DARTS & LAURELS
Supreme judgment
(July 2008)To the Supreme Court, for its decision that gives foreign suspects in Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. civilian courts. The June ruling was the third time the...
Manual refresh
(July 2008)To the Air Force, which could have avoided the first loss of a B-2 bomber if it had properly documented a procedure that was critical to the aircraft’s safe operation. An accident...
Caught on tape
(July 2008)To the Pentagon, for quickly declassifying and releasing a video recording of the controversial June 10 U.S. airstrike in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Pakistan loudly condemned the...
From our online discussion boards
(July 2008)LIPPARD ADDS TO COMMENTARY ON COL. CHARLES W. WILLIAMSON III’S “CARPET BOMBING IN CYBERSPACE” ARTICLE, MAY AFJ (http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/05/3375884)
No ticket home
(June 2008)TO EXECS AT ATA AIRLINES, for pulling the plug on military transport operations without regard for troops left stranded in Kuwait. When ATA ceased operations within 24 hours of filing for...
Endorsing debate
(June 2008)TO DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES, who, in his lecture to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on April 21, endorsed the Army’s open mindedness in permitting officers to publish...
Deadly silence
(June 2008)TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT, for its contrary Iran policy. State officials say they are committed to a diplomatic solution to pressure Iran to change its behavior on the nuclear issue. But the...
From our online discussion boards
(June 2008)MAJ. DUSTIN MITCHELL RESPONDS TO “NEW ANSWERS TO HARD QUESTIONS” BY 1ST LT. BRIAN DROHAN AND LT. COL. JOHN NAGL, APRIL AFJ (http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/04/3392447)
Flunked again
(May 2008)TO THE PENTAGON, for scoring a D-minus after the latest examination of its weapons program acquisition practices. When major development programs from ships to satellites to aircraft each...
Fuel for thought
(May 2008)TO THE AIR FORCE, for its pioneering work in developing synthetic fuel for aircraft. The fuel, a 50-50 blend of JP-8 and a synthetic fuel derived from natural gas, was created by an Air...
No honor in politics
(May 2008)TO PRESIDENT BUSH, for mixing politics with military honor. Bush presented a posthumous Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony on the same day that Congress was getting its latest Iraq...
Unintelligent veto
(April 2008)TO PRESIDENT BUSH, for vetoing legislation that would have made it illegal for U.S. intelligence officials to use waterboarding in interrogations. Waterboarding and other torture contradict...
Timely doctrine
(April 2008)TO THE ARMY, for the new FM 3-0 Operations Field Manual, a welcome capstone doctrine document that is long on common sense and thankfully short on acronyms and “Army talk.” This...
Ad nauseum
(April 2008)TO THE AIR FORCE, for extreme vanity. The Air Force is seeking a $59 million hike in advertising funds in 2009 — money that would buy two-thirds of an F-35A or one-third of an F-22...
Budget disconnect
(March 2008)TO THE WHITE HOUSE — finding no reason to laurel the 2009 defense spending plan, AFJ aims a third dart at the source of this lame-duck budget. It’s an election year, and Congress...
Budget gilding
(March 2008)TO THE SERVICES AND INDUSTRY, for fueling congressional demands for more by continuing to gild the lily when it comes to equipment purchases. All of the services are guilty of insisting only...
Budget greed
(March 2008)TO CONGRESS, which was handed a platter piled high with $705.7 billion to spend on the U.S. military in 2009 and complained it wasn’t enough. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., worried about...
Masters of command
(February 2008)TO THE NAVY COMMANDERS AND CREW of the three warships in the Strait of Hormuz for their cool, restrained response to severe provocation from Iranian gunboats. As the gunboats swarmed...
War funding fudge
(February 2008)TO THE WHITE HOUSE for its plan to fold most wartime funding into its base Pentagon budget request starting in fiscal 2010. Such a move would be ill-advised for three reasons. First, it...
