Paying Attention to the Bowe Bergdahl Court Martial?

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s charge sheet and legal filings history.

SEAL wounded in Bowe Bergdahl rescue try: ‘I want him to be accountable’

 

BostonHerald: A former Navy SEAL who was severely injured in a failed attempt to rescue Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl says the former Taliban captive now accused of desertion deserves punishment for endangering the lives of those who tried to save him.

“The guy should be held accountable. He left, he risked lives and he pulled assets from other parts of the war,” said retired Senior Chief Petty Officer Jimmy Hatch, who added he knew someone would get “killed or hurt” as a result of Bergdahl’s decision to leave his unit.

“Sure enough, days later I was shot, lying in a field screaming my head off,” said Hatch, whose femur was shattered, the bone blasted out of the back of his right leg by an AK-47 round in the effort to rescue Bergdahl from the Taliban.

Hatch spoke to the Herald yesterday as Bergdahl’s commanding officer testified at Fort Sam Houston in Texas that his unit searched for the missing sergeant for weeks. Bergdahl — who disappeared from his post in 2009 in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years — is facing a military tribunal to determine whether he should undergo a court-martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He could face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Hatch, a 48-year-old Bronze Star recipient, said he’s speaking out now because the Bergdahl hearing needs more media attention.

“I think it’s telling that this hearing isn’t a blip on the radar of today’s news,” he said. “It’s all about Donald Trump and the political circus.”

“My injuries, I took a bullet — people had to risk their lives to come and save me. A helicopter had to fly back into a very active gunfight,” said Hatch, who suffered debilitating depression because he felt he failed the mission. “I struggled hard after I got hurt.”

Bergdahl’s defense attorneys plan to argue that their client has already suffered enough in his lengthy captivity.

But Hatch said Bergdahl shouldn’t get a pass because his careless actions placed numerous American lives in harm’s way.

“What’s amazing isn’t that Bergdahl walked off, it’s amazing that we went out to rescue him. … I want, as a person who paid a bit of a price for his decision, I want him to be held accountable,” said Hatch, who underwent 18 surgeries on his leg and still walks with a limp.

“Hostage rescue missions are very, very difficult and Mr. Bergdahl’s decision created a situation where a lot of Americans had to risk their lives,” he said.

While rescuing Bergdahl, Hatch said he didn’t think of him as a deserter, just as a comrade in arms who needed to be saved.

“He’s an American, and he’s got a mom, he’s got people who are close to him,” Hatch recalled. “I just didn’t want his mom to see his head chopped off on YouTube.”

Hatch suspects that the “bad guys” who captured Bergdahl were prepared for the two-helicopter rescue mission — citing the high number of men and force of firepower Hatch faced.

“We were very, very fortunate that a whole lot of Americans weren’t killed. I think that the people who had him captive were probably thinking that someone was going to get him,” Hatch recalled.

“This wasn’t a typical two or three guys with AK-47s. There were crew-serviced machine guns and suicide grenades. They weren’t your average Taliban guys, and there were a lot of them” said Hatch.

The bottom line for Hatch is that Bergdahl should face a court-martial.

“The military will do the right thing,” he said. “I have faith that they are going to examine everything. I want him to be accountable.”

Hatch wasn’t able to return to service following his injury, but he said yesterday he’s focused on his new charity that helps K9 dogs similar to a pooch who spotted the enemy during his Bergdahl rescue mission. Spike’s K9 Fund is a 501c3 that has helped rescue more than 25 dogs as well as provide them with equipment and needed surgeries.

The Pope’s Visit to America, Agenda, Security. Contentious

Secretary of DHS, Jeh Johnson is taking the security architecture for the Pope personally.

DHS Support for the Visit of Pope Francis

Release Date:
September 18, 2015

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has designated the visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New York as a National Special Security Event (NSSE) which allows for enhanced cooperation of local, state and federal partners in establishing a safe and secure environment.

