Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 12:27 p.m. No.70724   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0725 >>0752 >>0786 >>0794

hmm, maybe time will tell…

 

General McInerney, [16.03.21 07:40]

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordy Fuchs will be arrested.

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/318

 

General McInerney, [16.03.21 09:03]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9367999/amp/Russian-threatens-block-Twitter-30-days-banned-content.html?__twitter_impression=true

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/319

 

General McInerney, [16.03.21 09:05]

Blackout…

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/320

 

General McInerney, [16.03.21 11:03]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9368583/amp/New-HBO-docu-series-names-head-QAnon-conspiracy-theorist-Ron-Watkins-son-8Chan-owner.html?__twitter_impression=true

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/321

 

General McInerney, [16.03.21 11:08]

Disinformation is necessary.

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/322

Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 12:38 p.m. No.70727   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0728 >>0729 >>0750 >>0752 >>0786 >>0794

March 08, 2021

Will Lloyd Austin stand up to the generals?

By Mark E. Mitchell, opinion contributor

 

In January, when Congress was considering whether to grant the waiver needed for recently retired General Lloyd Austin to become secretary of Defense, politicians and policy wonks on both sides of the aisle expressed concern and reservations about undermining "civilian control of the military." In his preconfirmation correspondence with Congress, Austin's testimony and public comments repeatedly committed to robust civilian control. In fact, during his confirmation hearing, Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "The safety and security of our democracy demand competent civilian control of our armed forces, the subordination of military power to the civil."

 

Now, only weeks into his tenure, Secretary Austin is considering the reversal of some, or possibly all, of the reforms intended to reaffirm and bolster civilian control of the Tampa, Fla.-based United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and our nation's elite special operation forces (SOF). Concern about this potential about-face has caused some members of the defense committees to write directly to Austin.

 

These essential reforms were long overdue and reversing them would send the wrong signal about accountability to civilian leadership. Moreover, this reversal could not come at a worse time. Our elite SOF are currently at a particularly critical juncture after 20 years of continuous conflict. Highly skilled in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, these forces must sustain those skills while also adapting to changes in our defense strategy and increasing threats from China and Russia. Moreover, they must cope with potential budget cuts and address cultural and behavioral issues that have - in USSOCOM's own words - allowed for "misconduct and unethical behavior."

 

These are the types of strategic challenges that demand strong civilian leadership. They are distinct from warfighting challenges and rest on the authorities explicitly entrusted to civilians: to set strategy, policy and strategic priorities; to control expenditure of appropriated funds; to speak authoritatively with Congress and the American people about all of the above and more. Despite these demands, Austin faces pressure to wrest power from the senior civilian official charged with these responsibilities and return it to the uniformed leadership at USSOCOM headquarters in Tampa.

 

The reforms in question, implemented by then Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller in the final months of the Trump administration, actually originated from a bipartisan consensus reflected in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.____ Signed into law by President Obama, the law mandated changes within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The changes sought to rebalance the relationship between the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD/SOLIC) and the USSOCOM Commander - the senior civilian and military leaders in the special operations enterprise, respectively. A substantial bipartisan majority recognized that their relationship had slowly but unmistakably transformed as USSOCOM, especially since 9/11. In the three decades since Congress created these organizations (against the Pentagon's will), the uniformed commander gained extraordinary control and independence while ASD/SOLIC endured increasing marginalization and decreasing influence.

 

Miller's reforms implemented the law. They reinforced the "administrative chain of command" that runs from the Secretary of Defense to ASD/SOLIC to Commander, USSOCOM. Consistent with congressional intent, this firmly established the ASD/SOLIC as the "service secretary" for SOF, responsible to the secretary of Defense and the president for issues beyond warfighting such as strategy, policy, the prioritization of resources, legal accountability, and communication with Congress and the public. These functions' nature and performance are inherently vested in civilian leaders; it flows naturally from the president, the commander-in-chief, to the secretary of Defense and the civilian service secretaries - not uniformed military leadership. While uniformed leadership's advice should inform these decisions, the authoritative direction is ultimately the exclusive province of the politically accountable civilian leadership in the executive and legislative branches of our government.

