GREEN PARTY “PEACE OFFENSIVE”: With dissatisfaction with both major party candidates for president running high, some voters are taking a hard look at third-party candidates, including Green Party standard-bearer Jill Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka, who outlined a national security agenda last night on CNN that can fairly be called radical.
Stein advocates a 50 percent cut in military spending, and an end to fighting the Islamic State overseas, which she argues is only fanning the flames of terrorism. “You need to be at imminent threat of being actually attacked by them,” Stein said during last night’s CNN town hall event. “Clearly, that threshold has not been met. ISIS is not about to launch a major attack against our country.” Stein says she would instead launch a “peace offensive” that would begin with an arms embargo to the Middle East, and a freeze on U.S. foreign aid to some countries.
Stein also favors shutting down all of America’s bases in other countries. “We now have somewhere between 700 or 800 or even more military bases around the world. Do you know how many military bases all other countries combined have? About 30. There’s something really wrong with this picture,” she said.
Oh and Stein would also kill the F-35, and end spending on nuclear modernization, and instead phase out all U.S. nuclear weapons.
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IN LIKE FLYNN: Before he got his first intelligence briefing from the Office of the Director of National intelligence yesterday, Donald Trump praised retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, one of the trusted advisers he brought with him to the classified session, calling a him a “great guy, a real fan of mine, defender of mine, great general, tough, smart, feels like I do.”
Flynn gave a free-wheeling interview to the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, in which he explains how he hooked up with Trump, defended his connections to Russia, compared the Putin controlled RT television network to CNN, devalued the killing of Osama bin Laden, and dismissed the criticism of generals getting involved in politics.
Here are some quotes from the must-read Post transcript:
On dealing with Vladimir Putin: “We beat Hitler because of our relationship with the Russians, so anybody that looks on it as anything but a relationship that’s required for mutual supporting interests, including ISIS. That’s really where I’m at with Russia.”
On appearing on Russia Today television: Q: Why would you go on RT, they’re state run? Flynn: Well, what’s CNN? Priest: Well, it’s not run by the state. You’re rolling your eyes. Flynn: Well, what’s MSNBC? I mean, come on … what’s Al Jazeera? What’s Sky News Arabia? I have been asked by multiple organizations to be a [paid] contributor but I don’t want to be.”
On killing bin Laden instead of capturing him: “They keep going back to this decision to kill bin Laden. So what! So what?! What did it do, what did it really do? Quit touting that you killed bin Laden. All you did is made him a martyr. They’re using him for propaganda. I would have preferred to capture the guy and expose how he uses Islamic ideology for his own purposes.”
On retired Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey’s admonition that retired military officers should avoid politics: “What do you do when you get out of the military, you stop serving? There are 26 presidents who served in the military. What’s Marty Dempsey going to do? He’s going to take his four stars and go teach at Duke and go sit on a couple boards, that’s how he’s using his generalship. OK, fine, if that’s what he wants to do. But I disagree with him.”
On the Pentagon censoring his book: “They didn’t want me to say that North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba were allies of radical Islam.” Q: Did you argue them out of it? Flynn: I basically followed the directions they gave me and made the changes they asked me to.”
THE RUSSIANS DID IT: In a podcast with the Washington Examiner’s David M. Drucker, former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said he is convinced the Russians were responsible for the hack of the Democratic National Committee servers. “Our intelligence community has said with high confidence — that’s as high as they get, those two words — this was the Russians.”
On Putin and Trump: “I think [Putin] prefers to work with Trump as president. Mr. Trump shares a lot of foreign policy views that the Kremlin and Mr. Putin espouse and so I just think he thinks it would be easier to work with Trump than” former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, with “whom he had some rather big disagreements about foreign policy,” McFaul said.
TIME TO STEP UP, NATO: Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday in an op-ed that it’s time for all NATO members to join the fight against the Islamic State, Al Weaver writes. “As Islamic State shifts its strategy, the U.S. and its allies should as well,” Feinstein wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “The time has come for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to invoke its self-defense clause so the full weight of the alliance is brought to bear against Islamic State, also known as ISIS.”
AWAITING SIRTE VICTORY: Pentagon sources says it appears the fighters aligned with Libya’s unity government, and backed by U.S. airstrikes, are close to routing Islamic State fighters from their stronghold in Sirte on Libya’s Mediterranean coast. U.S. Africa Command says the U.S. has now conducted about five-dozen strikes in Northern Libya since bombing began Aug. 1, mostly attacking Islamic State “fighting positions.”
