Still same as the old boss. A fan of the site sends me this Boston Globe article, which discusses how prominent Democratic politicians pushed to get the second F-35 engine into the final DOD Appropriations bill prior to President Obama's signature. You might remember that [...]
As Spencer Ackerman notes, the military commissions to judge the Gitmo detainees continue to evolve their own rules and guidelines. Evidence continues to mount that this military commission thing is more trouble than it's worth. It's "Calvinball" in action... and it's pretty [...]
In today's Washington Post, Ruth Marcus complains about what a lousy decade it's been. And of course, what commentary about the 2000-2009 period would be complete without talking about terrorism?
The signal event of this decade occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. The signal achievement of [...]
COL Gian Gentile has a great academic discussion in the Army's Parameters journal, where he makes the argument that the Army's on the wrong path in its emphasis on counterinsurgency (see Middle East, cluster-fuck in). Since I'm a COINtra, I liked the argument.
The COIN experts seem to believe that [...]
On Monday, President Obama signed the 2010 DOD Appropriations Act. There hasn't been a whole lot released on details - for some reason, some other legislative business seems to be holding things up - so I will have to figure out the details later. [...]
Former SecDef William Cohen had an op-ed in the Washington Times where he reviewed the options of what the US government ought to do in facing a potentially-nuclear armed Iran. He was pessimistic, to say the least.
The mullahs -- or the members of the [...]
Oh for crying out loud. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment continues its fruitless attempts to badmouth the Army and disrupt its ability to plan for and execute the chemical disposal efforts that the state wants to have completed at Pueblo Chemical [...]
I thought this article was a bit on the odd side. It seems that some officials in Los Angeles want to take stock of their Cold War civil defense shelters, so that when Jack Bauer fails to prevent a terrorist from popping a [...]
Yes, we were all slightly shook up when SecDef Gates announced that he intended on replacing 30-35,000 contractors currently sitting at desks within defense agencies with government civilians. To many, this will simply mean that they get a different paycheck and that their client will [...]
Amazing stuff. Honestly, how did we get by in the past without YouTube? For those of us who grew up in the 1970s, it's as if this is the Renaissance Era of computing. [...]
It's hard to listen the GOP reaction to President Obama's decision to move the detainees to a nearly empty prison in Thomson, Illinois, without cringing at their statements. After the US government has tried and sentenced so many maniacs, hard-core criminals, and yes, other [...]
Continuing its campaign against retired military generals who are not breaking any laws, USA Today puts out a hit job on Lt Gen Emil "Buck" Bedard for his post-career activities. Fortunately for us, this is a fairly balanced article that actually proves my point [...]
Over at Ink Spots, Gulliver notes that the House of Representatives has passed the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act by 412-12. An earlier post there notes the rationale behind this sanctions act - that by placing financial sanctions on those foreign firms providing gasoline [...]
It's been an observation of mine (and others) that the Republican party likes to prey on American fears as a basis for developing its policies. It's an unsavory thing to watch, but Sven and Belphagor have been talking about this unnatural tendency [...]
One of my great disappointments with the Army Chemical Corps - and perhaps this is something that is true of the Army in general - is its failure to appreciate its own history. It's difficult to find a field grade chemical officer who knows [...]
Congressional language calls for a National Defense Panel to review the Quadrennial Defense Review in 2010. The total membership is six people selected by the Senate Armed Services Committee, four selected by the House Armed Services Committee, and the two co-chairs selected by SecDef Gates. DoD Buzz has news [...]
David Ignatius wonders how in the world President Obama will be able to make an informed opinion on the "success" of Teh Surge 2.0 if it takes a year to get every last soldier and Marine into the theater.
I asked Lt Gen. David Rodriquez, the No. 2 US commander [...]
Ray from the UK continues to follow the Iraq War investigations, sending this article for our observation. Everyone is trying to follow former Prime Minister Tony Blair's logic here.
Speaking on BBC One's Fern Britton Meets programme, Tony Blair was asked whether he would [...]
The FAS Security News notes that the Obama administration is coming out with its guidance on controlling unclassified information. The post suggests (perhaps unsurprisingly) that the government doesn't always go by the regs, preferring to use the guidance as a vehicle for keeping general unclass information from the public.
In [...]
Army public affairs officer Gary Tallman reminds the USA Today journalists that it is, in fact, not illegal to hire retired general officers acting as individuals and not as a company representative. It's not something he ought to have to say, but for some strange reason, some people [...]
New York City got hit with a dose of white powder, and it didn't come from the sky. It hit the American Express headquarters in lower Manhattan.
Detective Mindy Diaz said no injuries were reported after the police were called to the building in [...]Global Security Newswire reports that the Washington DC metro is going to get updated chemical and biological sensors in addition to video links - because although it's been eight years since 9/11, 14 years since Aum Shinrikyo, and there are no terrorists known to [...]
