Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is well known for having delivered some controversial quotes in the past, and he uttered yet another during a speech last week to sailors at Naval Base Kitsap in Washington.
During a short speech on August 9 followed by a question-and-answer period, Mattis thanked the sailors of the USS Kentucky for being in the Navy, saying they’d never regret that service.
“That means you’re not some p–y sitting on the sidelines, you know what I mean, kind of sitting there saying, ‘Well, I should have done something with my life.’ Because of what you’re doing now, you’re not going to be laying on a shrink’s couch when you’re 45 years old, say ‘What the hell did I do with my life?’ Why? Because you served others; you served something bigger than you.”
The Navy reversed its policy of only allowing males to serve aboard submarines in 2010, according to the US Naval Institute. A spokesman for Submarine Group 9 confirmed the USS Kentucky does not currently have any female sailors assigned to it.
Mattis went on to say that he wished he were young enough to go out to sea with the Kentucky’s crew, though the retired general joked, “there’s a world of difference between a submariner and a Marine, you know what I mean?”
In continuation with the complete catastrophe that is 2020, voters on both sides of the aisle agree Father’s Day 2020 official theme to be, “Sorry we forgot, this gift had express shipping.”
We’re just kidding, but you’re welcome for reminding you that Sunday, June 21 is Father’s Day. Since we all know you forgot, we’ve compiled a list so good that you won’t even mind paying the extra to get it there in time.
For the veteran
CBD oil
Yea, we went big and bold out of the gate, but for good reason. CBD products legalized by the Farm Bill have been destigmatized over the last few years. When the carpool moms are doing it, you know it’s pretty legit. Veteran-owned CBD companies like Patriot Supreme are advocating for non-narcotic options as a better alternative for pain, anxiety and all kinds of other benefits we won’t make claims for here. Military life ages the body at warp speed, so do your veteran a favor by offering some relief.
Beard oil
The first step in becoming the iconic “vet-bro” is to grow yourself a mighty fine beard. How does a modern military man call himself one without? Whether they’ve got an Abe Lincoln, chin curtain, (these are legit, we promise) or are in the infantile stages of some stubble, do their face a favor with some premium product like from Warlord.
For the brand
Entrepreneurship or the fast-growing area of solopreneurship is as American as it gets. The fight, the grind and the ridiculous amount of grit it takes to run your own business, especially on the heels of steady government paychecks from military life is tough. But tough doesn’t stop veterans. If yours is even remotely considering this route, you can’t go wrong with the suggestions below. Bonus points here since these options can be “ordered” at 11:59 the day before without looking sloppy.
Repurposing military surplus materials into high quality, durable travel or duffel bags and more is the kind of awesome Sword Plough is all about. Repurposed .50 cal casings made into money clips make a damn fine conversation starter and something dapper for all their new beard oil you ordered.
Local flavor
There’s one thing you can’t go wrong with this Father’s Day and that’s trying something new backed by hundreds of raving reviews. If you haven’t already, try using the store locator feature and grabbing a bottle of Mutt’s Sauce, the universal flavor loved across generations and oceans alike. Charlie “Mutt” Ferrell, Jr’s legacy is still alive today thanks to his granddaughter and Air Force Veteran, Charlynda.
Natural products…to combat all the unknown MRE ingredients they eat
Doc Spartan has exploded since their appearance on Shark Tank. Their line of natural first aid ointments and sprays should be a go-bag staple for any military member. While you’re at it, check out their lineup of natural, aluminum-free deodorants called “armpit armor.”
Recordable storybooks
What is often gifted to kids is actually a great option for Father’s Day too. Gifting fathers with a prerecorded favorite read in the voices of their children is a deeply personal choice. Most books can be re-recorded to accommodate for growing families over the years.
More pieces from an F-35 stealth fighter that disappeared in the Pacific have been found, the Japanese defense minister revealed May 7, 2019.
A Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter piloted by Maj. Akinori Hosomi mysteriously vanished from radar on April 9, 2019. The day after the crash, pieces of the tail were found floating on the surface of the water, but the rest of the fifth-generation fighter was nowhere to be found.
The fighter, believed to be lying somewhere on the ocean floor, has been missing for weeks, despite the best efforts of the US and Japanese militaries to find it.
Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya announced May 7, 2019, that parts of the flight recorder and cockpit canopy had been discovered at an unspecified location on the ocean floor, CNN reported. The flight recorder was retrieved by a US Navy salvage team dispatched to assist in the search.
