BattlelandNational Security
Only one in four Americans trusts the federal government — no wonder soldiers who were “stop-lossed” into staying in uniform longer than their official enlistment period aren’t rushing to pocket the thousands of dollars they’re owed. So the government is rolling out the commander-in-chief to warn the troops the deadline for claiming …
BattlelandNational Security
War brings out the worst in some people. Check out this story in today’s New York Times, which details a jury’s decision Tuesday to find David H. Brooks guilty of fraudulently enriching himself at the expense of his company’s shareholders. He owned and ran Point Blank body armor, a company that raked in the cash following 9/11 when the …
BattlelandNational Security
Earlier this week, Congress learned U.S. arms sales around the world fell by nearly half from 2008 to 2009 — from $38.1 billion to $22.6 billion. Apparently the world’s flagging economy affects air forces and ministries of defence just as much as it does Main Street car dealers and hardware stores. But taking some of the edge off that …
BattlelandNational Security
The nation tends to calculate the cost of wars in blood and treasure — how many of our troops have been killed and wounded, and how much did the Treasury and taxpayer have to spend — or borrow — to prosecute the campaign. One thing a decade of fighting reveals clearly are the hidden costs of combat that only become evident as they …
BattlelandNational Security
Stan McChrystal, the four-star Army general booted from command of the Afghan war in June after derisive comments from him and his staff got him fired by President Obama, launches his second classroom session — “The Changing Military” — as a Yale University lecturer Tuesday. If it’s anything like last week’s — “The Importance of …
BattlelandNational Security
On Thursday, the White House announced the seventh Medal of Honor to be awarded to troops killed in either Afghanistan or Iraq. No living soldier, sailor, airman or Marine had earned the medal since Vietnam, something that has raised question about the military’s MOH-vetting process among veterans, the military and Congress. But the same …
BattlelandNational Security
The Associated Press is kind of the nation’s arbiter of what’s happening. It has the most reporters in the most places, both here and abroad. On Thursday, the AP’s Tom Kent, the deputy managing editor for standards and production, sent out a memo saying the wire service would do its best to play down Terry Jones’ Koran-burning, if it …
BattlelandNational Security
It’s an irony the latest — and one of the biggest blows — to the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy came late Thursday in a case brought by a Republican group. The Log Cabin Republicans describe themselves as “the nation’s only organization of Republicans who support fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian …
BattlelandNational Security
Another young American soldier has been awarded the Medal of Honor, the White House has just announced. This time it is going to Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, who earned it for bravery in 2008 for saving the lives of U.S. and Afghan troops during combat.
This is the third of the nation’s highest military decorations to be awarded …
BattlelandNational Security
Tuesday, you may recall, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen dropped by the Oval Office for a confab with President Obama on progress in Afghanistan, which he detailed for reporters earlier in the day. On Wednesday, the other Afghan shoe dropped as a high-powered band of foreign-policy thinkers began waving red flags warning …
BattlelandNational Security
BattlelandNational Security
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen slipped in and out of the White House Tuesday like some ancient daguerreotype, his brief visit memorialized only in still photographs — no video, no reporters, no questions, no answers. Perhaps President Obama’s handlers didn’t want another round of bashing like last week’s, when critics — …
BattlelandNational Security
Sometimes you have to go outside the capital to find out what is going on. Take Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent proposal to kill the U.S. Joint Forces Command, which could cost the Norfolk, Va., area up to 6,000 jobs while saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually. A story in today’s Norfolk Virginian-Pilot notes …