An intelligent call
(February 2008)TO DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE MIKE McCONNELL for stepping away from the Bush administration’s coyness on whether waterboarding is torture. In an interview in The New Yorker...
Health check
(January 2008)TO THE ARMY, for its handling of the case of Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, the reservist who led a unit of medics in Iraq and then suffered a mental breakdown, possibly triggered by the stresses...
MRAP rethink
(January 2008)TO GEN. JAMES T. CONWAY, for having the courage to do a sharp about-face and cut the Marine Corps’ request for bomb-resistant vehicles from 3,700 to 2,300.
Nuking it out
(January 2008)TO PRESIDENT BUSH, for losing the propaganda battle over the Iran nukes fiasco. It’s bad enough that the U.S. again is being served humble pie over weapons-of-mass-destruction...
TO RUDY GIULIANI AND ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE MICHAEL MUKASEY
(December 2007)For their tacit support of waterboarding. In an interview, Giuliani was asked for his views on using “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. He responded...
TO ARMY SECRETARY PETE GEREN
(December 2007)For commissioning and now committing to act on the recommendations of an independent commission that examined how the Army acquires and manages outsourced contractor services for food,...
TO REP. JOHN MURTHA
(December 2007)For calling for 2008 fiscal defense appropriation funds to allow more F-22 Raptor fighters to be built. Buying additional F-22s beyond the 183 planned would be a tragic misdirection of...
To Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne
(November 2007)For beating a $100 bil¬lion funding request drum without demonstrating that the service is serious about giving up its wanna-haves and prioritizing the must-haves.
To House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.
(November 2007)For holding a hearing on the too-long-overlooked security threat posed by Pakistan.
To the State Department
(November 2007)For its belated and hypocritical attempt to apply proper oversight of private security contractors. The public brouhaha stirred by the September Blackwater shootings in Iraq was a wake-up...
TO THE AIR FORCE
(October 2007)For losing command and control of six nuclear warheads during a 3½-hour B-52 flight over the central U.S. The late-August incident left Air Force senior leadership scrambling to salvage...
TO COMPTROLLER GENERAL DAVID WALKER
(October 2007)In his testi¬mony to the House Armed Services Committee in early September, Walker repeatedly stressed that the Government Accountability Office’s assessment of the Iraqi...
TO SENATOR JOHN WARNER
(October 2007)Whose statesmanship will be missed after he retires in January 2009, con¬cluding 30 years in the Senate. Nonetheless, Warner’s decision to retire was correct and his reasoning...
Agency dud
(September 2007)TO JIEDDO, THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT’S COUNTER-IED ORGANIZATION. Formed in late 2005 to lead and coordinate efforts to combat roadside bombs, the Joint IED Defeat Organization has been...
Wartime contracting
(September 2007)TO SENS. JIM WEBB AND CLAIRE MCCASKILL for introducing a bill that would lead to an investigation of wartime contracting. The freshmen Democrats want to establish an independent, bipartisan...
The wrong weapon
(August 2007)TO THE PENTAGON for its decision to replace the Iraqi military’s AK47 assault rifle with the M16 and M4. The stated reason is that the switch came at the request of the Iraqis. But...
To new British Prime minister Gordon Brown
(August 2007)For latching the U.K. defense secretary with a second job of Scottish secretary.
To the Supreme Court
(August 2007)For agreeing to review two cases involving detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are arguing for the right to challenge their detentions before a federal court.
To the House of Representatives
(August 2007)For its latest vote to pull most U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by April. The new legislation — the third attempt to quit Iraq — calls for the Pentagon to begin withdrawing...
TO JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN GEN. PETER PACE
(July 2007)For his character reference letter supporting convicted White House aide Scooter Libby.
TO RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
(July 2007)For his surprise proposal to integrate the Gabala radar system, which Russia leases in Azerbaijan, into the U.S. missile defense system. After the highly contentious spat that escalated...
TO MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ
(July 2007)For politicizing the issue of when and how photographs of wounded American troops can be published. New rules now being imposed on photographers embedded with American troops in Iraq and...
