WarSclerotic

The U.S. military wants to expand its use of artificial intelligence in warfare but says it will take care to deploy the technology in accordance with the nation’s values.

The Pentagon outlined its first AI strategy in a report released Tuesday.

The plan calls for accelerating the use of AI systems throughout the military, from intelligence-gathering operations to predicting maintenance problems in planes or ships. It urges the U.S. to advance such technology swiftly before other countries chip away at its technological advantage.

“Other nations, particularly China and Russia, are making significant investments in AI for military purposes, including in applications that raise questions regarding international norms and human rights,” the report says.

The report makes little mention of autonomous weapons but cites an existing 2012 military directive that requires humans to be in control.

The U.S. and Russia are among a handful of nations that have blocked efforts at the United Nations for an international ban on “killer robots” – fully autonomous weapons systems that could one day conduct war without human intervention. The U.S. has argued that it’s premature to try to regulate them.

The strategy unveiled by the Defense Department this week is focused on more immediate applications, but even some of those have sparked ethical debates.

The Pentagon hit a roadblock in its AI efforts last year after internal protests at Google led the tech company to drop out of Project Maven, which uses algorithms to interpret aerial video images from conflict zones. Other companies have sought to fill the vacuum, and the Pentagon is working with AI experts from industry and academia to establish ethical guidelines for its AI applications.

“Everything we’ve seen is with a human decision-maker in the loop,” said Todd Probert, a vice president at Raytheon’s intelligence division, which is working with the Pentagon on Maven and other projects.

“It’s using technology to help speed up the process but not supplant the command structure that’s in place.”

The Pentagon’s report follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order prioritizing AI research across the government.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar’s apology for suggesting that members of Congress support Israel because they are being paid to do so was “lame” and that she should resign.

In a pair of tweets over the weekend, the Minnesota Democrat, who is one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” she wrote, using slang for $100 bills.

Asked on Twitter who she thought was paying members of Congress to support Israel, Omar responded, “AIPAC!”

Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that “anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress.”

The president said it was “terrible” what Omar said. “I think she should either resign from Congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. What she said is so deep-seated in her heart.”

He said her apology was “lame and she didn’t mean a word of it.”

Omar said she had no intention of offending anyone, including Jewish Americans, when she insinuated that lobbyists were paying lawmakers to support Israel. She “unequivocally” apologized.

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted later Tuesday that Omar’s “tweets were a disgrace & her apology was inadequate.”

“Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee,” he added. “Those who engage in anti-Semitic tropes should not just be denounced, they should face consequences for their words.”

Omar was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats for her comments.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic House leaders condemned her remarks, calling for an apology and saying anti-Semitism must be confronted and condemned.

Any U.S.-brokered “deal of the century” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would undo all the work that has been done up until now, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an Intra-Palestinian reconciliation forum in Moscow on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has touted sweeping proposals to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The economic plan is widely expected to include international funding proposals for the Gaza Strip.

Video: Reuters

Lavrov’s comments came ahead of a planned trip to at least at least five Arab countries in late February by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner to brief diplomats on the economic portion of a long-awaited U.S. peace proposal for the Middle East and seek their support.

The meeting, held in Moscow from Feb. 11-13, brings together representatives of opposing Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, as well as various other groups and movements.

Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah Central Committee and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, thanked Russia on Monday for hosting the rare intra-Palestinian talks.

Election propaganda? The Hezbollah terrorist organization launched a campaign via the WhatsApp and Telegram instant messaging applications on Tuesday that targeting senior Israeli politicians and other public figures.

Individuals who were added to the messaging groups reported that the groups had been organized by an unidentified phone number from Lebanon, which sent menacing messages on behalf of the terrorist organization. Among the people invited to the group were ministerial spokespeople, journalists and senior lawmakers.

One of the messages includes a photo of former Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008, with the caption: “Revenge is inevitable, and the goal is clear, specific and precise – removing Israel from existence.”

The messages were primarily Hezbollah propaganda, and the unusual initiative appears designed to coincide with Israeli election season. Defense officials in Israel have been notified of the Hezbollah campaign.