First operational F-35A Lightning II presented to JASDF’s 3rd Air Wing at Misawa Air Base.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Benjamin W. Stratton)
The defense minister said the flight recorder is in “terrible” condition. Critical memory components are reportedly missing, meaning that key data about the crash, the first for an F-35A, may be unavailable. Exactly what happened to the stealth fighter remains a mystery.
The downed F-35, which was built by Lockheed Martin but assembled by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Ltd., is one of a growing fleet of Japanese stealth fighters. In response to the crash, Japan grounded its remaining F-35s. They will remain on the ground while the related investigation is ongoing.
Japan currently has 12 F-35s, but it has another 147 stealth fighters on order. B variants with that need little runway to take off and land are expected to eventually serve on Japanese light aircraft carriers while the A variant will become the primary fighter of the Japanese air force.
The search for the missing fighter and its pilot is expected to continue.
This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.
Every game in the middle of the second inning, Baltimore Orioles’ fans redirect their cheering from the players on the field to the veterans in the stands. Similar ceremonies are projected on Jumbotrons across the country as a small way to publicly recognize those who voluntarily put themselves into harm’s way to protect our nation.
Cynics — including some of my former brothers and sisters in arms — argue that the phrase “thank you for your service” is too casually thrown around by civilians toward the one percent who fought for their country. However, the America I’ve experienced is earnest in its thanks but needs help in directing it in a meaningful way.
That’s why, four years ago, the veterans empowerment organization Got Your 6 and the leading retailer Macy’s began challenging Americans to back up their words with actions at the cash register. As part of the annual “American Icons” campaign before Memorial Day, Macy’s invites its customers to support our veterans by donating $3 at the point-of-sale.
Through those small but meaningful tokens of “thanks,” Macy’s has channeled America’s support of its veterans to the tune of $7.4 million.
Got Your 6 — a name drawn from military slang for “I’ve got your back” — works to empower veterans to lead in their communities. Though the support of partners like Macy’s and their customers, we are helping create real change in towns and cities across America.
Over the past four years, Got Your 6 has provided 37 grants to nonprofit coalition partners such as Baltimore’s The 6th Branch, a veteran-run nonprofit that utilizes the leadership and operational skills of military veterans to accomplish community service initiatives. Last year, Got Your 6 provided The 6th Branch a $93,000 grant, which supports a year’s worth of service to transform abandoned lots in Baltimore into urban farms and safe spaces for youth recreation. This past April, The 6th Branch organized a community service event at the Oliver Community Farm in Baltimore, a veteran-created community resource designed to provide fresh produce in response to a lack of healthy food options in the area.
The good news is that charitable giving for community building organizations at the cash register is thriving. According to a recent report by the nonprofit consulting firm Catalist, within the last two months 66 percent of consumers donated to charity at retail when asked at point-of-sale. Additional studies reveal that consumers are actually grateful when a retailer has offered them the ability to donate to causes in their community in a quick and simple way.
“Thank you for your service” might just be words, but when mobilized they can turn into meaningful results. That’s why we’re once again partnering with Macy’s during its 11th annual Shop For A Cause campaign, which runs today, Friday, Aug. 26 through Sunday, Aug. 28. Visit Got Your 6’s online store to purchase a $5 savings pass to receive 25 percent off in-store Macy’s purchases Aug. 26-18. All of the proceeds of the savings pass will go directly to empowering veterans.
Veterans are leaders, team builders, and problem solvers who have the unique potential to lead a resurgence of community across the nation. Through our continued partnership with Macy’s, Got Your 6 is able to reach millions of Americans, shifting public perceptions so that veterans’ leadership and skills are recognized and utilized at home, just as they were on the battlefield.
We’ve got our veterans’ six. Thanks to all those Macy’s shoppers who also have ours.
Bill Rausch is an Iraq War veteran and the executive director of Got Your 6.
Under President Donald Trump, the US is starting to prepare for a great-power war and has set its sights on two countries run by powerful men — Russia and China.
Both Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China are set to stay in power for years to come. Putin is widely expected to win Russia’s upcoming election in March and China recently announced plans to end presidential term limits, which could allow Xi to keep his position for decades.
Evan Osnos, a New Yorker staff writer who lived in China from 2005 to 2013, charted the differences between the two leaders in an article on Xi and China’s term limit decision. He noted that the similarities between Putin and Xi are “limited.”
“In matters of diplomacy and war, Putin wields mostly the weapons of the weak: hackers in American politics, militias in Ukraine, obstructionism in the United Nations,” Osnos wrote.
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Osnos argued that Putin’s Russia uses “the arsenal of a declining power,” while Xi’s China is “ascendant.”
