At 12:01am, the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was formally repealed. Gays and lesbians can now serve freely in the US Armed Forces. The official notice from the US Army was released last night, in a completely understated document. “The law is repealed,” says the letter from Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, Secretary [...]

Say what you will about President Obama’s Afghanistan withdrawal plan, and I have. But it does appear clear that he stretched beyond the willingness of the generals. Although Mike Mullen has been outwardly supportive of the approach, he also called it “risky,” saying that the withdrawal was more aggressive than he considered prudent. He calls [...]

The Obama Administration is floating a steeper drawdown in Afghanistan than they contemplated in previous weeks, due to new “strategic considerations.” While they call the considerations the war’s cost and the killing of Osama bin Laden, the fact that 204 House members just voted for a quicker pullout, and the fact that there’s an election [...]

Here’s an unusually bold statement from Robert Gates: WASHINGTON – “Somebody” in Pakistan knew Osama bin Laden was hiding there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday. But he said he’s seen evidence that the country’s senior leadership was unaware the terror leader was in a compound a short distance from a Pakistani military facility. “I [...]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced at a Pentagon briefing that President Obama has authorized the use of armed Predator drones over Libya. The unmanned planes have been used extensively in the Afghanistan and Pakistan missions, among other places. In fact, an amendment to the latest FAA Authorization bill, if passed by Congress, would allow for [...]

Bloomberg has a list of names in the mix for succeeding Robert Gates at the Defense Department. Incidentally, the new Secretary of Defense could be the first Democrat at the position since William Perry left in 1997. So who are we looking at? Obama administration officials are considering Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta, Democratic [...]

I don’t think there’s a bigger campaign promise that Barack Obama made than getting troops out of Iraq. His opposition to the war is the reason he won the nomination; I don’t even think that’s a controversial statement. And of the many advances he’s touted in his first week as a candidate for re-election, there [...]

Robert Gates and Mike Mullen’s hearings yesterday in front of Congress sometimes bordered on the bizarre. Gates said that perhaps the Libyan rebels should be armed, but that other countries should do it rather than the United States. Mullen said that, contrary to hopes, Col. Gadhafi was nowhere near on the verge of being deposed [...]

The debate over whether to arm rebels in Libya still rages, although given that we have CIA operatives on the ground coordinating airstrikes and a secret finding authorizing the President to provide covert support, including arms shipments, it seems like something of a red herring. But for what it’s worth, it’s incredibly unpopular. We knew [...]

A spokesman for rebel forces in Libya claims that they have captured Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte, the gateway to Western Libya, currently the stronghold for government forces. (A note on spelling: Earlier I labeled this city as “Surt.” To best give English equivalents of Libyan words, I find you just have to pick a [...]

Faced with large protests across the country, Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters today in several cities. Soldiers shot at demonstrators in the restive southern city of Daraa after crowds set fire to a bronze statue of the country’s late president, Hafez Assad, a resident told The Associated Press. Heavy gunfire could be heard [...]