Wondering what last night’s GOP counter-thumping means for oversight of defense policy? I bet you might be.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 1009-10 November 02, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualties The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Nov. 1 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, [...]

For old times’ sake, given what looks like the Republican revival tonight. From the New York Times’ early read of the 43rd president’s memoir: Mr. Cheney clearly pushed Mr. Bush toward war. The former president writes that his vice president “had gotten out in front of my position” with an August 2002 speech dismissing the [...]

I always thought that Mark Danner was the first to coin the term “The Forever War” in his 2005 essay on the post-9/11 world, “Taking Stock of the Forever War.” Then Dexter Filkins wrote a great book with that title. But now my sci-fi ignorance is on full display: via Tom Ricks, it seems that [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 1006-10 November 01, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Spc. Brett W. Land, 24, of Wasco, Calif., died Oct. 30 in the Zhari district, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 999-10 October 30, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Spc. Pedro A. Maldonado, 20, of Houston, Texas, died Oct. 29 in Kandalay, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with rocket-propelled grenades and small [...]

Attackerman-borne ignorance gets results! Former chief military-commissions prosecutor Moe Davis, now with the Crimes of War Project, emails this after seeing my previous post on Khadr’s sentence: Spencer, In response to the question you posed, it is standard court-martial practice to go through the whole sentencing process even when there is a pretrial agreement. The [...]

In the course of arguing that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is functionally an appendage of al-Qaeda central, Leah Farrall observes that such an arrangement provides real operational implications for counterterrorists. What that snippet tells me (and with the caveat in place that it could be wrong) is that comms networks between branch and HQ [...]

How Omar Khadr’s military commission ends: with an eight-year plea deal… and a 40-year sentence that the commission’s members decided that Khadr should serve but won’t. According to the Department of Defense, here’s how it’s most likely to actually play out in Canada, where Khadr will serve out his time after another year at Guantanamo [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 998-10 October 30, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Staff Sgt. Adam L. Dickmyer, 26, of Winston Salem, N.C., died Oct. 28 near Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised [...]