“On the current trajectory, Xi’s economy and military will pose a far greater challenge to American leadership than Putin’s,” according to Osnos.
Xi, he said, “is throwing out the written rules, and to the degree that he applies that approach to the international system — including rules on trade, arms, and access to international waters — America faces its most serious challenge since the end of the Cold War.”
The US has largely avoided weighing in on China’s planned term limit change.
“That’s a decision for China to make about what’s best for their country,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Feb. 26, 2018.
However, Osnos is not alone in thinking the US should be worried about China under Xi.
“For the United States, the idea of an absolute dictator running the most powerful peer competitor nation-state-and soon to be the most powerful economy — with a single-minded obsession to ‘Make China Great Again’ who is going to be around for another 10 to 15 years must give us pause,” former State Department official and China expert John Tkacik told the Washington Free Beacon.
For the more than 19 million veterans currently living in the United States, where you live can be essential to your access to healthcare, good employment, and a strong quality of life.
WalletHub recently conducted a report of the best US cities for veterans, analyzing 20 key indicators of livability, affordability, and veteran-friendliness. The study then provided rankings — out of 100 — for each category.
Employment rankings took into account the number of veteran-owned businesses per veteran population and opportunities for job growth, as well as the availability of jobs that utilize military-learned skills. Economy rankings considered factors such as the median veteran income and veteran homelessness rates, while quality of life was determined by analyzing veteran population, restaurants with military discounts, and more.
The study found that Tampa, Florida, triumphed as the best major US city for veterans, earning a total score of 72.44 out of a possible 100. Boston, Massachusetts, despite ranking at No. 68 overall, earned the highest ranking for veteran employment.
Keep reading to find out the top 25 best US cities for veterans.
The video game “Titanfall” had a simple appeal. It was frontline combat in the future where humans, robots, and giant “titans” battled in a two-sided war.
Sure, there was a cool storyline and some bells and whistles, but the appeal was fighting battles in three-story metal juggernauts armed with rockets and cannons.
(GIF: YouTube/Titanfall Official)
Now, a “Titanfall 2” trailer is drawing players to the sequel with a more human appeal. A rifleman in the game, J. Cooper, describes what it’s like to fight side-by-side with the player-controlled pilots.
The story highlights some of the game’s new gadgets for pilots, including grappling hooks and the ability to create holograms.
(GIF: YouTube/Titanfall Official)
But it’s the narrative and great voice acting that really sells the experience. Check out the trailer below and prepare for titanfall.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work has repeatedly said the scandal over the military’s mistaken shipment of live anthrax spores around the nation and the world would get worse — and he was right.
The number of labs that received live anthrax has more than doubled to 194 since Work and Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, released a report in July on the shipments of the deadly pathogen from the Army‘s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.
The number of states receiving live anthrax also more than doubled to include all 50 states and Washington, D.C., plus Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
The number of countries that received live anthrax went up from seven to nine — Japan, United Kingdom, Korea, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Norway and Switzerland, according to the Pentagon’s updated accounting of the shipments through Sept. 1.
There have been no deaths or serious illnesses reported from the military’s 10-year program to ship anthrax to private and military labs for testing to develop vaccines and detection devices, according to the Defense Department.
However, at least 31 military and civilian personnel were treated with antibiotics as a precaution after a lab in Maryland discovered in May that a supposedly irradiated anthrax sample contained live spores.
Since early May, the number of labs and facilities known to have received live anthrax has significantly expanded.
On June 1, during a visit to Vietnam, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter pledged to find out who was responsible for shipping the anthrax and “hold them accountable.” At the time, the Pentagon said that live anthrax had gone to 24 labs, 11 states and two countries.
The Pentagon boosted the count on June 10, saying it was 68 labs in 19 states and four countries. When the department issued its 30-day review of the scandal on July 23, Work said, “We know over the past 12 years, 86 laboratories in 20 states, the District of Columbia, and seven foreign countries ultimately received what were supposedly inactivated spores that originated at Dugway.”
Work called the incidents at Dugway and throughout the system a “massive institutional failure.” He said then that he expected the numbers to climb as the Centers for Disease Control investigated for possible “secondary” shipments by the primary labs which received anthrax shipments.
According to the latest Pentagon count, 88 primary labs received live anthrax and shared it with 106 secondary labs for a total of 194 labs.
The samples were from the so-called Ames strain, a particularly virulent form of the bacteria used in the 2001 Anthrax attacks. After letters containing the substance were sent to the offices of news media and U.S. lawmakers, five people were killed and 17 others were infected. Bruce Ivans, a government microbiologist, committed suicide after authorities were preparing to charge him in the case.
