Latest news with #BattleofMidway
The Hill
30-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Let's not rush to judgment on Operation Midnight Hammer
Thirty U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles and 14 30,000-pound 'bunker busters' did considerable and possibly irreparable damage to their targets. One extraordinary consequence was that, for the time being, the two belligerents, Iran and Israel, have declared a temporary cease-fire. However, before claiming victory, consider several other realities that are important. Despite President Trump's initial and follow-on claims that Iran's nuclear facilities were obliterated, insufficient bomb damage assessment cannot confirm or challenge his claim. What the administration is assuming, with some justification, is that because all weapons performed as intended and detonated according to plan, it is reasonable to conclude the targets were eliminated. Yet when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that this was the 'most complex and secretive military operation in history,' as ordered by Trump, one wonders whether history started on June 21. What would Trump have said about the famous Doolittle raid over Tokyo in April 1942, the Battle of Midway two months later that changed the outcome of the war in the Pacific, the invasion of Europe on D-Day or the atomic bombings of Japan? Perhaps a little humility is in order. Until the extent of damage can be determined to include locating where the bulk of the 600 pounds of uranium enriched to at least 60 percent resides, determining the number of surviving or hidden centrifuges and identifying any secret sites that could produce a nuclear weapon, caution is a good idea. Further, the notion that no other country could do what the U.S. military accomplished also requires care. After all, the Israeli military did the heavy lifting in eliminating virtually all of Iran's air and missile defenses from radars to aircraft to missile sites. Without that preparation, the U.S. strike could not have been quite as effective. And much of Israel's preemptive actions occurred on the ground in Iran, much as Operation Spider Web caught a substantial part of Russia's bomber fleet sleeping as doors opened on trucks that had been inadvertently driven by unsuspecting Russian teamsters launching the attacking drones. Take Russia. It borders on Iran. Hence, refueling bombers was unnecessary. It is possible that with stealth, coordinated Russian air and ground forces could have destroyed those nuclear facilities. It is technically correct that no state has the equivalent of the B-2 bomber and long-range strike made possible by air-to-air refueling. But that does not mean there were no other means to attack and destroy these targets using imagination and daring. It was self-evident that the War Powers Act would be invoked. That law was passed in response to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that would authorize waging the subsequent Vietnam War and was meant to limit the president in using force. However, that act did not and could not reconcile the profound contradiction between the Constitution's granting only Congress in Article I the power to declare war and Article II making the president commander in chief. The key word in that act was 'imminent,' meaning that the country faced immediate danger. Clearly, in the thermonuclear age, if an enemy launched a first strike against the U.S., the president would not have any time to consult Congress. If a counterattack were ordered, that would be a declaration of war. And if the president decided not to respond and waited for congressional approval, if the nation survived, that president would likely be impeached and convicted for dereliction of duty. That has never applied. And presidents in using force, from the 1999 Kosovo Bombing to the Libyan intervention in 2012, have come up against claims of violating the War Powers Act. But will Congress alter the act to make it more relevant? Probably not. What is next is the question. If peace has indeed broken out in the region, that would be a historic event. At the cost of 14 bombs and 30 cruise missiles, this would be transformational. But history has often been unkind to those who rush to judgment. What seems too good to be true usually isn't. If bomb damage assessment is allowed to proceed and does its job objectively and without extreme political pressure, such as to prove Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2003, at least ground truth should better inform decisions and what comes next. Harlan Ullman, Ph.D. is UPI's Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at Washington, D.C.'s Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and David Richards are authors of a forthcoming book on preventing strategic catastrophe.
