{"id":94121,"date":"2020-01-07T00:02:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T04:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=94121"},"modified":"2020-01-07T00:03:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T04:03:06","slug":"footprint-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=94121","title":{"rendered":"Footprint of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-94122 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/diego-garcia.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"251\" height=\"201\" \/><br \/>\n<em>This undated file photo shows Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago and site of a major United States military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean leased from Britain in 1966.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>US deploys 6 B-52 bombers to Diego Garcia in Indian Ocean after Soleimani strike<\/h3>\n<p><strong>By Vandana Rambaran<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-94123 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buff1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buff1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buff1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buff1-500x281.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buff1.jpg 1862w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\nBUFF<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The U.S. Air Force is deploying six B-52 bombers to Diego Garcia, an island base in the Indian Ocean, amid the rising threat from Iran after the U.S.-led airstrike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Fox News confirmed Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The move, which CNN first reported, was the latest in efforts by U.S. military officials to bolster resources near the Middle East after the Iraqi Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah hinted at possible retaliatory attacks to avenge Soleimani&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>The B-52 bombers reportedly were spotted departing from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to Diego Garcia, which is located 2,300 miles south of Iran\u2019s southernmost tip.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Defense Secretary\u00a0Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attempted to quell confusion about a letter\u00a0circulating from the U.S. military telling Iraq that it would withdraw troops from the region a day after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/iraq-parliament-expulsion-us-troops-drone-attack\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Iraqi lawmakers\u00a0approved a resolution<\/a>\u00a0calling to expel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/defense\/armed-forces\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. troops<\/a>\u00a0from the country.<\/p>\n<p>Both\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/pentagon-military-wont-leave-iraq-draft-letter-troop-movements-mistake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Esper and Milley called the unsigned letter a mistake<\/a>\u00a0and said the U.S. had no intention of withdrawing troops from the Middle East as tensions ramped up.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Milley told reporters the U.S. military was bringing in reinforcements from Kuwait and beefing up helicopter\u00a0force protection inside Iraq, particularly in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which has been bombarded with rocket attacks over the past three days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nothing says you care like sending a half dozen aluminum clouds.<\/p>\n<p>Read the rest of the story here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/world\/us-deploys-b52-bombers-indian-ocean\">Fox News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This undated file photo shows Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago and site &hellip; <a title=\"Footprint of Freedom\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=94121\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Footprint of Freedom<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,308,400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-iran","category-iraq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94124,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94121\/revisions\/94124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}