BattlelandNational Security
The experts at the Congressional Research Service have just issued a chilling report entitled The Stuxnet Computer Worm: Harbinger of an Emerging Warfare Capability. Unfortunately, the title is a statement; there’s no question mark at the end. The Stuxnet’s initial target was apparently Iran’s nuclear program, and it’s obvious that …
BattlelandNational Security
Following Thursday’s Senate defeat of the effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Pentagon will continue to do what it has been doing for the past 17 years. It will keep on enforcing a ban on openly gay men and women serving in the military, although with considerably less ardor than in years past, Pentagon officials say. …
BattlelandNational Security
The Senate — for the second time this fall — blocked an effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Thursday afternoon. The move all but kills any chance of over-turning the 17-year old ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military for the foreseeable future.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Republican opponents of the …
BattlelandNational Security
The Air Force used to be all Stratofortresses and nuclear bombs. But just as it warplanes have become more precise at delivering ever-smaller weapons, its guards have become kinder and gentler at handling troublemakers. For several years, Air Force security personnel have been carrying Taser stun guns, as well as those that fire bullets. …
BattlelandNational Security
Poignant story from the Killeen Daily Herald:
SALADO, Texas – A soldier who was severely wounded in the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting at Fort Hood and his fiancee are getting the house of their dreams, courtesy of the ABC television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and an army of volunteers working this week. Staff Sgt. Patrick
…
BattlelandNational Security
The Pentagon has just issued a mental-health summary for the nation’s entire military and it isn’t pretty. “In 2009, mental disorders accounted for more hospitalizations of U.S. service members than any other diagnostic category,” the report says. “…in the last year of the decade, approximately one of every 12 service members received …
BattlelandNational Security
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks hit pay dirt when Army Private First Class Bradley Manning reached out to them with CDs full of classified U.S. diplomatic cables and other data that WikiLeaks has shared with the world. While the U.S. government hasn’t fingered Manning as the source of all this material, it’s plain he’s the prime suspect in …
BattlelandNational Security
From an article in the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes:
Critical in saving the lives of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, quick battlefield care and air evacuation have also allowed servicemembers whose brains have irreversibly stopped functioning but whose hearts and lungs are sustained artificially to be flown to Landstuhl
…
BattlelandNational Security
The Pentagon’s No. 2 official awarded the Navy’s first batch of “information dominance warfare” pins to seven officers at the Naval Academy on Friday. “You’re at the cutting edge of what we’re trying to do,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn told the newly-pinned officers. “You’re at the forefront of a real trend in warfare and in …
BattlelandNational Security
Last week’s news that a panel of admirals has recommended that Navy Capt. Holly Graf be booted from the Navy for “cruelty” to her crew aboard the cruiser USS Cowpens led some to wonder if such attention would be focused on a man accused of similar behavior.
You betcha. From a strange story in Saturday’s Norfolk Virginia-Pilot about …
BattlelandNational Security
Sen. John McCain knows about delivering ordnance on target: after all, the Arizona Republican piloted a Navy A-4 over North Vietnam (and was shot down and imprisoned for his efforts). That’s what has got Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid upset about McCain’s ever-changing coordinates when it comes what he wants to happen before he’ll …
BattlelandNational Security
A trio of admirals has recommended that Capt. Holly Graf should be booted from the Navy with a general — not honorable — discharge because of the way she treated her crew aboard the cruiser USS Cowpens.
BattlelandNational Security
While the Pentagon’s exhaustive study on integrating openly gay men and women into the military convinced President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, of the wisdom of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — a position each already held — it didn’t move the guys who actually have to …
