[JustTheNews] Republicans, including Trump, have been critical of Biden's handling of the withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members, rather than the underlying concept.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday told reporters during a Cabinet meeting that he clashed with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley over leaving U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan during a planned withdrawal.
Former President Joe Biden ended up overseeing the withdrawal in August of 2021, but it was planned in part by the first Trump administration in 2020. Republicans, including Trump, have been critical of Biden's handling of the withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members, rather than the underlying concept of withdrawing under the right circumstances.
Trump said he knew Milley was an "idiot" after he suggested it would be cheaper to leave the equipment in Afghanistan, despite concerns that the Taliban could acquire it. The president has since pushed for the U.S. to retrieve the equipment.
"That's when I knew he was an idiot," Trump said. "Didn't take long to figure that one out. But they left all that equipment. But they left their dignity behind. It was the most embarrassing moment, in my opinion, in the history of our country. Not that we got out. We should not have been there, but that we got out the way we got out with great embarrassment and death."
The Defense Department reported in 2022 that the Taliban retrieved nearly all $7 billion worth of military equipment that was not destroyed by U.S. troops during the withdrawal. The condition of the remaining equipment is not known, per Fox News.
Milley, who Trump tapped for the post in 2019, has not commented on the latest criticism so far.
Algeria and Mauritania have signed a defense agreement aimed at strengthening cooperation in combating the threats posed by terrorist and armed groups in the region. pic.twitter.com/TfaKq23cnv
[Breitbart] Germany has summoned the Chinese ambassador for a dressing down after it stated a Chinese warship, unprovoked and without warning, fired a laser weapon at an aircraft on a European Union military mission.
The militaries of several developed nations are developing and deploying experimental laser weapons, a non-kinetic and potentially cost-effective anti-air capability for blinding military aircraft and shooting down drones and missiles. Now Germany alleges China has used such a device in anger against one of its aircraft over the Red Sea in the text of a diplomatic protest issued against Beijing.
Per the German Foreign Ministry, “The Chinese military employed a laser”, endangering the aircraft and the crew aboard. Germany has made a formal diplomatic protest over the incident, summoning the Chinese ambassador to Berlin for a dressing down. The Foreign Ministry said: “Endangering German personnel & disrupting the operation is entirely unacceptable”.
The aircraft, which is a surveillance platform operated by a defence contractor, flown by civilian pilots, but carrying a German military team operating the intelligence suite aboard, was flying over the Red Sea as part of the European Union’s Aspides deployment. The purpose of the mission is the protection of civilian shipping by monitoring and intercepting Houthi missiles and does not, the European Union says, contribute to American-led strikes on the Iran-backed Houthis themselves.
After the laser incident, the aircraft returned to its base in the Middle East as a precaution. Per German news magazine Der Spiegel, any possible damage to the aircraft and its sensor suite — which are typically sensitive and possibly the most vulnerable thing aboard to a directed-energy weapon — is “currently unclear and is still being investigated”.
A spokesman for the German military said the laser attack took place during a routine mission by “a Chinese warship that had already been encountered in the area several times, without any reason or prior contact” and that with the course of action followed, “the warship accepted the risk of endangering people and equipment”.
The contact with the Chinese warship is not the first incident for the German armed forces over the course of their involvement in EUNAVFOR’s Aspides mission to protect civilian shipping in the Red Sea. Last year, German Frigate Hessen, due to a communication failure with the American forces liaison, mistakenly launched two missiles at a passing U.S. Reaper drone. Fortunately for the U.S. and unfortunately for Germany, both missiles failed to reach the target and splashed into the sea, which sparked a debate about German military capability.
Laser air defences are an important emerging area of military technology that has become more urgently attended to in recent years as the Ukraine war massively underlined the present asymmetric nature of air war. The economics of shooting down single use explosive drones that can cost as little as tens-of-thousands of dollars with multi-million-dollar interceptor missiles is horrendous, and excluding development and deployment costs lasers can be fired for as little as $10 a time, providing just enough energy to a target to defeat its onboard systems to cause a crash.
