Outside the Beltway

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is once again the law of the land.

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party aren’t as clueless as their detractors think.

Recklessness.

Tom Brokaw notices something peculiar about the campaign debates: Nobody’s talking about Iraq or Afghanistan.

Who’s to blame for the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, President Obama or those who have actually been encouraging bias against Muslims?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged in a newly released letter that the Wikileaks Afghan War document dump wasn’t as damaging as the Pentagon initially claimed. So what was the uproar all about?

A US soldier who captured a deadly 2009 rampage at Fort Hood with his cell phone camera testified Friday that he was ordered to erase the video by his commanders.

Only days after a Federal Court Judge issued an injunction preventing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy from being enforced, Obama Administration has asked for a stay and announced that it will be appealing the case.

A Federal Judge in California has struck another blow to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Now, the ball is in President Obama’s court.

It’s been a decade since al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors. The perpetrators are still at large.

General Jim Jones is stepping down as National Security Advisor.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars has endorsed Ron Klein, who never served a day in uniform, over retired LTC Allen West, a decorated veteran of several foreign wars. Is this an outrage?

The State Department’s terrorism threat warning for Europe is probably meaningless. If it isn’t, it’ll be perceived that way.

In news that will no doubt please the estimable Glenn Reynolds, DARPA has taken a big step toward the long-awaited flying car: Flying Humvees

Yesterday’s NATO Beyond Afghanistan conference was a depressing day for fans of the most successful military alliance in history.

The Obama White House is asserting that the President has the authority to issue assassination orders against American citizens, and that no Court has the authority to review his decision. If that doesn’t worry you, it should.

If the Obama Administration gets it’s way, your secure Internet communications won’t really be all that secure.

While Congress continues to refused to act, another Federal Judge has struck a blow against the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

Tracking “freedom” and American defense spending provides some interesting insights.

What’s so wrong with saying that America will survive even if al Qaeda manages to hit us again ?

According to a new book from Bob Woorward, American policy in Afghanistan is the result of a decision making process that can only be described as chaotic at best.

The effort to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell suffered a setback in the Senate today that likely delays any further moves on the issue until after the midterm elections.

A US military platoon was apparently able to target innocent Afghans for murder. Without senior commanders suspecting a thing.

The prospect of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell before the November elections is in doubt thanks to a threatened filibuster led by Arizona’s John McCain.

The Navy has fired fourteen skippers this year. Eleven of those were for personal misconduct.

Regular readers know that I’ve long thought we’ve achieved all we’re going to in Afghanistan. But that doesn’t mean that our presence is therefore motivated by secret motives.

Taking a short trip back in time via Instapundit’s archives reveals a September 11th post that turned out to be prophetic.

Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta is the first living recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War.

Ted Koppel thinks our actions since 9/11 have helped Osama bin Laden fulfill his goals. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Steve Walt, Steve Clemons, Matthew Hoh and others have released a provocative new report arguing for a change in our Afghanistan strategy.

The Obama administration has persuaded the nation’s most liberal appellate court that the executive branch’s right to secrecy trumps the rights of people claiming they were tortured by the United States Government.

Lost amidst the welcome news of British-French cooperation on military cost-sharing in some tough talk from their ministers of defense on NATO.

The plan by one fringe church in Gainesville, Florida to burn copies of the Koran on September 11th is igniting fires of protest across the Muslim world.

Will Israel attack Iran ? You’d better hope not.

Fareed Zakaria argues that the fact al Qaeda has not launched a major attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 proves we overreacted to those attacks. I beg to differ.

AP staff have been instructed “combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months.”

The United States Army has granted case-by-case exceptions to three Sikh soldiers, allowing them to serve while wearing beards and turbans.

Civilian control of the military means, oddly, that civilians control the military. And it means precisely that the military does not get to decide which civilians run the country.

The Pentagon, responding to obvious flaws in its security revealed by the WikiLeaks debacle, is working on a data mining program that will monitor employee behavior for suspicious activity.