Free Republic

Last January 2013, then Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the feasibility of opening all military jobs to women by 2016. This would include more than 200,000 jobs that make up the core of the ground-level combat force in the Army and the Marine Corps. Opponents of women in combat argue, rightly in my opinion, that the military's physical standards must not be compromised to expand access because our military's fighting effectiveness is at stake. Hauling 50 pounds of equipment while walking 20 miles is a standard that must not be demoted as it...

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard J. Durbin vowed Monday to keep fighting to give green cards to some illegal immigrants who serve in the U.S. military, according to a report. “If you are willing to sign up in our military and risk your life for America, you should be given that opportunity,” Mr. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, proclaimed at a Senate Appropriation Committee field hearing in Chicago. Senate Democrats are debating whether to add the measure, known as the ENLIST Act, to the annual defense authorization act. The ENLIST Act would enable young illegal immigrants who entered the United States before...

“Actions speak louder than words,” people used to say. But that’s so 20th century. The modern American ethos seems to value how you feel far more than what you do. Last month, almost 300 girls were kidnapped in Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram. Its leader insists they’ll be sold into slavery; some may have been already. Western leaders have left no doubt they feel bad about all this. Michelle Obama’s pouty-faced photo on Twitter went viral. She’s holding a hand-lettered sign: “#BringBackOurGirls.” British Prime Minister David Cameron also held such a sign on the BBC. Yet the Western...

In an article published in the London Review of Books, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Seymour Hersh (of My Lai and, more recently, Abu Ghraib fame), explains recent two foreign policy mysteries to American readers. The piece, The Red Line and the Rat Line is based on interviews with intelligence sources and consultants, and it connects the dots between between these two mysteries, and explains how they are related. What emerges is a clear picture of American cooperation, at the highest levels, with Turkey and Qatar, the foremost sponsors of the Arab Spring (see links). For example, NATO, as of December,...

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. Its conclusion: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it, but we can still fix it if we decide to work together. But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars. That finding was highlighted in last week's premiere of Showtime's climate change docu-drama...

Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine. That was the word from Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday. Siemoniak said the decision has been made on a political level and that military planners are working out details. There will also be intensified cooperation in air defense, special forces, cyberdefense and other areas. Poland will play...

Mao Zedong said of the United States, “In appearance it is very powerful, but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of; it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe that is nothing but a paper tiger.” Osama bin Laden said, “We have religion, we have Islam. The American soldier may have the best weapons in the world, but on the inside, he is spiritually empty – a paper tiger.” Both were wrong. Mao found out by being held in check, and bin Laden...

Robert Farley, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, wants to ground the U.S. Air Force, for good. In his book, Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the US Air Force, Farley argues the United States does not need an independent Air Force in order to effectively wield military air power. Farley, an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, came to his conclusion after studying the conflict between the Army and the Air Force over which military branch was primarily responsible for winning the first Gulf War. “I slowly became more aware that these...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In his final address to Afghanistan's parliament Saturday, President Hamid Karzai told the United States its soldiers can leave

Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented. Things have gotten so bad that a number of retired generals are publicly speaking out about the “purge” of the U.S. military that they believe is taking place. As you will see below, dozens of highly decorated military leaders have been dismissed from their positions over the past few years. So why is this happening? When I was growing up, my father was an officer in the U.S. Navy. And what is going on...

(CNSNews.com) – The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force seized on an advocacy group's report on transgender military service Thursday to call on President Barack Obama to issue an executive order allowing transgender men and women to serve in the military. “We commend the commission for stating independently what we all know: there is no compelling medical reason to exclude trans people from serving their country, and transitions would place almost no burden on the military,” Rea Carey, executive director of the task force, said in a press release . “The President should sign an executive order to lift the...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Former Marine Corps. Lt. Col. Oliver North said Friday that Ukraine is paying the price for America’s lack of leadership under President Barack Obama. “The people of Ukraine are at this very minute paying the terrible price for America’s leadership deficit disorder and the Obama organization’s utopian rush to unilateral disarmament,” North said at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference held outside Washington, D.C. He continued, ramping up his criticism of President Obama’s approach to national defense and foreign policy. “We don’t need a head of state who guts our defenses and draws phony red lines...

Washington (AFP) - The United States plans to expand military cooperation with Poland and Baltic states to show "support" for its allies after Russia's intervention in Ukraine, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said Wednesday.

Troops based at the Kadena Air Base in Japan know how to party. On Saturday, six gay and straight service members applied some of their finest makeup and lip synced to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" in what is believed to be first drag queen and king show on an American military base. The show was thrown in support for the base's recently formed OutServe-SLDN chapter, a nonprofit advocacy group for the army's LGBT community.

It happens after every war. America disarms. And so invites the next attack, and next war. The same haphazard pattern is emerging now -- even before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over, much as this administration pretends they are in order to cut the defense budget. On both those fronts, the enemy is rushing to fill the vacuum left by the American withdrawal. This country's retreat has allowed al-Qaida, its branches and assorted allies and successors, whether the Taliban in Afghanistan or freelance terrorists in Iraq, to advance. At this rate, it may be only a matter of...

George Bush Honors "The One Percent" Who Keep America Safe

There must be something in the water at NBC News. From out of left-field Wednesday, NBC's senior political director Mark Murray compared the story of wounded war hero Cory Remsburg to Barack Obama's own story. Twelve hours earlier, MSNBC's newest anchor, Ronan Farrow, used Remsburg's wounds to make what is apparently a joke about Congress: After the highly-publicized and embarrassing staff problems NBC and MSNBC recently faced with Melissa Harris-Perry, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Bashir, whoever is in charge over there might want to fire off a memo explaining to its on-air talent just how inappropriate it is to use...

The Pentagon on Wednesday relaxed its rules governing the religious apparel and facial hair that troops can wear or maintain while in uniform, permitting in some cases tattoos, body piercings and other religious items. The Defense Department issued the changes via a directive Wednesday afternoon. As part of the military's changing approach to making religious accommodations, the new policy will allow service members to sport different kinds of religious garb and hairstyles so long as they don't have an "adverse effect on military readiness, mission accomplishment, unit cohesion, and good order and discipline." The changes create several new categories, besides...

Adam Banotai was a 21-year-old sergeant and squad leader in the Marine Corps during the 2004 invasion of Falluja, a restive insurgent-held city in Iraq. His unit — which had seven of 17 men wounded by shrapnel or bullets in the first days of the invasion — seized control of the government center early in the campaign. So when Sunni insurgents, some with allegiances to Al Qaeda, retook the city this month and raised their black insurgent flag over buildings where he and his men fought, he was transfixed, disbelieving and appalled.

Full title: DOD Will Review Training Materials That List Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as ‘Religious Extremism’ (CNSNews.com) – The Department of Defense will review its military training materials following a coalition of religious liberty advocates expressing outrage in a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Christianity is described in the materials as “religious extremism” based, in part, on categorization provided to the government by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The letter, signed by a large coalition that includes the Family Research Council, American Values, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty (CARL), Judicial Watch and the Media Research Center – the...