IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 123-10 February 19, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Eric D. Currier, 21, of Londonderry, N.H., died Feb. 17 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine [...]

Thomas Rid’s friend Samir Puri is a defense analyst in the dark throes of Heshen Obsession. Maiden. Sepultura. Megadeth. Puri contributed an essay to a volume I’ve yet to read bridging his two interests by exploring metal’s depiction of war. Needless to say I approve of this project! (It so happens that this particular Iced [...]

Starting yesterday afternoon when disturbed Joe Struck flew a plane into the Austin IRS building, I got into a Twitter debate with Austinite Jason Steed about my assessment that the attack constituted an act of terrorism. I stand by what I wrote, but I invited Jason to flesh out his argument on my blog in [...]

Matthew Yglesias is being dangerously sanguine: But instead of complaining about the hypocrisy involved in not trying to whip people into a fit of terror and madness about this incident, I think it makes more sense to congratulate everyone on handling this in a calm and sensible manner. The key point, that all authorities seem [...]

Sam McPheeters has a piece in the American Prospect about Obama’s nuclear power decisions: Assume for a moment that the American nuclear industry really is as safe as Obama and Bush would like us to believe. Imagine that, for reasons far too esoteric for laypeople to comprehend, the American industry has moved past its bad [...]

In fairness, there are a number of contrary data points to my uncharacteristic burst of optimism over a potential game-changing move by the Pakistanis. I was all set to link them together in a long post about caveating my earlier one but then I saw Josh Foust did all the work for me, so just [...]

This is always so so clever on the part of white right-wingers: “I am not happy about the way things are. I pray for President Obama every single day. But tell you what. Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it,” said Baldwin. When we asked Baldwin to clarify that he [...]

A brief history of the last nine years: terrorists attack America. America invades Afghanistan. America, in a kind of dramatic way, tells Pakistan it’s either with us or with the terrorists. Pakistan’s leader chooses us but doesn’t appreciate being told like that, and the Pakistani people appreciate it even less. Pakistani Army takes rare-to-unprecedented step [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 120-10 February 18, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Lance Cpl. Alejandro J. Yazzie, 23, of Rock Point, Ariz., died Feb. 16 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 1st Combat [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 119-10 February 18, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualties The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device Feb. 13 in Zhari province, Afghanistan. They were assigned to the [...]