TV News LIES

The reasons for the F-35’s relative immunity are a stark illustration of why it is so difficult to cut the country’s defense spending. Lockheed Martin has spread the work across 45 states — critics call it “political engineering” — which in turn has generated broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Any reduction in the planned U.S. purchase risks antagonizing the eight other nations that have committed to buying the aircraft by increasing their per-plane costs.

And senior military leaders warn that the stealthy, technologically sophisticated F-35 is essential to confront Iran, China and other potential adversaries that may employ advanced anti-aircraft defenses.

The gritty combat in Afghanistan is thousands of miles away. But the analysts in the cavernous room at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia relive the explosions, the carnage and the vivid after-battle assessments of the bombings over and over again. The repeated exposure to death and destruction rolling across their computer screens is taking its own special toll on their lives.

The military has begun to grapple with the mental and emotional strains endured by personnel who may never come face to face with a Taliban insurgent, never dodge a roadside bomb or take fire, but who nevertheless may be responsible for taking human lives or putting their colleagues in mortal danger.

ual assault conviction of a fellow fighter pilot now finds himself caught in a political crossfire that could change military justice; perhaps, some fear, for the worse.

Citing the general’s actions, lawmakers including Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Claire McCaskill of Missouri are pressuring the Pentagon to restrict commanding officers’ power to dismiss court-martial convictions. The lawmakers are not, however, seeking to restrict their officers’ corresponding power to press ahead with sexual assault cases that investigators may consider weak.

A U.S. Army soldier will spend five years in prison for smuggling $1 million in cash from Afghanistan battlefields and using it to fund vacations, plastic surgery and an 18-wheel tractor trailer for herself, a judge ordered.

Tonya Long, 30, of Fayetteville, N.C., was sentenced Monday in smuggling scheme, which prosecutors said she ran during her deployment as a customs inspector in Afghanistan from January 2008 to April 2009, The Associated Press reported.

The appointment of the first woman to command the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs marks another breach of the "brass ceiling" that keeps women from top assignments in the military.

An advocacy group says Maj. Gen. Michelle Johnson's appointment is significant because few women achieve her rank. But Anu Bhagwati of Service Women's Action Network says putting women into top assignments won't by itself address unequal treatment and sexual assault of women in the military.

More...

Two US sailors have been sentenced to prison for the rape of a Japanese woman in Okinawa, in a case that has generated strong anti-American feeling.

The Naha district court handed Christopher Browning 10 years in jail and Skyler Dozierwalker nine years. In his verdict, the judge said the men were "contemptible and violent".The incident in October 2012 exacerbated resentment of the US military presence on the island and resulted in a curfew for US troops.