Obama’s Syria plan teams up American and Russian forces

The Obama administration’s new proposal to Russia on Syria is more extensive than previously known. It would open the way for deep cooperation between U.S. and Russian military and intelligence agencies and coordinated air attacks by American and Russian planes on Syrian rebels deemed to be terrorists, according to the text of the proposal I obtained, according to the Washington Post.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry plans to discuss the plan with top Russian officials in a visit to Moscow on Thursday. As I first reported last month, the administration is proposing joining with Russia in a ramped-up bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, which is also known as the Nusrah Front. What hasn’t been previously reported is that the United States is suggesting a new military command-and-control headquarters to coordinate the air campaign that would house U.S. and Russian military officers, intelligence officials and subject-matter experts.

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Air Force First Lt. Cale Simmons, who cleared the bar at 5.65 meters -- 18 feet, 6.4 inches -- in the men's pole vault finals, secured a spot on the U.S. Olympic team at the U.S. Olympic team track and field finals here July 4, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Simmons finished second at the finals, just behind Army 2nd Lt. Sam Kendricks, who cleared the bar at 5.91 meters, setting an Olympic trials record.

Simmons said he vaulted 5.72 meters, his best ever, in Denver last month, and he hopes to earn a medal at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August.

Besides pole vaulting in high school in Sacramento, California, Simmons said, he vaulted at the U.S. Air Force Academy as well.

He said his current training regimen includes heavy doses of sprinting, some gymnastics and weight training, as well as plyometric and isometric exercises. The Air Force, he added, provides good full-time training assistance via the World Class Athlete Program, of which he is a part.

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U.S. government agencies and corporations have been the target of serious cyber-attacks by sovereign governments, most notably by Iran and China, for more than a decade. So at what point does the U.S. retaliate?

That is the question being raised by an article in Federal Times about a hearing Wednesday held by House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees on what cyber incidents should be considered acts of war and how the U.S. should respond.

Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., ranking member of the IT Subcommittee, pointed to the indictment of seven Iranian nationals in March who are charged with breaching the network of a dam in suburban New York. Fortunately, the compromised computers were not connected at the time to the slough that controls water flow. And, if it were, the dam in question is minor and couldn’t cause much damage.

“While the attack might not have targeted the nation’s vital infrastructure, it is almost certain that future attacks will,” Kelly said. “And when that does happen, how will we react? Do we hack the hackers or do we respond with physical force?”

Retired Gen. Keith Alexander, who formerly served as director of the NSA and commander of U.S. CYBERCOM and is now president and CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity, agreed we need clarity on these questions, if for no other reason than to prevent a vigilante reprisal.

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Military and Veterans Affairs officials are still years away from fully sharing patient health records, even after almost two decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office released Wednesday, according to the Military Times.

But Defense Department officials said they’re confident the two bureaucracies will reach that goal in the next two years, citing recent improvements to the system and planned advances in coming years.

The conflicting views frustrated members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who called the ongoing issue an embarrassment for the country and an unnecessary hardship for troops and veterans. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., questioned whether lawmakers will be holding the same hearing with the same concerns in another 24 months.

In April, both Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense Department leaders certified that all medical data in their systems met national standards for sharing with public and private health care systems.

This story was originally published July 14, 2016 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Obama’s Syria plan teams up American and Russian forces."