National Security

What War Do You Want Listed On Your Soldier's Grave?

Good piece in the Washington Post this morning. The story is buried in the Metro section when it really should be on Page One. It has to do with the engravings on troops’ grave markers at Arlington National Cemetery, the nation’s troubled final resting place for its honored dead. It tell us something about the Army we’d rather not …

Remember The Cole…

Kenneth Eugene Clodfelter, Richard Costelow, Lakeina Monique Francis, Timothy Lee Gauna, Cheron Luis Gunn, James Rodrick McDaniels, Mark Ian Nieto, Ronald Scott Owens, Lakiba Nicole Palmer, Joshua Langdon Parlett, Patrick Howard Roy, Kevin Shawn Rux, Ronchester Mananga Santiago, Timothy Lamont Saunders, Gary Graham Swenchonis Jr. Andrew …

Better Late Than Never Dept.

It’s fitting that as Army Maj. Nidal Hasan faces his first major pre-trial hearing today, the Pentagon is seeking a way to prevent future soldiers from killing their own.

“Each time we see an incident like a soldier in good mental health becoming homicidal or suicidal, or an innocent insider becoming malicious, we wonder why we …

Alleged Fort Hood Shooter In Court Tuesday…oops, Wednesday

The man behind the fusillade of bullets that felled 13 people at Fort Hood last November enters the public spotlight for the first time starting Wednesday. That’s a 24-hour delay, granted by the military judge to give Maj. Nidal Hasan’s defense team until then to detail their request for postponing the legal proceeding until Nov. 8. …

China Syndrome

There’s been a ban on U.S. arms sales to China since three days after 1989’s Tiananmen Square clash, when tanks and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army attacked and killed an unknown number of Chinese students. At least until last Friday, that is.

 

 

President Obama sent a terse letter to Congress saying it was time for an …

Snafus, Friendly and Otherwise

Linda Norgrove’s death — apparently at the hands of her would-be U.S. military rescuers in Afghanistan last Friday — reminds us that snafu — “situation normal, all fouled up” — is a U.S. military term:

Afghan Friendly Fire?

 

 

If something can go wrong in war, it will.

That’s the bottom line from 10 Downing Street today, where Britain’s prime minister said Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove may have been killed by her American rescuers last Friday in Afghanistan, rather than by her Taliban captors.

David Cameron said that General David Petraeus has …

Where's Aamco When You Need It?

You know how when your jalopy out in the driveway starts getting old and the transmission goes? Before deciding to spend a coupla grand to fix it, you and your significant other sit around the kitchen table and ask: hey, is it really worth pouring all that money into the old heap?

The U.S. Air Force just sat around its kitchen table …

Good Help Is Hard to Find: Afghan Version

Not only are we hiring too many contractors in Afghanistan — we’re also hiring the wrong ones. A year-long probe into the hiring practices of Afghan private contractors released Thursday has found that some had hired lackeys loyal to warlords involved in kidnapping, murder and the Taliban. “There is significant evidence that some …

VA Still Screwing Vets

The Department of Veterans Affairs has long been viewed as a labyrinth that the nation’s vets have to navigate to get what their country owed them for their military service. In recent years, things have gotten better, due in no small part to a huge increase in its budget. It has soared from $53 billion in 2002 to $125 billion in the …

The U.S. Air Wars over Pakistan

The smoke is lifting from the air war the U.S. is waging in Pakistan. Yes, a U.S.-Pakistani probe has found, U.S. helicopters did attack and kill two Pakistani Frontier Scouts — members of the Pakistani military — in a border outpost near Afghanistan on September 30. They fired on the outpost because shots came from it, the …

Happy Birthday, War

It was nine years ago today that the U.S. launched its war on Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. Here’s a graf from a file I wrote on the eve of the conflict:

As Pentagon planners chart their next moves into Afghanistan, U.S. special forces have a big decision to make. If they are

The Lean Green Fighting Machine

Good story in this morning’s New York Times on how our military’s thirst for fuel in Afghanistan — and the militants’ success in blowing up trucks carrying it there from Pakistan — is an Achilles’ heel. The Times also focuses on the green push from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, as we did last April.

The Army this morning details what it …

  1. 1
  2. ...
  3. 177
  4. 178
  5. 179
  6. 180
  7. 181
  8. 182