 

Former officials, including past USSOCOM commanders, have objected to the reforms on grounds that they were hasty or ill-considered. Others have voiced concerns about policy coordination now that ASD/SOLIC reports directly to the secretary rather than the undersecretary for policy. These concerns are unfounded. The changes needed to conform to the law have been under consideration for years, stymied by a mixture of myopia and hubris in the E-Ring, bureaucratic lethargy, and near irrational deference to our heroic special operators. Moreover, policy development is not isolated in a single office. It is developed and meticulously coordinated across multiple offices and organizations that do not report to the undersecretary for policy. There is no reason why the Miller reforms should impact this process.

 

Regardless of the causes, Miller knew the statutorily mandated civilian oversight and control had been ignored or severely circumscribed for too long. Informed by his decades of experience as an Army Special Forces officer, a senior official on the NSC, and a stint as Acting ASD(SO/LIC), Miller was determined to follow the law. He had seen the not-so-shiny underside of USSOCOM, which is shrouded in secrecy, and knew these reforms were necessary and overdue.

 

Now, Secretary Austin faces a clear choice: eliminate the legally mandated Miller reforms and eviscerate civilian control of USSOCOM or stand up to his erstwhile colleagues in the general officer ranks. Will he have the independence and wisdom to reject proposals to weaken civilian oversight of SOF? Will he keep his commitment to Congress to strengthen civilian control of the military and, more importantly, abide by his oath to "support and defend the Constitution" by implementing the law? Or will he abandon his promises and revert to reversing all things Trump, even reforms initiated under President Obama, and cave to the generals? History will be the judge.

 

Mark E. Mitchell is a former senior executive in DOD who served most recently as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD(SO/LIC)). He has lectured at Harvard Business School, the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Joint Special Operations University, the U.S. Army War College, the National Defense University, and the United States Military Academy.

 

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/541975-will-lloyd-austin-stand-up-to-the-generals?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 12:38 p.m. No.70728   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0729 >>0752 >>0786 >>0794

>>70727

Reminder

02/24/2021

Austin eyes rolling back Trump-era policy on special operations

 

The move was seen as a way to elevate the needs of America's elite special operations forces, including the Navy SEALs, which have borne the brunt of the fighting in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the past two decades.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is considering undoing his predecessor’s last-minute decision to elevate the top civilian Pentagon official overseeing special operations matters, signaling his intent to continue rolling back the policies of the Trump administration.

Austin is weighing the move as he reassigns the senior official who most recently held that special operations role in the Trump administration, and looks to replace another official who served under Trump's former Pentagon chief.

The initial policy change on special operations, made in December by former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, put civilian oversight of America’s commandos on par with the civilian leaders of the military branches. The job had been lower down in the Pentagon’s bureaucracy.

The move was seen as a way to elevate the needs of America's elite special operations forces — Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine Raiders — which have borne the brunt of the fighting in the Middle East and Afghanistan over the past two decades. It was also designed to increase civilian oversight following the fatal ambush of U.S. special forces in Niger in 2017 and a series of scandals that have plagued the community. Miller is a former Green Beret.

But the move alarmed some experts, who were worried the outgoing defense secretary was tinkering with Pentagon bureaucracy on his way out the door.

Austin is considering lowering the special operations job back into the Pentagon’s policy shop, effectively demoting the position, according to two former Trump officials, one current defense official and a House aide familiar with the move. All of the people requested anonymity to discuss sensitive decisions.

The people expressed concern about the potential reversal, saying Austin was trying to undo Miller’s legacy at the expense of the Pentagon bureaucracy.

The move has the potential to “kneecap” civilian oversight of special operations, as policies would be made through the policy shop without input from the official overseeing the portfolio, one of the people said.

However, one former defense official argued that keeping the job where it is would mean that the civilian overseeing America’s commandos would have “little to no impact” on policy, the person said.

Austin has made no final decisions on the issue, another defense official said. __Congress mandated the establishment of the direct reporting line in the 2017 defense policy bill signed by former President Barack Obama.

