Latest news with #Parnell
The Hill
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
The Marines are leaving Los Angeles
'With stability returning to Los Angeles, [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] has directed the redeployment of the 700 Marines whose presence sent a clear message: lawlessness will not be tolerated,' chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to The Hill's sister outlet NewsNation. Parnell claimed the Marines' 'unmistakable presence' in the city was 'instrumental in restoring order and upholding the rule of law,' even as few of the service members remained in public view following the initial show of force in June. The Trump administration continues to scale back its military deployment in Los Angeles after President Trump ordered some 4,100 California National Guard troops and later the 700 Marines to the city to quell protests of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The move was heavily criticized by California state officials for bypassing the consent of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who accused Trump of inflaming tensions with deployments he said were unnecessary. After protests largely died down across the city, service members found themselves with little to do, and last week Hegseth ordered half of some 4,000 remaining Guard members to return home. That leaves 2,000 in Los Angeles to continue with their role of protecting ICE agents as they conducted raids. Another 150 Guardsmen had earlier been allowed to leave the city to help fight wildfires in California. Newsom has continued to push for all deployed service members to leave the city, saying Trump has used them as 'political pawns.' Parnell did not say when the Marines would depart the city, but a defense official told The Washington Post they are set to return to the Twentynine Palms Base in the coming days. In a video posted to X 'unnecessary.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Afghanistan review could lead to change in promotions for NCOs, officers
The Pentagon's ongoing review into the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan could prompt the Defense Department to 'reform the way that we evaluate and promote young noncommissioned officers and young officers,' Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters recently. 'If you think back to my time in Afghanistan as a young commander, giving battle update briefs as a captain to my battalion commander, if I were constantly saying that my area of operations was a disaster, it didn't have the ammo or troops that I needed to accomplish the mission, the likelihood of me getting promoted was probably not great,' Parnell said Wednesday Pentagon news conference. 'So, how do we set the conditions in the [Defense] Department to create a sense of honesty where our officers are reporting what they believe to be accuracy — they're concerned about maybe their area of operations; they're concerned about the truth and, maybe, less about their careers.' Parnell added that his comments were not meant as an indictment of officers who served in Afghanistan. 'It's just the way that our system is constructed,' he said. In January 2020, John Sopko, then serving as special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told lawmakers that the U.S. government had 'created an incentive to almost require people to lie' about progress in Afghanistan. 'I'm not going to name names, but I think everybody has that incentive to give happy talk — to show success,' Sopko told Task & Purpose at the time. 'Maybe it's human nature to do that. I mean most of the lying is lying to ourselves. We want to show success.' More than a year later, the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, marking the start of a chaotic evacuation of American citizens and Afghans who had worked for the U.S. government. Over two weeks, U.S. troops rescued more than 124,000 people. Thirteen service members and about 170 Afghans were killed in an Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bomb attack at Abbey Gate outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. On Wednesday, Parnell said the Defense Department review, which was announced on May 20. will look into key questions about the withdrawal, such as why U.S. forces withdrew from Bagram Airfield in July 2021. As a result, the evacuation the following month had to be conducted from the airport in Kabul, leaving the troops guarding Abbey Gate exposed, an investigation later found. Parnell also said that he believes the U.S. defeat in Vietnam during which Americans and Vietnamese were evacuated by helicopter from the U.S. embassy in Saigon, left an imprint on a generation of officers who later became generals. He noted that these leaders were in charge during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which the U.S. military had a clearly stated mission and American service members withdrew when the operation's goals had been accomplished. When those general officers retired, a lot of their institutional knowledge based on lessons from the pain of the Vietnam War was likely lost, Parnell said. 'Flash forward 10 years: 9/11 happens; 20 years of war in Iraq Afghanistan; and we find ourselves at the end of Afghan War in a remarkably similar situation that we were in in Vietnam,' Parnell said. 'So, the question that I have here, and that the department has, is what happened? How do we as a department make sure that something like in Vietnam and something there again that happened in Afghanistan never happens again?' The latest on Task & Purpose The Air Force fitness test may soon include 2-mile runs twice a year 'War Thunder' continues to live up to its reputation for OPSEC violations Guardsmen sent to LA are 130 miles east of the city doing drug busts Lightning Carriers: The Marines' secret weapon in the Pacific Pentagon releases details of 'Midnight Hammer' strikes against Iran Solve the daily Crossword
