TCS Daily December 21, 2005 Last Friday, the New York Times unleashed a bombshell with a front page story reporting that the Bush administration had repeatedly ordered the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance within the United States without a warrant. Congressmen, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, immediately called for hearings. Some, including California Senator Barbara Boxer and Georgia […]
Tech Central Station December 9, 2005 One of the lessons of Vietnam taught to American officer cadets is that successful prosecution of a long-term war requires support from the people, the government, and the military. It is considered axiomatic that, if any leg of Clausewitz’ Remarkable Trinity[1] falters, a war effort is doomed. This dictum came […]
Tech Central Station December 5, 2005 Some Iraq war critics have lately argued that the American military is not very adept at counterinsurgency. But the reality is a little more complicated than they suggest. Reacting to an article in The New Republic about President Bush’s strategy for defeating insurgents in Iraq by Lawrence Kaplan, The American Propect‘s Matthew Yglesias, observed […]
Tech Central Station July 8, 2005 Predictably, George Galloway, the Member of Parliament who was ousted from Britain’s Labour Party for his radical views on the Iraq War, said yesterday’s attacks that killed nearly 40 people and wounded hundreds of others, were the price Britons had to pay for their foreign policy. “No one can condone acts […]
Phillip Carter and James Joyner Legal Affairs April 18, 2005 “America has a choice,” write Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris in The Washington Monthly. “It can be the world’s superpower, or it can maintain the current all-volunteer military, but it probably can’t do both.” Their solution is a revival of the draft. Glastris and Carter propose that […]
Tech Central Station March 7, 2005 Friday’s shooting incident during which Giuliana Sgrena, a writer for Italy’s communist newspaper Il Manifesto, was wounded and her bodyguard killed by American soldiers has raised serious questions about the way U.S. checkpoints in Iraq are handled. Christian Science Monitor reporter Annia Ciezadlo, in a story published after but written before the incident, describes her own experiences with the checkpoints: It’s […]
Tech Central Station March 3, 2005 Phil Carter and Paul Glastris make “The Case for the Draft” in the current Washington Monthly. “America’s all-volunteer military simply cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in places like Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere in the world. Simply adding more soldiers to the active duty force, as some in Washington are […]
Tech Central Station January 11, 2005 Bradley Graham reports in the Washington Post that Army leaders are pushing to make last year’s increase of 30,000 troops in the active-duty force permanent and to change the law to allow longer and more frequent call-ups of some reservists in order to meet the obligations of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. […]
Tech Central Station December 22, 2004 The nation’s capital has been distracted this week by an issue more compelling than terrorism, the war in Iraq, Social Security reform, or Bernard Kerik’s love life: the fate of Major League Baseball in D.C. At the 11th hour last Tuesday evening, the city council approved a bait-and-switch bill proposed by Chairman […]
Tech Central Station December 14, 2004 Army National Guard Specialist David Qualls and seven of his comrades filed suit against the Defense Department over what they charge is the unfair extension of their active duty obligation beyond the term they agreed to. Qualls signed up with the Arkansas National Guard under the “Try-One” enlistment option which, according […]