The U.S. Secret Service serves as the lead federal law enforcement and coordinating agency for developing and implementing a comprehensive security plan for the Papal Visit. Interagency coordination is critical to security planning.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components providing security for the Papal Visit include the following:

  • U.S. Secret Service, in conjunction with federal, state and local partners, will support events with intelligence and counterterrorism assets, explosive device mitigation, dignitary and VIP protection, interagency communications, critical infrastructure, and airspace security.
  • The Transportation Security Administration will provide operational support including personnel, equipment and communications infrastructure. This includes Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) Teams and Transportation Security Officers across the National Capital Region, New York City and Philadelphia.
  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency serves as the lead federal agency for emergency and consequence management and will coordinate consequence management activities throughout the events to ensure a quick and coordinated response to protect public health and safety.
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection will provide operational support including venue security, non-intrusive inspection, and communications support.
  • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations will provide personnel to support venue security and augment dignitary protection.
  • The U.S. Coast Guard will provide maritime security 24-hours a day during the 2015 World Meeting of Families and enforce fixed security zones.
  • The DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate will maintain support 24-hours a day through the National Infrastructure Coordinating Center and National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center as well as provide support through Federal Protective Service personnel.
  • The DHS Office of Health Affairs will staff the National Biosurveillance Integration Center and through the BioWatch Program Office will provide personnel, equipment and supplies to support field operations.
  • The DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office will provide radiological and nuclear alarm adjudication support as well as detection capability support.
  • DHS will continue to monitor for threats surrounding the Pope’s visit as well as provide in-person support during events through the Office of Intelligence and Analysis.
  • The Office of Operations Coordination will maintain situation situational awareness through the National Operations Center, and coordinate federal information sharing and reporting activities with federal, state, local, tribal, and private sector partners across the homeland security enterprise.

The Pope will be addressing a joint session of Congress, so it will be interesting to see who attends the event. Remember Nancy Pelosi has been declared by the Vatican court no longer eligible for communion due to her stance on abortion. But, the Vatican has taken on a forgiveness posture for abortion under Pope Francis, while many Bishops and Cardinals are in revolt. While the White House stands with Planned Parenthood and selling unborn baby parts, will the Pope even address the matter during his U.S. tour?

The White House created their own guest list for the Pope without asking the Vatican and the Vatican is NOT pleased.

DailyCaller: President Barack Obama has attracted attention for planning to meet Pope Francis in the White House with a motley assortment of dissenting Catholics and others opposed to Catholic doctrine. Now, the Vatican is signaling that it isn’t happy.

Pope Francis is scheduled to meet Obama on the South Lawn of the White House next Wednesday, Sept. 23. Among those invited by Obama to meet Francis are Gene Robinson, the first gay Episcopal bishop in the U.S., Mateo Williamson, the transgender head of the LGBT Catholic group Dignity USA, and Sister Simone Campbell, a nun who lobbied for Obamacare’s passage despite the fact that it funds abortions and compels Catholic institutions to provide birth control for employees.

While the Vatican hasn’t publicly complained about the guest lineup, an anonymous Vatican official has told The Wall Street Journal they are not happy. According to the official, the Vatican fears Obama is attempting to lure Francis into a photo op where him being photographed next to these activists will be interpreted as an endorsement of their activities, and a repudiation of longstanding Catholic doctrine. This concern is heightened, the official said, because Obama doesn’t appear to have invited anybody to the White House from the U.S. anti-abortion movement, which has very close ties to the Catholic Church. If Obama really is planning to trap Francis with a photo op, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened to Francis. In July, Francis was caught off-guard on a visit to Bolivia when president Evo Morales presented him with a Communist-themed crucifix. Overall, though, the Obama administration has been trying to emphasize the ways it agrees with the Vatican, rather than the social issues like abortion where they diverge sharply. Vice President Joe Biden (who is Catholic) says he’s read all of Francis’s recent encyclical on climate change, and Francis’s visit to a Philadelphia prison could bolster Obama’s own push for criminal justice reform.

But friction may be inevitable, especially if the pope feels put off by Obama’s guest list in the White House. He plans to speak on the topic of religious liberty during his visit to Philadelphia, which may provide an opportunity to condemn Obamacare’s contraception mandate.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has downplayed the importance of individual guests, telling reporters Thursday that there will be “15,000 other people” at the event.

 

It is expected for Pope Francis to address the migrant crisis not only in Europe but to pressure the United States to take in more, perhaps hundreds of thousands more.

