Beltway Braces for a Very Cratchit Christmas

Today's Washington Post informs us that "for the holidays, the spies say they’ll scrimp." [W]ith budget cuts looming, party plans are being pared back for the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA. … Under then-director Leon E. Panetta last year, the CIA...

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The Future Affordability of US National Security

That's the title of a timely paper by MIT researcher Dr. Cindy Williams [.pdf]. The summary points: 1. The United States currently devotes about 4.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to national defense and another 1.5 percent to broader security efforts,...

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Pentagon’s Doomsday Looks a Lot Like 2007

The Project on Defense Alternatives sends along "Pentagon Cuts in Context: No Reason for 'Doomsday' Hysteria" [.pdf]. Key points: * The Budget Control Act (BCA) provides for assured caps and reductions on Pentagon spending only if the Joint Select Committee – the...

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Blackout?

Can YOUR card do this? AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you how war fits into this. I mean, you co-wrote the book with Linda Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War. How does war fit into our problems with the economy? JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, war fits in because you're creating a...

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Afghanistan bottom-line

"The entire COIN strategy [the COunterINsurgency strategy engineered by Petraeus and McCrystal et.al.] is a fraud perpetuated on the American people," says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with...

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Peña/Bandow on Closing U.S. Military Bases

Charles Peña and Doug Bandow debate Lawrence Korb and Frank Gaffney on closing down the U.S. empire of bases. Pt. 2 Pt. 3 (Somebody get Gaffney a squeaky red nose and rainbow-afro wig please, huh?) Update: Dr. Gordon Prather - a real nuclear expert - uses facts to...

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