It’s Not About The Video By Ross Douthat

New York Times September 16, 2012 Pg. SR12 DeM Banter:  could not agree more...it could not be more NOT about the video...was WWI really about Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria?  "Study history , study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft." - Winston Churchill THE greatest mistake to be made right now, with our embassies under assault and crowds chanting anti-American …

U.S. Compound In Libya Was ‘Too Far Outside The Wire’ It’s time to drop the rhetoric, defend our interests By Col. Ken Allard

DeM Banter: more to ponder on a Saturday AM....love the quote "wishful thinking and political correctness sometimes trump tough lessons suggested by hard strategic choices and realpolitik." would have to offer...strategic choices do require something of a strategy...not just existing. Washington Times September 13, 2012 Pg. B4 Who is to blame when embassies are overrun …

In Violence Over Anti-Muslim Video, A New World Disorder By Nathan Gardels

DeM Banter: great thought piece...if you agree or not, it should cause you to ponder what this will look like in 6 months, a year...5 years...??? Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com) September 14, 2012 Welcome to our new world, where no one is in control – neither the West of its social media nor Arab rulers …

Calls For Phantom Defense Cuts Must Stop By Mackenzie Eaglen

View original Battleland (Time.com) September 13, 2012 Battleland: Where military intelligence is not a contradiction in terms Fiscal restraint is en vogue and increasingly the cover many are using to push other agendas. Republicans spent a week in Tampa monitoring America’s mounting national debt at their recent convention. Democrats included a call for “tough” spending …

The Air Up There How Sec. Michael Donley sees sequestration and the future of aerial warfare. By John Reed

DeM Banter: anything new here? ForeignPolicy.com September 12, 2012 FP National Security Foreign Policy sat down on Sept. 12 with Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, who took office four years ago after his predecessor, Michael Wynne, was fired over the service's mishandling of nuclear weapons. Donley took over an Air Force that then-Defense Secretary Robert …

ROTC Returns To Harvard By Jennifer Levitz

DeM Banter: USAF PA just might be missing the show... Wall Street Journal September 11, 2012 Pg. 3 Armed Services Training Is Back After Exiting Some Schools Over Vietnam War BOSTON—At colleges and universities across the country, Reserve Officers' Training Corps battalions often are seen doing drills on campus. But there was nothing routine about …

U.S. Attack On Iran Would Take Hundreds Of Planes, Ships, And Missiles By Noah Shachtman

Danger Room (Wired.com) September 7, 2012 Should the U.S. actually take Benjamin Netanyahu's advice and attack Iran, don't expect a few sorties flown by a couple of fighter jocks. Setting back Iran's nuclear efforts will need to be an all-out effort, with squadrons of bombers and fighter jets, teams of commandos, rings of interceptor missiles …

How Resilient Is Post-9/11 America? By Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt

DeM Banter:  There is so much more going on here...Schmitt starts off and it looks like we are going somewhere and we stop.  So... I can only imagine this is to push or tease their new book,  “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda.”  If not...I am stuck thinking... and... why... …

Geography Strikes Back by Robert D. Kaplan

DeM Banter: how soon we forget or think we have stepped beyond history...only to be yanked right back into it... Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft. Winston Churchill Wall Street Journal September 8, 2012 Pg. C1 The Saturday Essay To understand today's global conflicts, forget economics and technology and …