The Pentagon’s review released in July said, “The low numbers of live spores found in inactivated DoD samples did not pose a risk to the general public, Nonetheless, the shipment of live BA (Bacillus Anthracis) samples outside of the select agent program restrictions (at any concentration) is a serious breach of regulations.”
In our small town of Pacific Grove, Calif., an email alerted us that our community would be “hosting” 24 Grand Princess cruise passengers who display mild symptoms of COVID-19. The other California “hosts” are military installations, Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., and Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.
A press release sent out by the governor’s office tells residents, “We have an opportunity to provide an example of a compassionate humanitarian response,” but omits specific measures being taken to quarantine the passengers and protect the community, which is known for having an elderly population. The town jokes that people move here to die or multiply, with many young residents coming for the excellent schools and the elderly for the moderate climate and breathtaking Monterey coastline.
Why then was this elderly community chosen, despite our population’s median age being 49, over 10 years older than the national average? Because the passengers will be quarantined on government-owned land. This is also why military bases are “go-to” locations for other, more serious cases.
The Pacific Grove coastline is just across the street from where the 24 quarantined Grand Princess cruise line passengers are staying. They will be monitored for the next two weeks as part of the state of California’s plan to contain the spread of the Coronavirus.
Why is it that the military community is always the first to be put at risk? As a military spouse and mother of three, I’m not so much scared of the Coronavirus as I am perplexed.
If military communities are already being asked to sacrifice more than most, don’t we at least deserve concrete facts on how we are being protected instead of attempts to pull at heartstrings?
The military housing areas on Travis Air Force Base and Miramar Naval Air Station are less than a mile away from where exposed citizens are being housed. I can’t imagine what these military families are feeling. As some previously in quarantine leave, new patients arrive. I hope that they are looped in, that they feel taken care of and reassured that their lives are just as important as those they are being asked to support.
While some communities may be better at communication than others, the press release likely caused more panic than reassurance. Given the current climate, words sent out through official channels carry weight. So instead of adding to the hysteria, I emailed the local public officials quoted in the article for clarification.
No response.
However, within 24 hours, I did get reassurance from every travel-related company I have ever had an online shopping relationship with that they were on top of COVID-19 and take sanitation seriously.
Shortly thereafter, I finally received an update from my daughter’s elementary school, the only reliable source of information. It seems that clarification from public officials was possible. But instead of hearing from the governor’s office again, our small town’s City Manager set the record straight, or as straight as possible given all this confusion.
According to his release, “the state of California made the determination” to temporarily house 24 exposed passengers (less than two miles from my house). Thankfully, it turns out that he did have good news. The 24 have tested negative for the virus and “are not permitted to leave the confines of their hotel rooms.”
Costco runs feel like hoarding, but they are not. However, you might be a hoarder if you are one of the people who purchased all the paper towels, water and toilet paper.
Slightly relieved, I chuckled when I saw that “Outbreak” with Dustin Hoffman was trending on Netflix. Watching it served as a reminder that Americans don’t like rules or borders. We rebelled against the British. We conquered lands that weren’t our own. We believe rules are made to be broken. I hope these 24 are rule followers who regret our forefathers breaking from England and “displacing” Native Americans.
Unsurprisingly Costco was packed, leaving me either highly exposed or highly prepared. In the hidden back corner of the warehouse, a lady was positioned, not with samples, but with a clipboard and bouncer-like confidence, “we are out of water, paper towels and toilet paper.”
Twenty four hours after the first press release, I’m not scared of death or quarantine. We have Cheerios, bread, shelf-stable milk, charcoal and… champagne, because if I have to stay in the house with my three kids and husband for a month without toilet paper, I’m gonna need it.
The Army’s pathfinders are elite airborne infantrymen capable of slipping into enemy territory to prepare drop zones and landing zones, conduct reconnaissance, place navigational aids, provide air traffic control, and recover wounded personnel. Basically, they have more applications than an iPhone, and they can do all it at night, on their own, without reinforcements or resupply while under fire.
Photo: US Army Sgt. 1st Class Sadie Bleistein
The units got their start in World War II after parachute drops into North Africa in 1942 and Sicily in 1943 resulted in troops dispersed across the target areas instead of massed into effective fighting formations. To fix this, the Army borrowed tactics and techniques from British scout companies to create their own pathfinder platoons and companies.