Pope Francis has been very vocal in encouraging the Catholic community to help migrants fleeing the Middle East. It is expected he will take the opportunity to encourage the United States, during his speech in the joint session of the Congress. He is expected to encourage the U.S. to take greater steps in absorbing more migrants from around the world, giving them the benefits from America’s immigration program including food, shelter, medication, education and several other benefits.

“Vatican officials say Pope Francis will focus heavily on immigration during his visit. ‘The Pope obviously has a very soft spot in his heart for immigrants,’ said one Holy See insider. ‘He won’t say, ‘open all borders,’ but there’s no two ways about it, he will say, ‘let’s give our immigrant brothers and sisters a fair chance,'” reported Breitbart.

The United States however has already accepted more migrants than Argentina, the home of the Pope. The U.S. has the highest foreign-born population in all of the largest countries in the world, according to Breitbart.

The population of the U.S. takes up only 5 percent of the World Population. In this 5 percent, a total of 20 percent are migrants from different countries.

Those Hanging with Hillary Campaign, Those Bailing

Who exactly was reviewing the speaking invitations for Bill Clinton at the State Department and what was the criteria for acceptance or declining, if ever?

Bill Clinton mulled speaking request for company later charged by SEC

Washington (CNN)President Bill Clinton’s aides once explored the possibility of him addressing a lavish energy conference, whose sponsor the Securities and Exchange Commission later accused of using a Ponzi-like scheme to obtain the money to cover the $200,000 speaker fee. The possibility of Clinton’s participation in the event was discussed in an email from Clinton staff to a State Department official obtained by CNN.

Instead, Clinton’s successor, President George W. Bush, spoke at the September 2012 event, billed as a “U.S. China Energy Summit.”

The company, Luca International, and its top executives are now the subject of a lawsuit alleging securities fraud brought by the SEC in July. The complaint alleges that Luca misspent millions in foreign investor funds for improper purposes, including the summit, an all-expenses-paid golf junket to Pebble Beach, California, designed to recruit more Asian investors to the company.

An email provided to the conservative group Citizens United, obtained by CNN, shows Clinton was initially presented with the offer to speak at the conference and his staff sought permission from the State Department to accept the invitation and its $200,000 speaker fee. Citizens United received the email as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act for correspondence between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s top aides.

“Would (the U.S. government) have any concerns about (Bill Clinton) taking this and directing the proceeds to the Clinton Foundation?” a Bill Clinton staffer asked several top advisers to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in June 2012.

Both Clinton’s staff and Don Walker, president of the Harry Walker Agency, the speaking agency booking engagements for Bill Clinton, expressed concerns about the request even as the foundation presented it to Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills. More here.

Clinton 2013 dates, places and speaking fees:

That pesky Clinton Foundation never seems to be out of the headlines either.

Obama admin, big businesses abandon Clinton Global Initiative: Column

Amid controversy, slipping polls, the non-profit arm of the Clinton dynasty is no longer a safe bet

 

More bad news for the Clintons. With Hillary’s presidential campaign slipping in the polls against Sen. Bernie Sanders and facing a potential fresh challenge from Vice President Joe Biden, six giants of the corporate world are bailing out on the Clinton Global Initiative.

On Sept. 26, CGI, a branch of the Clinton Foundation, convenes its 11th annual meeting with a star-studded cast. Bill and Chelsea Clinton will be joined by Ashley Judd, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Ted Danson, Tina Brown, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates and George Soros. What will be missing is more than a million dollars from a who’s who of corporate behemoths that sponsored the meeting last year. Six high-profile firms ended their cash donations, to be replaced with only one similar high-profile corporate donor so far.

USA TODAY has confirmed that sponsors from 2014 that have backed out for this year include electronics company Samsung, oil giant ExxonMobil, global financial firms Deutsche Bank and HSBC, and accounting firm PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers)Hewlett-Packard, which just announced major layoffs, will be an in-kind donor instead of a cash contributor, and the agri-chem firm Monsanto has cut back its donation. Dow‘s name is missing from the donor list as well, but the chemical company’s exit is not confirmed.

