BattlelandVeterans
Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, the days spent by U.S. troops in hospitals for alcohol-related problems have skyrocketed, according to a new Pentagon study:
The results of this analysis demonstrate the increasing medical burden that excessive alcohol use is placing on the military health system; this is especially
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BattlelandPresident Obama
A flurry of speculation in recent days that the dreaded doomsday cuts that would hit the Pentagon if the so-called super committee fails to come up with $1.2 trillion in savings are unlikely to happen. Says Saturday’s New York Times, echoing similar reports in Politico and the Washington Post:
Several members of Congress, especially
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BattlelandPentagon
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan fired the No. 2 U.S. trainer of Afghan security forces Friday for “inappropriate public comments” about Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Marine General John Allen relieved Army Major General Peter Fuller after Fuller told the Politico website that Karzai was “isolated from reality”:
The
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BattlelandTroops
It’s costly sending troops all over the world. Especially when a lot of them aren’t riding around in tanks or armored personnel carriers. In years past, the U.S. military has shipped about 75,000 cars to and from the U.S. every year for its troops’ personal use when they, and often their families, are deployed to non-war zones. …
BattlelandTroops
CNN chum Barbara Starr has the inside skinny on the new book purporting to detail the inside skinny of how the Osama bin Laden raid went down – as told by a former SEAL. Author Chuck Pfarrer claims to have spoken to some Navy SEALs who conducted the raid. It seems his story has more holes in it than the post-raid bin Laden.
BattlelandNuclear Weapons
My favorite – and most frustrated – anti-nuke activist Helen Caldicott believes Fukushima drives Japan out of the industry and – by extension – kills the industry worldwide.
But telling WSJ piece last Friday suggests otherwise, for the best reason: (print ed. subtitle: “Few civilians want bombs, but leaders see plutonium playing …
BattlelandTroops
Bill Ardolino over at Small Wars Journal reports the impact the already-underway U.S. troop pullout from Afghanistan is having in the violent eastern part of the country. He doesn’t like what he sees:
…in truth, the Obama administration’s accelerated drawdown of US forces has undercut a needed infusion of forces from RC South to
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BattlelandPentagon
It’s because the Army doesn’t train them to walk along that razor’s edge where gleaning intelligence sometimes is honed into vengeance and retribution. Writes Kevin Bell, a former Army captain now studying the Middle East at Princeton, in the latest issue of Army magazine, published by the service itself:
Unfortunately the
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BattlelandPentagon
Fascinating peek inside the latest Atlantic (in a cover story shared with sister pub National Journal) on the perilous security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Payoff grafs:
…instead of moving nuclear material in armored, well-defended convoys, the [Pakistani government] prefers to move material by subterfuge, in civilian-style
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BattlelandTroops
Audiences attending the Opportunity Nation Summit on the campus of Columbia University will hear from some of the leading experts in government, international affairs and the media. They will also get a testimony on public service by one of the Army’s pathbreaking leaders, Maj. Gen. Marcia Anderson.
Anderson, who completed ROTC at …
BattlelandWeapons
The spectacle now infecting the Pentagon would be humorous, if it weren’t so serious. The notion that the military can cut $450 billion out of its next-decade budget of something like $7 trillion – but not a penny more – suggests an (artillery) shell game’s afoot.
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – the …
BattlelandIraq
You get two variants of this logic: 1) if the US leaves Iraq, Iran wins automatically (or it’s won already because the Shiite majority actually rules); and 2) even more than al-Qaeda, Iran is the real beneficiary of the Arab Spring.
Both judgments are wrong in the way that America’s capacity for frantic self-doubt and self-blame …
BattlelandVeterans
The problem of suicides continues to haunt Pentagon personnel officials. After 10 years of war, the suicide rate has climbed and remains stubbornly high despite numerous initiatives to bring it down. What’s behind the spike, and what — if anything — can be done to curb it? John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and …
