By the end of next year, Washington plans to station about 150 tanks and armored vehicles in Europe, according to a US military commander, who said the decision was made before the Ukrainian crisis strained Russia-US relations.
Although no official announcement has been made as to where the armored tanks and vehicles will be stationed, possible locations include Poland, Romania or the Baltic States, Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges, commander of the US Army in Europe, told Reuters.
Hodges confirmed that around 150 pieces of assorted US military armor would be permanently stationedin Europe.
"By the end of ... 2015, we will have gotten all the equipment for a heavy brigade, that means three battalions plus a reconnaissance squadron, the artillery headquarters, engineers, and it will stay in Europe," Hodges said.
"You are talking about 150-ish, maybe 160 M1 tanks, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, 24 self-propelled Howitzers."
"By the end of ... 2015, we will have gotten all the equipment for a heavy brigade, that means three battalions plus a reconnaissance squadron, the artillery headquarters, engineers, and it will stay in Europe," Hodges said.
"You are talking about 150-ish, maybe 160 M1 tanks, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, 24 self-propelled Howitzers."
Hodges, who said he believes renewed hostilities will occur between pro-Kiev and rebel forces in the east of the country, said plans to send an armored brigade to Europe was first proposed two years ago, before the Ukrainian crisis erupted in January 2014.
Russia has firmly rejected Western accusations that it has sponsored military activities in Ukraine.
Russia has firmly rejected Western accusations that it has sponsored military activities in Ukraine.
The move on the part of Washington will certainly provoke a reaction from Moscow, which has just agreed on a new military doctrine that lists the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty, which has been steadily encroaching on Russia’s borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the United States, which has undertaken a series of military offensives deemed unconstitutional even by its own people, as“major foreign threats.”
The doctrine lists among major foreign military threats “the creation and deployment of global strategic anti-ballistic missile systems that undermines the established global stability and balance of power in nuclear missile capabilities, the implementation of the ‘prompt strike’ concept, intent to deploy weapons in space and deployment of strategic conventional precision weapons.”
Hodges said he expected the deployment of US armored vehicles to Europe to continue throughout 2015 and into 2016.
Hodges said he expected the deployment of US armored vehicles to Europe to continue throughout 2015 and into 2016.
[Consider this information in the context of the Gog-Magog alliance]
Turkish and Palestinian flags fluttered like angry birds in a crowd of thousands of people chanting “Allahu Akbar!” and “Down with Israel!”
The chants grew more exuberant as the hulking, bearded man on the speaker’s platform assured them that “God willing, we will liberate Jerusalem together.”
The speaker was Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and his audience was Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, gathered for its annual meeting Dec. 27 at a convention hall in Konya, the hometown of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
The Turkish prime minister introduced the Hamas leader and then took a seat in the front row, cheering and clapping for the radical Islamist statements being made by Meshaal.
“As Turkey for centuries was the main defender of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, likewise with you are the center of the Muslim Umma (Muslim nation) which will carry on the mission of liberating Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque,” Meshaal told the crowd in an address that received almost no major media coverage. “Know this, that strong Turkey is the strength of Palestine and of Jerusalem. Turkey is the strength that represents all Muslims.”
Hamas, which leads nearly 2 million Palestinians in Israel’s Gaza Strip, remains a designated terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and functions as an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So when the Hamas leader appears, unannounced, as the keynote speak at an official political event in Turkey, a member of NATO and an important U.S. ally, that’s a big deal.
“Essentially Hamas is playing to the nationalistic fervor in Turkey and Turkey is using Hamas to gain favor throughout the Islamic world so it really is a mutually beneficial relationship,” says Joel Richardson, author of the New York Times-best-selling “Islamic Antichrist” and director of the recently released documentary film, “End Times Eyewitness.”
“Beset by domestic crises, Mr. Erdogan has turned his focus toward his core constituency, a largely conservative, anti-Western population in the heartland,” Bayrasli wrote in a New York Times column earlier this year. “In doing so he has reverted to a tactic that has resonated with them: aggression.”
Richardson believes Turkey has undergone a “soft revolution” as Erdogan has gradually steered the country closer to Islamic values and away from the West. This represented a break with Turkey’s more secular past, but Erdogan’s changes still did not attract anywhere near the amount of media attention that was seen in Egypt, Libya or Tunisia, the revolutions of the so-called “Arab Spring.” Turkey was touted in the West as the model for other regimes in the Middle East seeking a “middle ground” between Islamism and Western secularism.
