A few weeks back I finished Jon Krakauer’s latest, Where Men Win Glory, which focused on the life and death (and subsequent coverup) of Pat Tillman. Like other Krakauer books, the text is engaging and (at least to me) moving. Some of Krakauer’s back story regarding the Afghanistan war with the Soviet Union seemed familiar, [...]

So, it’s looking more and more like Blackwater personnel basically opened fire on Iraqis in Nisoor Square in September. An investigation has been started, of course, which meant Congress couldn’t get any actual answers out of Blackwater CEO Erik Prince earlier this month. And now the Iraqi government (such as it is) is trying to [...]

I’ve started regularly reading Wired’s Danger Room, a blog that focuses on defense policy and other related issues. For example, they’ve done a really great job following Blackwater’s involvement in the Nisour Square incident, and of contractors in general. The scope is a bit different than that of coverage by Spencer Ackerman over at TPMMuckraker, [...]

Vis-à-vis my earlier post on Bush policy, Matt Yglesias has a great Guardian piece online about Bush’s pie-in-the-sky idea that Iraq was supposed to be an example of why other countries shouldn’t build WMD or nukes: The crux of the matter, however, is that the Iraq war was not just about Iraq, but about a [...]

The Washington Post today concludes this month’s Nukes Over America® tour really was just an accident: The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from [...]

Several New Mexico bloggers have already hit on the absurdity of a B-52 flying hafway across the country with nuclear weapons aboard, but Larry Johnson at TPM Cafe starts asking the right questions: So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of [...]

Via Atrios comes this Nitpicker post: Problems all taken care of at Walter Reed The problem, of course, being those loud-mouthed wounded. Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 [...]

From Kevin Drum: Remember all that talk about how Iraq had no impact on Afghanistan and the search for al-Qaeda? Not true. At CENTCOM, anyway, winding down the effort in Afghanistan was apparently considered a prerequisite to action in Iraq. And then there’s this slide, showing the “Phase IV” plans. That’s mil-speak for “after the [...]

Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly has two posts on the troop “surge” which lend some additional light to the situation (President Bush tonight is expected to announce he’s sending an additional 20,000 troops). The first is almost heartbreaking: More troops in Iraq will almost certainly not make any noticeable difference there. More troops in [...]

The Associated Press, via CNN, reports: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years at the Pentagon, Republican officials said Wednesday. Officials said Robert Gates, former head of the CIA, would replace Rumsfeld. The development occurred one day after congressional elections that cost Republicans [...]

I attended Grant County’s First Annual Golf Benefit for the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 358. Fifteen teams of four took part in the scramble, which raised money for the local chapter.

I love Kathy’s posts over at What Do I Know — as a former New Mexican living in England, she can offer a different perspective, thanks to the media she has access to and the distance from events here. Yesterday, she blogged about a solemn ceremony marking the return to England of 14 troops killed [...]