman wants full details on what the military knows about extremist activity within its own ranks following news reports detailing at least three service members with ties to a white supremacist group.

Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who was the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, set a letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis late last week asking for information on any investigations into troops’ extremist activities and “steps currently being taken to screen recruits for extremist ties” by the end of the month. He calls the problem an urgent threat to the armed forces.

“Although Department of Defense guidance clearly prohibits discrimination and extremist behavior, it appears that some service members are still able to join and actively participate in extremist organizations,” the letter stated, adding he sees evidence that “volunteers with seemingly credible ties to the white supremacist movement are being allowed to enter the military.”

Why did the US get involved with WWI? It was largely based on an emotional response to 128 American dying on the Lusitania.

The reason it outraged so many people was that it was full of civilians, and not thought to have been containing weapons.

The rules of war at the time were that ships containing weapons were free game.

When the shipwreck was discovered later on, tons of US-made weapons were found on the ship.

A sharp increase in Russian naval activity in the Arctic and north Atlantic in the years since its invasion of eastern Ukraine has prompted the U.S. Navy to resurrect a command it disestablished seven years ago.

At a ceremony marking Adm. Phil Davidson’s change of command with Adm. Chris Grady as the head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson announced the Navy was set to re-establish the 2nd Fleet.

As the need and scope of the military’s unmanned systems continues to grow, the Navy plans to establish a command devoted to aviation drones this fall.

Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Four (UX24) will come into existence at Webster Outlying Field in Maryland in October, according to an OPNAV instruction issued in April.

UX24’s mission will involve providing research, development, testing and other support for Navy and Marine Corps drone systems.

The German air force is dealing with a "massive problem" that has left all but four of its 128 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets unavailable for combat missions, according to a May 2 report by German news outlet Spiegel.

German engineers are worried about the jets' DASS defense system, which warns pilots of potential attack, because of cooling liquid seen leaking from the wingtip pod that contains sensors. The problem appeared about six months ago.

The problem centers on a specific component, called a "grease nipple," that is part of the system that cools the wingtip pods. Technicians were able to replace the malfunctioning pods, according to Spiegel, but supplies of the component are limited because the primary supplier needs to be recertified after a change in its ownership.