Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Ashton Carter”
There is “strong” evidence that the U.S. military attack on a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan two months ago constituted a criminal act, and should be investigated as such, Human Rights Watch said Monday in a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter(pdf). “The attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz involved possible war crimes,” said the …
The New York Times reported last week that climate change is forcing environmental researchers to seek cold-water refuges for imperiled salmon. This raises an obvious question for Republican candidates in the US presidential race: how do we ensure no Muslim salmon are swimming among the pink refugees? Clearly, we need a religious test for lox. The idea is absurd, of course. Climate change …
In a scathing attack on President Barack Obama’s drone war, four former operators of the remote-controlled killing machines declared that this kind of warfare is actually fueling terrorism. Meanwhile, the soldiers who pull the triggers are cast aside when they break down under the incessant stress of long-distance killing. “This administration and its predecessors have built a drone program that …
David discusses judicial abuse of children in custody battles with the sisters Hope and Elizabeth Loudon. Just a few years ago, when they were 14 and refused to spend time with their father, they were put in handcuffs and spent several days locked in a juvenile detention facility before the judge backed down and eventually gave full custody to the mother. Many other situations do not end nearly as well. The sisters wrote an article in the Washington Post describing a situation in which three children claimed their father was abusive, but this led to them being sent to juvenile detention. An international outcry ended up changing this to a summer camp. But afterwards, rather than giving custody to the mother, even partial custody, the judge awarded full custody to the father.
If, as seems likely, President Barack Obama retains enough support to complete the nuclear deal with Iran,it will be largely because enough members of the House and Senate are persuaded by his argument that the only other real option is war. This was the rhetorical gauntlet the president threw down at his press conference last week. Equally significant, Mr. Obama omitted …
The 2016 US presidential election will be the most expensive in history, costing an estimated $10 billion, when all spending by candidates, the Democratic and Republican parties, super PACs and other corporate lobbies and trade unions is tabulated. The vast sums being raised and spent by the Democratic and Republican candidates make a mockery of the claims that the United …
Given a series of recent speeches by leading US officials and actions, the question must be frankly posed: Has Washington gone collectively looney tunes? Even as the governments of the EU are moving to buck US pressures and ease the sanctions, the Obama Administration seems intent on marching in the direction of a nuclear confrontation with Russia. As the ancient …
“Most Americans apply a yardstick to America’s actions which is very different than the yardstick they apply to Russia’s actions. Whenever their bias in favor of their own nation gets into conflict with the truth, the odds are that the bias will prevail. As a result of this they are not capable of seeing current events in their historical perspective…In …
NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels Wednesday and Thursday agreed to the enlargement of the organization’s Response Force to 40,000 troops from the current level of 13,000. On Tuesday, ahead of the meeting, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced the positioning of hundreds of American tanks, military vehicles and heavy artillery pieces in the Baltic States as well as Poland, …
“Since its founding, the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals, first on the North American continent, then in the Western hemisphere, and finally globally.” Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J.Tellis, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China, The Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, March 2015 “It is for the …