As World War II continued, pathfinders led the way into Normandy on D-Day and southern France in Operation Dragoon as well as aided the aerial resupply of troops pinned down in the Battle of the Bulge. They used signal fires, special radios, and lights to create paths for aircraft to follow, ensuring pilots could navigate to their target.
In the Korean and Vietnam wars, pathfinders continued their missions leading airborne forces but the expansion of helicopter operations gave them another job.
Today, pathfinders are primarily used for recovering wounded and isolated personnel, conducting reconnaissance, and assisting in helicopter assaults. They’re also experts in sling-load operations, the movement of heavy equipment by slinging it under a chopper.
Photo: US Army Staff Sgt. Andrew H. Owen
The Army has cut the pathfinders to two companies, one in the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade and one with 82nd’s CAB. These companies rarely fight as a single unit. Instead, commanders kick out small teams of pathfinders to support operations across a large geographical area where they conduct all their missions. These teams of about six men have seen heavy combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With the shortage of dedicated pathfinder companies, infantry units send soldiers to the Army’s Pathfinder School at Fort Benning, Georgia. These soldiers become experts in linking Army ground and aviation elements, assisting their units when pathfinder companies aren’t available.
Representative government has been a luxury that relatively few people have enjoyed throughout human history.
And while the vast majority of dictators fall short of Hitler- or Stalin-like levels of cruelty, history is rife with oppressors, war criminals, sadists, sociopaths, and morally complacent individuals who ended up as unelected heads of government — to the tragic detriment of the people and societies they ruled.
Here’s a look at 22 brutal dictators that you may not have heard of.
Francisco Solano Lopez (Paraguay, 1862-1870)
Last picture of Francisco Solano López, 1870. Wikimedia
Although he became a revered figure in Paraguay decades after his death, Paraguayan president and military leader Francisco Solano Lopez unwisely provoked neighboring Brazil and Argentina by meddling in a civil war in Uruguay in the mid-1860s.
After that war concluded, Brazil, Argentina, and the winning faction in Uruguay secretly agreed to a plan in which they would annex half of Paraguay’s territory.
Lopez rejected the peace terms offered by the “triple alliance,” incurring a full-on invasion.
What followed was a devastating conflict in which an overmatched Lopez conscripted child soldiers, executed hundreds of his deputies (including his own brother), incurred steep territorial losses, and triggered an eight-year Argentine military occupation.
By the time of Lopez’s death in battle in 1870 and the war’s subsequent end, Paraguay’s population had plunged from an estimated 525,000 to 221,000, and only 29,000 males over the age of 15 were left alive.
Jozef Tiso (Slovakia, 1939-1945)
Josef Tiso. Wikimedia
A Catholic priest who led Slovakia’s fascist moment, Tiso was in charge of one of Nazi Germany’s numerous satellite regimes for almost the entirety of World War II.
Although arguably a less energetic fascist than the leaders of comparable Nazi puppet regimes, Tiso led a brutal crackdown after a 1944 anti-fascist rebellion.
He also either facilitated or had first-hand knowledge of the deportation of the vast majority of the country’s Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
Hungarian leader Miklós Horthy had been an ally of Nazi Germany, collaborating with Adolf Hitler’s regime in exchange for assistance in restoring Hungarian control over lands the country had lost as a result of World War I.
Horthy began attempting to chart an independent path from the Nazis as the German war effort flagged in 1944 and largely refused to deport the country’s Jews — triggering a Nazi invasion and Döme Sztójay’s installation as the country’s puppet leader even while Horthy officially remained in power.
Sztójay, who had been Hungary’s ambassador to Nazi Germany for the decade leading up to World War II, was captured by American troops after the war and executed in Hungary in 1946.
Ante Pavelic (1941-1945)
Ante Pavelic. Wikipedia
Ante Pavelic started out as a politician who was opposed to the centralization of what later became officially known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
After Yugoslavia’s king declared himself dictator in 1929, Pavelic fled the country in order to organize an ultra-nationalist movement called Ustaše.
The Ustaše was dedicated to creating an independent Croatia, and sometimes resorted to terrorism. Ultimately, the group assassinated King Alexander in 1934.
After Axis forces took over Yugoslavia in the 1941, Pavelic took control as the head of the Independent State of Croatia (or NDH).
The country was nominally ruled by the Ustaše, but was essentially a puppet state of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Under Pavelic’s leadership, the regime persecuted Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Romani living in the NDH.
After Germany was defeated in 1945, Pavelic went into hiding, and eventually escaped to Argentina. He died in Spain in 1959.
Mátyás Rákosi (1945-1956)
Mátyás Rákosi. Hungarian Government
Mátyás Rákosi became the communist leader of Hungary after consolidating political power in 1945.
