Tag: pentagon

Pentagon posts dog pics on Instagram while bombs explode at Kabul airport and Afghanistan disaster continues

At least two bomb blasts and gunfire erupted around the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, resulting in “a number of” U.S. troop deaths and injuries. Amid that chaos, the Pentagon’s Instagram account carried on posting pictures of dogs in celebration of National Dog Day.

The Department of Defense Instagram account posted seven different photos of dogs on Thursday morning, around the same time Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was publicly confirming the first explosion outside the Kabul Airport.

Up to 13 people were reportedly killed in the bomb blasts outside the Kabul airport, while others were reported injured. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby confirmed that “a number of U.S. service members” were both killed and injured in the attack.

CNN contributor Frida Ghitis tweeted that four or more U.S. service members had been wounded or killed in the attack, according to a State Department official. Other media outlets said four U.S. Marines were killed.

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Pentagon Won’t Deny U.S. Is Buying Fuel from the Taliban for Afghan Airlift

During Thursday’s press briefing at the Pentagon, General Hank Taylor and Press Secretary John Kirby provided an update on the airlift of Americans and Afghan allies out of Kabul before taking questions on the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

General Taylor reported that in the last 24 hours, the U.S. military footprint grew to number more than 5,200 total troops on the ground at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and that additional gates for entry to the airfield were opened while the airport remains open and secure. 

He also reported that 13 C-17 transport planes had arrived at HKIA with additional troops and equipment and 12 C-17s departed with evacuees.

When asked by Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin about how planes conducting the airlift were being fueled, Taylor and Kirby refused to deny whether the United States was buying from the Taliban.

“The assets on KHIA, on the airfield, are what we need to maintain the operations, all operations to support the mission,” Taylor responded without answering the question. 

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The Pentagon Is Experimenting With Using Artificial Intelligence To “See Days In Advance”

U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) recently conducted a series of tests known as the Global Information Dominance Experiments, or GIDE, which combined global sensor networks, artificial intelligence (AI) systems, and cloud computing resources in an attempt to “achieve information dominance” and “decision-making superiority.” According to NORTHCOM leadership, the AI and machine learning tools tested in the experiments could someday offer the Pentagon a robust “ability to see days in advance,” meaning it could predict the future with some reliability based on evaluating patterns, anomalies, and trends in massive data sets. While the concept sounds like something out of Minority Report, the commander of NORTHCOM says this capability is already enabled by tools readily available to the Pentagon. 

General Glen VanHerck, Commander of NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told reporters at the Pentagon this week that this was the third test of GIDE, conducted in conjunction with all 11 combatant commands “collaborating in the same information space using the same exact capabilities.” The experiment largely centered around contested logistics and information advantage, two cornerstones of the new warfighting paradigm recently proposed by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A full transcript of VanHerck’s press briefing is available online. 

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How Amazon’s $10 Billion Contract Squabble with the Pentagon Reveals the Shady Nature of Military Contracts

Earlier this month the US Department of Defense (DOD) canceled a $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract awarded to Microsoft in 2019. The goal of the contract was to modernize the Department’s IT operations using cloud computing.

The JEDI cancellation occurred following a lawsuit from Amazon after the company was denied the contract. Amazon alleges that they were rejected because the Department of Defense was pressured by then President Donald Trump to “screw Amazon.” The motivation for this move, it was claimed, was driven by Trump’s personal animus for then-CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

Amazon claims insider sources responsible for the book Holding The Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis provide evidence for Trump’s direct intent to “screw Amazon,” but you need not trust another book published by Washington insiders for this story. Trump’s personal problems with Bezos, valid or not, are extremely public. Tweets targeted at Bezos’ include:

“The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon.” December 7, 2015.

“If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!” December 7, 2015.

“Really sick to watch the Fake and totally Slanted News(?) coming out of MSDNC and CNN. It bears NO relationship to the Truth or Facts. They are merely offshoots of the DNC, much like the @nytimes and the Amazon @washingtonpost. Just like 2016, but worse. Sad, but we will win big!” June 3rd, 2020.

“Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!” August 16, 2017.

Prompted by Amazon’s lawsuit, the DOD launched an investigation that yielded a 317-page report evaluating Amazon’s allegations. The authors claimed that lack of cooperation from White House officials prevented them from reaching any clear conclusions.

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Pentagon admits it trained SEVEN of Haiti president’s murderers, but denies ‘encouraging’ assassination

The Pentagon’s top spokesman has confirmed that at least seven Colombians implicated in the assassination of Haiti’s president had received US training in the past, but denied it might have somehow “encouraged” the hit.

“Thus far, we’ve identified seven individuals who were former members of the Colombian military that had received some sort of … US funded and provided education and training,” Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday, stressing that such training is “very common,” and did not “[lead] to or [encourage] what happened in Haiti.”

While Kirby declined to provide details on an individual basis for the seven assassins, he said the instruction included “cadet leadership development, counter-drug operations, noncommissioned officer professional development, small-unit leadership training, human rights training, emergency medical training, some helicopter maintenance training, and those kinds of things.”

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Pentagon contractor investigating ‘extremism’ says BLM web search raises concerns about White supremacy

The Pentagon is reportedly working with an extremism analysis company that considers the web search “the truth about Black Lives Matter” and others to be signs of interest in or engagement with White supremacism.

According to Defense One, the contractor Moonshot CVE, which has ties to the Obama Foundation, is working on data that would identify which military bases and branches have the most troops searching for domestic extremist content. While that particular project’s contours are unclear, the company previously released a June report, in conjunction with the left-leaning Anti-Defamation League, on purported “White supremacy trends in the United States.”

In it, the U.K.-based company said it “monitored a list of almost 1,600 indicators of interest in or engagement with White supremacism, focused specifically on anti-Black and anti-Semitic narratives being used by extremist groups.”

As examples, it listed the search phrases “George Floyd deserved to die,” “Jews will not replace us” and “the truth about black lives matter.”

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UFO Witnesses From Mississippi and Alabama Disapprove of Recent UFO Report

Some folks from Mississippi and Alabama are not buying the federal report about UFOs that was released on June 25 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The report was about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sighted by members of the military since 2004. It doesn’t deny the possibility of some of the phenomena being extraterrestrial life forms visiting our planet, but neither does it doesn’t suggest the theory as a possibility.

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House Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman Carson Says He Will Hold Hearings on UFOs

House Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.) said Sunday that he wants Congress to conduct hearings on sightings of UFOs after the release of the Pentagon report that examines “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs).

“We have a pretty ambitious schedule. Chairman Schiff has a pretty ambitious agenda and my own committee we’re planning on having a series of hearings … and hopefully we will discuss UAPs in the very near future I can’t give a definitive date right now,” said Carson.

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