High-profile corporations might not be the only key supporters backing away from association with the Clinton family’s charitable arm. In 2014, eight national leaders, kings, presidents and prime ministers, appeared on the program for CGI’s annual meeting, including the president of the United States and the prime minister of Japan. This year, only leaders from Colombia and Liberia are currently on the program.

The Obama administration is backing away as well. In 2014, the cabinet officials heading the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Commerce, as well as key White House adviser Valerie Jarrett spoke at the conference. This year no Obama administration appointees as prominent are on the program.

In emails, Craig Minassian, chief communications officer of CGI, said that more speakers and sponsors are yet to be announced. The event will be attended by nearly two dozen heads of state. “Revenue is actually slightly better than last year … so there isn’t a decline in support,” he wrote.

Unless there is a sudden surge in high-profile corporate support in the coming days, the exodus of well-recognized brands could represent a setback for the Clinton campaign’s effort to maintain an aura of inevitability. Questions about ill-considered private email use while secretary of State and about the former first lady’s honesty already dog her efforts in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she is no longer considered a sure winner.

The corporate skittishness could be driven by a politically toxic atmosphere around the charity. Controversy over foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation while Clinton was secretary of State has tarnished the globally prominent foundation’s reputation. Some reporting has raised concerns that corporations and foreign governments were trying to curry favor with Clinton in an effort to influence government decision-making. The sluggish global economy could be a factor as well.

In any case, the corporate pullouts can’t be a morale builder for Team Clinton, where personnel have shifted freely among campaigns, government service and the family foundation.

It is not all bad news. According to the foundation website, Microsoft has increased its donation to the event and well-known retailer GAP, Inc. has joined the roster, but other names signing on are unknown to most Americans: Consolidated Contractor Company, a Middle East construction firm; Delos, a real estate company; and Cheniere, a natural gas pipeline and terminal company.

As in years past, a number of widely known corporate brands are sticking with sponsorship of the Clinton event. Barclays, CocaCola, P&G, Cisco, Goldman Sachs and Western Union remain sponsors, as they were in 2014. Senior executives from other companies, including Sodexo and Unilever, will appear on stage. And non-profit support for the event has not dropped off.

A Clinton Foundation official told USA TODAY that the changes in sponsorship are not out of the ordinary and that this is not a new trend. But the high-profile turnover appears greater than usual. Last year, Samsung, Monsanto, PWC, HSBC and Blackstone were added as sponsors of the CGI meeting, while Duke Energy, Pfizer, Booz Allen, ApCo Worldwide and Toyota left. The companies that joined tended to donate at higher levels. For example, HSBC joined at the $1 million “Convening Sponsor” level, while Booz Allen, Toyota and Pfizer ended donations at the lowest level of giving, “Meeting Sponsor,” representing donations of $250,000.

It’s a long way until Election Day, but the corporate rejections are another sign that all is not well for Clinton Inc.

A Clock or a Planted Operation?

So, has the ‘BLM’ Black Lives Matter operation been cast aside for yet another scheme? Or, is this kind of odd event going to be on top of the BLM and there are more to come?

If this is a clock, where is the time and how come the teacher did not recognize it as a clock?

The Real Story of #IStandWithAhmed

The hubbub surrounding Irving, Texas 14-year-old MacArthur High School student Ahmed Mohammed – the kid who brought a homemade clock-in-a-case that looked like a fake bomb to school – continues apace, with the President of the United States inviting him to the White House, and 2016 Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tweeting out encouragement.

There’s only one problem: the whole story smells. It stinks of leftist exploitation.

Here’s what we know. On Monday, Mohammed brought a homemade clock to school. For those who don’t know the ins-and-outs of electronics, the device looked like a possible incendiary device. Ahmed told the media that he made the clock last weekend and brought it to school to show his engineering teacher. He explained to local news, “It was the first time I brought an invention to school to show a teacher.”

He didn’t explain that to police, however, according to the authorities. And he didn’t just show the device to his engineering teacher. In fact, the engineering teacher told him not to carry the device around after Mohammed showed him, according to The New York Times:

He said he took it to school on Monday to show an engineering teacher, who said it was nice but then told him he should not show the invention to other teachers. Later, Ahmed’s clock beeped during an English class, and after he revealed the device to the teacher, school officials notified the police, and Ahmed was interrogated by officers. “She thought it was a threat to her,” Ahmed told reporters Wednesday. “So it was really sad that she took a wrong impression of it.”

