Tag: US military

If the US Defense Secretary is to be believed, the recent media reports of the Trump administration pushing a Cost Plus 50 strategy are fake news:

Anchor: The acting U.S. defense chief has flatly denied media reports that the Trump administration is set to demand U.S. allies to pay 150 percent of the base costs for hosting American forces. 
Choi You Sun has more.

Report: Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that Washington will not impose a U.S. troop payment of “cost-plus-50” on its allies in Asia and Europe.

[Sound bite: Acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan]
(Sen. Dan Sullivan: So those reports in the press, all over the press, are incorrect?)
“They’re erroneous. We’re not going to run a business, we’re not going to run a charity. The important part is that we.. people pay their fair share and payment comes in lots of different forms, could be contributions, like in Afghanistan.”

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

Okinawans have been complaining about helicopter noise and safety issues with Marine Corps Air Station Futenma for many years, but they don’t like the relocation plan either:

Just over half of Okinawa’s 1.15 million registered voters turned out Sunday to deliver a resounding “no” vote in a referendum on the plan to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Out of the 601,733 voters who turned out, 434,149 — or approximately 72 percent — voted against the reclamation of land in Oura Bay at Camp Schwab for a new military runway. The plan is to close Futenma and relocate Marine air operations to Henoko on Okinawa’s less populated northern coast.
The vote is sure to further complicate matters for Japan’s central government, which has pushed forward with the project for decades despite a persistent local protest movement.
Construction of the runway is already underway and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the relocation project will continue regardless of the referendum’s result.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but considering what this retired Japanese General said last week, it makes me wonder if any money going to the anti-base groups is funded by the Chinese?

Here we go again with the media advocating for the MAVNI program:

Over the course of 12 months, the U.S. Army discharged more than 500 immigrant enlistees who were recruited across the globe for their language or medical skills and promised a fast track to citizenship in exchange for their service, The Associated Press has found.

The decade-old Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest recruiting program was put on hold in 2016 amid concerns that immigrant recruits were not being screened sufficiently. The Army began booting out those enlistees last year without explanation .

The AP has interviewed more than a dozen recruits from countries such as Brazil, Pakistan, Iran, China and Mongolia who all said they were devastated by their unexpected discharges or canceled contracts.

Until now, it’s been unclear how many were discharged and for what reason because the Army has refused to discuss specific cases. But the Army’s own list, submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month, says 502 service members who enlisted under MAVNI were discharged between July 2017 and July 2018.

The list, which was unsealed this week after a request from the AP, offers “refuse to enlist” as the reason for expelling two-thirds of the recruits. That is the reason given for 35 percent of enlistee discharges Army-wide, according to a research study posted on a Defense Department website.

But at least one recruit whose paperwork said he was being discharged from the program for that reason said it was not accurate.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but according to documents most of these MAVNI recruits ended up refusing to enlist.  Plus I like how the Associated Press reporters did not mention in the article the espionage threat potential from these recruits.  Just last month a Chinese agent who was a MAVNI recruit was arrested:

The complaint charges Ji with one count of knowingly acting in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General.  He will make an initial court appearance today at 5:00 p.m. EDT (4:00 p.m. CDT) before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason in Courtroom 2266 of the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

According to the complaint, Ji was born in China and arrived in the United States in 2013 on an F1 Visa, for the purpose of studying electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.  In 2016, Ji enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves as an E4 Specialist under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program, which authorizes the U.S. Armed Forces to recruit certain legal aliens whose skills are considered vital to the national interest.  In his application to participate in the MAVNI program, Ji specifically denied having had contact with a foreign government within the past seven years, the complaint states.  In a subsequent interview with a U.S. Army officer, Ji again failed to disclose his relationship and contacts with the intelligence officer, the charge alleges.  [Department of Justice]

The 1st Armored Division is the next rotational unit to come to Korea.  The division did not participate in the Korean War and according to the division’s history it made no rotational deployments to Korea either over the years.  So this is likely the first time that the “Old Ironsides” patch will be in Korea:

Tracked vehicles and other equipment for a new U.S. unit on a 9-month rotational mission here will arrive in South Korea next week, the U.S. Eighth Army said Thursday.

