Air Force Lieut. Colonel John Darin Loftis, who was killed Saturday inside the Afghanistan interior ministry, was a father of two. He spoke to his mother three days before he died, on his 44th birthday. A proficient speaker of Pashto, one of the common local languages in Afghanistan, he’d been given a Pashto name during an earlier …
Military
Afghan Troops and Their `Allies’: Can They Get Along?
Once again from Kabul, Time’s John Wendle:
The growing divide between Afghan soldiers and their mentors has already been stretched to the breaking point after six days of violent and deadly protests over the Koran burning …
Killed at Their Desks: The Growth of the (Human) IED Threat — and Mutual Mistrust — in Afghanistan
Saturday’s killing of two U.S. military officers inside the highly-protected Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul by a Taliban-allied shooter is an apt microcosm of the decade-long conflict. The Pentagon was quick to label the …
Scapegoating Doctors
This is a hard post to write. It is with deep sadness and conflicted feelings that I have learned about the controversy on PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) diagnoses at Madigan Army Medical Center. I want to defend my former …
Last Iraq MIA Found
Last month Battleland’s Bingham C. Jamison wrote about Staff Sgt. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, the last U.S. troop missing in action in Iraq:
There are few things in military life more frustrating than searching for a fellow Marine or soldier you are unable to find and bring home. I know, because I’ve tried, and failed…We must bring
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This Is Progress? Vlad “Boom-Boom” Putin Echos U.S. Defense Platitudes
Our goal should be to build a fully professional army. Servicemen must have a full package of social benefits adequate to their enormous social responsibility. It’s clear there have been plenty of discussions over the amount and
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Afghan “Night Raids”: Doing More Harm Than Good?
It seems every big U.S. military mission – from launching a war to killing Osama bin Laden – happens under the cover of darkness. “We own the night,” is a catchphrase often used by the U.S. military. Night-vision goggles …
“I don't want even the men to be over there.”
Bus Station for Afghanistan: Coming and Going…Now Going, For Good
The Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan has been the Greyhound Bus terminal for U.S. troops flowing in and out of Afghanistan for the past decade. But that’s coming to an end in two years. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev told …
“Leon the Lip”
Leon Panetta first ran afoul of a president when he was a lowly federal staffer more than 40 years ago. The president was Richard Nixon, who didn’t like the way Panetta, then a civil-rights advocate at the old Department of …
About That Mistaken Shootdown: The Rest of the Story
Iran’s Nuclear Flashpoint
Parchin is the Iranian nuclear site the the Tehran government barred IAEA inspectors from seeing this week. What could be there? There has been a cat-and-mouse game underway involving Parchin for several years, and the end game may be looming.
If this is the beginning of the end game, it has been a long time coming. “This huge …
IAEA = Iran Asking for Extreme Action
Like it or not, the world just moved a big step closer to war with Iran over its nuclear program. It may only be the perception of war that’s a step closer, but sometimes that’s all that counts (and sometimes, the reality and the perception are the same thing). The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a grim statement …