The Obama administration’s release of five senior Taliban terrorists from Guantanoma Bay in exchange for the Taliban’s freeing of U.S. Army deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl not only is in violation of a federal law (Sec. 1035 of the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act), the prisoner swap also went against explicit advice of senior U.S. military and intelligence leaders.

FOX News reports, June 6, 2014:

Senior military officials had advised President Obama not to make the Taliban-for-Bergdahl trade, a senior Defense official told Fox News, likening it to “handing over five four-star generals of the Taliban.”

The claim adds to the picture that is emerging about the tense internal debate over whether to proceed with freeing five hardened Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release.

Sources told Fox News earlier this week that the Obama administration largely bypassed the intelligence community to green-light the…

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014, Barack Obama delivered his foreign policy speech at West Point, in which the President of the most powerful country in the world insisted “I am not weak” and argued for a contradictory foreign policy of American exceptionalism while he delegates authority to international coalitions.

“I am not weak”

Jonathan Topaz reports for Politico that editorial boards at three major U.S. newspapers criticized President Barack Obama’s foreign policy speech at West Point on May 28 as incomplete and failing to recognize America’s international standing.

• The New York Times editorial board, long supportive of Obama, wrote that his address “did not match the hype, was largely uninspiring, lacked strategic sweep and is unlikely to quiet his detractors, on the right or the left.” Obama “provided little new insight into how he plans to lead in the next two years, and many still doubt that he fully appreciates the leverage…

Amidst the still-ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the Obama administration is moving the last U.S. battle tanks from Germany and, thus, from Europe.

At the same time, the Pentagon also is disbanding two of the U.S. Army’s heavy brigades in Germany. Last year, the 170th Infantry out of Baumholder disbanded, while the 172nd Separate Infantry Brigade at Grafenwöhr is in the process of doing the same.

One of 22 Abram battle tanks, bound for South Carolina, being loaded at the railhead in Kaisersalutern, Germany (photo by Alexander Burnett/U.S. Army). 

John Vandiver reports for Stars and Stripes, April 4, 2014, that the U.S. Army’s 69-year history of basing main battle tanks on German soil quietly ended last month when 22 Abrams tanks, a main feature of armored combat units throughout the Cold War, embarked for the U.S.

On March 18, the remaining tanks were loaded up at the 21st Theater Sustainment…

U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos

On July 15, 2014, speaking at the Brookings Institute think tank in Washington, DC, the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, 4-star Gen. James Amos, openly and publicly criticized Commander-In-Chief Barack Hussein Obama.

Reporting for The Fiscal Times, David Francis observes that “It’s highly unusual for a high-ranking soldier, let alone a high-ranking Marine, to publicly question White House and Pentagon policy. Yet that’s exactly what four-star Gen. James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, did yesterday in Washington.”

Speaking at the Brookings Institute, Amos criticized the Obama administration for:

1. Paving the way for the emergence of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) by completely withdrawing American troops in 2011. Amos said: “I have a hard time believing that had we been there, and worked with the government, and worked with parliament, and worked with the…