The fighting is growing more intense as Israel has started their ground offensive. And if Israel doesn’t realize that they’ve overreached here and are losing sympathy around the world, then they better wake up and realize it soon. You can’t kill this many women and children and not get a ton of backlash. From CNN: [...]

He had the type of access to Bush that journalists would kill for and it resulted in a bunch of books about his Presidency that weren’t necessarily flattering. Still, that doesn’t mean Bush’s presidency will be a failure… Personally, I don’t think Iraqi democratization will ultimately turn out the way Bush and company said it [...]

A new report from the Senate Armed Services Committee places significant blame for abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay on former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld The report’s executive summary, made public by the committee’s Democratic chairman Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and its top Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said Rumsfeld contributed [...]

Why? Because it’s still a mess… BAGHDAD – For the past two weeks I’ve been embedded with the United States Army in Baghdad, and I find myself unable to figure out what to make of this place. Baghdad, despite the remarkable success of the surge, is as mind-bogglingly run-down and dysfunctional as ever, even compared [...]

I think this will be as close as he gets to actually saying, “Okay, you know what…I screwed it up.” First, he admits he wasn’t prepared for war… Looking back on his eight years in the White House, President George W. Bush pinpointed incorrect intelligence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction [...]

Amid the turkey and stuffing, I neglected to update everybody on this good news… In a vote heralded by supporters as a momentous step toward restoring Iraqi sovereignty, lawmakers here passed a crucial bill Thursday, setting out a three-year timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi soil. The bill passed after months of [...]

Keep in mind that the following is coming from a critic of the Georgian administration, but he was an insider and he also went before his own government to give his assessment of the situation. From BBC: Erosi Kitsmarishvili, a former envoy to Russia, was testifying at a parliamentary commission hearing into the war the [...]

This had been the rumor for awhile. Now, it’s apparently close to being official. Robert Gates will stay on as Defense Secretary in Barack Obama’s administration. Reports are Gates will stay for at least a year. Well, Obama promised to have some Republicans in his administration. This certainly counts. And it’s a good move because [...]

According to current reports, this could be Barack Obama’s national security/foreign affairs team: Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano National Security Advisor: Gen. Jim Jones, a retired 4-star Marine Corps general who actually supported John McCain but is considered pragmatic and very [...]

With the current financial crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t been leading many news stories. But those conflicts are still going on and, just as importantly, the effects of those wars are still being felt by the soldiers who fought them. Whatever you think of the policies behind our current wars, I think it’s always important [...]

To those who made it home, and to those who didn’t: thank you for being there.

And no, it wasn’t a mistake. From AP: DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) – U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as “serious aggression.” A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted [...]

I found this Hardball segment to be enlightening given the fact that Bush won a second term and the very likely possibility that a relatively unknown politician will be elected less than a month from now. Thoughts?

Listen to McCain’s answer to Couric’s question about forgetting how many homes he owns… Frankly, I don’t think McCain does himself any favors by continuing this POW talk. Because it makes it sounds like it was one of his life’s greatest achievements and that he hasn’t moved on since then. And he is right when [...]

There is a reported deal on the table that would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2012 with troops out of cities and towns by June 30, 2009. Both nations still have to approve the deal and there will be written-in wiggle room to allow Americans to stay longer at Iraqi request, but it [...]

With a start date of June 30, 2009 no less! From AP: The negotiations over a withdrawal timetable follow long insistence by President Bush that setting any schedule for U.S. troops to leave would be dangerous. The draft agreement with Iraq would link troop reductions to achievement of certain security milestones, although the details have [...]

This from Telegraph… Mr Saakashvilli may also have banked on support from his closest ally, US president George W Bush, whose administration is said to have given tacit support for a Georgian assault on South Ossetia in the believe that the territory could be recaptured within 48 hours. Obviously this is unconfirmed, but it would [...]

Today he asked the following… When the “civilized world” expostulated with Russia about Georgia in 1924, the Soviet regime was still weak. In Germany, Hitler was in jail. Only 16 years later, Britain stood virtually alone against a Nazi-Soviet axis. Is it not true today, as it was in the 1920s and ’30s, that delay [...]

For those who, like me, are looking for a more comprehensive but still layman-oriented analysis of the Russian/Georgian military conflict, check out Charles King’s article in the Christian Science Monitor. Basically, we’re witnessing two nations making very poor decisions. I think King hits on the raw truth of this conflict when he writes: Russia illegally [...]

How’re you feeling? If you’re a little down, you’re not alone. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp Poll shows the nation’s outlook at an historical low. Only 24% have a positive outlook for the country. Meanwhile, the percentage with a negative outlook has risen from 51% in April 2007 to 70% now. Since 1974, the positive [...]