Karaka Pend

Speaking of the recession and Department of Defense, Secretary Robert Gates is just wrapping up a statement at the Pentagon dropping the news that (among other things) JFCOM is going the way of the dodo, along with a substantial number of defense contracts and contracting jobs. I have to say, I admire Gates for taking [...]

Thanks for sticking with us, your humble guest bloggers, for our first week trying gallantly to step into the big shoes Spencer left behind. We’ve filled six pages of blog this week, which may just barely keep up Spencer’s pace! Here’s some of the highlights. Spencer checked in from Afghanistan not once but twice; Mikey [...]

On Wednesday, General Petraeus released an updated tactical directive that offered a fairly nuanced shift in guidelines for on-the-ground action. The unclassified bits were made available. We must continue – indeed, redouble – our efforts to reduce the loss of innocent civilian life to an absolute minimum. Every Afghan civilian death diminishes our cause. If [...]

Hey there, DNI Clapper. Welcome to your new gig. I have a couple pieces of advice for you as you emerge, confirmed, from the chambers of Congress. You probably don’t need the advice, but what’s a blog post for if not offering unsolicited opinions? Don’t let those agency guys push you around. Show some offense! [...]

The Department of Defense’s gigantic, crippling budget is news to no one–least of all Secretary Robert Gates and his boss President Obama. They’ve tried various tactics to push budget reduction, from threatening to axe the F-35 engine to putting the heat on the Navy. Now it looks like Gates as another weapon in his deficit-battling [...]

Not exactly national security, but pretty darned important nonetheless: Judge Vaughn Walker overturns Calif. gay marriage ban. A federal judge overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban Wednesday in a landmark case that could eventually land before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays have a constitutional right to marry in America. Chief U.S. District Judge [...]

I’m kicking it to the new Big Boi album this morning, and in my morning news shuffling I came across this initially baffling headline: Taliban code of conduct seeks to win hearts, minds. It’s true, right? While that’s not exactly what I expected to read this morning, the insertion of “Taliban” where usually NATO/ISAF is [...]

This morning, news of an attempted bank heist in Mazar-e-Sharif hit the wires. Six Afghan private security guards were beheaded during a bank robbery in northern Afghanistan, police said today. It appeared that the security guards were poisoned before they were beheaded, said Sherjan Durani, a police spokesman for Balkh province. He said someone apparently [...]

Hey there, sports fans. My name is Karaka Pend; I blog at Permissble Arms and will round out Spencer’s panel o’ guestbloggers. Getting a bit of a late start–curse you, Comcast internet!–but better belated than not at all. David Sanger, in Sunday’s NYT, explores what went wrong in Afghanistan. Now that we’re nine years in, [...]