TO THE ARMY
(June 2007)For twisting the truth to such an extent, in a misguided attempt to create media heroes, that the service’s credibility is seriously harmed. Congressional hearings into what happened...
TO THE NAVY
(June 2007)For its latest assault attempt on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, this time aimed at cutting the short-takeoff-and-vertical landing (STOVL) variant. The Navy’s carrier version of JSF is...
TO AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF GEN. T. MICHAEL MOSELEY
(June 2007)for telling the Army and Marine Corps to quit assigning Air Force people to jobs for which they are not trained. Having seen more than 20,000 airmen assigned to “in lieu of” jobs...
TO HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI
(May 2007)For cozying up to Syrian President Bashar al-Asad with public handshakes and declarations that her delegation had come “in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is...
TO AIR FORCE MAJ. TROY GILBERT
(May 2007)An F-16 pilot killed in action in Iraq. Late last year, Gilbert found and circled two heavily armed insurgent trucks that had fired at U.S. ground troops protecting a downed Army helicopter....
TO PRESIDENT BUSH
(May 2007)For blatantly circumventing the Senate confirmation process and unnecessarily inflaming Democrats at a time when the focus should be on the war debate. While lawmakers were on spring break,...
TO INDEPENDENT SEN. JOELIEBERMAN
(April 2007)A lonely voice of reason in Congress’ increasingly self-serving ballyhoo over Iraq.
TO DEMOCRATS
(April 2007)Who are loading local-interest add-ons to the Iraq war funding bill. Even as they protest against the war, Democrats are tacking on to the $100 billion war supplemental bill requests for aid...
TO CONGRESS
(April 2007)For unanimously passing a concurrent resolution that recommends the creation of a national Medal of Honor Day. The resolution would make March 25 a day to celebrate and remember the more...
TO THE PENTAGON
(March 2007)For overstating its case against Iranian activity in Iraq and basing it on evidence presented by three officials it won’t identify. In doing so, the Defense Department’s argument...
TO THE AIR FORCE
(March 2007)Which finds itself in a new fight for new aircraft, this time for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Yet the Air Force shows no sign of considering the compromise that might help it win the...
TO DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES
(March 2007)For his intellectual assessment of the war in Iraq that underscores the subtleties and complexities of this war. Describing it as four wars, Gates said: “One is Shi’a on...
To the congressional democrats
(February 2007)For threatening to derail the president’s new Iraq plan before it has been given a chance to succeed.
To the British government
(February 2007)For its scandalous decision to drop the corruption probe into the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
To President Bush
(February 2007)For his choice of Adm. William “Fox” Fallon and Gen. David Petraeus as key new commanders to carry out the new Iraq plan.
TO BROADCASTER AND AUTHOR BILL MOYERS
(January 2007)For his lecture on the “Meaning of Freedom” at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Moyers’ impressive speech, both thought-provoking and deeply moving, deserves...
TO THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP FOR GETTING LOST IN
(January 2007)Iraq and coming out pointing fingers at our Israel-Palestinian policy. According to the report, the U.S. cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the...
TO MILITARY ANALYSTS AND AUTHORS MAX BOOT AND MICHAEL O’HANLON
(December 2006)For proposing granting U.S. citizenship to foreign nationals in exchange for four years of U.S. military service. Boot and O’Hanlon are respected authors and analysts; they have...
TO OUTGOING DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD
(December 2006)Sure, Rummy’s reign will forever be controversial, but let’s not forget his achievements. He strove to overhaul the Pentagon; to shift military thinking from Cold War to new...
TO REP. JOHN MURTHA, D-PA., AND SENS. JOSEPH BIDEN, D-DEL., AND CARL LEVIN, D-MICH.
(December 2006)For their post-election rallying calls to quit Iraq. Murtha followed up on his anti-Iraq war rhetoric from last year with renewed insistence that most U.S. troops should be brought home as...