After Stalin died in 1953, the USSR decided his regime was too brutal and told Rákosi that he could stay on as the Hungarian communist party’s secretary-general — on the condition that he give up his prime ministership to the “reform-minded” Imre Nagy.
Rákosi managed to stick around for a bit, until the USSR officially decided he was a liability.
Moscow removed him from power in 1956 in order to appease the Yugoslav leader, Mashal Tito.
Khorloogiin Choibalsan (Mongolia, 1930s-1952)
Khorloogiin Choibalsan. Wikipedia
After several meetings with Stalin, Choibalsan adopted the Soviet leader’s policies and methods and applied them to Mongolia.
He created a dictatorial system, suppressing the opposition and killing tens of thousands of people.
Later in the 1930s, he “began to arrest and kill leading workers in the party, government, and various social organizations in addition to army officers, intellectuals, and other faithful workers,” according to a report published in 1968 cited in the Historical Dictionary of Mongolia.
In late 1951, Choibalsan went to Moscow in order to receive treatment for kidney cancer. He died the following year.
Enver Hoxha (Albania, 1944-1985)
Enver Hoxha. Wikipedia
Albania’s communist dictator feuded with both the Soviet Union and China before promoting a ruinous policy of national self-reliance that turned his country into a Balkan version of modern-day North Korea.
An estimated 200,000 people were imprisoned for alleged political crimes during Hoxha’s rule, in a country with a current population of around 3 million.
Lê Duan (Vietnam, 1960-1986)
Lê Duan. Wikipedia
Although he was never Vietnam’s official head of state, Lê Duan was the dominant decision-maker within the country’s communist regime for more than 20 years.
Federal government photograph of Ian Smith, then a Member of Rhodesia and Nyasaland’s Federal Parliament, circa 1954.
One of the most controversial figures in post-colonial African history, Ian Smith, a decorated fighter pilot during World War II, led the secession of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from the British empire in 1965.
His aim was to preserve white rule in an overwhelmingly black colony.
Although whites were less than 4% of Rhodesia’s population, Smith’s government survived nearly 15 years of international isolation and civil war.
He agreed to a power-sharing accord that elevated Robert Mugabe to prime minister in 1980.
Although sometimes lauded for his willingness to surrender power — something that meant Rhodesia was liberated from minority rule some 15 years before neighboring South Africa — he still led a racially discriminatory regime for well over a decade.
Ramfis Trujillo (Dominican Republic, May 1961-October 1961)
Ramfis Trujillo. Screen grab/YouTube.
Ramfis’s father, the more infamous Rafael Trujillo, ruled the Dominican Republic for over 30 years.
His oldest son, who was made a colonel at the age of 4, only spent a few months as the Caribbean nation’s dictator — but he used them to mount a brutal reprisal campaign against those he suspected of assassinating his father on May 30, 1960.
An “accomplished torturer” and inveterate playboy, when Ramfis left the Dominican Republic by yacht to go into exile in Spain in late 1961, he reportedly took his father’s coffin with him.
Michel Micombero, an army captain and then minister of defense, was just 26 years old when he led the 1966 counter-coup that landed him the prime minister’s chair.
That was a dangerous job in Burundi, considering that two of his predecessors had been assassinated since the country won its independence from Belgium in 1962.
Micombero, an ethnic Tutsi, swiftly abolished the country’s monarchy and exiled its 19-year-old king.
Micombero cultivated a Tutsi elite within the army and government, raising tensions with the country’s Hutu community.
Although Micombero was overthrown in a 1976 coup, the Hutu-Tutsi divide persisted in Burundi, and helped spark a civil war in the country that lasted between 1993 and 2005.
Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1969-1971)
Yahya Khan. Wikipedia
The Pakistani general and World War II British Army veteran dissolved the government and imposed martial law in 1969.
By the time he lost power two years later, Eastern Pakistan had broken off to become the independent nation of Bangladesh and Pakistan lost another war to its rival, India.
Meanwhile, Khan oversaw the mass slaughter of as many as half a million Bengalis and other minorities in India.
In March 1971, Khan ordered his army to crack down on a burgeoning separatist movement in Eastern Pakistan.
“Operation Searchlight” targeted Bengali nationalists and intellectuals and produced a wave of 10 million refugees that convinced India to intervene in Pakistan’s civil war, setting the stage for Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan the following year.
During a high-level meeting in February 1971, Khan was recorded saying to “kill three million of them,” in reference to the separatists and their supporters.
