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Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived late Monday in Afghanistan with plans to assure officials and American troops there that the United States is committed to winning the war despite plans to begin pulling forces out in 2011. "We are in this thing to win," Gates told reporters while traveling to Kabul, where he plans to meet privately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and later with troops bearing the brunt of combat. ...

SIXTY-EIGHT years ago tomorrow, Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. In the brutal Pacific war that would follow, millions of soldiers and civilians were killed. My father — one of the famous flag raisers on Iwo Jima — was among the young men who went off to the Pacific to fight for his country. So the war naturally fascinated me. But I always wondered, why did we fight in the Pacific? Yes, there was Pearl Harbor, but why did the Japanese attack us in the first place? ... The one who had the greater effect on Japan’s...

Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet Consider the blow suffered by the liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, who issued a plaintive plea to the president on the eve of his announcement that he was sending 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. By escalating the war, Moore wrote: "[Y]ou will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your...

Bill Ayers, former terrorist and alleged long time friend of President Barack Obama, took issue with the President’s decision to deploy more troops to fight in Afghanistan. “I feel betrayed,” wailed a disconsolate Ayers. “I poured my heart and soul into electing this man. I thought we agreed that the real enemy was right here in America. This is where the capitalist exploiters are. Sending troops to foreign lands diverts our energy from the real mission.” Ayers hinted that “the President’s betrayal of the progressive agenda could turn out as badly for him as JFK’s attacks against the progressive regime...

Jordan has sent several hundred troops from its special operations forces to help the Saudi military with its many Shi'ite units contain the Yemeni Shi'ite rebellion, which has spread deep into the Arab kingdom.

Gordon Brown rejects early withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan...

German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test like the one that brought the world down on North Korea's head earlier this year.

Miss. Survivor Of Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton Dies At 82 Pitchford Survived 7 Years In Prison Camp UPDATED: 3:48 pm CST December 3, 2009 JACKSON, Miss. -- Retired Air Force Col. Jack Pitchford, a fighter pilot from Mississippi who survived seven years in the Vietnamese prison camp known as the Hanoi Hilton, has died. He was 82. The Natchez, Miss., native was shot down in 1965 and taken to the Hoa Lo prison, a hellish place where Americans, including famous veterans like U.S. Sen. John McCain, were tortured. Pitchford was released in 1973. His brother said Pitchford died Wednesday after battling...

First of all, I want it to be known I support the President's decision to send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. I also favor his reasons for doing so, denying al-Qaida a safe haven, reverse the Taliban's momentum, strengthen the capacity of the Afghan security forces and government and securing key population centers. What I don't support is the issuing of a time line on withdrawing the troops and trying to deflect blame to the Bush Administration as the reason for escalating the conflict. This is your war now Mr.President, your generals and your plans. This new strategy comes on...

WWII Fighter Plane Returns to Land A World War II fighter plane that crashed into an icy Lake Michigan during a training flight almost 65 years ago was brought to the surface Monday. please watch video at link 'I remember it like it was yesterday': WWII fighter pilot's Hellcat is pulled out of Lake Michigan 65 years after he crash landed Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1232327/I-remember-like-yesterday-WWII-fighter-pilots-Hellcat-pulled-Lake-Michigan-65-years-crash-landed.html#ixzz0Ya9UisLi

Less than two kilometres away from the last village on India’s western border, Pakistan is building what is ostensibly a railway station with China’s help.

Chris Matthews, a person who nobody ever thought provided any journalistic integrity, just sank the network to a whole new low. Chris Matthews was caught, and when I say caught I mean he was on his own show, saying that the cadets at West Point were Obama’s Enemies.

Despite the shrill public discussion of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, the most important front of the war in South Asia continues to be Pakistan, which the world's most dangerous jihadists call home. On this issue, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that U.S. President Barack Obama's private deliberations on strategy have focused on Pakistan, coupling offers of increased military and economic assistance with warnings that Islamabad must abandon its habit of supporting Islamist proxy forces. The bad news is that al Qaeda's radical pan-Islamic ideology is infecting militants long-supported by the Pakistani...