Also on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met in Beirut with Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who recently voiced his desire to arm the U.S.-backed Lebanese army with Iranian weapons.

Zarif reiterated his country’s readiness to offer Iranian military assistance to the Lebanese army to help counter “Israeli aggression,” adding that it is up to the Lebanese to choose what they want.

Some Lebanese politicians have expressed reservations over the offer from Iran, which is under U.S. sanctions. They fear Western nations may punish Lebanon if it accepts arms from Tehran.

Iran has also offered to help improve Lebanon’s crumbling power sector.

“I want to confirm again that the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to cooperate with the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army in any field they see suitable,” Zarif said.

“We don’t want to embarrass anyone in Lebanon through the cooperation with the Islamic republic,” he said, adding that there is no international law that bans Iran from cooperating with any country.

A senior member of Venezuela’s opposition, which supports interim President Juan Guaidó, told Israel Hayom on Tuesday that the presence of Iran, Hezbollah and other Arab terrorist elements in the country “is very concerning” to the democratic opposition and will pose an “immense challenge” to the new government after the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro is ousted.

“We are presently formulating policy pertaining to defending Venezuela’s internal security and are looking for help and advice,” the senior official said. “And Israel can help us establish the necessary apparatuses to contend with this problem when the political change in Venezuela realized.”

Venezuela’s socialist regime has close relations with Iran and has allowed Hezbollah to establish operational hubs in the country. Additionally, the Maduro regime maintains close ties with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and sends them money – even as the people of Venezuela are themselves desperate for humanitarian aid due to an increasing scarcity of food and medicine.

Extremist elements in the Arab and Muslim worlds – Iran, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey – have declared their support for the tyrant Maduro in his current standoff with the popular uprising against his rule. Israel, meanwhile, is the only country outside of America to stand by Guaidó, whose exclusive interview with Israel Hayom on Tuesday reverberated across the globe.

In an effort to amplify economic pressure on the Maduro regime, the senior Venezuelan opposition figure called on the American administration to pressure U.S. allies in the Arab world to end their financial support for the regime and sever commercial ties with it.

The request comes amid reports that several Gulf states recently purchased large quantities of gold from the Maduro regime. In the meantime, Miguel Pizarro, Guaidó’s adviser on humanitarian affairs, confirmed in a conversation with Israel Hayom that the opposition is already in contact with Israel over humanitarian aid.

“We know that Israel is interested in contributing in this regard, along with other nations,” Pizarro said.

“We prepared a strategic plan for urgent aid to our neediest populations and we need a lot of medicine, hospital medical equipment and help treating people [suffering from] extreme malnutrition,” Pizarro told Israel Hayom. “We are establishing warehouses along the border to receive aid; we have already built a collection center in Columbia and we are preparing to open another center in Brazil and in other countries.”

Pizarro added: “We welcome all help we are given, as the Venezuelan population needs any help possible. The regime will have to allow this aid to enter [the country], because it’s a matter of [saving] people’s lives. We are applying all possible pressure to force the regime to allow this aid into the country.”

Air defenses on the border

Meanwhile, Maduro appears to be increasingly afraid of foreign military intervention and has deployed air defense systems at San Cristóbal – near the border with Columbia. The development follows his decision to refuse foreign humanitarian aid. Now, online video footage published by the opposition shows S-125 air defense batteries near the frontier.

The S-125, a particularly outdated Soviet-era system, was used by the Egyptian army during the War of Attrition against Israel (between 1967 and 1970) and the Yom Kippur War. The system would pose no problem for any advanced air force.

In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Maduro accused the Trump administration of “warmongering in order to take over Venezuela.

Maduro added his hope that “this extremist group in the White House is defeated by powerful worldwide public opinion.”

Speaking in the capital, Caracas, he told the BBC: “It’s a political war, of the United States empire, of the interests of the extreme right that today is governing, of the Ku Klux Klan, that rules the White House, to take over Venezuela.”

Also on Tuesday, Guaidó supporters returned to the streets nationwide to keep the heat on Maduro and demand that he allow humanitarian aid into the country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a telephone call on Tuesday evening that Washington should avoid any interference, including military, in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

Moscow has invested billions of dollars into Venezuela’s economy and oil production.