Extended edition: Episode 4-17-23
Good morning, my friends!
Here’s today’s brief round-up of news and some daily motivation.
If you just happened to stumble by, here’s what I’m doing with The View from the Front extended edition.
My name is Stan R. Mitchell and I’m a prior Marine, journalist, and man who loves this country with all of my heart. I also like to focus on covering our military and looming hot spots, while also trying to unite the country as best I can.
I truly do appreciate all my supporters and listeners, and The View from the Front extended edition is just a small way I want to add value and repay those who have signed up as paid subscribers. (And it also is another step forward toward the long-term dream and vision I currently have.)
I will also continue to do my weekly podcast each Thursday.
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U.S. news:
US helicopter raid in Syria targets an Islamic State leader
A helicopter raid by U.S. forces in northern Syria early on Monday resulted in the “probable death” of a senior leader of the militant Islamic State group, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the IS leader, who was not named, was “responsible for planning terror attacks in the Middle East and Europe.” Two other “armed individuals” were killed along with the target of the raid, CENTCOM said. The statement said no civilians or U.S. troops were hurt in the operation.
Syria’s White Helmets, a civil defense group operating in opposition-held areas of northern Syria, said it transported two people wounded during the raid to a local hospital, which later said they had died. A third person was killed when the U.S. forces landed for the raid, the White Helmets said.
Suspect charged in US classified documents leak case
The suspect in the US classified documents leak was charged in a federal court Friday with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information, as well as unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials.
Jack Teixeira, who was arrested by the FBI on Thursday, was an airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, where he worked as a low-ranking IT official. He held a top secret security clearance and allegedly began posting about the documents online around December, court documents show.
Teixeira, 21, is believed to be the head of an invite-only Discord chatroom, multiple US officials told CNN, where information from the classified documents was first posted months ago.
The leaked US documents included detailed intelligence assessments of allies and adversaries alike, including on the state of the war in Ukraine
The Russian government has become far more successful at manipulating social media and search engine rankings than previously known, boosting lies about Ukraine’s military and the side effects of vaccines with hundreds of thousands of fake online accounts, according to documents recently leaked on the chat app Discord.
The Russian operators of those accounts boast that they are detected by social networks only about 1 percent of the time, one document says.
That claim, described here for the first time, drew alarm from former government officials and experts inside and outside social media companies contacted for this article.
“Google and Meta and others are trying to stop this, and Russia is trying to get better. The figure that you are citing suggests that Russia is winning,” said Thomas Rid, a disinformation scholar and professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He added that the 1 percent claim was probably exaggerated or misleading.
Russia and Ukraine news:
The death toll from Russian missile strikes on eastern Ukraine’s city of Sloviansk rose to 11 Saturday as rescue crews tried to reach people trapped in the rubble of an apartment building, Ukrainian authorities said.
Ukraine’s air force said the country would soon have weapons with which to try to prevent attacks like the one on Friday. The delivery of the Patriot air defense system promised by the U.S. was expected in Ukraine sometime after Easter, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said.
…
A group of 65 Ukrainian soldiers completed their training last month at Fort Sill, a U.S. Army post in Oklahoma, and returned to Europe to learn more about using the defensive missile system to track and shoot down enemy aircraft.
Slovakia gives Ukraine remaining 9 of 13 promised warplanes
Slovakia has delivered the remaining nine of the 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets that it promised to Ukraine, the Slovak Defense Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry said the warplanes were transported overland for security reasons in a “complicated logistics operation.” The first four were flown from Slovakia to Ukraine by Ukrainian pilots on March 23.
“We are doing the right thing,” Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said in a statement.
China news:
China’s defense minister visits Russia and meets with Putin.
The Chinese defense minister has hailed the “substantial achievements” of close cooperation with Russia’s military and said China is ready to deepen the partnership to “make new contributions to stability and security” globally, in the latest sign of Beijing’s commitment to its relationship with Moscow.
“Mutual trust between the Chinese and Russian militaries is growing stronger by the day, and our cooperation has resulted in substantial achievements,” Li Shangfu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a meeting on Sunday as he began a three-day visit to Moscow.
China is willing to “further improve strategic communication and strengthen multilateral coordination and cooperation to make new contributions to stability and security in the region and globally,” Chinese state media on Monday reported Li as saying.
Why China Won't Invade Taiwan Anytime Soon
From the opinion piece in Time Magazine:
More importantly, Xi is spending considerable energy these days on playing a larger role on the global stage, particularly as a peacemaker. He has offered a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine he hopes will encourage others to see China as a global mediator, even if this particular plan has no chance of success. This past weekend, Xi welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission Chairman Ursula Von der Leyen to Beijing for discussion of the Ukraine war and the future of China’s relations with Europe more broadly. Though Xi didn’t promise his European guests to lean harder on Russia, the Chinese and French governments issued a joint statement pledging they would work together to bring Russian and Ukrainian negotiators to the bargaining table.
This follows the remarkable visit to China of the foreign ministers of Middle East rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, where they agreed under China’s mediation to improve their historically contentious relationship. Most importantly, just days ago, Taiwan’s former president Ma Ying-jeou became the first current or former Taiwanese leader to visit the mainland since Taiwan broke away in 1949, and during his visit he spoke of the “common inheritance of blood, language, history and culture” between the two sides, raising hopes in Beijing that reunification can still be achieved without risking a potentially catastrophic conflict. In short, Xi Jinping wants to be (at least perceived as) a peacemaker, and though Taiwan’s future remains of far more importance to him that any of these issues, China’s president is unlikely to reverse all these diplomatic victories by stumbling into a costly war.
Middle East news:
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