Foreign Threats Causing U.S. to Convert to Armored Battalions

Army to transition Fort Stewart infantry brigade to heavy armor

A soldier with the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, guides his vehicle onto the rail platform at Fort Carson, Colorado, Nov. 15, 2016. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Stewart in Georgia, is scheduled to officially become the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team in October 2017. Ange Desinor/U.S. Army

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WASHINGTON — The Army will transition one of its light infantry brigades into a heavy armored brigade in the summer as it looks to bolster its ability to respond to potential military threats posed by other nations, the service announced Wednesday.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Stewart in Georgia, will begin exchanging its light infantry equipment in mid-2017 for tanks, infantry fighting vehicles with upgraded armor and self-propelled howitzer cannons, according to an Army statement. The unit is scheduled to officially become the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team in October.

The transition will give the Army a total of 15 armored brigades across its force. It will boast 10 armored brigades on active duty and five in the reserves.

That will give the Army more firepower to respond to the potential for full-spectrum combat operations. Top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter, have listed potential conflicts with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as major threats for the United States.

Maj. Gen. Andrew Poppas, the Army’s force management director, said the conversion will help the Army retain its ability to “overmatch” such rivals, who in some cases have narrowed the military power gap with the United States.

The 2nd Brigade will actually be re-converting into an armored unit, after spending only about two years as an infantry brigade. The Spartan Brigade, as it is nicknamed, was an armored unit when it participated in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, and played a major role in the capture of Baghdad, known as the “Thunder Runs.” It transitioned into an infantry unit in May 2015, as part of the Army’s drawdown that included cutting an entire brigade from Fort Stewart.

Col. Brian Ellis, the force management division chief for Army operations, said global security challenges have changed drastically since the Army decided to convert 2nd Brigade into a lighter unit.

“As part of our Army processes, we’re always reviewing requirements based on strategic guidance to provide the right mix of capabilities to support geographic combatant commanders,” he said.

The conversion will give Fort Stewart two identical heavy armored brigades able to serve rotational deployments to areas including Eastern Europe, where the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team has already served tours to train with NATO allies and deter Russian aggression in the region.

It will take time for the brigade to transition back into a war-ready armored combat brigade, Ellis said. The unit will not begin its initial training regimen with the heavy equipment until 2018.

 

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Related reading: Europe Spooling up Military Activities vs. Russia

U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) and U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) lauded the move.

“The Army’s announcement is great news and exhibits a continued commitment to our nation’s defense capabilities in Georgia,” Perdue said in a statement. “The additional armored brigade at Fort Stewart provides us with a more lethal army, increasing our ability to counter the rise of Russian aggression against our European allies as well as other threats around the globe. This is a testament to the proficiency and growing capability of all the dedicated military and civilian personnel at Fort Stewart.” More here.

 

Rehab Program with Fun Activities in Saudi is Fake

Europe is trying to install and measure effectiveness of rehab programs for convicted and known terrorists. Such is the case in the United States with the DHS/WH program on Countering Violent Extremism, a euphemism to terrorist and such is the case for the failed programs in Europe. So, have these tests been modeled after those of Saudi Arabia? Let’s find out from a terrorist himself. Not sure, but memory tells us that the Guantanamo detainees actually did all of these activities during detention including having a soccer field.

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Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

To All those Paying Tribute to Fidel Castro

In 2014: Fidel Castro has signed an international manifesto “supporting Palestine,” demanding that Israel respect UN resolutions and withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Obama Directs Intelligence to be Shared with Cuba

Fidel Castro at the National Press Club, April 20, 1959

By the time Castro arrived in New York City in September 1960, relations between the United States and Cuba were rapidly deteriorating. Since taking power in January 1959, Castro had infuriated the American government with his policies of nationalizing U.S. companies and investments in Cuba. Some American officials, such as Vice President Richard Nixon, believed that Castro was leaning perilously toward communism. (Castro did not publicly proclaim his adherence to communism until late-1961, when he declared that he was a “Marxist-Leninist”.) More here.

