Outside the Beltway

No, I am not kidding.

Yet another example.

Trumps undercuts current messaging & brings up past military service controversies

He’s ratcheted up what Trump started but also shifted focus.

Further escalation is inevitable.

Tehran-backed forces are routinely shooting at American forces.

And some cable “news” thoughts.

Ukraine is heavily censoring foreign media.

The invasion has led to a series of proxy wars.

A lone judge has halted the military’s vaccine mandate.

Every now and again, it’s not Mitch McConnell’s fault.

A legendary journalist is gone.

The answer seems simple but it isn’t.

It’s harder than a looks, especially given the limited size of the problem.

What we have here is failure to communicate.

The aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riots runs into the First Amendment,

The Army is finally getting its World War II uniforms, one base at a time.

Trump is less popular with the troops that one might assume.

How about crowd sourcing a timeline for all of Trump’s enablers?

The crowd for DC’s fireworks celebration was small but weird.

The President is sending a terrible message.

A new report details the extent to which the eighteen-year Afghanistan War has been marked by mistakes, and lies by the government to cover-up the fact that we went to war without a clear understanding of what we were doing.

Donald Trump’s pardons of soldiers convicted of war crimes sends the wrong message to the military, to our allies, and to the world.

Against the advice of his top military advisers, President Trump has cleared three American soldiers of war crimes, sending a horrible signal to the world and to the troops in the field.

As the Turkish invasion of northern Syria continues, Donald Trump responds with basically nothing.

Just over a week after Dan Coats announced he was stepping own as Director of National Intelligence, there are more shakeups at the top of the U.S. intelligence community.

President Trump is reportedly planning to pardon several American servicemen convicted of war crimes, an action that would be an insult to everyone who has ever worn an American uniform.

The U.S. military will no longer release reports regarding the success, or failure, of the current strategy in Afghanistan.

President Trump has not surprisingly vetoed a Congressional resolution to limit American support for the Saudi war on Yemen. His defense for doing so is utterly absurd.

The Speaker says she will reject any attempt to deliver it in a “highly classified” manner.

Looking to OTB readers for insights into an argument with which I’m struggling.

Rather than pulling completely out of Syria the United States will be leaving behind a token force of about 200 troops. This is a mistake.

In a rare display of assertiveness in the foreign policy arena, the House voted yesterday to bar U.S. assistance in Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen.

The arguments against withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan are becoming weaker and weaker.

The Pentagon is being ordered to draw up plans to withdraw roughly one-half of the American forces remaining in Afghanistan. It’s about time.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has announced that the deployment of U.S. troops to the Mexican border will be extended through the end of this year.

It isn’t about foreign policy, it is about self-serving manipulation of the public.

Now that the election is over, President Trump and his sycophants in the right-wing media seem to have completely forgotten about the “invading” “caravan” of Central American asylum seekers.

As the midterm campaign draws to a close, Donald Trump is returning to the message of xenophobia and fear that dominated his Presidential campaign.

President Trump wants to send more troops than we have in Syria and Iraq combined to the border to deal with a non-existent threat.

Reports about tension between Defense Secretary James Mattis and President Trump are becoming louder, and it’s being suggested that Mattis could be out of office after the midterms.

Donald Trump’s vanity-seeking military parade has been postponed amid reports that the estimated cost has increased dramatically.

The Office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued indictments against twelve Russian intelligence officials for election-related hacking, and in the process has shown most of the arguments made by the President and his surrogates regarding the Russia investigation are nonsense.

The situation isn’t as awful as portrayed by the AP—but it’s still pretty bad.

The Vietnam memorial helped heal a gaping wound. What purpose will this one serve?

Two months ago, the President called on states to send National Guard troops to the border. As expected, they’re not guarding the border.

Once again, President Trump seems intent on insulting a major American ally.

The N.F.L. has come up with a dumb “solution” to a non-existent problem.

The Kim regime has announced the end, for now, of its nuclear and ballistic missile testing programs. To understand why they made this concession, one needs to read between the lines.

President Trump’s call for National Guard troops isn’t going over well even with Republican Governors.