Poised to attack Libyan targets, the U.S. military is looking toward its NATO — Britain and France — along with its Persian Gulf — Qatar and UAE — allies to do the heavy lifting. This is not a mission the high command of the U.S. military wanted, and — waging two wars already — knows there isn’t a lot of slack to strike the …
National Security
Meanwhile, 2,000 Miles East of Libya
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Violence is happening in Bahrain. You can witness the shooting of a civilian protester in Sitrah by security forces earlier this week if you click on the video above. But you may not want to. Probably best to click “watch later” and forget about it; it’s pretty …
War Is Hell
Until recently, the so-called “signature wound” of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was traumatic brain injury — TBI — and the post-traumatic stress it could fuel. Unfortunately, there is a new category of wounds gaining prominence: genital trauma. It seems that soldiers on foot patrols — the preferred way of conducting …
War With Libya Looms
After weeks of warning from the Pentagon about the downsides of launching a no-fly zone over Libya, the U.S. and its major European allies declared war on Muammar Gaddafi and his forces holding on to power in the north African nation. NATO surveillance aircraft have been scouring Libya for potential targets for more than a week. …
Military Sexual Assaults Fell, Ever So Slightly, Last Year…
…certainly not far, nor fast, enough. But at least it’s a tweak in the right direction. The Pentagon released its analysis of reported 2010 assaults Thursday afternoon.
Who's The Bigger Threat to National Security?
President Obama issued an executive order in November 2009 that was pretty straightforward. “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in the interest of reducing payment errors and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal programs, it is hereby ordered as …
Slippery Slope
We told you Monday that it was too late for the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and think it would make any difference to the civil war down below. Wednesday, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., agreed.
“The U.S. view is that we need to be prepared to contemplate steps that include, but perhaps go …
Well, That Sounds Like It's Worth $85 Million
Some of us have been around long enough to recall the doomed Desert One mission to rescue the U.S. hostages held by Iran in 1980. That’s where eight U.S. troops died in the middle of the Iranian desert, their bodies abandoned in the survivors’ rush to leave. They perished in a night-time ground collision between two U.S. aircraft at a …
Different Islands, Different Dangers
Japan is an island nation. Bahrain is an island nation. Japan is home to major U.S. military facilities. Bahrain is home to major U.S. military facilities. Japan has been wracked by an earthquake and tsunami that has captured the world’s attention since it happened last Friday. Bahrain has been wracked by growing unrest as its Shiite …
For Every Parent…
…who has struggled to help a wayward child, this story from the independent Air Force Times newspaper — about an Air Force general who bent the rules for his son — is heartbreaking for the family, but largely heartwarming for the rest of us. Too often, such abuses of power go uncorrected in the military. It’s worth pointing out when …
Are The Self-Destructing Japanese Reactors — And Their Many U.S. Siblings — Safe?
It wasn’t the nuclear fallout from Japan that was spooking Americans this week, but the sudden awareness that many of them were living too close for comfort to aging nuclear reactors similar to the ones imploding on the other side of the world. Three of the six General Electric Mark 1 boiling-water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi …
Pentagon Poster Child For Waste, Fraud and Abuse
The Pentagon, as you may have heard, has a line item in its budget called “waste, fraud and abuse.” OK. Not really. But it should have. It’s all the powers-that-be talk about when it comes to cutting defense, as if eliminating this trio of lard, larceny and laziness would let us cut the nation’s $1 trillion defense budget — when you …
General Petraeus Takes the Hill
Army Gen. Dave Petraeus returns to Washington to testify before Congress on Tuesday for the first time since he took command of the Afghan war nearly a year ago. He actually stepped down as head of U.S. Central Command to take the job, after having successfully engineered the “surge” and the Sunni “awakening” in Iraq that calmed that …