President Barack Obama recently signed into law the 2010 military budget,
saying that it takes the "necessary steps toward reshaping priorities
of America's defense establishment and changing the way the Pentagon
does business."
We've all seen the dismal reports of this recession in the papers. We all probably know someone who's personally felt its effects. Job losses in September
reached 263,000, the worst in 26 years, and the real economy shows few signs of a near recovery.
Duelling was once regarded as an entirely appropriate way for two gentlemen to resolve a dispute.
Today, a gentleman challenging another to a duel would be regarded as peculiar. Duels have become obsolete in the civilized world.
Could war also become an outdated method of conflict resolution – particularly as we enter an era of intensified global conflict over dwindling resources?
And then along
comes one of those stories that makes you cringe down to your very
core, that makes you see our semi-fine nation and the world around it
through a bleak and unforgiving lens indeed. No matter how hard you try
and how you spin the story and flip it around and try to forcibly shape
it into something less slightly nauseating, all you can do is realize
that sometimes ugliness and violence win the day, the year, the planet.
I have a few confessions to make: After almost eight years of
off-and-on war in Afghanistan and after more than six years of mayhem
and death since "Mission Accomplished"
was declared in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I'm tired of seeing
simpleminded magnetic ribbons on vehicles telling me, a 20-year
military veteran, to support or pray for our troops. As a Christian, I
find it presumptuous to see ribbons shaped like fish, with an American
flag as a tail, informing me that God blesses our troops.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment
of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber
as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over
perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.
The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP,
which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried
bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs.
An awareness of how a range of global
developments is threatening the livelihoods of many millions of the world's
citizens in the early 21st century is sharpening. The realities of climate
change and environmental destruction, widening socio-economic inequality, wars and conflicts, and unsustainable
transport and business models are among these developments.
Is there a difference between covert propaganda and secretive campaigns to shape public opinion on controversial issues? The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) apparently thinks that there is.
I’ll believe it when it finally happens.
But the news that Congress might actually stop production of a
high-tech, job-generating and, most of all, high-profit weapons system
because it fills no legitimate national security function is a
considerable victory for President Barack Obama and Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates, as well as for logic.
The
phrase "Obama has a lot on his plate" is the understatement of the
year. The president has a to-do list a mile long, and every day a new
crisis (like the coup in Honduras) gets added to the list. Can we really fault him if he sneaks the occasional smoke?