TO MEMBERS OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
(December 2006)For lending their voices to the growing chorus eager to lay blame for the violence in Iraq on the Iraqi people. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee’s new chairman, told the...
To the Iraq Study Group,
(November 2006)for further fanning the fire over whether to quit Iraq. The panel, led by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, let it be known publicly in October that it was considering two options...
To new British Army chief Gen. Richard Dannatt,
(November 2006)who in an interview with a British tabloid said that U.K. troops should withdraw from Iraq “soon” and their presence “exacerbates the security problems” in the...
TO NATO MEMBER COUNTRIES
(October 2006)For their empty response to Washington’s call for more troops in Afghanistan. An urgent meeting at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels attempted to drum up 2,500 extra troops in...
TO THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
(October 2006)For dissolving its Office of Force Transformation. OFT’s lofty and sometimes intangible mission certainly had its critics and naysayers. But the vision it was charged with creating and...
TO SENS. JOHN WARNER, JOHN McCAIN AND LINDSAY GRAHAM
(October 2006)For crafting a thoughtful alternative bill to the White House plan for new legislation on how to treat and prosecute terror suspects.
To Britain’s Labour Party
(September 2006)Which is beside itself because the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair — a Labour member himself, lest we forget — is permitting the U.S. to resupply the Israel Defense...
To Leslie Gelb
(September 2006)Former head of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Sen. Joseph Biden, for continuing to promote the idea of partitioning Iraq. The two advanced the notion in a May newspaper column, but...
To Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England
(September 2006)For helping to advance the process of clarifying U.S. law regarding those detained in the global war on terrorism. To be sure, the Bush administration has been slow to engage with Congress...
To William Marshall
(August 2006)Of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Marshall wrote an op-ed in the July 5 Washington Post complaining about “weapons in space.” Not only was his timing poor —...
To the U.S. Supreme Court
(August 2006)For its ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, limiting presidential powers to place detainees at the Guantanamo facility before military tribunals. The central issue in the matter is not the...
To the Supreme Court
(August 2006)For its decision in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case. As correct as the court was to limit executive “emergency” powers as a matter of U.S. law, its introduction of Article 3 of the...
To the Bush administration
(July 2006)For nominating Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes for a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. In his Pentagon post, Haynes has been one of the principal architects of...
To the U.S. Senate
(July 2006)For insisting that funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and other requirements of the Long War be included in normal budgets rather than through “emergency” supplemental appropriations....
To Colleen Graffy
(July 2006)Deputy assistant secretary of state for “public diplomacy” — we are not making this up — for characterizing what might be described as the “assisted...
To the Bush administration
(June 2006)For nominating Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to replace former congressman Porter Goss as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden is undoubtedly a superb officer and manager, but...
To Zalmay Khalilzad
(June 2006)The indefatigable U.S. ambassador to Iraq — and, lest we forget, previously envoy to Afghanistan — for helping engineer a government of “national unity” in Baghdad...
To Kristian Gustafson
(June 2006)A “senior lecturer” at the Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, England, for getting his Franks crossed. In a piece titled “General Botched Both...
To the editors of Military Review
(May 2006)MR, the professional journal published by the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., puts the lie to the accusation that military professional journals are simply house...
To Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
(May 2006)For suggesting that what had gone wrong in Iraq was an accumulation of “tactical mistakes” rather than more strategic errors. While it was clear the Rice meant to assert that the...
To the midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy
(May 2006)Who are moving to the sound of the guns. Over the past three years, the number of Annapolis graduates who choose to serve in the Marine Corps has exceeded the number of available slots;...
To U.S. Central Command
(May 2006)Which does its best to obfuscate the purpose of what we call “the long war.” The fight, the command insists in recent briefings, is an ideological struggle against “Al...
To President Bush
(April 2006)The courtship of India was begun by President Clinton, but the Bush Administration has brought what is potentially the most important strategic partnership of the coming century to the point...
To President Bush
(April 2006)What AFJ giveth, AFJ taketh away. The arrogance of the administration, a disdain for the duties of democracy that begins with the president and is often magnified by his senior lieutenants,...
