Real Security
Top Stories
America’s Confused Approach to Afghanistan
Richard Holbrooke's comments on reconciliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan, made during the recent Munich Security Conference, echoed earlier remarks by U.N. officials and American military commanders in Kabul that suggest that diplomacy might be coming alive on the Afghan front. This could be true despite, or in coordination with, a new NATO offensive in southern Afghanistan. For it to succeed, however, it has three enormous obstacles to overcome.
Featured Issues
Our Wars Are Killing us
The tea-party crews don’t rail against Pentagon giveaways, nor do Massachusetts voters grumble about them. Unfettered Pentagon budgets pass in the tick-tock of a Washington clock and no one seems fazed when the Wall Street Journal reveals that military aides accompanying globe-hopping parties of congressional representatives regularly spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on snacks, drinks, and other “amenities” for them, even while, like some K Street lobbying outfit, promoting their newest weaponry. Think of it, in financial terms, as Pentagon peanuts shelled out for actual peanuts, and no one gives a damn. ... more »
Contractors in Afghanistan, A Recipe for Failure
The Case
Shorter Tours of Duty in Iraq?
"With an effective date of August 1st, this means that not one troop will benefit from this deployment reduction until August 2009--seven months into the next Presidential administration." -- VetVoice's Brandon Friedman, 4/10/08more »
President's Security Budget Shortchanges Security
Actually, the president’s 2009 budget is way out of balance, throwing money at the military and on feared future terrorist threats while shortchanging the everyday security needs of the American people. The budget cuts homeland security grants to state and local governments by 48 percent — a whopping $2 billion. That includes a 79 percent cut in the largest state homeland security grant program, a 60 percent cut to firefighters, a 56 percent cut to transit security grants, and a 48 percent reduction to port security grants. Plus, the office that investigates waste, fraud and abuse in the Department of Homeland Security is being cut $7 million.
If the administration was really focused on homeland security, the Department of Homeland Security, with a proposed 6.8 percent budget increase, to more than $50 billion — would be able to adequately fund programs for first responders who are not only at the front lines of reacting to a disaster, but are at the first lines of prevention as well. The administration would also fund the dozens of other initiatives — from crime-prevention programs at the Department of Justice to youth programs at the Department of Education — that contribute to making our nation safer but whioh have been given the cold shoulder by conservative government.more »
The Facts
The Writ of Habeas Corpus
Habeas corpus (Latin: "you may have the body")[1] is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention, that is, detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations. more »
The News
Alarm over U.S. Debt Creates 'Window' for Tough Choices
Gates Proposal Would Cut Thousands of Defense Jobs
The Case
Kicking Down the World's Door
Make no mistake: we’re entering a new world of military planning. Admittedly, the latest proposed Pentagon budget manages to preserve just about every costly toy-cum-boondoggle from the good old days when MiGs still roamed the skies, including an uncut nuclear arsenal. All this should reassure us that, despite the talk of massive cuts, the U.S. military will continue to be the profligate, inefficient, and remarkably ineffective institution we’ve come to know and squander our treasure on. Still, the cuts that matter are already in the works, the ones that will change the American way of war. They may mean little in monetary terms, but in imperial terms they will make a difference. A new way of preserving the embattled idea of an American planet is coming into focus and one thing is clear: in the name of Washington's needs, it will offer a direct challenge to national sovereignty.more »
Not a Peep About the President's Praise for War
The grades for the president's State of the Union are in and the critics have been kind. In fact, it's chilling to see just how few hits the president takes for couching his entire address in unqualified celebration of the U.S. military. Speaking of the troops, President Obama began: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations." The president chose to celebrate the U.S. military; the press chose not to raise a peep about the spread of US militarism. Yet U.S. targets proliferate—abroad—with unmanned drones assassinating un-convicted suspects in innumerable undeclared wars. And militarism spreads at home. The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act makes indefinite military detention without charge or trial a permanent feature of the American legal system. It's kind of the critics not to mention that—or the president's four-year-old pledge to close Guantánamo, and to restore the "rule of law."
more »
Latest from our Bloggers
1:30 pm
Originally published at Capital Gains and Games.
There are five reasons why it was virtually inevitable the White House would make military spending an issue this year.
3:29 pm
I heard one of my favorite holiday songs on the radio yesterday — John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." I've always loved it, but this year it holds special meaning for me — especially the children of the Harlem Community Choir singing "War is over, if you want it." on the chorus .
This holiday season, I'm getting something that — as a progressive — I have wanted for years: an end of the war in Iraq. As it happens, this "gift" is like many given and received this time of year. You never really know what you're getting until you unwrap it. Once unwrapped, it's not to be quite what you thought or hoped it would be. And, even with price tag removed, you know it cost way too much.
1:36 pm
Listening to Newtie blather on about foreign policy last night reminded me of his gooey, wannabe relationship with the military over the years. I wrote about it back in March of 2003:
5:32 pm
This year, Veterans Day should be a day for all of us — all 99 percent of us — to stand with the 1 percent. Not, as Jim Hightower writes, the "corporate CEOs and hedge fund billionaires," but the "extra-special 1 percent of our society" who are also part of the 99 percent: the veterans of our most recent, most misguided wars, as well as those before. As Hightower said, let it not be a day to merely salute our veterans, but to stand with them and rally with them, as they have already done for us.
Across the country, veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are standing with the 99 percent. Scott Olsen, the 24-year-old former Marine who served two tours or duty in Iraq, and Sgt. Shamar Thomas, another Marine who served in Iraq, are probably the most well known. Olsen, who was critically injured by a police projectile during the attack on Occupy Oakland, became the newest face of the movement, inspiring nationwide rallies. Thomas, in a video viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube, confronted police members of the NYPD over violence used against peaceful and unarmed protesters.
Yet they represent countless veterans who served their country, often paying a great physical and psychological price, only to find themselves abandoned by their country in the midst of a recession and an unemployment crisis, and who are moved by what they have seen and experienced to join the movement of the 99 percent.
more »2:10 pm
This week, my eight-year-old son asked me a couple of questions about the war in Afghanistan. They were simple questions. Yet, both times I struggled to answer.
The first question came out of the blue. "Dad," he asked me, "Why did we go to war in Afghanistan?"
more »1:38 pm
It's getting hard to keep track of all the cringe-worthy moments at the GOP debates. To that end I've created a kind "Lowlights" reel of such moments from the last few. (I fully expect to update this regularly.) The latest, of course, is the booing of a gay soldier, serving Iraq.
So much, one might say, for "Support the troops!" Or "Support only the troops Republicans approve of." But here's the thing. The right, as a matter of policy, has never been all that supportive of the troops.