Why was the device in English class in the first place, especially after the engineering teacher told him not to show it around? When confronted by police and his English teacher, why didn’t Mohammed just tell them to talk to the engineering teacher? When police asked Ahmed what the device was and why he brought it to school, according to WFAA:

Officers said Ahmed was being “passive aggressive” in his answers to their questions, and didn’t have a “reasonable answer” as to what he was doing with the case. Investigators said the student told them that it was just a clock that he was messing around with. “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only say it was a clock. He didn’t offer any explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school,” said James McLellan, Irving Police.

Here’s the statute Ahmed Mohammed authorities originally suspected Mohammed of violating (Texas Penal Code Section 46.08):

(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly manufactures, sells, purchases, transports, or possesses a hoax bomb with intent to use the hoax bomb to:

(1) make another believe that the hoax bomb is an explosive or incendiary device; or

(2) cause alarm or reaction of any type by an official of a public safety agency or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies.

(b) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Nobody said Mohammed built an actual bomb. They suspected that he had wanted to frighten or alarm officials with a hoax-bomb. When they found out he didn’t intend to do that, they released him.

Given the limited evidence available, this is not far-fetched. Again, where was the engineering teacher to vouch for Mohammed’s story? Why didn’t Mohammed simply explain himself? The police said that initially, it was “not immediately evident” that the clock-in-a-case was a class experiment – perfectly plausible, given that Mohammed built the clock-in-a-case voluntarily, without assignment, and in conjunction with no science fair.

Chief Larry Boyd said simply and correctly, “You can’t take things like that to school” without explanation or assignment in today’s world without it receiving scrutiny.

And according to the cops, Ahmed was significantly more cooperative with friendly media than with the police who came to ask some simple questions.

That’s probably not a coincidence. Ahmed’s father, as Pamela Geller points out, is an anti-Islamophobia media gadfly. He routinely returns to Sudan to run for president; he has debated anti-Koran Florida pastor Terry Jones, partially in order to bring his children to Disneyworld. In 2011, the Washington Post wrote of him:

Elhassan, a native of the Sudan who is now an American citizen, likes to call himself a sheik. He wears a cleric’s flowing white robes and claims hundreds of followers throughout Egypt, Sudan and in the United States. But he is unknown as a scholar or holy man in the state he has called home for two decades. Religious leaders in Texas say they have never heard of Elhassan, including the imam at the mosque where he worships.

It’s no surprise that Ahmed Mohammed’s dad ran to the cameras at the first opportunity. It’s also no surprise that the terror-connected Council on American-Islamic Relations arrived to push the Islamophobia narrative immediately.

But there’s a long history of detaining science students for experiments administrators don’t understand. Homer Hickam, the subject of the movie October Sky, found himself in handcuffs during the Cold War for starting a forest fire with a rocket he built. And since September 11, such incidents have become more common. As someone who went to a Jewish high school based in Los Angeles and located next to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, police and security regularly evacuated our high school due to bomb threats. If one of the students had brought a device to school in this fashion, the student would have been detained and questioned – again, in an all-Jewish school.

And as Ian Tuttle of National Review has pointed out, America has become extra-paranoid of late: students have been suspended for gun-shaped Pop Tarts, cap guns, finger guns, and saying the word gun, among other grave offenses. And we don’t even need weapons to suspend students anymore: wearing an American flag at the wrong time or donning a Confederate flag t-shirt will do it.

So why, after the detention and release, did this story become a national one? Why did Obama jump on this story? Why did Hillary jump on this story? Where were they for then-16-year-old Kiera Wilmot of Florida to the White House after she was arrested and suspended in 2013 for bringing an experiment with toilet cleaner and aluminum foil to school? She was black but not Muslim, so it didn’t serve the narrative. They were MIA.

