Blogs: Real Security

Cross-posted from Tomdispatch.com.

So you thought the Pentagon was already big enough? Well, what do you know, especially with the price of the American military slated to grow by at least 25% over the next decade?

Forget about the butter. It's bad for you anyway. And sheer military power, as well as the money behind it, assures the country of a thick waistline without the cholesterol. So, let's sing our praises of perpetual war. We better, since right now every forecast in sight tells us that it's our future.
more »

More »»

As today marks the eighth anniversary of the tragic September 11th attacks, it is also a reminder of the calamitous road of foreign policy that the Bush administration took us down shortly after. The Iraq War was of course an outright disaster, but Obama’s recent troop escalation into Afghanistan should worry progressives equally. more »

More »»

Recently reported in the New York Times, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) hopes to win Senate support for climate change legislation by linking global warming with national security. Long time hawk and former Sen. more »

More »»

As I’ve written prior, the very expensive F-22 fighter jet program will likely end when Congress passes the defense authorization later this year. Its demise though came only after a hard fight between the Obama administration and Congress. more »

More »»

Facing a stern veto threat from President Obama, the Senate voted to strip funding for the F-22 Raptor jet on Tuesday. The contentious vote came after the House authorized F-22 funding, and amid weeks of pushback between Administration officials and members of Congress – the former looking to rein in wasteful defense spending, the latter backed by the defense lobby. more »

More »»

Ignoring earlier recommendations of the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, the 2010 defense bill throws funding lifelines to failed weapons systems slated to be cut. Resisting the call to reform, the House Armed Services Committee showcased their protection of the defense lobby instead. more »

More »»

You have to go back a long, long way in American history before you come to a place where you find incidents like this happening an average of once every two weeks.This escalating level of violence is adding data points to a potentially emergent pattern that we need to be looking at and preparing for. So far, there are at least five things I'm particularly concerned about.

More »»

Marcy Wheeler hosted a panel on torture at the AFN conference featuring Rep. Jerry Nadler and Christopher Anders of the ACLU, in which Nadler set forth a couple of ideas that are illuminating about the thinking among political players on the subject.

Marcy writes about one of them here:

Yesterday, Jerrold Nadler announced he will hold a hearing on state secrets on Thursday. more »

More »»

Congressional Republicans are marginally more popular and significantly less contagious than the swine flu. Even conservatives are keeping their distance. House leader John Boehner's perpetual tan has become a presidential punch line. Senate leader Mitch Dr. No McConnell is known only for obstruction. Ideologues like Rush rush to fill the leadership vacuum, seeking to purge the party of any lingering moderates. It's gotten so bad that neo-con Bill Kristol suggests that leading presidential candidates for 2012 might well be the oft disgraced Newt Gingrich and..gulp.. Darth Cheney himself.

More »»

When progressive House Democrats were blocked from a floor vote on their proposal requiring an exit strategy for our Afghanistan military mission, and several in turn voted against funding for the mission, McClatchy Newspapers concluded, "the anti-war crowd remains as impotent as it was during the Bush years." more »

More »»