Forbes: Founded by their wealthy landowner father in 1915, Fidel and younger brother Raul Castro’s childhood home in Birán burnt down in 1954 but a replica was erected in its place in 1974.

Cuban President Fidel Castro examines photos of his relatives at his native house in Birán, Cuba. (Photo by Pablo Pildain/AFP/Getty Images)

A picture of Cuban leader Fidel Castro in his ancestral home which is now a museum. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Fidel and Raul’s parents, Ángel Castro and Lina Ruz González, are laid to rest at the Birán plantation. Castro’s privileged background (although non-bourgeois) contradicted his message, so to give himself street cred, he touted his grandparent’s background as “exploited Galician peasants” from Spain.

The burial site of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro’s parents on the grounds of their childhood home in Birán, Cuba. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Like JFK, Castro’s father sent him to boarding school where he received a quality education (despite mediocre grades). Baseball, reading, and politics were among his interests. At 14, he even penned a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt congratulating him on his re-election while brazenly asking for $10 American cash (sounds like a secret capitalist).

As a 14-year old, Fidel Castro congratulated FDR on his re-election in 1940.

As a 14-year old, Fidel Castro congratulated FDR on his re-election in 1940. (National Archives document)

The Birán estate was more than a working sugar plantation. Prominent landowner Ángel Castro also established a primary school, hotel, pub, post office, a market store, and a ring for cockfighting (again, it sounds like a capitalist venture).

A building that served as a guest house on the Birán sugar plantation, founded by Fidel Castro’s father in 1915. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Castro ruled Cuba for 49 paranoid years. He moved frequently due to an estimated 600 assassination attempts by the CIA and other foes. The failed plots are infamous—exploding cigars and poison milkshakes included. Castro eventually ceded power to his brother Raul and retired to the gated community “Punto Cero” (Point Zero), his top-secret 75-acre suburban Havana home which resembled a vast military compound.

Fidel Castro meets with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his brother President Raul Castro at Punto Cero near Havana in 2010. (Photo by Ricardo Stuckert/AFP/Getty Images)

Fidel Castro, Cuba’s communist dictator, former president and divisive world figure, died on November 25 at 90 years old—53 years and three days after his nemesis U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Despite their adversarial status, both men were born into wealth via extremely ambitious fathers, both loved sports, both had a mistress weakness, and both fought for their country to oust dictators. That’s where the similarities end.

JFK died young and Castro lived a long, well-heeled life. Castro survived 10 U.S. presidents. Although he didn’t live in a palace and streets weren’t named for him, Castro still lived more extravagantly and hypocritically than he wanted the world to know. Cuba’s revolution leader wasn’t as modest as he led on. A decade ago, Forbes estimated Fidel Castro’s personal net worth at $900 million. That’s a lot of socialist rationing for one person. Luxurious living arrangements were especially appealing to Castro. But for security reasons (after hundreds of assassination attempts), Castro’s paranoid personal life and residences were top secret. Even Cuban citizens didn’t know where he resided.

Fidel Castro was born on his father Ángel Castro’s prosperous 25,000-acre, 400-employee sugar plantation (called Las Manacas farm) in small town Birán, Cuba—about 500 miles from Havana on the eastern end of the island. The property now serves as a Castro museum.

Punto Cero, a pre-revolution golf course property, was reportedly set up by Castro in the 1970s. According to Castro’s former bodyguard, the estate complex includes orange, lemon, mandarin, grapefruit and banana trees, as well as cows and six greenhouses to grow food.

Castro's compound is on the former grounds of the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club.

Castro’s compound is reportedly on the former grounds of the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club.

Punto Cero was far from the “fisherman’s cottage” Castro publicly claimed as his main asset. The luxurious complex in the Jaimanitas neighborhood (15 miles outside Havana proper) served as Castro’s summer residence near the capital city’s embassy district. According to Castro’s former bodyguard (as reported by InCuba Today), he also owned a residences in Cayo Piedra (a stones throw from the Bay of Pigs), La Caleta del Rosario, which featured a private marina; and La Deseada, a chalet in Pinar del Río—reportedly one of Castro’s favorite duck hunting spots.

