Former colleague and TIME contributor Adam Zagorin breaks news here on Battleland with exclusive reporting on the latest federal action over the infamous death of “the Iceman” at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003:
By Adam Zagorin
It has been nearly a decade since Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi prisoner known as “the Iceman” — for …
The one-time head of the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade — one of the service’s most celebrated units — had an “inappropriate relationship” with the wife of his Iraqi cultural adviser, an Army investigation has concluded. The probe, obtained by Stars and Stripes, concludes Colonel James H. Johnson III was infatuated with the woman, …
NYT story describing how Obama administration is funding all sorts of shadow networks to thwart government censorship overseas. I think this is fine. [Blank] ’em if they can’t take the Web – a Defense Department creation, BTW.
But understand this: we get all jacked about cyber warfare against our infrastructure (How dare people …
Bandol, France
Attached herewith is an important essay on the long term implications of the Netanyahu – Obama spectacle of late May. The author, William R. Polk, has kindly granted me permission to distribute it.
Polk is one of the most knowledgeable observers of the Middle East as well as the general politics of
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“We are no longer in the Cold War,” Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing Thursday. “This is more like the blizzard war, a blizzard of challenges that draw speed and intensity from terrorism, from rapidly developing technologies and the rising number of powers on the world stage.”
USA …
The high-profile prosecution of former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake mostly collapsed on Thursday in a huge embarrassment for the Justice Department, but also for the prosecutor of the case, William Welch II. And it is not the first time Welch has been at the center of a blunder. The development further highlights …
A hat-tip to Defense Secretary Robert Gates for warning of NATO’s “dim, if not dismal future” unless its non-U.S. members starting funding their defenses more robustly. After 11 weeks of attacks on Libya, he noted, the allies are running short on bombs. “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the …
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Battleland comrades Mackenzie Eaglen (defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation) and Gordon Adams (former defense chief at the Office of Management and Budget, …
The fighting season in Afghanistan is in full swing, and the early reports indicate this one will be tough. After last year’s surge, American units, and the Afghan Army and police they’re partnered with, will be fighting to hold the areas they paid for dearly a year ago. One of the key provinces will be Kandahar.
In the months …
The U.S. military is the world’s pre-eminent military force — by far — and most of that is because of its people and the way they train and led. But they’re none to shabby on the hardware side of the house, either. I just cobbled together a menu of the weapons systems used in recent U.S. military actions for Time.com and it has …
Henry Kissinger had a sobering op-ed in the Washington Post Tuesday that laid out the reality of the US position in Afghanistan.
First, the fundamental conundrum of “nation building” in a fake state:
But nation-building ran up against the irony that the Afghan nation comes into being primarily in opposition to occupying forces.
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Megan McCloskey at Stars and Stripes has just run the first of a two part piece on suicide in the army and it’s a ripper. In it, she details what drove Army Specialist Brushaun Anderson to kill himself at a remote firebase in Iraq on New Year’s Day, 2010. I think it should be required reading for leaders at all levels of the Army.
A …
