The military keeps talking about eliminating stigma related to seeking mental health treatment. Then why don’t they change the policies that promote it?
To decrease stigma, the Army now uses the term “behavioral health.” The Defense Department – of which the Army is a part — prefers “psychological health.” They have …
So the U.S. government — if not the military, then the CIA — is now using drones to kill suspected terrorists in at least six different countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Congress — the entity charged with declaring war, according to the Constitution — has basically green-lighted only the attacks …
Financial Times story last week (US urged to rethink export controls on drones) re: Paris Air Show cites multiple US defense corporate sources complaining that unless the US Government lifts some of the restrictions, the world’s “insatiable appetite” for drones will be exploited by other nations’ military-industrial complexes. The …
That’s the word from Capitol Hill as detailed in this morning’s lead story in the Washington Post:
Freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) could serve as a poster boy for the new breed of conservatives who are eager to wipe out government waste and inefficiency, no matter where they find it. Kinzinger, an active-duty Air National
…
The New America Foundation’s sponsored debate over defense spending showcased two schools of American political thought entirely comfortable with allowing American power and influence to decline on the global stage.
President Obama and Congress are on a collision course as the White House rejects congressional efforts to tinker with how the administration detains and prosecutes potential terrorists. The fight is being played out through the House and Senate versions of defense spending and authorization bills.
We reported on the growing use of prescription drugs by troops in Afghanistan and Iraq more than three years ago. The Pentagon is finally catching up. It wants to spend $23 million next year for drug testing to make sure troops aren’t illicitly taking legal drugs like Valium and Vicodin.
But the House Appropriations Committee has …
This is, of course, the title of a David Crosby song featured on the eponymous 1969 album Crosby, Stills and Nash. And more than just riffing on the title of my colleague Mark Thompson’s post from earlier today, it also describes the sensation I had during a meeting held at the Library of Congress for authors and historians as an …
CIA chief Leon Panetta goes before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday like one of those guys on the old Ed Sullivan show trying to keep all those plates spinning atop wooden poles, running from one to another to keep them from falling to the floor and smashing to bits.
These are his goals:
The Senate Democrats on the foreign relations committee have just issued as report saying that the $18.8 billion — so far — U.S. effort to rebuild Afghanistan has had limited success and may not survive a U.S. troop pullout. U.S. development money — now some $10 million a day — is sucking Afghan workers into jobs with contractors …
So the size of the U.S. troop pullout President Obama is slated to announce later this month now varies by an order of magnitude: those who want to preserve the gains earned over the past year are suggesting about 3,000 — of the 100,000 U.S. troops now there — would be about the right number to order home starting in July. But — …
Congress can’t deal with the Pentagon’s annual budget in a timely way, yet it wants the U.S. military to keep churning out regular reports detailing how many ships and airplanes it plans on buying for the next 30 years. The House Armed Services Committee’s investigative subcommittee looked into the topic this week. What was …
The nation’s top military officer worries that the growing chasm between the U.S. armed forces and the American public means disaster for the country. “Long term, if the military drifts away from its people in this country, that is a catastrophic outcome we as a country can’t tolerate, can’t afford, in no way,” Admiral Mike Mullen, …