Fidel Castro in Pinar del Río after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Castro frequently visited and took up residence in the area too.

Fidel Castro in Pinar del Río after the 1959 Cuban revolution. Castro frequently visited and took up residence in the area too.

Retired Fidel Castro met foreign leaders, dignitaries and Popes at Punto Cero, including Pope John Paul II in 1998, Pope Benedict in 2012, and Pope Francis in 2015. Despite his Jesuit background, Castro was an atheist. Yet he still reveled meeting Popes, even exchanging religious books with them.

Pope Francis meets Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba in 2015. The Vatican described the meeting at Castro’s residence as informal and familial, with an exchange of books. (AP Photo/Alex Castro)

Fidel Castro dead at 90, Cubans in Miami Celebrate

 

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro dies aged 90

Reuters: Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and for five decades defied U.S. efforts to topple him, died on Friday, his younger brother announced to the nation. He was 90.

A towering figure of the second half of the 20th Century, Castro had been in poor health since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006. He formally ceded power to his younger brother two years later.

Wearing a green military uniform, Cuba’s President Raul Castro appeared on state television to announce his brother’s death.

“At 10.29 at night, the chief commander of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, died,” he said, without giving a cause of death.

“Ever onward, to victory.”

The streets were quiet in Havana, but some residents reacted with sadness to the news, while in Miami, where many exiles from the Communist government live, a large crowd waving Cuban flags cheered, danced and banged on pots and pans, a video on social media showed.

“I am very upset. Whatever you want to say, he is public figure that the whole world respected and loved,” said Havana student Sariel Valdespino.

Castro’s remains will be cremated, according to his wishes. His brother said details of his funeral would be given on Saturday.

The bearded Fidel Castro took power in a 1959 revolution and ruled Cuba for 49 years with a mix of charisma and iron will, creating a one-party state and becoming a central figure in the Cold War.

He was demonized by the United States and its allies but admired by many leftists around the world, especially socialist revolutionaries in Latin America and Africa.

“I lament the death of Fidel Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban revolution and emblematic reference of the 20th Century,” Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Twitter.

Transforming Cuba from a playground for rich Americans into a symbol of resistance to Washington, Castro outlasted nine U.S. presidents in power.

He fended off a CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 as well as countless assassination attempts.

His alliance with Moscow helped trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a 13-day showdown with the United States that brought the world the closest it has been to nuclear war.

Wearing green military fatigues and chomping on cigars for many of his years in power, Castro was famous for long, fist-pounding speeches filled with blistering rhetoric, often aimed at the United States.

At home, he swept away capitalism and won support for bringing schools and hospitals to the poor. But he also created legions of enemies and critics, concentrated among Cuban exiles in Miami who fled his rule and saw him as a ruthless tyrant.

In the end it was not the efforts of Washington and Cuban exiles nor the collapse of Soviet communism that ended his rule. Instead, illness forced him to cede power to his younger brother Raul Castro, provisionally in 2006 and definitively in 2008.

Although Raul Castro always glorified his older brother, he has changed Cuba since taking over by introducing market-style economic reforms and agreeing with the United States in December 2014 to re-establish diplomatic ties and end decades of hostility.

Six weeks later, Fidel Castro offered only lukewarm support for the deal, raising questions about whether he approved of ending hostilities with his longtime enemy.

He lived to witness the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Cuba earlier this year, the first trip by a U.S. president to the island since 1928.

Castro did not meet Obama, and days later wrote a scathing column condemning the U.S. president’s “honey-coated” words and reminding Cubans of the many U.S. efforts to overthrow and weaken the Communist government.

In his final years, Fidel Castro no longer held leadership posts. He wrote newspaper commentaries on world affairs and occasionally met with foreign leaders but he lived in semi-seclusion.

His death – which would once have thrown a question mark over Cuba’s future – seems unlikely to trigger a crisis as Raul Castro, 85, is firmly ensconced in power.

