Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
Obama’s Nuclear Policy, Something For The ‘Left & Right’ (Los Angeles Times)
President Obama and his senior aides introduced a new nuclear weapons policy Tuesday with the promise that America would no longer build new nuclear weapons.
“No new testing, no new warheads,” Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged in a Pentagon briefing.
Yet officials said later that the policy could allow [...]
Young War Veterans Returning Home To Unemployment (Yahoo! News)
The unemployment rate last year for young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans hit 21.1 percent, the Labor Department said Friday, reflecting a tough obstacle combat veterans face as they make the transition home from war.
The number was well above the 16.6 percent jobless rate for non-veterans of the same ages, 18 to 24.
As of last year, [...]
Gates And Obama Suggest Early ‘Troop Withdrawal’ From Afghanistan A Possibility (AP/Yahoo)
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the possibility Wednesday that some of the U.S. forces involved in the Afghanistan surge could leave the country before President Barack Obama’s announced July 2011 date to begin withdrawal.
Without giving specifics, Gates said, “It would have to be conditions-based.”
Gates made the remarks during a visit to a dust-blown training [...]
Timetable for U.S. Troop Withdrawal on Track, Obama Says, After Iraqis Vote (CSNnews.com)
The timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq remains on course, President Obama said Sunday as he hailed the country’s national election as a “milestone.”
“We will continue with the responsible removal of the United States forces from Iraq,” he said at the White House, confirming that “by the end of the next year, all U.S. [...]
THE POWER OF DEMOCRACY: Iraqis Flock To Polls, Despite Violence Leaving 25 Dead (Wall Street Journal)
Despite a spasm of violence early Sunday, Iraqis flocked to polling stations in what appeared to be large numbers, marking the country’s first parliamentary polls since 2005.
Polls were scheduled to close at 5 p.m. local time (9 a.m. Eastern time), but some voting stations accommodated crowds lined up after closing time. Iraq’s high electoral commission [...]
TERROR UPDATE: Al-Qaida Calls On US Muslims To Attack America (Associated Press)
CAIRO — Al-Qaida’s American-born spokesman on Sunday called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood.
In a 25-minute video posted on militant Web sites, Adam Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other [...]
WAR UPDATE: U.S. Death Toll in Afghanistan Hits 1,000 (Yahoo! News & AFP)
KABUL (AFP) – A bomb strapped to a bicycle exploded near a busy bus terminal in Afghanistan, killing eight people Tuesday as the death toll of US troops in the Afghan war surpassed the grim milestone of 1,000.
The attack took place in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province where a massive US-led military offensive [...]
AFGHANISTAN WAR UPDATE: Prize on the Battlefields of Marja May Be Momentum (The New York Times)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Any historian, or any general, would tell you the same: Lose the initiative on the battlefield, and it’s awfully hard to get it back.
In the Korean War, for instance, the Americans lost the initiative in the beginning, took it back with a dramatic and daring operation, and then lost it again, finally [...]
Alexander M. Haig Jr. Dies at 85, Military Hero, Commanding White House Aide (New York Times)
Alexander M. Haig Jr., the four-star general who served as a confrontational secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan and a commanding White House chief of staff as the Nixon administration crumbled, died Saturday at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to a hospital spokesman. He was 85.
Mr. Haig was a rare American breed: [...]
WAR UPDATE: In Blow to Taliban, 2 More Senior Leaders Are Arrested (New York Times)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two senior Taliban leaders have been arrested in recent days inside Pakistan, officials said Thursday, as American and Pakistani intelligence agents continued to press their offensive against the group’s leadership after the capture of the insurgency’s military commander last month.
Afghan officials said the Taliban’s “shadow governors” for two provinces in northern [...]
