Bombing justifies itself?

In an interview with "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose, Vice President Joe Biden addressed criticism by the 51 career diplomats who slammed the Obama administration's Syria policy last week and called for a new one that would take more aggressive action against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
"The president and I and previous presidents support the right of any diplomat to have a secure channel to voice a different view," Biden said. "But there is not a single, solitary recommendation that I saw that has a single, solitary answer attached to it -- how to do what they're talking about."
"The president's been fastidious -- calls the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the intelligence community, the director of central intelligence, the C.I.A., et cetera. 'Tell me what will work. Will this work?' And the answer has repeatedly been, 'No,'" Biden said.

Wounded in Syria

Four U.S. special operations troops were hurt when an Islamic State rocket landed near their position in northern Syria earlier this month, bringing renewed questions about the role of U.S. troops in the region, specifically special operations forces serving alongside indigenous troops fighting ISIS.
A senior defense official told Fox News the U.S. troops were "lightly" wounded and quickly returned to duty.
To date, the Pentagon reports 16 U.S. troops have been wounded and three killed in hostile action against ISIS since President Obama authorized the first deployment of U.S. military forces back to Iraq in June 2014.
Pentagon statistics show 15 U.S. troops have been killed in non-combat incidents in the Middle East as part of the anti-ISIS coalition.

Enough troops in Libya...for now

The Marine Corps general nominated to lead U.S. forces in Africa said Tuesday the United States has a small number of troops on the ground in Libya and no more are needed "at the moment."

No, Russia isn't threatening to invade the Baltics

After two and a half years of NATO officials predicting imminent Russian invasions, NATO military chief Gen. Petr Pavel publicly insisted that there was no need to send any more troops to the Baltics, because there was no risk of a Russian invasion in the first place.
“It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessments suggest such a thing.”

Much of EU want peaceful relations with Russia

When the European Union imposed temporary sanctions on Russia over the annexation of Crimea, the “temporary” was seen by most as empty. With no real chance of Russia leaving the Crimea and the EU unified in being super outraged about that, the belief was that the sanctions would keep getting extended more or less forever, in keeping with the “new Cold War” mentality.
That’s not how it’s turning out, however, as negotiations on the latest extension are facing a major backlash across Central and Eastern Europe, as several nations express opposition to keeping the sanctions in place, and some are openly talking about a rapprochement.
Western European nations don’t seem to get it, since they weren’t trading much with Russia in the first place, but the prospect of “forever” sanctions are wearing thin on many, with Austrian FM Sebastian Kurz saying he opposed any extension of sanctions longer than six months, and thought the time was nearing to start phasing them out.
Hungarian FM Peter Szjjarto also opposed plans from Western European powers to “automatically extend” the sanctions without debate, and German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier insisted the sanctions must not be an “end in themselves.”

Battle of Fallujah far from over

Only a third of Fallujah has been "cleared" of Islamic State militants, the U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday, days after the Iraqi government declared victory in the city west of Baghdad, which was held by the extremists for more than two years.

All-time high in global refugees

The number of people displaced by conflict is at the highest level ever recorded, the UN refugee agency says.
It estimates that 65.3m people were either refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced at the end of 2015, an increase of 5m in a year.
This represents one in every 113 people on the planet, the UN agency says.
Meanwhile, the UN refugee chief says a worrying "climate of xenophobia" has taken hold in Europe as it struggles to cope with the migrant crisis.

Trouble in Mexico

At least eight people were killed in clashes in southern Mexico over the weekend when police and members of a teachers' union faced off in violent confrontations, a senior state official said, piling fresh pressure on the country's embattled ruling party.
Violence erupted on Sunday when police dislodged protesters blocking a highway in the southern state of Oaxaca, a hotbed of dissent from radical teachers' groups opposed to education reforms pushed through by the government three years ago.

Restless China

More than 1,000 residents of a southern Chinese village that was once hailed as a beacon of democracy in the Communist-ruled country marched in protest on Monday, demanding the release of the village chief who was detained in a weekend raid.
The fishing village of Wukan made international headlines in 2011 when it launched an uprising against corrupt former village leaders and land grabs that resulted in provincial authorities sacking the former village chief and allowing fresh elections that saw many protest leaders elected on a landslide.
Villagers gathered near dusk after listening to a speech from a public stage, waving red China flags and calling for the return of seized land and the release of Lin Zuluan, a former protest leader who was directly elected village chief in 2012 and who has since been accused of abuse of power and accepting bribes.

The nature of Trump

Through the end of May, Trump's campaign had plunged at least $6.2 million back into Trump corporate products and services, a review of Federal Election Commission filings shows. That's about 10 percent of his total campaign expenditures.