France and Germany marshaled 3.7 million soldiers for the Western offensives that began World War I in August 1914—with Britain adding an additional 130,000. In the decisive days between Sept. 5 and Sept. 11, the two sides threw two million men into desperate combat along the Marne River, the right tributary of Paris's famed Seine. More than 610,000 men were killed and wounded during the month-long campaign—two-thirds the number of casualties suffered by the U.S. in the whole of World War II. But such numbers do little to bring home the ordeal. To reach the Marne, Alexander von Kluck's First...

Click here to find out more! Top of the Ticket Politics and commentary, coast to coast, from the Los Angeles Times « Previous Post | Top of the Ticket Home | Next Post » Obama's revealing Afghanistan war speech: 4,582 words and not one of them was 'victory' December 2, 2009 | 3:08 am Democrat president Barack Obama waves to the crowd of Army cadets before his speech on Afghanistan at West Point 12-1-09 President Obama spoke 4,582 words in his primetime Afghanistan war speech at West Point last night. He said "al Qaeda" 22 times. He mentioned the "Taliban"...

British troops in Iraq had to let attackers go free British troops in Iraq had to let 40 armed men who had just ambushed them “walk away” under “constraining” and “frustrating” rules of engagement, papers leaked to The Daily Telegraph show.   Andrew Gilligan Published: 8:00AM GMT 24 Nov 2009 British soldiers take up positions as they guard outside the presidential palace during a handover ceremony in Basra in 2007 Photo: REUTERS Despite fighting “the most sustained conflict since the Korean War”, the rules left troops with one hand tied behind their backs, the secret documents said. Ministers refused to...

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught. One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received. Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool. One didn't have to...

President and Commander In Chief Barrack Obama was at West Point tonight to announce his plans for continuing the war in Afghanistan. Finally, in what was over three months after General McChrystal had asked for an additional forty thousand troops, a request that included the warning that without these troops the war may be lost, in another narcissistic, uninspiring and consistently contradictory speech Obama gave the Nation his answer. While leaving out the fact that Obama has been insisting for the last two years during his campaign that Afghanistan is a war that must be won, he shamelessly explained why...

President Obama announced Tuesday that he would speed 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in coming months, but he vowed to start bringing American forces home in the middle of 2011...

Over the past few weeks, a number of local columnists (such as my colleague, David Rosman, and the editor of the Columbia Tribune, Hank Waters) have posted columns defending or praising the administration’s decision to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others in a New York civilian court while trying the remaining terrorists by the military tribunal structured by Congress and the Supreme Court for that very purpose. The only area in which I find agreement is that it can be done.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday night did not always match the reality on the ground in Afghanistan. The president raised expectations that may be hard to meet when he told Americans his troop increase in Afghanistan will accelerate the training of that country's own forces and be accompanied by more help from allies. A look at some of his claims and how they compare with the facts:

thought with this administration we were going to get our coalition partners to be on equal footing with us? Officials in Brussels says Obama will be asking Nato allies to provide up to 10,000 extra troops. Asking? How about a demand… and if you don’t we pull out and you all can fight this stinking war yourselves! The US currently has 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, with foreign forces overall totalling more than 100,000. The additional American soldiers are expected to focus on tackling the Taliban in volatile southern and eastern Afghanistan. A senior Pentagon official said the new troops will...

President Obama will hold a news conference Tuesday to announce his decision on Afghanistan. That will be a full 90 days after the general of his own choosing demanded 40,000 troops be sent to Afghanistan for the safety of the soldiers there now. By sending more troops, the President will fulfill a promise he repeated many times during the campaign. For example, July 20, 2008 he said that Afghanistan’s situation was “urgent” and that he would immediately send at least 30,000 troops “immediately” if he could. (see post.) No matter which way the President turns, this war is trouble for...

If this is what she thought was a stupid idea when Bush was the president, I wonder what she will say about Obama tomorrow night when he explains why he is sending 35,000 of out men and women into Afghanistan? Will she come out now and embrace the same strategy that Bush used to win the war in Iraq or will she condemn it like she did on this video? Will she stand up for her own beliefs or tow the party line and go with the President? Will she flip flop now because her party holds the executive office,...