Chicago Tribune
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Graceland opens to the public
Today is Saturday, June 7, the 158th day of 2025. There are 207 days left in the year. Today in history: On June 7, 1982, Graceland, Elvis Presley's Memphis mansion, was opened to the public as a tourist destination, five years after Presley's death. Also on this date: In 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution to the Continental Congress stating 'that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States.' In 1892, Homer Plessy, a Creole of color, was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld 'separate but equal' racial segregation, a concept it renounced in 1954.) In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City formally came into existence as the Italian Parliament ratified the Lateran Treaty in Rome. In 1942, the Battle of Midway ended in a decisive victory for American naval forces over Imperial Japan, marking a turning point in the Pacific War. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples. In 1976, New York magazine published an article by journalist Nik Cohn entitled 'The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,' which inspired the film 'Saturday Night Fever,' which in turn sparked a nationwide disco craze. (Cohn admitted in 1997 that the article was actually a work of fiction.) In 1979, Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday. (Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.) In 1998, in a crime that shocked the nation and led to stronger state and federal hate crime laws, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old Black man, was hooked by a chain to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men were later sentenced to death and executed for the crime; a third was sentenced to life in prison.) In 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by a U.S. airstrike on his safe house. In 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, from a prominent South Carolina legal family, were found shot and killed on their family's property. (Alex Murdaugh, Maggie's husband and Paul's father, would be found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.) Today's Birthdays: Filmmaker James Ivory is 97. Singer Tom Jones is 85. Actor Liam Neeson is 73. Author Orhan Pamuk is 73. Author Louise Erdrich is 71. Music producer L.A. Reid is 69. Musician Juan Luis Guerra is 68. Former Vice President Mike Pence is 66. Rock musician-TV host Dave Navarro is 58. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., is 53. Actor Karl Urban is 53. TV personality Bear Grylls is 51. Basketball Hall of Famer Allen Iverson is 50. Actor-comedian Bill Hader is 47. Actor Michael Cera is 37. Rapper Iggy Azalea is 35. Actor-model Emily Ratajkowski is 34. NFL running back Christian McCaffrey is 29.
Boston Globe
07-06-2025
- Boston Globe
Today in History: June 7, James Byrd Jr. killed in hate crime
In 1892, Homer Plessy, a Creole of color, was arrested for refusing to leave a whites-only car of the East Louisiana Railroad. (Ruling on his case, Plessy v. Ferguson, the US Supreme Court upheld 'separate but equal' racial segregation, a concept it renounced in 1954.) Advertisement In 1929, the sovereign state of Vatican City formally came into existence as the Italian Parliament ratified the Lateran Treaty in Rome. In 1942, the Battle of Midway ended in a decisive victory for American naval forces over Imperial Japan, marking a turning point in the Pacific War. In 1965, the US Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples. Advertisement In 1976, New York magazine published an article by journalist Nik Cohn entitled 'The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,' which inspired the film 'Saturday Night Fever,' which in turn sparked a nationwide disco craze. (Cohn admitted in 1997 that the article was actually a work of fiction.) In 1979, Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday. (Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.) In 1982, Graceland, Elvis Presley's Memphis mansion, was opened to the public as a tourist destination, five years after Presley's death. In 1998, in a crime that shocked the nation and led to stronger state and federal hate crime laws, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old Black man, was hooked by a chain to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. (Two white men were later sentenced to death and executed for the crime; a third was sentenced to life in prison.) In 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, was killed by a US airstrike on his safe house. In 2021, Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, from a prominent South Carolina legal family, were found shot and killed on their family's property. (Alex Murdaugh, Maggie's husband and Paul's father, would be found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.)