Still, the passing of the man known to most Cubans as “El Comandante” – the commander – or simply “Fidel” leaves a huge void in the country he dominated for so long. It also underlines the generational change in Cuba’s communist leadership.

Raul Castro vows to step down when his term ends in 2018 and the Communist Party has elevated younger leaders to its Politburo, including 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, who is first vice-president and the heir apparent.

Others in their 50s include Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and economic reform czar Marino Murillo.

The reforms have led to more private enterprise and the lifting of some restrictions on personal freedoms but they aim to strengthen Communist Party rule, not weaken it.

“I don’t think Fidel’s passing is the big test. The big test is handing the revolution over to the next generation and that will happen when Raul steps down,” Cuba expert Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute in Virginia said before Castro’s death.

REVOLUTIONARY ICON

A Jesuit-educated lawyer, Fidel Castro led the revolution that ousted U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista on Jan 1, 1959. Aged 32, he quickly took control of Cuba and sought to transform it into an egalitarian society.

His government improved the living conditions of the very poor, achieved health and literacy levels on a par with rich countries and rid Cuba of a powerful Mafia presence.

But he also tolerated little dissent, jailed opponents, seized private businesses and monopolized the media.

Castro’s opponents labeled him a dictator and hundreds of thousands fled the island.

Many settled in Florida, influencing U.S. policy toward Cuba and plotting Castro’s demise. Some even trained in the Florida swamps for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.

But they could never dislodge him.

Generations of Latin American leftists applauded Castro for his socialist policies and for thumbing his nose at the United States from its doorstep just 90 miles (145 km) from Florida.

Castro claimed he survived or evaded hundreds of assassination attempts, including some conjured up by the CIA.

In 1962, the United States imposed a damaging trade embargo that Castro blamed for most of Cuba’s ills, using it to his advantage to rally patriotic fury.

Over the years, he expanded his influence by sending Cuban troops into far-away wars, including 350,000 to fight in Africa. They provided critical support to a left-wing government in Angola and contributed to the independence of Namibia in a war that helped end apartheid in South Africa.

He also won friends by sending tens of thousands of Cuban doctors abroad to treat the poor and bringing young people from developing countries to train them as physicians

‘HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME’

Born on August 13, 1926 in Biran in eastern Cuba, Castro was the son of a Spanish immigrant who became a wealthy landowner.

Angry at social conditions and Batista’s dictatorship, Fidel Castro launched his revolution on July 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada barracks in the eastern city of Santiago.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was released in 1955 after a pardon that would come back to haunt Batista.

Castro went into exile in Mexico and prepared a small rebel army to fight Batista. It included Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who became his comrade-in-arms.

In December 1956, Castro and a rag-tag band of 81 followers sailed to Cuba aboard a badly overloaded yacht called “Granma”.

Only 12, including him, his brother and Guevara, escaped a government ambush when they landed in eastern Cuba.

Taking refuge in the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains, they built a guerrilla force of several thousand fighters who, along with urban rebel groups, defeated Batista’s military in just over two years.

Early in his rule, at the height of the Cold War, Castro allied Cuba to the Soviet Union, which protected the Caribbean island and was its principal benefactor for three decades.

The alliance brought in $4 billion worth of aid annually, including everything from oil to guns, but also provoked the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States discovered Soviet missiles on the island.

Convinced that the United States was about to invade Cuba, Castro urged the Soviets to launch a nuclear attack.

Cooler heads prevailed. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President John F. Kennedy agreed the Soviets would withdraw the missiles in return for a U.S. promise never to invade Cuba. The United States also secretly agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey.

‘SPECIAL PERIOD’

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an isolated Cuba fell into a deep economic crisis that lasted for years and was known as the “special period”. Food, transport and basics such as soap were scarce and energy shortages led to frequent and long blackouts.

Castro undertook a series of tentative economic reforms to get through the crisis, including opening up to foreign tourism.

The economy improved when Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who looked up to Castro as a hero, came to the rescue with cheap oil. Aid from communist-run China also helped, but an economic downturn in Venezuela since Chavez’s death in 2013 have raised fears it will scale back its support for Cuba.