By the end of the year, hundreds of thousands of people were dead — and Khan had been deposed as president and sent into internal exile. He died in Pakistan in 1980.
Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (Guatemala, 1970-1974)
Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio. Guatemalan government
Carlos Arana Osorio was one of the several military rulers who were president in Guatemala during the volatile years following a 1954 coup.
During his presidency, he amped up government efforts to subdue armed rebels and persecuted “student radicals,” workers groups, and political opponents.
An estimated 20,000 people “died or ‘disappeared’” under the Arana Osorio administration.
Guatemala went had military presidents through 1986, but the country’s civil war continued until December 1996.
Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina, 1976-1981)
Jorge Rafael Videla. Wikimedia image.
Military officer Jorge Rafaél Videla took over Argentina during a coup d’état in 1976.
At the time, the country was straddled with a corrupt government and a battered economy, and was “besieged by attacks from guerrillas and death squads,” with many Argentines “welcoming Videla’s move, hoping the three-man military junta would put an end to the violence,” according to Biography.com.
Videla tried to bring back economic growth via free-market reforms, and was “moderately successful.” However, he closed the courts and gave legislative powers to a nine-man military commission.
His government conducted a notorious “‘dirty war,’ during which thousands of people considered to be subversive threats were abducted, detained and murdered,” among them intellectuals, journalists, and educators.
The official estimate of people killed during his presidency is 9,000, but some sources believe the number is between 15,000 and 30,000.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 1985, but pardoned in 1990. He was once again put on trial in 2010, and received another life sentence. He died in prison in 2013.
Francisco Macías Nguema (Equatorial Guinea, 1968-1979)
Francisco Macías Nguema. Wikimedia image.
The first president of Equatorial Guinea was a paranoid kleptocrat who declared himself leader for life, kept much of the national treasury in suitcases under his bed, and killed or exiled an estimated one-third of the former Spanish colony’s population of 300,000.
Nguema’s hatred of his country’s educated classes led to comparisons with Cambodia’s Pol Pot.
Extensive forced-labor programs brought to mind other historical cruelties as well: One visitor to the country during Nguema’s rule described it as “the concentration camp of Africa — a cottage-industry Dachau.”
Nguema was executed after his nephew, Teodoro Obiang, overthrew him in a 1979 coup.
Teodoro Obiang (Equatorial Guinea, 1979-present)
Teodoro Obiang.Wikipedia
Teodoro Obiang overthrew his uncle Francisco Macías Nguema, the first president of Equatorial Guinea, in 1979.
In 1995, oil was discovered in Equatorial Guinea, which provided Obiang with an almost limitless means of self-enrichment.
The invasion convinced the Soviet Union to withdraw its support from Barre’s government.
And instead the Soviet Union backed Ethiopia’s emerging communist regime.
After the failed war against Ethiopia, Barre continued to rule Somalia for 13 years.
He maintained control through a combination of blunt force and canny manipulation of Somalia’s clan system.
His most disastrous legacy is Somalia’s descent into civil war in 1991, which marked the beginning of over two decades of anarchy in the country.
Radovan Karadžic (Republika Srpska, 1992-1996)
Radovan Karadžic’s arrest in November 1984. Wikipedia
Radovan Karadžic was president of Republika Srpska, the self-proclaimed ethnic Serb “republik” that seceded from Bosnia after Bosnia’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1992.
As president, Karadžic oversaw an ethnic-cleansing campaign against Bosnian Muslims that included some of the most severe human-rights abuses committed on European soil since World War II.
Karadžic is believed to have ordered the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which Serbian militants killed over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the span of three days.
Theodore Sindikubwabo (Rwanda, April 1994-July 1994)
Theodore Sindikubwabo. YouTube screengrab.
Theodore Sindikubwabo bears little personal responsibility for the organization of the Rwandan genocide, which was largely the project of hardline army officers and government officials like Theoneste Bagasora.
But when Rwandan president Juvenal Habyrimana’s plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, Sindikubwabo was the man that the genocide’s architects selected as Rwanda’s head of state.
The former pediatrician was the official head of a government that perpetrated the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people.
Far from attempting to stop the bloodbath, Sindikubwabo appeared in Cayahinda, Rwanda, on April 20, 1994, to “to thank and encourage” militants carrying out the genocide, and to “promise he would send soldiers to help local people finish killing the Tutsi who were barricaded” in a local church, according to Human Rights Watch.
Sindikubwabo fled into neighboring Zaire after the forces of current Rwandan president Paul Kagame invaded the country during the closing days of the genocide.
He died in exile in 1998.