For years, the Obama administration has pushed the notion that American Muslims are in danger of Islamophobic backlash. But as of 2012, 62.4 percent of all anti-religious hate crimes targeted Jews; 11.6 percent targeted Muslims; as of 2013, anti-Jewish hate crimes represented 60.3 percent of all hate crimes, as opposed to just 13.7 percent for Muslims. That’s a major decline in anti-Islamic hate crimes since 2001, when 55.7 percent of hate crimes were anti-Jewish, and anti-Muslim hate crimes constituted 27.2 percent of all hate crimes.

So where, exactly, are all the invitations to Jewish students targeted in hate crime incidents?

They don’t exist, because they don’t help President Obama castigate America as xenophobic and backwards – and just as importantly, castigate Texans as particularly likely to don white hoods and go hunt down some Sufis.

The narrative reigns supreme. Ahmed Mohammed brought a clock-in-a-case that looked like a hoax bomb to the uninformed to school; his engineering teacher told him not to show it around; he showed it around; the police showed up, and he was allegedly uncooperative; they decided he was innocent and released him.

That’s not a national scandal. That’s local cops and teachers and administrators doing their jobs, decently but cautiously. Yet that won’t be what you hear. You’ll just hear that America hates Muslims, even as Americans self-righteously tweet out #IStandWithAhmed without hearing the facts.

U.S. Confrontation, Obama Tells Navy Put Tail Between Propellers

U.S. Navy video

Obama Blocks Navy from Sailing Near Disputed Chinese islands

FreeBeacon: The Obama administration has restricted the U.S. Pacific Command from sending ships and aircraft within 12 miles of disputed Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea, bolstering Beijing’s illegal claims over the vital seaway, Pentagon leaders revealed to Congress on Thursday.

“The administration has continued to restrict our Navy ships from operating within 12 nautical miles of China’s reclaimed islands,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) said in opening remarks criticizing the failure to guarantee safe passage for international commercial ships in Asia.

“This is a dangerous mistake that grants de facto recognition of China’s man-made sovereignty claims,” he said.

The South China Sea is a strategic waterway used to transport $5 trillion annually in goods, including $1.2 trillion in trade to the United States.

David Shear, assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific affairs, sought to play down the restrictions on Navy ship transits close to the islands. According to Shear, a regional freedom of navigation exercise took place in April and the tactic is “one tool in a larger tool box … and we’re in the process of putting together that tool box.”

Shear acknowledged that “we have not recently gone within 12 miles of a reclaimed area,” noting the last time a Navy ship sailed that close to a Chinese-built island was 2012.

The disclosure undermines statements made Wednesday by Defense Secretary Ash Carter who said the United States would not be coerced by China into not operating ships or aircraft in Asia. Carter said the United States “will continue to protect freedom of navigation and overflight.”

Shear insisted that in recent years the U.S. military has challenged “every category of Chinese claim in the South China Sea, as recently as this year.”

Blocking China from militarizing the new islands could include a range of options, including freedom of navigation operations, he said.

McCain, however, noted that the U.S. restrictions on close-in island military flights and ship visits were continuing despite the provocative dispatch of five Chinese warships in an unprecedented deployment to waters within 12 miles of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands—at the same time President Obama was concluding a recent visit to the state earlier this month.

A visibly angered McCain told Shear the best way to assert that international waters around the islands do not belong to China would be for American ships to make 12-mile passages by the disputed islands. “And we haven’t done that since 2012. I don’t find that acceptable, Mr. Secretary,” he said.

Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, was asked if he is authorized to order ships to travel within 12 miles of any of the man-made islands and answered, no. Harris also said no U.S. surveillance aircraft have flown directly over any of the islands.

Asked why not, Harris stated: “I’ll just [say] that Pacom presents options, military options to the secretary. And those options come with a full range of opportunities in the South China Sea, and we’re ready to execute those options when directed.”

The restrictions appear to be an element of the Obama administration’s conciliatory policies toward China that have increased in the months leading up to the planned visit to Washington next week by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The administration also has not taken steps to penalize China for large-scale hacking of U.S. government and private sector databases, although sanctions are planned.

China has been building islands on several reefs within the South China Sea for the past several years near the Paracels, in the northwestern sea, and near the Spratlys, near the Philippines. Several nations, including Vietnam, Philippines, and Malaysia have challenged Chinese claims to maritime sovereignty.