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment.__

This would mark the latest Trump policy that President Joe Biden’s new administration has reviewed or undone at the Pentagon. Biden reversed Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military almost immediately after taking office, and froze Trump’s ordered troop drawdowns in Germany, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He also canceled funding for Trump’s border wall, which had been drawn from the military’s coffers.

Meanwhile, Austin is also reassigning the senior Pentagon official who most recently served as the acting Pentagon official overseeing special operations. Joe Tonon, who held that position from December until January, is being moved to a position within the Navy, according to one former official and one current official.

Tonon, a career Navy intelligence official and a civilian, was most recently detailed to the deputy defense secretary's office. He was slated to move temporarily to the Pentagon's defense intelligence office with the expectation that he would ultimately be tapped to lead a new initiative within the department established late in the Trump administration.

He [Tonan] had the job offer in hand, but the day before he was supposed to make the move last week he was informed that he would be reassigned, the people said.

Tonon lost his pay raise and will likely now be "buried" in the Navy, one of the people said.

He assumed the acting role soon after Miller elevated the special operations position. The permanent position is a political one, but the law permits the White House to install a career official in the role on a temporary basis.

"This is really about the new folks coming in and kind of erasing [Miller's] legacy," the person said.

Meanwhile, Austin is looking at replacing Miller's executive secretary, Navy Capt. David Soldow, with a civilian, the second defense official said. Although Soldow was not scheduled to rotate out until this summer, a potential assignment came up and Austin wants to “give him the freedom to pursue that,” the person said.

Others characterized the potential move to reassign the executive secretary ahead of schedule as highly unusual. Two former officials and one current official with knowledge of the move saw it as another sign of Austin's campaign to replace people perceived as loyal to Miller.

The position is typically held by a uniformed officer and is not political.

Soldow signed a memo laying out the Pentagon's response to the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol last month; however, one of the former officials said his reassignment is not linked to the department's response to the insurrection.

Tonon declined to comment on the move. Soldow could not be reached for comment.

The reassignments come just weeks after Austin undertook a sweeping effort to oust last-minute Trump appointments to the defense advisory boards. This month, Austin fired all members serving on 31 panels, including the Defense Policy Board, the Defense Business Board and the Defense Innovation Board, and directed a “zero-based review" of the department's boards and commissions.

 

The move affects a number of controversial Trump allies, including Anthony Tata, the Pentagon acting policy chief until January who came under fire last year for Islamophobic and offensive tweets, and Scott O’Grady, a former Air Force pilot who spread false claims about election fraud on social media, from the policy board.

 

Austin also halted the in-processing of new members to the panels, effectively preventing a number of Trump acolytes, who were still completing paperwork and undergoing security checks, from actually serving on the boards. That included Trump's 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie. Also out is Kash Patel, who was Miller's chief of staff.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/24/lloyd-austin-special-operations-471454

Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 12:40 p.m. No.70729   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0752 >>0786 >>0794

>>70727

>>70728

Reminder

November 18, 2020

stripes.com

Acting defense secretary orders top special ops civilian to report directly to him

By COREY DICKSTEIN | STARS AND STRIPES Published: November 18, 2020

 

WASHINGTON — Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller on Wednesday ordered the Pentagon’s top civilian overseeing the military’s special operations community to report directly to him, effectively elevating U.S. Special Operations Command to the same level of the Pentagon’s military departments.

The change makes the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict a service secretary-like position responsible for the oversight and advocacy of the military’s special operations forces, said Miller, who is expected to serve in the Defense Department’s top job only about two months.

Miller announced the move during a visit to the Army’s special operations home at Fort Bragg, N.C., his first official visit as defense secretary since he took the job Nov. 9 as former Defense Secretary Mark Esper was fired by President Donald Trump via Twitter.

“This reform will immediately improve agility to the department and the command and will enable us to streamline the information flow, enhance decision-making and more adaptively and adeptly support our commanders and their superb soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines,” Miller said in brief, prepared comments.

Miller said he would prefer to raise the top special operations civilian post to an undersecretary of defense title, but he also said he lacked the authority to do so. Before Wednesday, the person filling that role reported to the defense secretary through the undersecretary of defense for policy, the de facto No. 3 civilian in the Pentagon.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a former aide to Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn, is now filling the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict role on an acting basis. Miller briefly served in that position on a temporary basis earlier this year, as well.