To Adm. William Fallon, chief of U.S. Pacific Command.
(April 2006)As alert readers will recall, we darted Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace last month for his giddy optimism about U.S.-China relations. This month’s Pace Dart goes...
(March 2006)To Gen. Peter PaceChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who apparently did not read the Quadrennial Defense Review’s rather blunt assessment’s of Chinese military power and...
(March 2006)To Zhongguo Guofang BaoThat’s the Chinese military’s newspaper — which apparently can better understand the QDR than Pace. Noting that the review describes China as the...
To Ryan Henry
(March 2006)Deputy undersecretary of defense and principal QDR point man, one last QDR-related bolt. Proving that the Pentagon’s leadership is still stuck in the transformational past, pre-Sept....
To the Windsor, Conn., Democratic Town Committee
(March 2006)For its 34-2 vote of “no confidence” in Connecticut’s Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman for his support of the war in Iraq, and in the Middle East more broadly. Referring to...
To Ambassador L. Paul Bremer
(February 2006)the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, for publishing the first serious memoir by a senior official involved in making Iraq policy. Ironically, Bremer’s ghost...
To the Dutch
(February 2006)For alliance solidarity. AFJ understands that NATO is supposed to be a big, happy and victorious family in Afghanistan, but sometimes the truth intrudes. The Dutch, for example, are...
To the U.S. Army
(February 2006)For not being “an institution at war.” Our reporting here is anecdotal, to be sure, but the pile of war stories is immense from soldiers and commanders deployed to Iraq and...
To President Bush
(January 2006)The series of four speeches he made, along with the release of the National Security Council “Victory Strategy,” may or may not achieve the immediate goal of pumping up his poll...
To Sen. Joseph Lieberman
(January 2006)For his courage — and possible political suicide — in following his conscience in regard to Iraq. Like McCain, Lieberman has, when necessary, been a severe critic of the...
To Sen. John McCain
(December 2005)Even before the president spoke out, the senator from Arizona helped to slow the rush of public opinion toward retreat from Iraq. Whatever effect the senator’s speeches and press...
To the Bush administration
(December 2005)For — whoops! — losing a senior al-Qaida operative, who apparently broke out of Bagram prison in Afghanistan this summer. The escape of Omar al-Farouq, one of Osama bin...
To Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
(December 2005)For speaking out clearly — if quietly — on detainee policy. Speaking several weeks ago at West Point, retiring Justice O’Connor allowed that the Geneva Conventions might...
To Sens. James Talent and Joseph Lieberman
(December 2005)For adding an amendment to the defense authorization bill recommending that the Air Force purchase additional C-17 cargo aircraft. The C-17 buy has been artificially capped at 180 aircraft...
To the Taiwanese legislature’s defense committee
(December 2005)For voting down funds to purchase Patriot PAC-III missile defense systems and P-3C Orion submarine-hunting aircraft. The Legislative Yuan, controlled by Taiwan’s long-time ruling party...
To Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
(November 2005)For his legislation demanding that the Army’s field manual on prisoner treatment be used as the Defense Department standard. In the wake of scandals at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere...
To Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska., and the Bush administration
(November 2005)For opposing the McCain amendment on the grounds that it limits the executive branch’s ability to fight the war as it sees fit. In fact, the legislation is a proper exercise of...
To the U.S. intelligence community
(November 2005)Yes, you heard us right, the intelligence community — for intercepting the letter from Osama bin Laden’s lieutenant and top strategist, Ayman al Zawahiri, to Abu Musab al...
To the U.S. intelligence community,
(November 2005)for ignoring the Senate and leaving the CIA with the sole responsibility for directing spies. Given the agency’s miserable track record with human intelligence — the failure to...
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Mine blindness
Posted 7/2/2008 by Administrator
Posted 7/2/2008 by Administrator
An irregular challenge
Posted 7/2/2008 by Administrator
Posted 7/2/2008 by Administrator