Battleland

Welcome Home, Soldier…

The gap between our publicly professed pride for our returning troops – and how they actually are treated when they need help – never ceases to amaze. The latest on this care chasm is explained on the front page of Saturday’s Washington Post. It details the woes faced by veterans who believe they have been short-changed by the …

Libya: McCain On What a Political Solution Would Look Like

Asked Friday in Benghazi what a “polical resolution” to the Libyan crisis would look like, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had a brief answer:

I think the political resolution is one that calls for Gadhafi to be one of three places: with his friend Hugo Chavez [in Venezuela], in the International Criminal Court [in the Hague], or with Hitler

Libya: McCain Swoops Into Benghazi

Over on Global Spin, Time colleague Bruce Crumley notes Sen. John McCain’s visit to Benghazi on Friday. Talk about sending in the drones:

As an ardent and vocal backer the anti-Gaddafi rebels, it’s hardly surprising McCain made the journey to Benghazi to demonstrate his support of the opposition. Nor is it illogical he used that

Hellfire: Now Debuting Over Libya

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU1ukWWOFqg]

So we’ve got up to four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles hanging from a pair of Predators now flying over Libya. The advantage to piggybacking these missiles on drones is that they can loiter over hostile territory for hours, often without people on the ground aware that they’re circling …

Libya: “Progress,” By The Numbers

The U.S. military has shied away from enemy body counts during wartime since Vietnam. Enemy attrition, not so much (attrition, noun — a wearing down or weakening of resistance, especially as a result of continuous pressure or harassment). So Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rolled out this new preferred …

Electronic Agent Orange?

Those of you of a certain vintage will recall how the U.S. military dumped dioxin-laced Agent Orange defoliant all over Vietnam in hopes of an instant autumn — stripping leaves from the jungle so the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese couldn’t hide. But the cost of chemical defoliation was so high, and so tragic, that an electronic …

Post Pundit: Thumbs-Down on Drones for Libya

David Ignatius, the hard-core foreign-affairs columnist for the Washington Post, doesn’t think much of Thursday’s announcement that the Obama Administration has approved sending armed Predator drones to attack targets in Libya.

His bottom line:

My quick reaction, as a journalist who has chronicled the growing use of drones, is that

Trifecta

Scored a hat trick today on Battleland: had a left-leaner (Gordon Adams, Pentagon czar at OMB during Clinton I) commenting on Mackenzie Eaglen‘s post (she’s from the rightward Heritage Foundation, and before that with quasi-GOPer Susan Collins, senator of Maine), topped off by Nick Schwellenbach, defense pro at the stridently …

Armed Predators Now Over Libya

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that armed U.S. Predator drones have begun flying missions over Libya. It’s a small bump in U.S. military capability in hopes of blunting the expanding political problem caused by Muammar Gaddafi’s continued attacks on civilians despite a U.N. resolution calling for their protection. The …

Mata Hari, Call Your Office!

Moving at the speed of sludge, the CIA this week declared it has finally declassified its oldest still-secret documents it has: spy documents from World War I. One outlines the chemicals and techniques necessary for developing certain types of secret writing ink and a method for opening sealed letters without detection. Another …

Mullen Talks Tougher in Pakistan

Usually when Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talks, it’s reported as “commenting” or “remarks.” But Wednesday he let the Pakistani military and its Inter-Services Intelligence unit know that their cozy relationship with the Haqqani terrorist network threatens relations between the two countries. The local …

  1. 1
  2. ...
  3. 298
  4. 299
  5. 300
  6. ...
  7. 332