The move on Wednesday aligns the Pentagon with the congressional intent for the top special operations civilian. In the fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers ordered the Pentagon to raise the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict to a service secretary-like job and report directly to the defense secretary “for issues impacting the readiness and organization of special operations forces, special operations-peculiar resources and equipment, and civilian personnel management.”

Congress urged the Pentagon to speed up the elevation of the position in its fiscal year 2020 NDAA, the annual law that sets Pentagon policy and spending priorities. Esper told Congress last year that the Defense Department was making progress on the ordered changes.

Miller is a longtime veteran of the special operations community who retired from the Army in 2014 as a colonel. Miller, who was a Green Beret, spent much of his career in the Army’s 5th Special Forces Group, commanding a company and a battalion. He fought in Afghanistan and Iraq as a Green Beret, participating in the initial invasions of both of those countries in 2001 and 2003, respectively.

The policy change comes one day after Miller announce the first major shift for the military under his watch — the hastened withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Miller announced Tuesday that the United States would remove about half its troops from Afghanistan and about 500 from Iraq by Jan. 15, just five days before President-elect Joe Biden is to be sworn into office. Biden will take over responsibility for those war efforts with 2,500 troops left in Afghanistan and 2,500 troops left in Iraq.

The acting defense secretary said Wednesday that drawing down operations in those nations will allow special operations forces to refocus on their roles in a potential fight with a major power such as China or Russia.

“Right now we start the transition to provide greater civilian oversight of, and critically, advocacy for our special operators,” Miller said. “This couldn't come at a more critical moment in time, as we bring our nation's longest conflicts to a responsible end and prepare special operations forces for this new era of great-power competition.”

 

dickstein.corey@stripes.com

 

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/acting-defense-secretary-orders-top-special-ops-civilian-to-report-directly-to-him-1.652557

Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 1:57 p.m. No.70750   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0786 >>0794

>>70727

Obama wanted to give USSOCOM more autonomy he signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization, under the guise of following the Constitution and providing civilian control, he would give autonomy to USSOCOM by placing "activist" or weak leaders in the civilian positions. Hillary didn't win. So Trump placed the most qualified in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to balance the relationship between ASD/SOLIC and the USSOSOM Commander.

General Lloyd Austin is dismantling this balance.

In the news this week the military took to twitter and attacked a journalist and pushed the narrative that pregnant women belong in the armed forces and Biden gave armed forces permission to pay for transgender medical expenses.

It appears that the military is divided and/or under attack.

 

 

[this is NOT my area of expertise so feel free to correct anything]

Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 3:01 p.m. No.70762   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0786 >>0794

Attorney Ana Garner of New Mexico finds no historical case challenges for mandated vaccines

 

Spiro Skouras: Is there any legal precedence in the past in regards to experimental vaccines, experimental vaccines forced upon people. I mean this has got to be unheard of at this point?

 

Ana Garner: It really is, Spiro, it's a brand new case of first impression, because in our search we went through Lexus, a very extensive legal data base and we couldn't find any cases that construed the provision we cited in our complaint, the one about Emergency Use Authorization. We have looked through the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals cases, looked through the U.S. Supreme Court Cases, we looked through Federal District Court Cases because that is the likely place this would be tried. We have done a search and to our knowledge we are the first one in the country who have even challenged any mandate that would require or coerce, or require a pressure to put any kind of duress on anyone to take an experimental product.

 

Spiro Skouras:It's Here!First Court Case Against Mandatory Vaccination w/ Attorney Ana Garner of NM

https://www.bitchute.com/video/NHk93hZMHHbI/

 

New Mexico Stands Up - Land of the Free because of the Brave

https://nmstandsup.org/

Huck ID: 42563c March 16, 2021, 3:06 p.m. No.70767   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0768

>>70759

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9368583/amp/New-HBO-docu-series-names-head-QAnon-conspiracy-theorist-Ron-Watkins-son-8Chan-owner.html?__twitter_impression=true