This Jan. 13 the Pentagon commemorated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with an address by Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department's general counsel. In the final year of his life, King became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, Johnson told a packed...
Off-Base America
Last year, it was Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq. This year, it's Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Next year, it could easily be Afghanistan, Pakistan, Diego Garcia, Bahrain, and Turkey. Or of course they could choose to play in Japan (with a...
The Pentagon Must Protect Whistleblowers
The grisly details continue to drip out. Five American soldiers have been accused of setting up "kills" and murdering innocent Afghans earlier this year, according to charges filed by the U.S. Army against them. But could some of the murders have been stopped earlier?...
Tea Party at the Pentagon?
It's a cold morning in January 2011. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wake up early to put on their Revolutionary War costumes. They're joined by a miscellaneous group of anti-government protesters, libertarian activists, and all-around hotheads. With...
Anatomy of a Pentagon Lie
It shouldn't startle anyone to find that the Pentagon has blatantly ignored a congressional mandate to start reducing its use of burn pits at U.S. bases overseas. It was only a year ago that Pentagon officials openly doubted that the black hellfire released from tons...
The Face of War (Don’t Look!)
You'd think that people always seeking “lessons” from war would draw one from our latest wonder weapon, which fights our wars for us without an American in sight. I'm talking, of course, about the drone aircraft that have, in recent years, become a signature form of...
Expand the Role of the Citizen-Soldier Without a Draft
For proponents of American liberty, a volunteer military has always been preferable to conscription. Friends of liberty have appropriately asked how, in a supposedly free country, you can justify unfairly shanghaiing, against their will, an unrepresentative minority...
Bull Feather Merchant Marines
The New York Times continues to serve as headquarters of the Pentagon's bull feather merchant marines. The headline of an Oct. 20 Times piece by Carlotta Gall on the Kandahar offensive read “Coalition Forces Routing Taliban in Key Afghan Region.” Nothing in the text...
Long Warfare Theory
"No nation ever profited from a long war." - Sun Tzu Sun Tzu's immortal The Art of War translates into a shade over 10,000 words of American English, roughly 40 pages of aphoristic wisdom presented in language that probably 75 percent of public-school third-graders...
Uncle Bob Wants You
Uncle Bob Gates wants more young people to join the military. In a Sept. 29 speech at Duke University, Defense Secretary Gates asked students, “If America's best and brightest will not step forward, who will?” The likes of you, Uncle Bob, that's who. By way of...