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"Climate Change is the Biggest Threat in the Pacific?"

  • "Climate Change is the Biggest Threat in the Pacific?"

 A number of public comments by flag officers seem to have had a politically correct component to them.  Recently comments by General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised questions, i.e.  the US military didn’t have enough time to rescue 2 Navy SEALS who were under attack for over 8 hours by 150+ Al Q’ieda terrorists in Benghazi (Special Ops personnel know support was available) , then Gen Dempsey authorized the issue of a new drone operators medal that would have a higher precedent than the Bronze Star and Purple Heart Medals, and he also approved imbedding women in front line tip of the spear combat infantry units that will negatively affect unit cohesion/moral, his comments were followed by  Adm Samuel Locklear, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Command (CINCPAC) statement in the below listed article, that “Climate Change is the Biggest Threat in the Pacific”.  Those surprising comments by two 4 star flag officers seem to be politically correct.  More specifically, CINCPAC’s statement that “Climate Change” is a “bigger” threat than China’s nuclear missile buildup & its nuclear aircraft carrier development, North Korea’s daily bellicose threats that they will attack the US mainland with nuclear tipped missiles, North Korea threatening to tear up the peace treaty with South Korea & go to war, Iran’s nuclear weapon & ICBM missile development, Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, Russia’s nuclear armed bombers overflying Guam & Alaska , Russian’s nuclear submarines patrolling Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the southern coast of the US, China’s computer hackers sabotaging Top Secret Pentagon and White House infrastructural networks, and the heated dispute between Japan & China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands that could erupt into a major conflict.  When a 4 star Admiral asserts that the “Biggest Threat in the Pacific is Climate Change”, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says nothing to mitigated that “politically correct statement”, it brings into question the judgment of chain of command at the Pentagon, and of the US intelligence community’s capability to correctly evaluate the strategic threat analysis to the US.  Organizations like ASEAN, NATO, & the UN must be perplexed, and senior military commanders in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc. must be emboldened by CINCPAC’S strategic threat analysis.   

 Obama has continued to abruptly remove senior flag officers from their 4 star billets long before their tours were up, for either not being politically correct or because they made professional recommendations, that the White House had conflict with.  Those firings have had a chilling effect at the highest levels of the US military command structure.  Specifically, the removal of Gen Stanley A. McChrystal, USA, Commander US Forces Afghanistan who made recommendations on the strategy for success in Afghanistan; Gen James Mattis, USMC, Commander Central Command for asking perceptive questions on the current Iranian strategy; Gen Carter Ham, USA, Chief of Africa Command for attempting to immediately rescue US personnel under attack in Benghazi;  Radm Charles Gaouette, USN, aboard USS John C Stennis (CVN-74), in Command of Carrier Strike Group III, for attempting to employ Carrier Strike Group III to rescue US personnel under attack in Benghazi; LTG Benjamin Mixon, USA, Commander US Army Pacific Command, for responding that he will carry out his orders after receiving  multiple letters objecting to the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and suggested they pursue other avenues that are available to all Americans for them to express their concern; Gen James Jones, USMC, Supreme Allied Commander Europe for making  recommendations on how to deal with Iran; and there have been so many other senior officers abruptly relieved of command for making recommendations on  implementation of Obama’s Social Experiment on Diversity when it was negatively affecting religious freedom, unit moral, unit cohesiveness, and Combat Effectiveness.

 

The current Commander-in-Chief track record of relieving so many flag officers, has led officers to understand that there are now certain litmus tests that must be passed to get promoted (the word is out that senior military officers will be promoted or selected for flag rank only if they support gender-based “Women in Combat” imbedded in tip of the spear ground combat units), and they must also understand that officers should not provide professional military advice, if it is not in line with the White House preconceived way of thinking.  Most recently Dr. James Garrow who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, has many friends at the highest level of DOD’s military commands, and is recognized as the world famous philanthropist who saved over 35,000 Chinese baby girls from certain death under China’s one-child-per-couple policy; Dr. Garrow made the following statement on January 21, 2013 “The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not.” (If that comment had been made in a fringe corner of the Internet, most Americans would dismiss it as outright conjecture).  The July 2012 US Army Military Police Training Manual, issued for “Civil Disturbance Operations”, clearly outlines in print, that in a civil emergency scenario, under which US military troops would be employed, they would be authorized to fire on US citizens.  Similarly, plans are outlined in the U.S. Army FM 3-19.40 Internment/Resettlement Operation Manual, on how US citizens are to be processed through internment camps; it is further explained how US citizen internees, while detained in prison camps inside the United States, would be “re-educated” until they fully agree with and “appreciate U.S. current policies.” 

 

Previously senior flag officers were encouraged to provide independent and objective advice on critical military strategy issues; even if the Commander-in-Chief did not agree with the advice provided, there were no negative repercussions, as a result of their well thought out professional recommendations, if their recommendations were not implemented; there were never any negative repercussions.  Unfortunately, that is not the case today; senior flag officers operate in a very different climate; they must be politically correct, must support the Social Experiment on Diversity, must pass a number of sensitive litmus tests, and must be very careful with the strategy and methods of operations they propose.  The policy by the Obama Administration to only promote flag officers who are in line with the administration’s thinking, has discouraged flag officers from making open and honest recommendations on operations, strategy, and the management of the US Armed Forces.  Besides reshaping the views of flag officer to agree with his political policies, Obama has forced the US military personnel to abide by his Social Experiment on Diversity that is negatively affected unit moral, disrupting unit cohesiveness, and downgrading the fitness tests required to qualify personnel in tip of the spear units.  Many of the actions taken by Obama to “change” the US Military, have downgraded Combat Effectiveness, have been able to take place below the radar scope of the general public, because the left of center liberal media establishment has continued to covered it up.
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Climate Change Is The Biggest Threat In The Pacific, Says Top U.S. Admiral

(DANGER ROOM, 11 MAR 13) .Spencer Ackerman

North Korea just annulled the 1953 armistice ending its war with South Korea. China and Japan are locked in a dispute over an island chain. But the greatest long-term threat to the peace of East Asia and Pacific Ocean — the part of the world at the heart of the Obama administration’s aspirational defense strategy — is climate change, according to the admiral in charge of U.S. military operations there.

Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III is no smelly hippie. He became chief of U.S. Pacific Command last year after running the maritime portion of NATO’s 2011 war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. To Locklear, the consequences of a warming planet are likely to "cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about."

"You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level," Locklear told Danger Room pal Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe over the weekend. "Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17."

So the greatest threat in the Pacific region isn’t a military one, despite the fresh provocations from nuclear North Korea; the Chinese missile buildup; and the hardening responses by the nations that feel threatened by both regional military powers. All this has right-leaning naval analyst Bryan McGrath shaking his head that Locklear’s jumped the shark.

And yet Locklear’s forces frequently have to respond to the destructive weather events that are growing more frequent as the Earth’s climate shifts. Whether it’s a typhoon in the Philippines, a hurricane in Burma or an earthquake in Indonesia, climate change is putting a greater operational strain on U.S. forces in the Pacific than most other threats facing a region experiencing what Locklear recently described as "relative peace." These are just the immediate-term consequences of climate change, not the ones that will manifest over the coming decades in a region where half the world’s trade occurs.

"I’m into the consequence management side of it," Locklear told Bender. "I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore."