With those famous words at the 1988 Republican National Convention, soon-to-be President George H.W. Bush promised there would be no new taxes. He kept his word. That is, we did not get taxes on taking showers, eating ice cream or going to baseball games. But he never promised he would not raise the existing taxes. [...]

From the Wall St. Journal By FARNAZ FASSIHI Defying mounting international pressure over its military ambitions, Iran on Sunday unveiled what it said was its latest battlefield advance—an armed aerial drone—a day after initiating the start-up of its first nuclear power plant. Tehran said the plant would be operational within a month. For much more [...]

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young announced that the United States and South Korea would conduct massive joint naval drills this weekend. In joint statement, these wizards said, “the drills are “designed to send a clear message to North Korea that its aggressive behavior must stop, and that we [...]

North Korea warned Saturday that it will respond with “powerful nuclear deterrence” to joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises poised to begin this weekend, saying the drills amount to a provocation that cannot be ignored. North Korea routinely threatens war when South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which Pyongyang sees as [...]

It is not dishonorable never to have served in the U.S. military. It is not dishonorable to think we need a very aggressive military policy. However, when a person who did or continues to do all in his power NOT to serve in the military champions an aggressive military policy we have a fine example [...]

From Spanishnews.es The tension between the Spanish and the British security forces stretched over another few degrees, when Spain openly refused to allow the Royal Air Force to use the airspace near Gibraltar for military exercise purposes. A British forces spokesman said that last Wednesday was the second day of training exercises and 6 British [...]

When Obama campaigned, he promised early withdrawal of troops from the MidEast. When he was elected, that was modified to withdrawal from Iraq. When he got to West Point for a demagogic speech in December, he announced that by July 11, troops would be coming home from Iraq in big numbers. But there is a [...]

You can’t keep a good army down. Go, Marines! Reporting from Camp Pendleton and Washington ? On a stretch of clean, white Southern California beach, thousands of young Marines this month charged forward from the sea, leaping from helicopters and landing craft, echoing the exercises conducted decades before when Marines trained for Iwo Jima and [...]

The NY Times weighs in with an unenlightening editorial. Israel’s government has decided to tough out the criticism of its attack this week on a six-ship flotilla trying to run the Gaza blockade. The story, and the anger, aren’t going away…..Israel’s charges that its commandos were attacked and shot at by some of the ship’s [...]

The following is a very brief excerpt from A MAJOR PUBLICATION contained within The National Security Archive. The whole of it is well worth reading but is terribly long and you should probably skim through it. Here is the LINK to the document. Here is the excerpt: PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST National Security [...]

The Obama Administration is committed to three principals: good ends justify any old means; presumption of innocence is a damn nuisance when you know in your heart of hearts you are imprisoning bad guys; the right to speedy trials applies only when it is not an inconvenience. These three principals converge nicely in the case [...]

From ploughshares.org. More than a decade and a half after the Cold War ended, the world’s combined stockpile of nuclear warheads remain at a very high level: more than 20,000. Of these, more than 10,000 warheads are considered operational, of which a couple of thousand U.S. and Russian warheads are on high alert, ready for [...]

The 2003 Roadmap for Peace process sponsored by the United States and other nations obligates the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Government of Israel to undertake security efforts as a necessary precursor for achieving the long-standing objective of establishing a Palestinian state as part of the two-state solution for peace in the Middle East. In [...]

An article in the Christian Science Monitor reports that “a low estimate of militant kills by drones in Pakistan so far this year is 152, according to the New America Foundation.” Somewhat buried in the good news is that the strikes are also believed to have killed hundreds of innocent villagers, stirring public anger that [...]

Aljazeera…………………Residents of the Afghan city of Kandahar face an upsurge in violence in the coming months as US forces mass on the outskirts of the city, General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, has said. His warning came as US and Nato forces prepare to launch the largest military offensive so far against [...]

What did you expect? Is there a good reason why the Taliban should not hit hard against contractor firms in Afghanistan? Don’t the latter mean to do harm to the Taliban? I think so. By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, April 17, 2010 KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The Taliban has begun regularly targeting U.S. [...]

We, the undersigned, have traveled to Israel over the years with The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs [JINSA] The dissemination of hatred and support of terrorism by violent extremists in the name of Islam, whether state or non-state actors, must be addressed as a threat to global peace. We brought with us our decades [...]

MISSION STATEMENT – The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent US Government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers. HISTORY OF THE CIA – President Truman recognized the need for a postwar, centralized intelligence organization. To make a fully functional intelligence office, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 [...]

In Plato’s ideology, only philosophers were fit to be rulers. He called them the guardians, but the Roman poet Juvenal raised the question, “Sure, but who will guard the guardians?” In other words, for those of you who know only Latin but not English, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” It is a great question and I [...]

From USA Today………………………..Six months after Marine Lt. Gen. Gary McKissock retired in 2002, he did what many other ex-military leaders do: He joined the board of directors of a defense contractor, a company doing business with his former service. McKissock also had a second job. The Marines brought him back as an adviser, at double [...]

United States Government Accountability Office Report to the Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives Comprehensive Planning and a Results-Oriented Training Strategy Are Needed to Support Growing Inventories What GAO Found DOD continues to increase UAS inventories, but in some cases, the Air Force and the Army lack robust [...]

From Small Wars Journal By Gary Anderson. “With the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, nobody cherishes doctrine more than the U.S. Army and Air Force. The Marines consider doctrine to be a polite suggestion, and the Navy generally refuses to recognize the concept altogether. The current debate raging among Army professionals is over how [...]

The moderate Obama, the middle-of-the road Obama, the great compromiser, Obama, the bipartisan-seeking Obama, the negotiator Obama is a myth and those who buy into it are insane. Here is my summary of a summary – The Executive Summary of the Project on Defense Alternatives. The entire summary can be read by a CLICK HERE. [...]

The House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would expand the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, allowing it to review petitions filed by military service members challenging courts-martial decisions. Under current law, a service member is barred from petitioning the high court if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has [...]