Leon Panetta

Why To Cancel A Pentagon Procurement Program

There are basically three reasons to cancel an acquisition program. In no particular order, the reasons are:

We can’t afford it.

We don’t need it.

It doesn’t work.

This means Defense Department leaders have to continually ask three important questions throughout the development of a new military system:

Betting on the Come

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared Wednesday that “our strategy is right, our strategy is working, and if we stick to it, we can achieve the mission of establishing an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself, and …

21st Century War Trophies

A new batch of grisly and disgusting battlefield-trophy photographs surfaced in the Los Angeles Times Wednesday morning, showing. They show, among other things, U.S. troops and their Afghan allies posing with the remains of a suicide bomber. The Pentagon has tried to get out in front of this by issuing a – surprise! – statement …

Rhetoric Gone MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)

Part of the reason that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta fears that sequestration – the budget axe slated to chop another $500 billion or so out of the military over the coming decade if Congress can’t get its act together – is how each side is welded to its will-not-budge goals.

Of course, he was speaking of his former comrades …

Armed…with Headphones

Afghan soldiers listen via translator to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. They, as well as their U.S. and allied comrades, were disarmed before Panetta arrived. The unusual …

“Ally, May I?”

Nothing raises lawmakers’ hackles like Pentagon officials saying they need international support before going to war, as Chris Lawrence explains over at CNN’s Security Clearance blog.

Their gripes would have more grip if they stepped up to the plate and declared war when the nation sends its troops into harm’s way, instead of …

Fueling the Fire

It’s hard to believe that the U.S. troops involved in the reported near-torching of Korans at Bagram air base in Afghanistan didn’t know what they were doing.

After all, for close to a decade, the U.S. military has been issuing guidance like this to U.S. troops on how to treat the Muslim holy book:

BRAC Counter-Attack

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified before the House Armed Services on Wednesday, and it’s funny to see how many times lawmakers questioned him on the Pentagon’s proposal to shutter military bases. Panetta has been there. He watched Ford Ord — “which represented 25% of my local economy” — shut down in his own California …

Hollow Words?

The Word Police over at the Congressional Research Service – a namby-pamby bunch of straight-shooters who apparently have no use for political rhetoric – are calling Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on his claim that the U.S. military is headed for a “hollow force” if proposed budget cuts occur:




h/t Federation of American Scientists

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