The President, Gay Rights and Defense

Last week, Joe Biden, with the irrepressibility and impulsivity that mark the behavior of both adolescents and older people, announced his support for same-gender marriage. Barack Obama, who would have preferred to keep his views to himself for a wh …

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Today and Tomorrow in Afghanistan

In one respect, the president's visit to Afghanistan was a surprise: few people knew about it, and even those who did know kept their mouths shut. But from every other angle of analysis, it was a set-piece exercise, planned long in advance and rehearsed with care.  …

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Women at War

Last week, General James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, issued an order that makes available to women a number of occupational specialties previously open only to men. Although this is supposed to be an experiment and designed merely to inform the Comma …

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Lack of leadership to blame for soldiers' bad behavior

Those who have been in combat will testify to the catastrophic insults to the body that modern weapons can inflict. War is horrifying, and nothing can prepare the novice for the destruction that it can cause. Nor do we easily get used to the images of it, and they stay with us fo …

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If Not China, Who?

Symbolism is important to all societies, but it seems that the more restrictive the society the more important symbolism becomes, and so it's not surprising that North Korea is awash in it. Scheduled on roughly the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the country's founder and the  …

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Military Free Speech

Last week, a Marine Administrative Separation Board decided unanimously that Sergeant Gary Stein be discharged from the military service, under other than honorable circumstances, for making statements on Facebook that were critical of President Obama. Next Friday  …

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Obama's Pyrrhic Victory

Last week saw one the most fascinating Supreme Court hearings in a long time, three days of free-wheeling political theater masquerading as an appellate proceeding. As is often the case in this narrowly divided Court, the decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Prot …

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Hiring veterans isn't charity

News Commentary When World War II ended, millions of Americans came home and went straight into college or work, thus spawning the biggest economic boom in American history. Now, with an accelerated withdrawal in Afghanistan likely and the certainty of about $500 billion in mili …

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Plenty Of Reasons, But No Excuses

At the moment, we know only that a 38-year-old US Army Staff Sergeant left his post and shot to death sixteen civilians in Afghanistan, nine of them children, and surrendered soon after the incident. Others were wounded and may not survive. The sergeant's …

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The Holder Doctrine

About a week ago, in a speech at Northwestern University's law school, Attorney General Eric Holder argued the merits of the president's decision to order the killing of terrorists such as Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaeda regional commander hiding in Yemen. B …

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Burning Books

The accidental burning of Korans gave the Taliban an opportunity to inflame Afghan enmity, and it resulted in violence and death. The incident came on the heels of similar embarrassments, such as the Marine sniper team's urinating on the bodies of dead Ta …

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Lies and Damned Lies

To Mark Twain may go the honor of being the most perceptive person in the English language.

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Cause and Effect

Direct TV is running a silly but otherwise effective TV ad campaign whose tagline is "Get rid of cable."** Each commercial features a cascade of what would otherwise be independent events, humorously suggesting that bad things happen to people who subscribe to …

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Den of Thieves

The Washington Post is in the enviable but also complicated position of being at the nexus of political activity. It relies on information from people inside the government, but it is still a newspaper, and it can't risk becoming just an irrelevant cheerleader.

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Loose Lips Sink Ships

A few days ago, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was quoted as saying that he hoped that, by the middle of next year, US forces would be through with their combat role in Afghanistan.

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Presidential Follies

Someone looking for the first time at American electoral politics, particularly at the race for the Republican nomination for president,** must be confused and not a little disappointed. Anticipating intellectual rigor, he gets ad hominem castigation instead.

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Afghanistan the Intractable

It is convenient to dismiss the deaths of allied troops at the hands of Taliban infiltrators by asserting that danger comes with the territory, that the profession of arms is always risky business, that losses are regrettable but inevitable.

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Along the Backstretch: It's Iran by a Length

Not long ago, huge numbers of Iranians were in the streets in protest, and prominent Americans were hailing this as a new revolution, this time by moderates rather than by radicals.

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Rumsfeld Redux

President Obama's speech at the Pentagon on 5 January marked the most acute public turn in American military strategy since the end of our involvement in Vietnam, and perhaps even since 1945. In multicolored resplendence and standing at attention behind t …

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2012

Our calendar is a vestige of Roman and papal edicts, but its roots are in pagan fears and festivals, descriptions of phenomena we didn't understand.

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Manning, The (Only) Accused

A very public session of what is usually a closed event ended this week: the Article 32 hearing of Private Bradley Manning, accused of---among other things---stealing classified information. It seemed very much like a typical and unrealistic TV court …

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Groundhog Day

Deja vu:      --Recently, NBC News received a prestigious Murrow Award for a Nightly News segment called "The Long Way Out." In it, Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel rode with the last American combat troops to leave Iraq, in a convoy headed  …

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Trump

Donald Trump is many things. He is an adroit businessman who has managed to make money less by owning much real property but instead by something far less capital-intensive, by franchising his name.

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Euromess

In the period just before the creation of the unified Euro, my bank made substantial profits by capturing interest-rate differentials among European currencies, borrowing strong Duetschemark and Swiss Franc and then lending high-yielding currencies.

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Getting Out

Already badly frayed, the relations between the United States and Pakistan were not improved by the report that two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed by a NATO airstrike.

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Recent Votes

  • The President, Gay Rights and Defense

    Last week, Joe Biden, with the irrepressibility and impulsivity that mark the behavior of both adolescents and older people, announced his support for same-gender marriage. Barack Obama, who would have preferred to keep his views to himself for a wh …

  • Today and Tomorrow in Afghanistan

    In one respect, the president's visit to Afghanistan was a surprise: few people knew about it, and even those who did know kept their mouths shut. But from every other angle of analysis, it was a set-piece exercise, planned long in advance and rehearsed with care.  …

  • Women at War

    Last week, General James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, issued an order that makes available to women a number of occupational specialties previously open only to men. Although this is supposed to be an experiment and designed merely to inform the Comma …

  • Lack of leadership to blame for soldiers' bad behavior

    Those who have been in combat will testify to the catastrophic insults to the body that modern weapons can inflict. War is horrifying, and nothing can prepare the novice for the destruction that it can cause. Nor do we easily get used to the images of it, and they stay with us fo …

  • If Not China, Who?

    Symbolism is important to all societies, but it seems that the more restrictive the society the more important symbolism becomes, and so it's not surprising that North Korea is awash in it. Scheduled on roughly the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the country's founder and the  …

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Col. Jack Jacobs

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Articles Posted: 200
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Member Since: 5/2008Last Seen: 5/18/2012

Jacobs retired from the Army in 1987 and subsequently was a managing director of Banker's Trust and of Lehman Brothers. He serves on a number of chari …

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