The U.S. military has been developing laser air defence systems for decades and recently published an image [top] of USS Preble test-firing the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS). The 60kw weapon is intended to defeat fast attack craft and drones, and can also be used in a lower-power mode to dazzle enemy systems without actually destroying them, which may be similar to what the German aircraft experienced over the Red Sea.
Israel said this year it has used laser weapons to bring down enemy aerial threats and the British government has also said it has successfully used its experimental ‘Dragonfire’ laser and would even be deploying it to Ukraine to continue tests in a live environment. Images released by Britain’s weapons development department even showed, remarkably, a mortar round with a hole melted through it, suggesting a high potency weapon if faithfully represented.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Second Western District Military Court has received materials from the criminal case against 19 people accused of committing a terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region. This was reported on July 8 by the court's press service.
Before a date is set for a preliminary hearing or the first hearing on the merits, the judge will need up to 30 days to review all the documents on the 19 defendants.
The case materials consist of almost 450 volumes, including material evidence, as well as the results of dozens of expert examinations conducted on the accused.
The court will need to decide on a building where the hearings will take place. The courtrooms on Gospitalny Lane will not be able to accommodate all the participants in the trial, and the buildings in the Moscow City Court, where the military court periodically held hearings, are closed for repairs.
In addition, it remains unclear whether the trial will be open to the public.
No hint about the identity, or at least linkages, of the miscreant, so Page 2: War on Terror Background for now. If it is revealed to be an effort for China or Russia, we’ll refile it.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An imposter used AI technology to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and contacted at least a handful of top U.S. and foreign government officials, according to a diplomatic cable warning of the stunning blunder.
U.S. officials are hunting for the culprit, and assess that it is part of a plan to mop up information, the Washington Post reported.
The news comes just weeks after another impersonation plot involving a high-powered figure in the Trump White House, this one involving White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
That nefarious plot involved stolen data from the personal cellphone of White House chief of staff Susie Wiles that was then used to call some of American's most powerful people.
In the Rubio scam, someone purporting to be the secretary of state who also serves as Trump's national security advisor dialed three foreign secretaries, as well as a governor and a U.S. member of Congress 'with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts,' according to a cable obtained by the Post.
The imposter 'contacted at least five non-Department individuals, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a U.S. member of Congress,' according to the July 3 cable.
The imposter used text messages and the encrypted Signal app, the same app that led to the ouster of former National Security Advisor Michael Waltz after he accidentally added a reporter to a Signal group chat where top officials discussed a bombing campaign.
The contacts came in mid-June, during a flurry of high-stakes diplomatic activity amid wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and trade wars set off by President Trump's tariffs.
'The actor likely aimed to manipulate targeted individuals using AI-generated text and voice messages, with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts,' according to the cable.
The Daily Mail reached out to the State Department for a comment on the security breach.
AI tools are becoming increasingly powerful and easy to access, and creating a message in the voice a senior government official like Rubio is not particularly challenging.
There are massive amounts of publicly available clips that would allow AI technology to closely mimic Rubio's speech patterns and even content.
By relying on voice messages, the imposter would be able to fire off believable sounding missives that could potentially be used to collect additional information, with less risk of catching an error through real-time interaction.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the State Department and the White House for comment.
'The actor left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals and in one instance, sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal,' according to the cable.
Rubio makes for an obvious target because of his influence and his portfolio, which would give him a reason to interact with top officials throughout the government and abroad.
The former U.S. senator and former presidential candidate was seated to Trump's right during Monday night's high-stakes meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where the Israeli leader handed Trump a letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and where Trump called for sending arms to Ukraine and said he would meet with Iranian officials on a potential deal next week.
AI has already been used to manipulate public officials in campaign ads or commit deep fakes of Hollywood celebrities like Jennifer Anniston.
The FBI warned in May about an 'ongoing malicious text and voice messaging campaign.'
Continued on Page 47
In a recent interview to Al Jazeera, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan and current dynastic heir to the Pakistan People's Party, made headlines by suggesting his country is finally ready to behave. When prompted about UN-designated terrorists Hafiz Saeed…
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