Maybe it's just me, but why is Pres Obama going to give a huge speech tomorrow outlining our future military plans? What's the point? Did FDR go on the radio in Decemeber of 1943 to announce our upcoming invasion of Normandy and where the various units would land? Of course not! In fact, we actually engaged in quite the extensive campaign of misinformantion and deception. Did Truman announce we'd be landing at Inchon? Did Bush 41 announce the left hook? But all the reports out say Obama is going to discuss what units our going, where they'll be going, when...

Sen. Levin said on Face the Nation today that he doesn't support a tax for Afghan War....

The ditherer-in-chief will finally announce to our military and the rest of the world his decision regarding General McChrystal's request for additional troops in Afghanistan this Tuesday. After months of keeping the fine men and women serving our country twisting in the wind, Barack Obama has at last made up his mind. It is estimated that he will elect to give McChrystal roughly 30,000 to 35,000 of the 40,000 troops McChrystal requested. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan had warned in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needed more forces within the next year and...

Veterans of Iraq recall rolling to war along asphalted highways, sweltering in flat scrublands and chatting with city-wise university graduates connected to the wider world. Now fighting in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers invariably encounter illiterate farmers who may never have talked to an American as they slog into remote villages on dirt tracks through bitterly cold, snow-streaked mountains. "Before deploying here we were given training on language, culture, everything. I thought that since I was an Iraq combat veteran, I didn't need any of that stuff. I was wrong. Both countries may be Muslim but this is a totally different place,"...

Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan. After almost three months of agonising, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000,...

Growing military ties between China and Pakistan are a serious concern to India, Defense Minister A.K. Antony said on Friday, in the latest display of a prickly rivalry between New Delhi and its neighbors.

The invasion of Iraq was legal but of "questionable legitimacy" because the US and UK had failed to persuade other countries of the need for war, the then-British ambassador to the UN told the Chilcot inquiry today. Sir Jeremy Greenstock said: "I regard our participation in the military action in Iraq in March 2003 as legal but of questionable legitimacy in that it did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of [UN] member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the UK." Earlier, Greenstock told the inquiry that he had threatened to resign...

Two senior officials from the White House, Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader, made a trip to China on a "special mission" to garner support in Beijing over the Iranian nuclear program, according to a Thursday report in The Washington Post. The officials visited China two weeks before US President Barack Obama arrived in Beijing. The officials reportedly carried the message that if China would not support the US on the issue, Israel would be likely to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. The paper quoted the officials as saying that Israel saw the issue as "an existential issue," and that "countries that...

On August 19, coordinated explosions rocked downtown Baghdad, resulting in over 120 deaths. Similarly, in the midst of heightened security measures, twin bombings on October 25 killed over 155 people in Baghdad, marking the deadliest attack since August 2007. Involving the participation of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the operations suggest militants’ effectiveness in carrying out coordinated and high-profile attacks on supposedly secured targets. With the gradual disengagement of the U.S. military and all combat forces by August 2010, AQI and like-minded insurgents appear to have a growing level of confidence in their operations.

Whether you like history or not... These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. Probably a million wet plate photos were made during the civil war on glass plate. Popular during the war, they lost their appeal afterwards and so many were sold for the glass.

Expected troop expansion prompts call for income surtax...

WW II Battleship sailor tells Obama to shape up or ship out ! This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body, he has never spoken out before about a government official, until now. He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president. Dear President Obama, My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first...

President Barack Obama has settled on a new course for the eight-year war in Afghanistan that he said Tuesday will “finish the job” and that he will announce to Americans after Thanksgiving. “After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job,” Obama said at a news conference following his meeting with the prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh. “And I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're...

”I have chosen to speak because to look on us as husband and wife was an understatement. He said we were a unit. ”In my eyes my husband, my son’s father, was a warrior. Warrior are unique; our protectors, not destroyers. "Oz and troops like him join to serve traditional warrior values; to passionately protect the country they love, its ideals, and especially their families, communities and each other.

John Gebhardt's wife, Mindy, said that this little girl's entire family was executed. The insurgents intended to execute the little girl also, and shot her in the head, but they failed to kill her. She was cared for in John's hospital and is healing up, but continues to cry and moan. The nurses said John is the only one who seems to calm her down, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both slept in that chair. The girl is coming along with her healing. He is a real Star of the war, and represents...

President Obama has decided that he isn't going to make a decision on sending troops to Afghanistan until after Thanksgiving.

Support for the war in Afghanistan has ebbed to a new low...

Well, now we know why Obama doesn't use the term "war on terror" anymore - he doesn't consider terrorism an act of war. Instead, he has taken us back to the days of Bill Clinton, when terrorist acts were treated like a "crime." In a story reported in The Weekly Standard , Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich) is accusing the Obama administration of ordering the F.B.I. to read Miranda rights to detainees being held at U.S. military facilities in Afghanistan. This is creating a great deal of damage on the battlefield, not to mention how it is affecting the security of...

For the Pentagon, to hitch a free ride off of the video game industry is actually quite savvy. Gaming companies have spent tens of millions of dollars developing technologies designed to re-create battle, as well as easy for the average teen to use. More importantly, these teens enter the military already "trained up" in a certain way. I recall meeting a commander of a Predator drone squadron, a former F-15 pilot, who described the younger generation of remote drone pilots with awe. They had less training and experience than him, but he felt their years of video gaming had made...

This war is a new kind of war. It is different from all other wars of the past, not only in its methods and weapons but also in its geography. It is warfare in terms of every continent, every island, every sea, every air-lane in the world.That is the reason why I have asked you to take out and spread before you (the) a map of the whole earth, and to follow with me in the references which I shall make to the world-encircling battle lines of this war. Many questions will, I fear, remain unanswered tonight, but I know...

Would The U.S. Start A War To Stimulate The Economy? Politics / US Politics Nov 16, 2009 - 08:08 AM By: Washingtons_Blog I've written two essays attempting to disprove "military Keynesianism" - the idea that military spending is the best stimulus. See this and this. In response, a reader challenged me to prove that anyone would advocate military spending or war as a fiscal stimulus. In fact, the concept of military Keynesianism is so widespread that there are some half million web pages discussing the topic. And many leading economists and political pundits sing its praises. For example, Martin Feldstein...

There is a division of the house. On one side are the politically correct in government, the leftist mainstream media, and a raft of Islamist apologists. One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us that the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and suicide bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do.

In light of the Holder KSM move. You know showing the world how wonderful this administration is and how this administration uses due process. I was wondering why Obama/Holder thinks that the bombing of a sovereign country (Pakistan) is ok? What legal right does he think we are legally operating under? Or for that matter why the Attorney General doesn't shut this down. Shouldn't we be using diplomtic due process with Pakistan instead of this cowboy diplomacy? It seems to me if you were the uber-liberal your head would be exploding over this. I think it's probably the correct thing...

Leavenworth — Editor’s note: Reporter Mark Boyle takes us behind the scenes of news stories in the area. This week, he catches up with members of the U.S. Army in charge of evaluating and testing the military’s latest equipment. Protecting our soldiers is the top priority for the U.S. government, and it has developed a way to do just that through military robots. Reporter Mark Boyle controls the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, or SUGV, military robot at Fort Leavenworth during a military modernization exercise. WALL-E, meet SUGV. The character in the Pixar animated film of 2008 has a real-life counterpart,...

This is a video of Obama campaigning in 2007 saying he promised that he would bring the troops back home, if not before he got into office, at least as soon as he did-- "AND YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK." -I love that line... hee hee

CHRISTIANS ALERT MORE TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND byPaul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org War is looming in the Middle East.But the cause, according to Arab experts, will be neither the creation of a Palestinian state nor the emergence of a nuclear Iran.It will arise from the shortage of water.The region's worsening water situation, exasperated by global warming and burgeoning populations, already has created civil unrest which, experts fear, will ignite into armed conflicts - - including a clash between Israel with neighboring Lebanon and Egypt. Jordanian political science professor Ghazi al-Rababah says that Israel will be the first to...