Than Shwe (Myanmar, 1992-2011)
Than Shwe. Wikipedia image.
Than Shwe was the leader of the ruling military junta in Myanmar (Burma) and had been criticized and sanctioned by Western countries for human-rights abuses.
Up to 1 million people were reportedly sent to “satellite zones” and “labor camps” under his rule.
There was virtually no free speech in the country, and “owning a computer modern or fax [was] illegal, and anyone talking to a foreign journalist [was] at risk of torture or jail,” the Guardian reported in 2007.
Although Shwe stepped down in 2011, The Wall Street Journal reports that he “still exerts considerable leverage behind the scenes.”
Most recently, he pledged support to his former foe, Aung San Suu Kyi, as the Myanmar’s “future leader” — even though during his rule, the country’s Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader was kept under house arrest.
Isaias Afwerki (Eritrea, 1991-present)
Isaias Afwerki. Wikipedia image.
Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 partly because of President Isaias Afwerki’s leadership in the armed struggle against Ethiopia’s brutal communist regime, which he helped overthrow.
Over the next 25 years, Afwerki built one of the world’s most terrorizing dictatorships.
Eritrea’s internal oppression has led to over 380,000 people fleeing out of a population of less than 7 million — despite the lack of active armed conflict in the country.
Afwerki’s foreign policy has been equally problematic.
A 1998 dispute with Ethiopia over the demarcation of the countries’ border quickly escalated into the last full-scale interstate war of the 20th century, with Afwerki bearing at least partial blame for failing to defuse a conflict in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed.
Despite its population of only 1.8 million, Gambia is among the 10 most common origin points for migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Europe.
The Trump administration will keep the US military in Syria and Iraq indefinitely without new congressional authorization, according to the New York Times, citing State Department and Pentagon officials.
This decision will likely extend to the US’ broader fight against terrorism, which is being waged in numerous countries around the world, such as Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
The last comprehensive congressional authorization to use military force (AUMF) came in 2001 when the legislative body authorized former President George Bush to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
Another congressional AUMF was also passed in 2002, but it only allowed the use of military force in Iraq.
After Bush, the Obama administration used the 2001 AUMF to justify airstrikes against ISIS, and other terrorist groups, arguing that ISIS was al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq from 2004 to 2014.
“This is a weak argument,” Cornell University Law School professor Jens David Ohlin said in 2014. “Yes, ISIS once had a relationship with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, but that prior relationship no longer governs. What matters is the current relationship.”
U.S. Army Pfc. Rohan Wright, center, a cavalry scout with a personal security detachment with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, prepares to fire an M320 Grenade Launcher Module (GLM) at the weapons range at Forward Operating Base Thunder in Paktia province, Afghanistan, Oct. 18, 2013. (US Army photo by Sgt. Justin A. Moeller)
Many other legal scholars struck a similar tone.
“Congress is supposed to be declaring war, and the president is supposed to be making war,” Jennifer Daskal, a professor at American University and former Justice Department lawyer, told NPR in 2016.
“There appears to be a clear abdication of responsibility on behalf of Congress,” Daskal said, adding that it sets a dangerous precedent and could allow future presidents to use the military at his or her own discretion.
Some members of Congress, however, such as Republican Senator Jeff Flake and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, have introduced new AUMFs over the years to no avail.
More recently, Kaine voiced his concern over what this means for the US military’s role in Syria, where it will remain even in territories of the country where ISIS fighters have been cleared.
“I am concerned that the United States will soon find itself lacking domestic or international legal standing for operations in Syria based on official statements that our presence, intended for a narrowly-scoped campaign to fight ISIS, might now be used to pressure the Syrian government, target Iran and its proxies, and engage other entities not covered under the 2001 AUMF,” Kaine wrote to US Secretaries Rex Tillerson and James Mattis in December 2017.
“The United States does not seek to fight the government of Syria or Iran or Iranian-supported groups in Iraq or Syria,” Mary K. Waters, the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, wrote back. “However, the United States will not hesitate to use necessary and proportionate force to defend U.S., coalition, or partner forces engaged in operations to defeat ISIS and degrade Al Qaeda.”
We Are The Mighty has teamed up with Grunt Style to launch a new online merch store. Grunt Style is a veteran-owned and operated clothing brand founded by Army veteran and drill sergeant Dan Alarik.
Started as a small custom t-shirt operation at Fort Benning, Grunt Style has evolved into a multi-million dollar business that employs nearly 70 veterans and embraces military themes and values in its company culture.
Here’s what happened when Grunt Style visited the WATM offices: