Interesting comment at a Tuesday morning breakfast with Army Col. Kevin Galloway, the service’s pain czar*:
You used to drive around outside a military post and what was outside — pawnshops and tattoo parlors. You know what you see now? You see pain clinics popping up. They’re meeting an unmet need that’s inside the gate. Some
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America’s Air Force has again grounded portions of its stealthy fleet of F-22 Raptor tactical fighter jets. This comes on the heels of a recent four-month grounding of the fleet earlier this year.
While the call for accountability is certainly warranted, Air Force leaders appear to be doing everything possible to keep the pilots …
Some 90% of the money in and around Afghanistan is coming from the United States and its allies. Yet this tidal wave of cash is distorting the Afghan economy, breeding corruption, and creating a dependency that may be tough to break. Stephen Biddle, an Afghanistan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Brian Katulis, a …
First, Iraq makes it clear it doesn’t want U.S. troops hanging around. Then, over the weekend, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says:
If fighting starts between Pakistan and the U.S., we are beside Pakistan. If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.
Sure, he was …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lw2tRvTmVM&feature=player_embedded#!]
The long-forgotten television show Second Chance aired on the fledgling Fox network from September to November, 1987. This bit from its pilot episode 24 years ago — that would be after Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi ordered a Berlin disco bombing that …
President Obama’s celebratory announcement Friday that the 45,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq “will definitely be home for the holidays” is generating some blowback. Sure, it’s predictable that the GOP candidates who want his job would denounce it, as Mitt Romney did:
“President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly
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It was only a month ago that the Air Force let its F-22 warplanes — the most costly fighters in world history — back into the skies after more than four months confined to the tarmac.
As we noted September 21:
The Air Force has decided to let its fleet of F-22 fighters back into the air beginning Wednesday without fixing the
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Somehow seems appropriate that NATO’s mission in Libya is now slated to end October 31, a week from Monday. That would be Halloween (want to scare your neighbors? Get your Gaddafi mask here). “We have taken a preliminary decision to end Operation Unified Protector on Oct. 31, and we will take a formal decision in the next few days,” …
The U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003 without permission. But now that it no longer has approval from Baghdad’s post-Saddam government to stay beyond 2011, all U.S. forces will be pulling out by year’s end, President Obama said Friday. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said at the White House. …
[Co-written with Michael S. Smith II of Kronos Advisory LLC]
The demise of Col Qaddafi, a despicable despot who should have met this or a worse fate sooner, will likely give rise to power grabs in Libya by groups whose agendas will often be anything other than what meets the eye. Despite many power holders’ claims of …
The Department of Veterans Affairs released a study Friday into how to care for veterans…of 1991’s Gulf War, notorious for a spate of ailments lumped together as Gulf War syndrome. It notes:
Of the 529,034 Servicemembers who served in Operation Desert Shield (of whom approximately 6.8 percent were women), 152,126 Veterans filed
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Now that Moammar Gaddafi has been consigned to history, it’s time to figure out who — other than the Libyan people, hopefully — wins from the seven-month fight that toppled his 42-year regime.
As we noted Thursday — and was echoed Friday in the New York Times and Washington Post, among other foghorns — President Obama gets …