Ann Friedman has a really good piece in this month’s American Prospect about getting rid of the illusion that the Afghanistan war will be a net benefit for women’s rights. Clearly, sensibly and powerfully, she notes that none of the Afghan women she can find are under that particular misimpression, despite the noble and laudatory [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 996-09 December 22, 2009 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Serge Kropov, 21, of Hawley, Pa., died Dec. 20 as a result of a non-hostile incident in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to Marine Aircraft [...]

I only have sentiment on my side here, but I’m disappointed the Yankees traded Melky Cabrera for Javier Vasquez. Vasquez’s numbers remain impressive, but I have a phobia of trades for National League starters in their early 30s. And Melk — he turned his career around, showed clear improvement after his late-08 demotion to the [...]

Trailer #2 (that I’ve seen) for the adaptation of the Millar/Romita Jr epic Kick-Ass. The rise of Hit-Girl. Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy — perfect, and could only be perfecter if they spin it off into Big Daddy: Port Of Call New York.

Peter Feaver bashing is my new Lay’s Potato Chip. I’m late to this, but I see he wrote: The truth is that the Obama and Bush teams held to very different theories about how best to cajole our war allies into more constructive cooperation. The Bush team, belying the cowboy image, believed that we got [...]

Tom Ricks has this killer line about the 101st Airborne in Mosul under Gen. Petraeus’ command: it was the only Army division with its own foreign policy. For a refresher course, you can read this contemporaneous Times story to get a sense of what Ricks means. But of course you don’t want an Army division [...]

I’ve been digging Kalsoom Lakhani’s blog Changing Up Pakistan after meeting her at an event recently, but this guest-post really takes the prize for boldness. It’s a full-on critique of the Pakistani military and its outsized role as accellerant of social/political dysfunction. It’s also not really for non-Pakistanis to comment on, I figure. This is [...]

Daphne Eviatar takes a close look at the Obama-era military commissions. Short answer: still Calvinball. The case of al Qosi, now being heard before the new military commission, highlights the sorts of problems that lawyers say are likely to come up in many military commissions trials. Most importantly, they include a range of constitutional challenges [...]

I will never get tired of this song, and its message is oddly soothing.

A neglected but unfortunate casualty of the Bush administration is Peter Feaver’s reputation for patient and rigorous thinking. Before the guy went into the White House, he was an excellent scholar of civilian-military relations and interesting political scientist who thought nothing of working for both Clinton and Bush at the NSC when his country called. [...]