The commander of the U.S. Cyber Command told Congress on Thursday that the military is not ready for a major cyber war and that they need to bolster their defenses both for military infrastructure and private business.
“Those attacks are coming and I think those are near term and we’re not ready for them,” said Army Gen. Keith Alexander. Alexander is also the outgoing director of the National Security Agency.
Alexander told congressmen that the Cyber Command’s 1,100 employees are making progress but are still not ready for a major assault. Alexander said that attackers are changing plans from short term disruptions to attacks that would cause long lasting damage to critical systems including destruction of machines.
The most major concerns are attacks on the nation’s power supplies or economic systems. As an example, Alexander mentioned the harm that could be caused should a hacker break into the New York Stock Exchange and destroy their systems.
“While we have increased our own cyber capabilities, the worldwide cyber threat is growing in scale and sophistication, with an increasing number of state and non-state actors targeting U.S. networks on a daily basis,” Admiral Cecil Haney of the U.S. Strategic Command told Congress.
A new study from the Defense Commissary Agency says that food stamp use by soldiers and their families has skyrocketed during the current administration.
The DCA report says that use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has more than tripled since 2008. In 2008, the amount of SNAP benefits used by troops was $31.1 million. At the end of fiscal year 2013, the amount used by troops had jumped to $103.6 million.
The report did show the rate of increase is slowing.
Pentagon officials interviewed by CNN said they do not track soldiers who are receiving assistance but that the troops using food stamps are likely those who are at the bottom of the ranks. Base pay for a new soldier with a spouse and child is about $20,000.
The amount given to soldiers is only a small amount of the $80 billion annually given out on the food stamp program.
The military has a plan that could include drones carrying chemical weapons within the next 25 years.
The Department of Defense has released its Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap that shows a plan to have drones hunt in “swarms” that will have its own artificial intelligence that could have them deviate from a programmed mission on their own.
The drones would “deviate from mission commands” if they spot “a better target” according to a report in London’s Daily Mail.
The report also says that designs are being created to make chemicals within weapons reach a more powerful and faster explosion.
The Federal Aviation Administration says that within 20 years, there will likely be as many as 30,000 drones flying in U.S. airspace.
The vehemently anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation has launched yet another assault to remove anything connected to Christianity from being on military bases.
The commander of the Guantanamo Bay naval base removed Nativity scenes from two dining halls after the anti-Christianist group claimed their existence promoted Christianity.
A spokesman for the base commander said the displays had been set up by contractors who run the dining halls and that they had absolutely no intention to endorse any religion.
The spokesman said base officials did not receive a single complaint about the displays. The MRFF made their usual claim that soldiers they could not name complained to them about the display. The MRFF routinely claims that anonymous soldiers are behind their campaign to eradicate Christian symbols from military installations.
The U.S. Air Force Academy admitted to Fox News that they had removed the phrase “so help me God” from three oaths in the official cadet handbook.
Fox News’ Todd Starnes reported that two dozen members of Congress sent a letter to the Academy Superintendent demanding to explain why the phrase was removed from the 2012 edition of the handbook. The phrase was taken out of the Cadet’s Oath of Allegiance, The Oath of Office for Officers and the Oath of Enlistment.
The news comes less than a month after the Air Force Academy announced they were making “so help me God” option in the school’s honor oath after a threat from the anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
“This phrase is a deeply-rooted American tradition – begun by George Washington as the first president of the United States and now stated by many who take an oath of service to our country,” Ron Crews of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty told Fox. “The removal of this phrase is a disservice to the countless men and women who wish to include this phrase as a solemn reminder that they are pledging their fidelity to God and their country.”
Crews pointed out that law requires the words remain part of the oath.
A federal lawsuit filed Friday says that two chaplains were forced out of a training program for Veteran’s Administration chaplains after being told they had to stop quoting the Bible and had to stop mentioning the name of Jesus.
Todd Starnes of Fox News reported that Nancy Dietsch, leader of the San Diego-based VA-DOD Clinical Pastoral Education Center program, openly ridiculed two chaplains. The one-year program trains chaplains to serve veterans at VA hospitals across the U.S.
“No American choosing to serve in the armed forces should be openly ridiculed for his Christian faith,” John Wells, attorney for the two men, told Fox News.
Among the allegations in the report, it says that Dietsch told the chaplains it was against the policy of the VA and her personal policy that chaplains pray in the name of Jesus. Dietsch told the chaplains they could not quote the Bible in any of her classes and yelled at the chaplains any time they made mention of the Bible. She told the Christians if they felt their beliefs were right and others were wrong that they had no place in the CPEC program.
The anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation has found another target in their quest to eliminate Christ and Christians from the armed forces.
The group filed a complaint at the Air Force Academy claiming the phrase “so help me God” in the Academy’s honor oath is hostile toward those who do not profess a faith in their personal life.
Fox News reports that the Honor Review Committee of the Academy is reviewing the oath and will make recommendations to Academy leaders. The Academy Superintendent will make the final decision.
The current oath reads: “We will not lie, steal or cheat nor tolerate among us anyone who does. Furthermore, I resolve to do my duty and live honorably, so help me God.”
The Colorado Springs Independent newspaper obtained a photo last week of a poster at the academy with the oath and forwarded to the anti-Christian group.
“Removing this voluntary affirmation expresses hostility toward religion,” Ron Crews of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty told Fox News. “Further, it removes the solemnity and gravity of the oath, particularly for the many cadets who come from a faith tradition.”
U.S. intelligence groups and Special Forces carried out raids Saturday that landed one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
American troops with FBI and CIA assistance arrested Abu Anas al-Liby on a street in Tripoli, Libya. Al-Liby had been indicted in 2000 for his part in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. There was a $5 million bounty on al-Liby; intelligence groups had been searching for the al-Qaeda leader for 15 years.
Libya’s government denied knowledge of the operation and citizens were very upset that a foreign military conducted an operation on their soil.
In Somalia, a Navy SEAL team exchanged gunfire at the home of a major leader of the al-Shabab terrorist group. The raid was in response to the al-Qaeda related terrorist group’s raid on a Nairobi shopping mall that killed more than 60 people.
Unfortunately, the SEAL team had to withdraw from the fight before confirming the senior leader of al-Shabab was killed in the assault.
FoxNews is reporting that 250 Marines have been moved closer to Libya on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on Benghazi.
The attack last year by al-Qaeda related terrorists killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others. Continue reading →
The anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a complaint with the Air Force over a posting from an Air Force chaplain examining the origin of the commonly known phrase “there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole” claiming the post was an “anti-secular diatribe.” Continue reading →