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Marines will begin withdrawing from Los Angeles
'With stability returning to Los Angeles, the secretary has directed the redeployment of the 700 Marines whose presence sent a clear message: Lawlessness will not be tolerated,' Parnell said Monday in a statement, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 'Their rapid response, unwavering discipline, and unmistakable presence were instrumental in restoring order and upholding the rule of law. We're deeply grateful for their service, and for the strength and professionalism they brought to this mission.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Democratic leaders in California have accused the Trump administration of provoking the protests by sending masked federal agents to car washes and other sites to detain immigrants, and then using the subsequent public outrage over the raids as a pretext for military action. Advertisement Since June, the troops have stood guard outside federal office buildings and have accompanied agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Border Patrol and other agencies during immigration raids. Pentagon officials estimated that the cost of deploying the Marines and National Guard soldiers would run to about $134 million. Advertisement California officials say the deployment violates federal law prohibiting the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement, but an early attempt to halt the deployment through a court order was blocked by a federal appeals court. That appellate court ruled in June that the president had broad, though not 'unreviewable,' authority to send the U.S. military into American cities. A federal trial to determine whether the National Guard and Marines were used illegally in California is scheduled for next month. Federal authorities have called the deployment a response to the so-called sanctuary law in California, enacted during the first Trump administration. The law limits the role of local sheriffs' deputies and police officers in immigration enforcement, so that fear of deportation would not deter immigrants from reporting crimes. The law includes extensive exceptions that allow local law enforcement authorities to turn over noncitizens who have committed serious crimes to be deported by federal authorities. But the Trump administration has contended that California still places too many limits on cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities. The U.S. Department of Justice recently asked sheriffs across California to provide it with lists of inmates in state jails who are not U.S. citizens; doing so could potentially be a violation of the state's sanctuary law. At a congressional hearing last month, Democratic lawmakers grilled Hegseth about the troop deployment, calling it unlawful and excessive. 'The president's decision to call the National Guard troops to Los Angeles was premature, and the decision to deploy active-duty Marines as well is downright escalatory,' Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., told Hegseth. Advertisement Hegseth defended the deployment, telling lawmakers, 'We ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country.' Those debates have loomed large over the military presence in Los Angeles. Critics of the deployment have noted, among other things, that the Marines and the National Guard — who are trained to shoot to kill on the battlefield — do not receive the extensive training in de-escalation techniques, crowd control and use of force that are core parts of local law enforcement training. Within the U.S. military, concerns about the optics of armed troops rolling into American cities have also limited what the deployment could accomplish. As a result, the use of the troops in the Los Angeles area has been heavily scrutinized and fraught with potential constitutional constraints. National Guard contingents were seen this month facing protesters in a field outside a cannabis farm in Ventura County as gunfire erupted. And they were observed sitting in trucks in an immigrant-heavy neighborhood of Los Angeles while immigration agents marched through an all-but-vacated MacArthur Park, to prove that they could do so. In interviews with The New York Times, members of the California National Guard said that morale has been low during the deployment, reenlistment rates were plummeting and more than 100 troops had sought counseling in a period of a few weeks. Six soldiers spoke on condition of anonymity because their federal orders forbade them from talking to the news media. In the tent city that was built to house the Guard troops on a small base in Los Alamitos, a suburb, soldiers said that several troops had been reassigned because they raised objections to the mission, and that few of the troops there had been sent off the base on assignments. Advertisement National Guard officials said that only about 400 of the 3,882 deployed Guard members had actually been sent on assignments away from the base. The military's Northern Command said this month that the troops overall had participated in slightly more than 200 operations in support of federal law enforcement agencies. 'We wake up to go to sleep,' one Guard member told the Times. The Marines, who have been based at a separate military facility nearby, have been used sparingly as well. Early in the deployment, on June 13, Marines briefly detained an Army veteran who was running an errand and was trying to enter a Veterans Affairs office at a federal building in Los Angeles. The veteran said the detention was brief and he was not bothered by it. Federal troops are rarely seen detaining U.S. civilians on American soil, even temporarily. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles has compared the deployment to an 'armed occupation,' and Gov. Gavin Newsom has condemned it as 'a solution right now in search of a problem.' Both have called for the removal of all the deployed troops. This article originally appeared in .