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
White House marks 83rd anniversary of Midway victory in WWII
June 4 (UPI) -- Wednesday is the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Midway, which turned the tide against the Japanese during World War II, the White House announced. The attack by the Japanese Navy on Midway Island marked its last in the Pacific Theater of operations and occurred 1.5 years after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. "After the shocking attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Imperial Japan surged across the Pacific -- dealing Allied forces a series of defeats, from the fall of the Philippines to the capture of Hong Kong and Singapore to devastating air raids over Australia," the White House announced in an unattributed online statement. "With the U.S. Navy still reeling from the surprise attack, Japan's ruthless push for regional dominance seemed unstoppable," the statement said. A surprise attack led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle that dropped bombs on Japan on April 16, 1942, prompted the Japanese to expand their territorial gains in the Pacific Theater of Operations, including targeting Midway Island for occupation. Occupying Midway would have given Japan a military base that was within striking distance of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet by land-based bombers. U.S. codebreakers, though, had broken Japan's Purple Code, and the Navy sent an uncoded message saying Midway Island's desalination facilities were down. It was a ruse that prompted the Japanese to say that its next target had problems with its fresh water, which the U.S. codebreakers intercepted. "The Japanese plan was clear: lure what remained of the battered U.S. Pacific Fleet out of Pearl Harbor, destroy it and capture Midway, from where they would launch further offensives across the Pacific," the White House announcement says. Knowing Midway was the intended target, newly appointed Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Chester Nimitz dispatched the USS Enterprise, USS Hornet and the USS Yorktown aircraft carriers and supporting vessels to lay a trap for the Japanese Navy. Admirals Chester Spruance and Jack Fletcher commanded the tactical fleet during the Midway operations. Japan sent four of its best fleet aircraft carriers to draw out the U.S. Pacific Fleet and destroy it in a decisive battle. Instead, the Japanese fleet was surprised by U.S. attack aircraft on the morning of June 4, 1942. "In the course of 24 hours, they sank four Japanese aircraft carriers, destroyed a heavy cruiser and crushed Japanese hopes of advancing deeper into the eastern Pacific," the White House said. The U.S. lost the Yorktown during the battle, but the United States was able to replace its losses and grow its fleet. The Japanese Navy continued to decline in size and effectiveness while trying and failing to defend its prior gains in the Pacific Theater. "Today, former enemies stand united as allies," the White House said. "The United States and Japan have forged an enduring partnership built on the shared values of freedom, sovereignty and an abiding commitment to peace across the Indo-Pacific." The White House statement says the United States and Japan "are advancing the causes of safety, security, prosperity and liberty ... while confronting threats from China and North Korea." The Battle of Midway serves as a "glorious reminder" that "no challenge is too great for the strength of the American spirit," the White House said.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Midway's Legacy: White House Honors Historic Battle Amid Rising Tensions
President Donald Trump marked Wednesday's 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Midway, calling the 1942 naval clash a 'watershed moment' that turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific. The White House released a statement commemorating the battle in June 1942 that decimated Japan's carrier fleet. The anniversary comes as the U.S. strengthens Pacific alliances to counter growing Chinese military assertiveness. Trump emphasized how former enemies have become partners, with Japan now a cornerstone ally. 'The epic Battle of Midway stands to this day as a glorious reminder that, even in the face of long odds, perilous danger, and tremendous uncertainty, no challenge is too great for the strength of the American spirit,' the President said. He honored servicemembers who 'secured victory over tyranny in the Pacific 80 years ago.' The battle marked a stunning reversal after months of Japanese victories. Following Pearl Harbor's devastation in December 1941, Imperial forces swept across the Pacific, capturing the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. By the summer of 1942, Japan targeted Midway Island—a strategic outpost 1,000 miles from Hawaii. They planned to destroy America's remaining Pacific fleet and launch deeper offensives. But American codebreakers cracked Japanese communications, giving Admiral Chester Nimitz crucial intelligence. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered Nimitz to prepare the battered fleet for a decisive confrontation. On June 4, U.S. carrier planes struck at dawn. American forces under Admirals Jack Fletcher and Raymond Spruance fought relentlessly despite facing superior numbers. Within 24 hours, they sank four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser. The losses shattered Japan's offensive capabilities and began America's island-hopping campaign toward Tokyo. The Presidential message noted the transformation since the 1945 surrender. 'The United States and Japan have forged an enduring partnership built on the shared values of freedom, sovereignty, and an abiding commitment to peace across the Indo-Pacific,' it read. That partnership faces new tests. Trump cited threats from China and North Korea as reasons for continued U.S.-Japan cooperation on 'safety, security, prosperity, and liberty.' The President's message reflects broader administration efforts to strengthen Pacific alliances. Still, the Midway anniversary serves as both a historical remembrance and a contemporary reminder of American resolve in the region.
