Two U.S. Air Force commanders in the at RAF Croughton have been relieved over a loss of confidence in their abilities.

Col. Charles Hamilton, who commanded the base group since 2011, and Lt. Col. Matthew Olson, who commanded the 422nd Communications Squadron since July, were relieved of command on Thursday by the 501st Combat Support Wing commander after an investigation, officials said.

"It was loss of confidence in the commanders' abilities to lead their units in the best interest of the Air Force," spokesman Capt. Brian Maguire said in an e-mail. "This action was more about leadership style and organizational climate than a specific event."

Maguire said there was no connection between the two sackings and that the two men were not under criminal investigation.

Col. Brian May will command the air group until a scheduled replacement arrives this summer, Maguire said. Maj. John Riester will command the communications squadron, but no permanent replacement has been selected yet.

Col. Angela Cadwell, 501st commander, said in an email that her primary focus was the "health, welfare and organizational climate" in the wing. She did not elaborate.

Croughton provides communication and computer support to military assets throughout Europe. The base came under public scrutiny last year when it was reported that British Telecom would provide a telecommunication link between Croughton and a base in Djibouti connected with unmanned aerial vehicle operations.

What the president calls "my military" is being cleansed of any officer suspected of disloyalty to or disagreement with the administration on matters of policy or force structure, leaving the compliant and fearful.

We recognize President Obama is the commander-in-chief and that throughout history presidents from Lincoln to Truman have seen fit to remove military commanders they view as inadequate or insubordinate. Turnover in the military ranks is normal, and in these times of sequestration and budget cuts the numbers are expected to tick up as force levels shrink and missions change.

Yet what has happened to our officer corps since President Obama took office is viewed in many quarters as unprecedented, baffling and even harmful to our national security posture. We have commented on some of the higher profile cases, such as Gen. Carter Ham. He was relieved as head of U.S. Africa Command after only a year and a half because he disagreed with orders not to mount a rescue mission in response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi.

Rear Adm. Chuck Gaouette, commander of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, was relieved in October 2012 for disobeying orders when he sent his group on Sept. 11 to "assist and provide intelligence for" military forces ordered into action by Gen. Ham.

Other removals include the sacking of two nuclear commanders in a single week - Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, head of the 20th Air Force, responsible for the three wings that maintain control of the 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, the No. 2 officer at U.S. Strategic Command.

From Breitbart.com's Facebook page comes a list of at least 197 officers that have been relieved of duty by President Obama for a laundry list of reasons and sometimes with no reason given. Stated grounds range from "leaving blast doors on nukes open" to "loss of confidence in command ability" to "mishandling of funds" to "inappropriate relationships" to "gambling with counterfeit chips" to "inappropriate behavior" to "low morale in troops commanded."

Nine senior commanding generals have been fired by the Obama administration this year, leading to speculation by active and retired members of the military that a purge of its commanders is under way.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, notes how the White House fails to take action or investigate its own officials but finds it easy to fire military commanders "who have given their lives for their country." Vallely thinks he knows why this purge is happening.

"Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama's ideology," Vallely said. "The White House protects their own. That's why they stalled on the investigation into Fast and Furious, Benghazi and ObamaCare. He's intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged."

Maoist rebels have killed at least 15 policemen in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police say.

The patrol was on its way to provide security to workers building a road in Sukma district when rebels fired at them, officials say.

Twenty-five policemen were injured in the attack, senior police officer Mukesh Gupta told BBC Hindi.

Chhattisgarh is a stronghold of the rebels who say they are fighting for the rights of the poor.

The Maoists are active in more than a third of India's 600 districts and control large areas of several states in a "red corridor" stretching from north-east to central India.

The senior lawyer for the National Security Agency stated unequivocally on Wednesday that US technology companies were fully aware of the surveillance agency's widespread collection of data, contradicting months of angry denials from the firms.

Rajesh De, the NSA general counsel, said all communications content and associated metadata harvested by the NSA under a 2008 surveillance law occurred with the knowledge of the companies - both for the internet collection program known as Prism and for the so-called "upstream" collection of communications moving across the internet.

Asked during a Wednesday hearing of the US government's institutional privacy watchdog if collection under the law, known as Section 702 or the Fisa Amendments Act, occurred with the "full knowledge and assistance of any company from which information is obtained," De replied: "Yes."

A quick look at how the sausage gets made, or doesn't...

On Tuesday night, The New York Times reported that no reporters would be traveling with First Lady Michelle Obama to China, and that she would be giving no interviews while there. Nicholas Kristof, the Times columnist, called the First Lady's decision "a mistake," and said it "signals weakness or fear of coverage." Several conservative outlets picked up the Times report, including the influential Drudge Report, which linked to a Weekly Standard article about it.