The equipment from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division based at Fort Bliss, Texas, will arrive in the country’s southeastern port city of Busan, 450 kilometers south of Seoul, early next week.

The new team is set to replace the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, which is completing its rotational deployment in support of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, a forward-deployed unit in Korea.

Aside from the equipment, approximately 490 troops of the new team have already arrived. The Eighth Army refused to elaborate on the total number of its personnel.

Unlike previous rotational deployments, the outgoing team will take some of their equipment, including M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, back to the United States, while the new team will bring in some of their own equipment.

In the past, equipment stayed in Korea while rotational troops moved on and off the peninsula.

The exchange of equipment is aimed at ensuring “proper maintenance” and service of the old equipment and aligning deployed forces with current U.S. Army-wide modernization and readiness efforts, the Eighth Army said.

“The noticeable difference this time is the movement of tracked vehicles,” Col. Joseph R. Morrow, the Eighth Army logistics chief, said. “This added complexity gives our soldiers the opportunity to maintain skills in shipping and safely moving large-scale equipment.  [Yonhap]

Remember the happy news the S. Korean NSA brought us a mere two days ago, that Kim Jong Un purportedly did not object to the presence of USFK. So, does this mean KCNA = independent media? Or that Kim, perish the thought, was lying? https://t.co/VPnriRKVqB

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) September 8, 2018

Jenny Jin of the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency speaks in an interview with Yonhap in Washington on Aug. 8, 2018. The forensic scientist of Korean descent is in charge of identifying the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War repatriated by North Korea. (Yonhap)

Via a reader tip comes news of another example of how Asian-Americans continue to grow in importance in American society:

The growth of the Asian-American community since the turn of the century has been reflected in all professional and social areas of life in the U.S., not least the armed forces.

In recent years, Americans of Asian background have been signing up for the military in growing numbers, and, in 2016, they were 28% more likely to be among the officer ranks than they were 12 years earlier.

The change was more pronounced in certain branches of the military than others. The number of Asian-American officers in the army, for example, grew by 41%. That compares with growth of just 4% for ethnic minorities overall and a 3.1% decline among African Americans.  [Nikkei Asian Review]

You can read more at the link.

In honor of the 65th anniversary of the Korean War armistice it appears the North Koreans are prepared to hand over a large number of remains:

North Korea has agreed to hand over as many as 55 sets of remains believed to be from American troops killed in the 1950-53 war, and to allow the United States to fly them out of the country next week, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The preliminary details emerged after U.S. and North Korean officials held working-level talks Monday in the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone.

The Americans planned to send transit cases via truck to the DMZ, where they would be given to the North Koreans to use for the remains. “They’re going to use our cases for the remains and give them back to us,” the official told Stars and Stripes.

A U.S. delegation was expected to retrieve the remains in North Korea and fly them out on July 27, either to Osan Air Base in South Korea or Hawaii, the official said, adding that the date may change as the two sides planned to iron out final details during another meeting in the near future.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans according to the article are supposedly not asking for anything in return for the remains.

Here is what came out of the general level talks with North Korea on the war remains issue:

The United States and North Korea have agreed to resume searching for the remains of thousands of American soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

The agreement came at a general-level meeting between the two sides earlier in the day, Pompeo said in a statement. On Monday the two countries will begin working-level talks to coordinate the repatriation of remains already found in the North, he added.

“This meeting was aimed at fulfilling one of the commitments made by Chairman Kim at the Singapore Summit,” Pompeo said in the statement, noting that it was the first general-level talks between the two countries since 2009. “Today’s talks were productive and cooperative and resulted in firm commitments.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if this so called search for remains in North Korea will require cash payments to the Kim regime as they demanded in past searches?