Now that Obama has won reelection, news of how he plans to run his new administration has been springing forth fast and furiously. Despite alluding to a time of peace in his reelection speech last week, the latest on foreign policy going forward indicates otherwise. Like so many other issues, the new foreign policy agenda would have been nice to know before the election. According | Read More »
I’m not actually too happy to drag our domestic politics in this, because people died and everything; but I suggest that fixing this situation may be just a little more important than the President’s current plan to go to Cincinnati and yell about the Chinese about practices that the Chinese have no intention of stopping, and that the Obama administration has no intention of actually doing anything about. Even if Ohio is a swing state this year.
Read More »
The most-discussed “revelation” in No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden, by former Navy SEAL “Mark Owen,” is certainly Osama bin Laden’s status as unarmed when he was shot twice in the head by an American operator in his Abbottabad house. Not only was the al Qaeda leader and terror mastermind not holding a weapon when he was | Read More »
FEW BOOKS HAVE generated as much buzz in as short a time as No Easy Day by Mark Owen,1 a former Navy SEAL who participated in the mission that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. While media have understandably focused on the bin Laden narrative, and the differences between it and the Obama administration’s story of the raid, it’s important to note something about | Read More »
Another week, another 2 U.S. soldiers gunned down by Afghan soldiers. Imagine if a Republican president assumed office 9 years into a mildly successful war and incurred more casualties under his watch due to an aimless effort fraught with egregious rules of engagement. Wouldn’t you expect there to be a body count every night on the news along with gory pictures of the failing, rudderless | Read More »
As U.S. and NATO forces have begun to withdraw from Afghanistan, problems previously manageable for the Afghan air force have become serious concerns, with no resolution in sight. As of June, the majority of their helicopters joined already grounded cargo planes deemed unfit to fly due to maintenance and safety issues such as missing parts, a lack of spare parts, and generally just being old. | Read More »
According to the New York Times, president Obama has “significantly lowered” the bar on how success in Afghanistan is defined. In four years Obama has gone from ”we must never forget, this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity” and “this is a war that we have to win” to “Afghan good enough.” According to the Times, Obama’s new definition of | Read More »
As we hit the 10 1/2 year mark in Afghanistan, the state of trust and confidence between the coalition and the Afghan people is at perhaps its lowest ebb, and support for the war effort is wavering across the political spectrum. Given this, it appears time to reconsider the current status of our effort there — what have we accomplished, and what do we still | Read More »
Early Sunday morning, a U.S. Army soldier reportedly left an coalition outpost in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, walked a mile, broke into three houses, shot sixteen civilians to death, and burned several of the corpses. The soldier, a staff sergeant from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, was deployed in support of Special Forces who were engaged in “village stability operations” on | Read More »
JUST WEEKS AFTER the attacks of September 11, 2001, a small number of elite special operators were inserted into northern Afghanistan. The Degüello, by Special Forces veteran Scott Zastrow, tells the story of the first unit to deploy: ODA 555, or ‘Triple Nickel,’ an A-Team from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Accompanied by an Air Force combat controller, the ten-man team infiltrated | Read More »
“U.S. Ponders Ways to Use Force on Iran” “Here’s How the U.S. Could Invade Iran” “U.S. Said Set to Attack Iran” “Does [the U.S. President] Plan to Invade Iran?” “Saudis Deny U.S. Planned to Attack Iranian Oilfields” “U.S. May Attack Iran Missiles: White House Mulls Ways to Protect Gulf” “[U.S.] Navy Denies Plan to Attack Iranian Ships in Persian Gulf” “U.S., Allies Setting Stage to | Read More »
TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W. Bush termed the “Global War on | Read More »
Nearly a year ago, it was interesting to be attacked as Neo-Cons after stating what seemed to be obvious then and, unfortunately, is becoming more obvious by the day regarding the chaos in Mexico. Here was the statement and the resultant question: Like it or Not: Mexico is America’s Next Afghanistan With the exception of, perhaps, Texas governor Rick Perry, no public official wants to publicly | Read More »
Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by New York Times’ best selling author Brad Thor to discuss his newest thriller Full Black, how he develops material for his books, the importance of highlighting the work of the fearless patriots in America’s Special Forces, and the upcoming Warner Bros. film adaptations | Read More »
Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Obama declared that a new strategy was forthcoming for the Afghan war. Over six months later, after weeks and weeks and weeks of “thoughtful deliberation” (and a few dozen rounds of golf), Obama used an awkward 45-minute appearance at West Point to boldly announce…that he was going to implement what amounted to the same strategy that President Bush | Read More »
![[RS]](/t/img/logo-footer.jpg){kind=logo}