I live to remember. I have not forgotten that America is still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, that our finest citizens have volunteered to put themselves in harm's way in the name of freedom. The media overall have done a grave disservice to our warriors and their families, who have been asked to sacrifice so much. The war is now barely covered by the media.
Now that Marcus Luttrell's book "Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10" is a national bestseller, maybe Americans are ready to start discussing the core issue his story brings to light: the inverted morality, even insanity, of the American military's rules of engagement (ROE).
For the first time during 110th Congress, the Blue Dog Coalition — a 47-member grouping of self-described moderate and conservative Democrats — defied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership on a critical national security issue: Saturday night's vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), where 41 dissident Democrats, nearly all of them Blue Dogs, provided the margin of victory for President Bush on the issue of terrorist surveillance. Thanks to the Blue Dogs, the administration's commonsense proposal to clarify that FISA permits U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor telephone calls made by foreign terrorist suspects outside the United States without first obtaining a warrant was approved by a 227-183 margin.
The exiled president of Iran's largest Kurdish opposition group appealed for U.S. political and military support for its campaign to topple Iran's Islamic regime and create a new democratic, federal government in Tehran.
The tale of Dieter Dengler, a German-born U.S. Navy pilot who miraculously escaped a Laotian POW camp, may sound like just another war story to some people.
Today, lets look at military technology and the Persian Gulf. The column's subtitle might be, "Little fast stuff versus big strong stuff." There is talk that President Bush may order naval forces in the Gulf to attack Iran. What would happen if he did?
Putting aside the dismal state of the conservative movement's influence on the current political class, including far too many Republicans, and what must be done to remedy it, one hopes so-called swing voters are paying attention to the leftward lunging of all Democratic presidential candidates.