Once again, there appear to be parts of the Obama administration who don't seem to understand that they can, in fact, reverse stupid decisions made in the previous administration. From Defense News (subscription required):
The United States and Poland have drawn up an [...]
TalkingPointsMemo has been late in discovering this strategy model that attempts to depict the complex interactions that take place in a counterinsurgency campaign. Others in the blogosphere have commented on the spaghetti graphic that it appears to be (all hail to His mysterious [...]
I've been told by fellow insurgents and progressive sympathizers that the failure of the National Strategy to Counter Biological Threats should not be blamed on the State or Defense staffers who actually do give a damn about this issue. The NSC does, in fact, [...]
Matt Ygelsias asks the question - how is it that Taliban soldiers are paid better than Afghani army soldiers, when the US coalition has so much more money than the Taliban warlords? More importantly, is there a flaw in our cost-effectiveness approach in that the Taliban soldiers can get [...]
I become more and more frustrated with the seemingly inability for Democratic administration officials to think clearly about the issue of countering weapons of mass destruction or terrorist CBRN incidents without falling back on trite, overused, and inexcusable exaggerations developed by alarmists, extremists, and right-wing politicos. Ellen Tauscher has released [...]
I become more and more frustrated with the seemingly inability for Democratic administration officials to think clearly about the issue of countering weapons of mass destruction or terrorist CBRN incidents without falling back on trite, overused, and inexcusable exaggerations developed by alarmists, extremists, and right-wing politicos. Ellen Tauscher has released [...]
The FAS Secrecy News blog finds that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) conducted an aerial radiological survey of downtown Washington DC in January 2009, prior to the presidential inauguration.
No statistically significant man-made radiological activity was detected in the survey. Typical variations [...]
Work has been a little heavier than usual, perhaps as government agencies try to complete their projects before the Christmas holiday incapacitates Washington DC. So I'm glad that Spencer Ackerman is on the job, watching the congressional hearings on Afghanistan.
But both McChrystal and Eikenberry replied that the administration [...]
The Washington Post reveals that Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher (Arms Control and International Security) is in Geneva, at the Biological Warfare Convention (BWC) talks, where she intends to reveal a new national strategy addressing biological threats. As is increasingly apparent with this [...]
Former Senator Bob Graham, half of the comedy team "Graham-Talent does World at Risk," referenced my blog in recent op-ed in the Miami Herald. I'm not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed. He was explaining how their little video decrying the use of [...]
I've been viewing with some amusement the flame wars going on between Matt Yglesias and Andrew Exum on the subject of think tanks and their culpability to the overall military industrial complex. Matt started with a Wired blog post by Nathan Hodge on [...]
I don't mean to sound off like an arrogant and ugly American, but it irritates me every time I hear President Obama or one of his administration officials state that there are 43 countries in the US coalition for Afghanistan. Bush and his administration used to say the same thing [...]
It's amazing to me that we're still talking about the federal government assisting states in the stockpiling of potassium iodide for the purposes of responding to a nuclear reactor incident or accident. But here we go again - from the NY Times:
After the terrorist [...]Last week, former SecDef Donald Rumsfeld claimed that he had never heard commanders in Afghanistan ask for additional troops during his tenure.
"I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006," Rumsfeld said. "If any such requests occurred, [...]
Well, I passed my fifth year of blogging this weekend. Officially it was December 3, 2004, when I launched this blog. My first real post was titled "Where are the WMDs?", just a few months after Charles Duelfer reported to the Congress that [...]
It's a popular statement for the right-of-center to claim that setting a date to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan is a mistake, especially if it is only a short 18 months away. The really insane ones talk about how the Taliban is going to wait centuries, [...]
Dan Gerstein has written an interesting book in his review of how the US government has reacted to the bioterrorism challenge over the past eight years. Gerstein wasn't traditionally a bioterrorism expert until he started taking the PhD program at George Mason University. [...]
Domino's Scientists Test Limits Of What Humans Will Eat
If you have some time, listen to the Charlie Rose show titled "Live analysis of President Obama's address on Afghanistan 12/01/09" - there's no direct link, but you can access it under "recent shows." In particular, Dexter Filkins (NYT) and Martha Raddatz (ABC) make some very good points and are clearly [...]
Al Kamen reminds us of the hysterical Republican party's reaction to handing the Panama Canal over to Panama ten years ago - because it was just an insane idea that the US government wouldn't want to continue occupying a country with military and civilian [...]
I used to respect David Ignatius and enjoy his columns. I enjoyed his narration between Bret Scowcroft and Zbignew Brzezinski in "America and the World." Then he took a few helicopter rides with Gen. Petraeus and I think they replaced him with a pod [...]
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathy Sebelius has thought about all the challenges with getting the H1N1 vaccine out to the public, and she's convinced that many of the problems are due to the lack of modern technology. So she's called for a review.
"Today, [...]
