IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 737-10 August 18, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Staff Sgt. Derek J. Farley, 24, of Nassau, N.Y., died Aug. 17 at Bala Boluk, Farah, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated as [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 732-10 August 17, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Spc. Jamal M. Rhett, 24, of Palmyra, N.J., died Aug. 15 in Ba Qubah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his vehicle with grenades. He was [...]

What exactly was I looking for at the Brandenburg Gate? Perhaps confirmation that those parables, which I had absorbed and accepted as true, were just that. Whatever I expected, what I actually found was a cluster of shabby-looking young men, not German, hawking badges, medallions, hats, bits of uniforms, and other artifacts of the mighty [...]

My friend Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald has won the Society of Professional Journalists’ First Amendment Award. Carol is the most knowledgeable reporter to have ever covered Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon’s pathetic efforts at banning her from doing her job gave way to a face-saving climbdown. Carol doesn’t need any vindication, since her work [...]

Heeb is no longer publishing a magazine anymore. I’m glad to hear that heebmagazine.com will continue on. Not to be insensitive, but the internet-journalism supremacist in me inclines me to say: tribes(wo)men, you guys are going to keep doing great stuff online, freed of the formatting and financial burdens of print. I have a soft [...]

Gasp! Look at Spiegel’s scoop! SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned from reliable sources that the four-star general and his staff informed diplomats and top military officials that in the past three months alone, at least 365 high-ranking and mid-level insurgent commanders have been killed — mostly through targeted operations by the special forces, comprised of heavily [...]

Dave Weigel just got a copy of something called The Arab Lobby, blurbed by the Anti-Defamation League. I haven’t heard of the book. But how I look forward to Walt/Mearshimer haters tying themselves in knots to explain how this Very Serious Expose of an insidious and distorting foreign influence on our politics needs to be [...]

Josh Foust publishes a first-person account from a mutual friend of a near-kidnapping in Panjshir. I first heard about this through text message right after I left the country, and the long-form version is even less pleasant reading. As Josh notes, Panjshir is supposed to be relatively safe. Major General John Campbell told me he [...]

It’s kind of an impressionistic post, I concede, but I had a number of troops approach me this month with their doubts about the war they’re fighting or working to support. No one really wanted to go on the record with them, for the obvious reasons of command reprisal. Admittedly, this is a non-representative sample, [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 728-10 August 16, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Staff Sgt. Michael A. Bock, 26, of Leesburg, Fla., died Aug. 13 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 3rd Combat [...]