After ignoring the island building for several years, the Obama administration earlier this year began pressing the Chinese to halt the construction. The U.S. appeals were ignored.

A Chinese admiral recently declared that the entire South China Sea is China’s maritime territory.

“The South China Sea is no more China’s than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico’s,” said Harris, who described himself as critic of China’s maritime behavior and large-scale military buildup.

Harris made clear implicitly during the hearing he did not agree with the restrictions on transit near the disputed islands but has been overruled by the president and secretary of defense.

“I think that we must exercise our freedom of navigation throughout the region …,” Harris said.

Pressed for his views on whether close passage of U.S. ships in the sea should be permitted, Harris said: “I believe that we should [be] allow[ed] to exercise freedom of navigation and flight—maritime and flight in the South China Sea against those islands that are not islands.”

Asked if he has requested permission for close-in island transits, Harris would not say, stating only that he has provided policy options for doing so to civilian leaders.

Harris said Pacific command surface ship commanders and crews, as well as Air Force pilots and crews, have orders when operating near China to “insist on our right to operate in international airspace and maritime space” and to respond professionally when challenged by Chinese warships or interceptor jets.

The four-star admiral warned that more incidents, such as the dangerous aerial intercept of a P-8 surveillance jet by a Chinese jet in 2014, are possible after China finishes building runways on Fiery Cross Reef and two other reefs.

With missiles, jet fighters, and warships stationed on the islands, “it creates a mechanism by which China would have de facto control over the South China Sea in any scenario short of war,” he said.

In a conflict the sites could be easily targeted, but “short of that, militarization of these features pose a threat, and certainly it poses a threat against all other countries in the region,” he said.

Shear also said the island militarization is a concern.

“The Chinese have not yet placed advanced weaponry on those features and we are going to do everything we can to ensure that they don’t,” Shear said. “This is going to be a long-term effort. There are no silver bullets in this effort. But we’re certainly complicating Chinese calculations already.”

Shear said U.S. forces are continuing to operate freely in the region and have deterred Chinese coercion of regional states.

“That we freely operate in the South China Sea is a success? It’s a pretty low bar, Mr. Secretary,” McCain said.

China’s dispatch of five warships to waters near the Bering Strait followed recent joint exercises with the Russians, after which the Chinese ships sailed near Alaska to demonstrated the ships’ ability to operate in the far north, Harris said, noting that he viewed the timing to the president’s Alaska visit as “coincidental.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan, (R., Alaska) said the Chinese action was a “provocation” and criticized the administration’s weak response. The Pentagon dismissed the Chinese ship transit as legal under international law.

“I thought it was more of a provocation and a demonstration of their interest in the Arctic,” Sullivan said. “I’m not sure that this White House would recognize a provocation if it was slapped in the face, and we need to be aware of that.”

Harris also said he is concerned by China deploying submarines, including nuclear missile submarines, further from its shores.

“We’re seeing Chinese submarine deployments extend further and further, almost with every deployment,” he said. “It has become routine for Chinese submarines to travel to the Horn of Africa region and North Arabian Sea in conjunction with their counter piracy task force operations. We’re seeing their ballistic missiles submarines travel in the Pacific at further ranges and of course all of those are of concern.”

China’s claims to have halted island construction and militarization on some 3,000 acres are false, McCain said.

“Recently released satellite images show clearly this is not true,” the senator said. “What’s more, China is rapidly militarizing this reclaimed land, building garrisons, harbors, intelligence, and surveillance infrastructure, and at least three air strips that could support military aircraft.”

Surface-to-air missiles and radars also could be added enabling China “to declare and enforce an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, and to hold that vital region at risk,” McCain added.

Shear said the island building is nearly completed.

Meanwhile in the House, Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R., Va.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower, led a group of 29 members of Congress in writing to President Obama and Carter, the defense secretary, urging the lifting of the restrictions on naval and air operations near the disputed islands.

“The longer the United States goes without challenging China’s unfounded claims to sovereignty over these artificial formations—and to territorial waters and exclusive economic rights in the surrounding water—the greater the consequences will be for regional security,” the lawmakers stated in the Sept. 17 letter.

“It is our belief that the Defense Department should act immediately to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to freedom of navigation and the rule of law.”