Shortly after noon on Wednesday, I reached out to the First Lady's office to inquire about the decision. A spokesperson for the First Lady responded to my inquiry but declared the response "off the record," meaning I wasn't allowed to use the information therein. When I told the spokesperson that I needed a response I could use, the spokesperson replied with another off-the-record statement regarding the First Lady's trip.

The Libyan government announced on Wednesday that it has asked the international community for help with a 'War on Terror' that threatens to plunge the already-divided nation into a state of full-scale disarray.

Widespread violence is the main concern for Libya after a number of bombings and assassinations have plagued the eastern city of Benghazi. In Sirte - a city that is home to multiple major oil ports in the central region of the North African country - skirmishes between pro-government militias and rebel troops a number of people dead in the past several months. The government wrote on its official website that "terrorist groups" have waged war in the streets of Benghazi, Sirte, and other cities. Libya has failed to contain rebel groups that helped overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 then refused to lay down their arms, instead using the weapons to acquire wealth and oil.


"Libya's interim government asks the international community and especially the United Nations to provide assistance to uproot terrorism," the government wrote, as quoted by Reuters. "The government confirms that it wants this war on terror and its crimes to start as soon as possible."

For her public act of protest against Russia Today's coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory and supposedly advancing the agenda of Vladimir Putin in Washington, D.C., previously unknown news anchor Liz Wahl has suddenly become one of the most famous unemployed people in America. After her on-air resignation from the cable news channel, Wahl appeared on the three major American cable news outlets - CNN, Fox News, MSNBC - to denounce the heavy-handed editorial line she claims her bosses imposed on her and other staffers.

"What's clear is what's happening right now amid this crisis is that RT is not about the truth," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "It's about promoting a Putinist agenda. And I can tell you firsthand, it's also about bashing America."

Wahl's act of defiance eventually earned her invitations from "The View" and "The Colbert Report," offering her the opportunity to introduce millions of Americans to a Russian government-funded network whose Nielsen ratings have been too low to measure, but which commands a massive following on YouTube. Wahl was the toast of Washington, winning plaudits from a variety of prime-time pundits, from MSNBC's Chris Hayes ("remarkably badass") to the conservative Amanda Carpenter ("Liz Wahl is proud to be an American and in the last five minutes I think she made everyone else proud to be one, too.")

The celebration of Wahl fed directly into a BuzzFeed expose on "How The Truth Is Made at Russia Today," with writer Rosie Gray painting a portrait of an "atmosphere of censorship and pressure" on American staffers toiling in RT's D.C. offices. RT had long been the subject of criticism and ridicule for its promotion of Zeitgeist-style trutherism and libertarian paranoia, but Wahl now placed RT under unprecedented scrutiny, with mainstream U.S. media sounding the alarm about a bulwark of soft Russian power situated just blocks from the White House.

Chancellor Merkel used her speech to the Bundestag on Thursday to tell lawmakers that her government supported plans to step up sanctions on Moscow as a result of the Kremlin's continuing moves to absorb the Ukrainian autonomous territory of Crimea into the Russian Federation.

"At the European Council beginning today, the heads of state and government of the European Union will fix further phase-two sanctions that we agreed two weeks ago," Merkel said.

"These include an extension of the list of responsible people against whom travel restrictions and account freezes are in effect," she added.

He once was the richest and most powerful of the county's oligarchs and dominated post-Soviet Russia. He symbolized financial machinations and was called no less than a political kingmaker. He survived numerous attempts on his life, went into exile and remained a wanted figure in Russia until his death. RT looks at the life - and mysterious death - of Boris Berezovsky.

Libya's Congress handed a no-confidence vote to Prime Minister Ali Zeidan on Tuesday in a yet another jolt to the oil-rich nation's crumbling political stability.

Libya's elected General National Congress (GNC) voted to oust Mr Zeidan a day after the government's weak security forces failed to stop a North Korean-flagged oil tanker from departing Libya's eastern shore with an unauthorised US$36 million cargo of crude oil.

Less than three years after the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has been riven by increasingly violent political animosities as powerful militias, aligned with rival political factions, have struggled to exert control over key government offices, territory and - significantly - the country's vast oil resources.

Federalist fighters seeking autonomy for eastern Libya have laid siege to some of the country's key oil wells and ports, effectively paralysing exports for the past six months.

The weekend docking of the North Korean tanker marked the first independent sale of oil by a non-state body, threatening to escalate regional and tribal tensions into a full-fledged war.