IRAN TO INDICT AMERICAN: Iran is expected to indict a detained U.S. citizen on charges of acting against the country’s national security interests, according to a Foreign Desk report. Iran claims 46-year-old Gholamreza Shahini participated in the 2009 Green Revolution and worked with the Voice of America news outlet in order to undermine the government. The State Department is not confirming the reported plan to indict the American.
TURKEY’S PRISONER SWAP: It’s out with the old in with the new as Turkey is busy emptying its prisons to make room for more than 40,000 suspects have been detained in the wake of last month’s failed coup to depose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says 20,355 have been formally arrested and another 79,900 have been fired from their public duty jobs, including military, police, civil service and judiciary posts.
CEMETERY CRASHER: An impaired driver barreled into a military cemetery in Wilmington, N.C., knocking headstones out of place in the process. The crash reportedly happened in a part of the cemetery mostly filled with unidentified Civil War veterans.
INDUSTRY TALKS TO DEMS: Aerospace Industries Association President David Melcher met with advisers to Hillary Clinton yesterday, following a meeting with Trump earlier in the summer. “AIA is a strictly non-partisan organization and is not permitted – expressly or by implication – to endorse candidates for political office. Our briefings are for educational purposes only, and we welcome the opportunity to speak with the candidates about issues that matter to our nation, our industry and our members,” the group said in a news release.
NOT SO FAST: The Navy sailor who thought Clinton’s handling of classified information might get him out of jail time is not impressing the prosecution. Kelly Cohen reports prosecutors asked a federal judge to send Petty Officer 1st Class Kristian Saucier to prison for five years for taking photos of classified parts of a submarine interior. Saucier is hoping Clinton’s mishandling of classified information will convince the judge to let him off with just probation.
KAINE ON THE STUMP: Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine has brought up Benghazi twice this week while campaigning for the Democratic nominee, T. Becket Adams writes. In the more recent example on Wednesday, Kaine said Clinton “feels Benghazi very personally,” but would never lash out against the mother of an American killed in the attack the way Trump did against the Khan family. “She feels Benghazi very personally because Chris Stevens, the ambassador, was somebody she knew very, very well. But she wouldn’t go after somebody who criticized her. That is beneath what a president does,” Kaine said.
While we’re on Benghazi, Ryan Lovelace reports that the speechwriter for “Benghazi mom” Patricia Smith, whose moving speech about her son’s death in Libya was one of the more stirring moments of the Republican National Convention, said he can’t vote for Trump. “I personally drafted the speech of the ‘Benghazi mom,’ Patricia Smith. In that speech, I concluded with the following line: ‘If Hillary Clinton can’t give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency?’ As a political speechwriter, that was something of a home run moment for me,” Richard Cross wrote. “But weeks after the end of the 2016 GOP convention, I am confronted by an inconvenient fact: Despite what I wrote in that nationally televised speech about Hillary Clinton, I may yet have to vote for her because of the epic deficiencies of my own party’s nominee.”
THE RUNDOWN
Breaking Defense: The Military’s Real Readiness Crisis; Petraeus & O’Hanlon Are Wrong
UPI: Lockheed inaugurates T-50A ground-training facility
USNI News: Navy Studying Installing SeaRAM on More Destroyers, Other Ship Classes
MSNBC: Middle East takes note of Trump’s conspiracy theories
The Hill: Watchdog: Company sold ‘defective’ combat helmets to Pentagon
Task and Purpose: The Air Force Academy’s Newly Unveiled Shark-Tooth Helmets Are Amazing
Defense One: Pentagon: We’re Closer Than Ever to Lasers That Can Stop Iranian, North Korean Missiles
UPI: Pelican BioThermal intros blood carrier for troops
Military.com: Bin Laden’s Son Urges Overthrow of Saudi Rulers
Associated Press: Iran acknowledges Russia using its air base to strike Syria
Daily Beast: Hezbollah Drone Is a Warning to the U.S.
Military.com: German Who Plotted to Attack Americans Gets Early Release
Wall Street Journal: Opinion: Russia’s Growing Military Ties With Iran
Calendar
THURSDAY | AUGUST 18
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. CSIS hosts Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, commander of U.S. Naval Air Forces in the Pacific Fleet, to discuss the future of naval aviation. csis.org
FRIDAY | AUGUST 19
10 a.m. 529 14th St. NW. Thomas Kemper, who survived the terrorist attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, will discuss his emotional recounting of the incident. press.org
THURSDAY | AUGUST 25
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, speaks at CSIS about the future of military innovation and joint capabilities. csis.org