But the convention held Dec. 27, with thousands of Turks shouting Islamic slogans in support of Meshaal, leader of a terrorist organization, is just the latest evidence that a wake-up call might be in order for Western policy makers in Washington and Europe, Richardson said.
“In light of the fact that everyone starts shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in Turkey, which is fairly rare and you would only hear that from devout Muslims, it would seem there really is some strong Islamist tendencies going on,” he said. “But the bottom line is everyone should be concerned. About 10 years ago, even five years ago, the U.S. was still casting Turkey as the moderate secular model and among America’s greatest allies in the whole Middle East.”
Richardson led a film crew that covered an Erdogan rally in Ankara last spring, and he experienced some of the same chilling mixture of raw nationalism and Islamic fervor as seen in Konya on Dec. 27.
“It truly felt like a Nazi rally,” Richardson said. “I took a whole segment to interview different leaders that highlight the Islamist takeover of Turkey and that was one of the big news stories that the West is barely paying attention to but needs to understand.
“The prime minister is the number-two man and he’s shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ to the idea of them leading an invasion of Israel and taking Jerusalem,” Richardson added. “Now, if anyone is doubting an Islamic takeover and Turkey is now emerging as a radical Islamic nation and they have the largest army in the region then they have their head in the sand. I’ve been saying this but everyone continues to function as if they’ve got their head in the sand.”
It’s not quite a gift from God but, politically, it may be the next best thing.
President Obama increasingly is finding a key policy ally in the Vatican, with Pope Francis standing virtually shoulder to shoulder with the White House on income inequality and a historic diplomatic reboot with communist Cuba. The pontiff next year also appears poised to offer greater support to the president on climate change initiatives and reportedly wants to be a leading voice at a U.N. global warming summit next year, where the American president will make perhaps his greatest pitch to date for more dramatic action on the environment.
The White House praised the pope this month for playing a critical role in a landmark deal with Cuba, one in which the U.S. will re-establish formal diplomatic ties and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than five decades.
Francis invited administration officials and representatives of Cuban President Raul Castro’s government to the Vatican for a series of meetings this fall. The first Latin American pope also sent letters to Mr. Obama and Mr. Castro, urging the two leaders to change course and end the isolation of the past 50 years.
“He played a very important role,” Mr. Obama said of the pontiff in an interview with ABC News this month. “The pope doesn’t wield armies. He can’t impose sanctions. But he can speak with great moral authority, and it makes a difference. And it certainly made a difference in this case.”
In a Dec. 17 statement, Francis welcomed the normalization of relations, and theWhite House circulated his words to members of the media.
The Vatican has long been critical of U.S. sanctions against Cuba. Pope John Paul II — one of the few world leaders to have been received by longtime strongman Fidel Castro in a business suit rather than fatigues — called the embargo an “oppressive, unjust and ethically unacceptable” burden on the poor during a pilgrimage to Cuba.
The pope also has become one of the Democrats’ biggest allies on income inequality, which Mr. Obama has cast as perhaps the biggest challenge facing the U.S. economy today.
Last year, Francis offered a clear rejection of “trickle-down economics,” seemingly embracing Democratic policies of greater redistribution of wealth to struggling Americans.
“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” he said. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”
High-profile Democrats, such as Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, cited the pope’s words when arguing for more government spending on programs to aid low-income Americans and to shrink the wage gap between the rich and the poor.
“Those of us in America should pay heed” to the pontiff’s words, he said after Francis’ comments on income inequality.
Moving forward, the pope may become one of Mr. Obama’s greatest allies on climate change, described by the president as one of his top priorities in his final two years in office.
Mr. Obama already has struck a historic climate accord with China, begun to impose harsher carbon emissions restrictions on U.S. power
plants and taken other steps to curb climate change. He is expected to call for even greater action during a U.N.climate summit in September, and Francis looks ready to do the same.
plants and taken other steps to curb climate change. He is expected to call for even greater action during a U.N.climate summit in September, and Francis looks ready to do the same.The Guardian newspaper reported this week that the pope plans to address the gathering and aims to be one of the most prominent voices in attendance. Early next year, Francis also will publish a letter to the world’s bishops urging greater action on climate change, the newspaper reported.
this week that the pope plans to address the gathering and aims to be one of the most prominent voices in attendance. Early next year, Francis also will publish a letter to the world’s bishops urging greater action on climate change, the newspaper reported.Also see:
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