Plagued by chronic economic problems, Cuba’s population of 11 million has endured years of hardship, although not the deep poverty, violent crime and government neglect of many other developing countries.

For most Cubans, Fidel Castro has been the ubiquitous figure of their entire life.

Many still love him and share his faith in a communist future, and even some who abandoned their political belief still view him with respect. But others see him as an autocrat and feel he drove the country to ruin.

Cubans earn on average the equivalent of $20 a month and struggle to make ends meet even in an economy where education and health care are free and many basic goods and services are heavily subsidized.

It was never clear whether Fidel Castro fully backed his brother’s reform efforts of recent years. Some analysts believed his mere presence kept Raul from moving further and faster while others saw him as either quietly supportive or increasingly irrelevant.

 

 

Trump to the Aid of Japan vs. Russian Aggression?

Russia Announces Military Plans for Disputed Kuril Islands


FILE - Kunashiri Island, one of four islands known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and Northern Territories in Japan
FILE – Kunashiri Island, one of four islands known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and Northern Territories in Japan

VoA: Russia’s defense minister says Moscow plans to build a military base on the Kuril Islands, along with four Arctic bases that should be completed by 2018.

Sergei Shoigu told Russian news agencies Thursday the military is planning to put a large modern base on the islands with equipment necessary for border protection.

Shoigu said Russia has nearly completed several new bases with the largest on Kotelny Island in the Novosibirsk Archipelago.

Shoigu said there will also be military bases placed on Cape Schmidt, which is on the eastern coast of the Chukchi autonomous region, and Wrangel Island, which lies to the northeast of the mainland in the Chukchi Sea, a that a base on the Franz Josef Land Archipelago is near completion.

The new Russian bases are just a few hundred kilometers from the westernmost U.S. coastline.

Russia plans to build military bases in the Kuril Islands, Cape Schmidt, and Wrangel Island.

Russia plans to build military bases in the Kuril Islands, Cape Schmidt, and Wrangel Island.

Shoigu also announced six Arctic airfields are being modernized, and should be completed by 2017.

The Kremlin announced its intentions to deploy its military to the Arctic in 2008, but has not stationed troops there yet.

The Kurils lie off of Russia’s eastern coast and some of the islands in the archipelago are also claimed by Japan, which it calls the Northern Territories.

The dispute between Russia and Japan over these islands has remained unresolved since World War Two. The conflict has kept the two nations from signing a formal peace treaty.

The Soviet Union seized the islands in 1945, shortly before Japan’s surrender in World War II.

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What does President Elect Trump about this? Since his election win, Trump has talked to Putin more than any other world leader  But what is the U.S. intelligence community telling Trump? It seems not much as he has elected to only take 2 briefings and is leaving the daily task to Mike Pence.

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Japan PM says Russian missile deployment on disputed isles ‘regrettable’

Reuters: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday Russia’s deployment of missile systems on islands in the western Pacific isles that are also claimed by Tokyo was “regrettable”.

His comments came less than a month before Russian President Vladimir Putin is to visit Japan for talks aimed at progress on the decades-old territorial row. Moscow has already said it hoped the deployment would not damage efforts to settle the dispute.

Russian media reported on Tuesday that Bastion and Bal anti-ship missile systems were now in operation on the islands, part of an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean over which Russia and Japan have staked rival claims for 70 years.

The feud over the islands, called the southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, has kept Tokyo and Moscow from signing a peace treaty to formally end World War Two.

“The four islands are our country’s inherent territory. We have conveyed through diplomatic routes that this … is not compatible with our country’s position and is regrettable,” Abe told parliament’s upper house.

Delicate diplomacy is underway to prepare for the meeting between the Russian and Japanese leaders in Japan on Dec. 15-16. Both sides have said they hoped progress could be made towards settling the dispute.

Abe, who sees improved ties with Moscow as a counter-balance to a rising China, hopes the lure of economic cooperation will help ease a breakthrough when he meets Putin, given the hit to Russia’s economy from sluggish oil prices and Western sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea.