It’s been more than two decades since the Tailhook scandal exposed the crisis of sexual assault in the military. But despite endless vows of “Zero Tolerance,” the realities of military culture and an obsolete disciplinary system continue to allow rapists to flourish with little threat of ever facing consequences. The Pentagon recently released its annual […]

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How is it that the GOP, which virtually defines itself by its bitter opposition to the “Nanny state,” is working so assiduously to create a Mommy State? How is it that the same people who believe that state-subsidized health care is the essence of tyranny, and who deplore poor people for their disinclination to make […]

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 The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of U.S. Africa Command’s big success stories. The Gulf… of Guinea. Never mind that most Americans couldn’t find it on a map and haven’t heard of the nations on its shores like Gabon, Benin, and Togo. Never mind that just five days before I […]

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It’s not that Americans shouldn’t be concerned about the National Security Agency.But the fact is we’ve known that we must have more oversight of federal security operations. In fact, the first major call for oversight of federal intelligence programs was a report by the Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson in 1956. So oversight is long […]

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President Barack Obama’s decision to provide military aid to the Syrian opposition is incredible. The U.S. is barely out of Iraq. It’s still bogged down in Afghanistan. Obama insists on keeping the Iran war option “on the table.” Yet suddenly we are taking sides in a civil war in Syria. The most amazing thing is […]

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