BattlelandVeterans
Many military spouses deserve Purple Hearts of their own for dealing with their troops when they return home. The Army is trying to help with week-long sessions for them at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The “Significant Others Support Group” offers basic training in how to deal with multiple deployments and the …
BattlelandPolitics
UPDATE: It’s official: Navy has just announced ship to be named for Cesar Chavez.
So which of these heroes should we honor by naming a Navy ship after him? One’s a Pearl Harbor Medal of Honor winner. The second gave his life in Iraq so that his fellow Marines would live. And the third brought respect to the migrant …
BattlelandTerrorism
CNN is reporting that the interim leader of Al-Qaeda is Egyptian-born Saif al-Adel. The FBI says Adel is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. He is also worth $5 million bucks to you if you know where he is hiding.
BattlelandNational Security
This is one of several videos appearing on YouTube of atrocities in Syria. This one is allegedly a mass grave full of victims of government violence, which has reportedly resulted in 1,000 civilian deaths. Reports say the grave was near the southern Syrian city of Deraa and contained at least 13 bodies which were were discovered on …
BattlelandWeapons
The real surge in Afghanistan isn’t the 30,000 additional troops President Obama sent there last year, but the 400% hike in close-air support missions from 2004 to 2010. Over that same time span, the number of weapons deployed on those missions ballooned from 86 to 5,101 — a 5,800% increase. You can track the trend in the chart …
BattlelandPolitics
Chas Freeman was President Nixon’s interpreter during Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972. Now, nearly 40 years later, after an impressive diplomatic and defense career, he’s interpreting China for the rest of us.
Last week he said:
The balance of prestige, if not yet the balance of power, between the United States and China
…
BattlelandLibya
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo yesterday asked that court judges issue arrest warrants for Col. Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, and the head of intelligence, Abdullah Al Sanousi, for crimes against humanity committed against Libyan citizens since February.
Here are some scary excerpts from …
BattlelandPolitics
The Vulcans were the foreign-policy realists of the George W. Bush Administration. Their presence on his campaign team before his 2000 election as President blunted suggestions that the Texas governor lacked sufficient overseas chops. But now one of those Vulcans has come forward to shed some light on the goings-on inside their …
BattlelandTerrorism
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-_JvYhXn1s&feature=player_embedded#at=60]
OK — admit it. It’s been awhile since the nation had such a sense of accomplishment. But the Navy SEALs — admired not only for their bravery, but for their willingness to do so invisibly — have touched a lot of folks around the country. What lawmaker …
BattlelandNATO
After many weeks of speculation and veiled threats-by-extension from Western government leaders, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on Monday that he is seeking arrest warrants for Muammar Qaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam Qaddafi and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Sanousi for systematically targeting citizens …
BattlelandPolitics
John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, has long had a hankering to serve as the nation’s top diplomat. Over the past weekend, he was on a whirlwind tour of the AfPak theater, where his words garnered headlines usually accorded the secretary of state:
Afghanistan May Be Open To New Path, Kerry Says, according to Sunday’s New York …
BattlelandWeapons
Time colleagues Kayla Webley and Gilbert Cruz spell out the 10 reasons why Top Gun is still awesome.
BattlelandWeapons
The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is “the largest defense acquisition program in U.S. history” and it’s engine “represents over 10% of the overall program price, or about $100 billion,” according to the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA).
For the past five years, all four …
