Great article from The Australian about David Kilcullen, an expert in counterinsurgency and adviser to General Petraeus in Iraq:
. . . [W]hen the invasion of Iraq was being planned, Kilcullen was one of a handful of senior military advisers in the coalition of the willing to voice a dissenting view. “I was one of a […]

My little brother just sent over these pictures he took of the POW/MIA Memorial at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts.
Lest we forget . . .

Talk of a draft has come and gone — probably largely thanks to Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who keeps introducing legislation that would establish conscription for 18-year olds — since the beginning of the Iraq war. I’ve never taken it seriously, and still don’t. But it does become a little more interesting when some official […]

From Popular Mechanics:
The diesel-electric hybrid hype has met its match: the U.S. Army. After focusing on hydrogen fuel cells in its original version of “The Aggressor,” a high-performance, off-road Alternative Mobility Vehicle (AMV) for military ground exploration and scouting missions, the Pentagon is now going the way of Detroit—with batteries.
The new, second-generation prototype will still […]

I have to pass this along from The Torch:
“They look at us like dimwits,” he said. “I don’t want to be looked at like that. … I’ve once had a woman tell me, ‘If there weren’t people like you, there wouldn’t be any wars.’ That’s angering.” - Private Francis Archambault
It may be angering, but it’s […]

First off this morning, I’d like to point you to abu muqawama’s comments on a critique of Gen. Petraeus, our current commander in Iraq, by Andrew Bacevich in The New Republic.
A couple of his comments that I completely agree with (and many of which I’ve posted here about before):

[T]he big problem, as Bacevich sees […]

Great column by John Noonan at The Daily Standard:
FOR NEARLY 200 years, cadets at the United States Military Academy have been guided by the “Thayer System,” a rigid structure of unyielding regulation, austere discipline, fierce loyalty, and strong emphasis on math, science, and engineering. The method is calculated to produce Army officers of the highest […]

Samantha Power, of “A Problem from Hell:” America and the Age of Genocide fame, an insightful book studying America’s indifference to various genocides throughout the 20th Century, had a great book review in last Sunday’s The New York Times.
While I started reading her review just because I respected her and wanted to read her thoughts […]

Patton.

Bad News: Lindsay broke it off yesterday. I’m crying like a little bitch at work, which is just perfect considering I’m filling in for the receptionist. Nothing like coming into an office where the receptionist is crying. People must think, “What do they do? Beat their employees?”
The problem with breaking up, of course, is envisioning […]