A freshly-minted Air Force pilot has completed his training with only one leg. First Lt. Ryan McGuire is the first-ever in Air Force history to do so. “I hope this shows people to never give up on their dream,” he says. “You have to keep your goals in mind and have faith in yourself.” McGuire lost his lower right leg in a boating …
U.S. Wars Used to be Fought By Privates — Now, Increasingly, They’re Fought by Privateers
Privateers, strictly speaking, are private individuals who have been granted the power by a government to attack enemy ships in the government’s name. Privateering was a key part of naval warfare from the 16th to 19th centuries. But a pair of Congressional Research Service reports, released Friday by the invaluable Steven Aftergood of …
Patriot Act Debate Raises Question: How Much is the FBI Snooping?
“Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out.” That was Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden on the Senate floor yesterday pushing — unsuccessfully — for Congress to scale back some domestic snooping provisions in the Patriot Act.
Wyden suggested that the government was abusing Section 215 of the law, which …
Oh No! China Has Our Super-Secret Osama-Getting Helicopter!
That’s bad news. We always knew we couldn’t trust our Pakistani allies to keep valuable technology like the heavily-modified MH-60 Black Hawks, used to ferry Navy SEALs to Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani lair, from the reverse-engineering whizzes of the Middle Kingdom. You may recall reports that the commandos had to abandon one of the …
U.S. to Search Bin Laden Home Again, Slower
The Washington Post is reporting that Pakistan will allow a CIA team access to Osama bin Laden’s former compound in Abbottabad for a thorough search. The team of commandos that raided the bin Laden’s home was in and out in about 40 minutes, snatching computer parts, thumb drives, and paper records. This longer search would allow the …
Ratko Mladic’s Indictment Contains Horrifying Details of Massacre
Serbian police have arrested former Bosnian general Ratko Mladic, the accused war criminal allegedly responsible for the execution of at least 7,000 Muslim prisoners over a six-day period in 1995. News reports say he was living under an assumed name in Vojvodina, the Serbian province north of Belgrade.
The White House released a …
U.S. Navy Trademarks Its Name, Scares Off Disney
There’s still no official acknowledgment of SEAL Team 6. But at least the Navy isn’t letting everyone else profit off their success. The U.S. Navy is finally trademarking their famed name, and in doing so, has scared off capitalists the likes of Disney.
A week after Disney worked to claim the name “SEAL TEAM 6” with the …
Dempsey To Be Tapped As New Chairman of Joint Chiefs
Well, that was fast. A couple of days ago, Marine General James “Hoss” Cartwright was reported to be a shoe-in to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Meanwhile, Army General Marty Dempsey was still finding his way around his new office as that service’s chief of staff (he’s only been there a little over a month).
But …
Obama’s Bradley Manning Gaffe
It was a throwaway line at the end of a fundraiser. But it’s fitting that in the Wikileaks era, President Obama was being video recorded when he told a questioner in San Francisco last month that U.S. army private Bradley Manning, who is charged with leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, “broke the law.”
Now attorneys …
Government: Three Subpoenas, Spying on Times Reporter is Not Harassment
The government’s motion filed May 23 to compel New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources in federal court contains the following sentence: “Put simply, there is no basis to conclude that the criminal proceeding is being conducted in anything but good faith, that the reporter is being harassed in order to disrupt his …
Army not lucky, just desperate to avoid Leviathan supremacy over next decade
Picking up on Mark’s thread this morning, Galrahn, the eminent blogger at Information Dissemination, likewise sees a fight that’s getting nasty, arguing yesterday that the Army was “lucky” (in that, Will-no-one-rid-me-of-that-meddlesome-flag-officer! way) to see two of its great rivals for the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs …
New Army Ads…and Movies
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Later Wednesday, the Army releases a trio of new ads designed to get young folks interested in serving. There’s one for leadership (above), another citing opportunity, and a third emphasizing education. They have that momentous musical theme in the background that …
George Clooney’s Satellite Project Captures Sudan Violence in Real Time
Late last year I wrote a piece about an effort spearheaded by George Clooney to spin a bunch of commercial satellites over Sudan. The idea was to take detailed pictures of the border area between the North and South in case civil war broke out as the country split in two, as it is set to do in July. The idea was that the spotlight might …