Indian Express
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
US military orders removal of 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles amid ICE protest tension
The United States military has ordered the removal of about 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles out of the 4,000 troops deployed in the city in wake of anti-immigration protests last month to protect the federal property and personnel, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The National Guards were mobilized in Los Angeles to counter the growing protests that came after a series of immigration raids being conducted by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which triggered violent protests across the city and were quelled by the use of 'less lethal' weapons and subsequent arrests. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, while announcing the decision signed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, said the step was taken due to the success of the mission. 'Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,' Parnell said. Parnell added 'As such, the Secretary has ordered the release of 2,000 California National Guardsmen from the federal protection mission.' US President Donald Trump had ordered the deployment of California National Guards to Los Angeles in June amid fierce criticism from Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to curb protests prompted due to immigration raids conducted by the ICE agents. Trump had also deployed about 700 Marines to Los Angeles. The decision of the Trump administration to send National Guard troops was challenged by California Governor Newsom but despite legal troubles, a US appeals court let Trump retain control of California's National Guard. Governor Newsom called the federal government's decision an 'assault' on democracy and said it invoked 'authoritarian regimes' who 'begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves.' Even after the withdrawal of 2,000 National Guard troops, Los Angeles still has 2,000 National Guard troops and roughly 700 Marines deployed. The deployment by Trump marked the first instance since 1965 that a president had federalized National Guard troops without a governor's permission.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iran hit dome on US air base in Qatar in June attack: Report
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An Iranian attack on an air base in Qatar that's key to the U.S. military hit a geodesic dome housing equipment used by the Americans for secure communications, satellite images analyzed Friday by The Associated Press show. Hours after the publication of this AP report, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell acknowledged that an Iranian ballistic missile had hit the dome. Qatar did not respond to requests for comment about the damage. The Iranian attack on Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, Qatar's capital, on June 23 came as a response to the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran — and provided the Islamic Republic a way to retaliate that quickly led to a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump ending the 12-day Iran-Israel war. The Iranian attack otherwise did little damage — likely because of the fact that the U.S. evacuated its aircraft from the base, which is home to the forward headquarters of the U.S. military's Central Command, before the attack. Trump also has said that Iran signaled when and how it would retaliate, allowing American and Qatari air defense to be ready for the attack, which briefly disrupted air travel in the Middle East, but otherwise didn't tip over into the regional war long feared by analysts. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC show the geodesic dome visible at the Al Udeid Air Base on the morning of June 23, just hours before the attack. The U.S. Air Force's 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, which operates out of the base, announced in 2016 the installation of the $15 million piece of equipment, known as a modernized enterprise terminal. Photos show a satellite dish inside of the dome, known as a radome. Images taken June 25 and every day subsequently show the dome is gone, with some damage visible on a nearby building. The rest of the base appears largely untouched in the images. In a statement, Parnell said the missile strike 'did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base.' 'Al Udeid Air Base remains fully operational and capable of conducting its mission, alongside our Qatari partners, to provide security and stability in the region,' he added. The London-based satellite news channel Iran International first reported on the damage, citing satellite photos taken by a different provider. In the U.S., Trump described the Iranian attack as a 'very weak response.' He had said that Tehran fired 14 missiles, with 13 intercepted and one being 'set free' as it was going in a 'nonthreatening' direction. 'I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,' he wrote on his website Truth Social. The White House had no immediate comment after Parnell's acknowledgment Friday. Trump visited Al Udeid Air Base on May 15 as part of his Mideast tour. After the attack, Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard insisted that the air base had been the 'target of a destructive and powerful missile attack.' Iran's Supreme National Security Council also said that the base had been 'smashed,' without offering any specific damage assessments. Potentially signaling that he knew the dome had been hit, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei separately said that the base's communications had been disconnected by the attack. 'All equipment of the base was completely destroyed and now the U.S. command stream and connection from Al Udeid base to its other military bases have been completely cut,' said Ahmad Alamolhoda, a hard-line cleric. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
