The big news tonight is that Sen. Barack Obama has chosen Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.
But another news item of immense import surfaced today as well: the agreement by the Iraqi and American governments on a deadline for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops by 2011.
Now, aside from [...]

If I were to start a gang, I would name it FM 3-24.
Just FYI.

Okay, so we only made it through three e-mails last time. I have 61 in my inbox. Fortunately, I don’t have to do all of them — just the oldest and worth saving.
Next up:
An item entitled “Watch ‘Charlie Rose – An hour with General David Petraeus’” I sent myself through Google Reader on 10 SEP [...]

Here we go again.
The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats they may be forced to serve in Iraq next year and says it will soon start identifying prime candidates for jobs at the Baghdad embassy and outlying provinces, according to a cable obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
A similar call-up notice last year caused an [...]

In a Washington Post story today about how Senator Hillary Clinton tends to “veer to the dark side” in her speeches, she is quoted as retelling the story of a military spouse who lost her husband in Iraq:
In another story, retold recently in Youngstown, Ohio, she describes a “young woman who lost her husband in [...]

I like this comment made in a blog post about the recently released National Intelligence Estimate deflating the Bush administration’s rhetoric advocating bombing Iran:
It reminds me of that quote from Kurt von Hammerstein:
I divide officers into four classes — the clever, the lazy, the stupid and the industrious. Each officer possesses at least two of [...]

GovExec.com is reporting that Foreign Service Officers — the folks who work for the State Department at embassies around the world — are upset over a new policy that would force them to serve in Iraq:
Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department’s decision to force foreign service officers to [...]

Captain Bill Putnam, an Army Reserve intelligence officer, suggests in the Small Wars Journal that soccer may be an effective strategy for building national unity in Iraq, a prerequisite for American withdrawal:
Soccer is Iraq’s only true national sport. The passion it generates is twice that of the Super Bowl or the College Football national championship. [...]

Oops:

The Army, Navy and Air Force unwittingly advertised for recruits on a website for gays, who are barred from military service if they are open about their sexual orientation.
When informed Tuesday by USA TODAY that they were advertising on GLEE.com, a networking website for gay professionals, recruiters expressed surprise and said they [...]

What You Missed If You Didn’t Read Today’s NYTimes

Black women in South Carolina are afraid to vote for Barack Obama because he might be assassinated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Oh, what a character.We have this: “We cannot build Russia’s future by tying its many millions of citizens to just one person or group of people,” he [...]