Military

Aboard the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan: The Navy Grapples with Japan’s Disaster

Lieutenant Junior Grade James Powell tells me to hold my hands out in front of my waist and waves a detector a few inches above them. “So where are you from?” he asks casually. Eyeing the digital numbers flickering on the counter, I answer. He tells me to turn around and lift my left foot so he can scan the sole of my sneaker for …

Rattled, U.S. Military Families Get Ready to Leave Japan

It was an offer Chiharu Marsh couldn’t refuse. Just eight weeks pregnant, the 28-year-old from Yokosuka had two days to decide whether to take the U.S. military up on its offer to fly her to America for a month, or to stay in Japan with her family and friends. As the wife of a U.S. service member at the Misawa Air Base, Marsh is one of …

Stability at What Price? Why Bahrain Needs Reforms Too

It’s the question that always makes me cringe. “Where are you from?” asks the taxi driver/shopkeeper/doorman/interviewee. I don’t lie, but in Pakistan or the Middle East I know that answering “American” can sometimes be met with a fusillade of angry observations about the evils of America’s foreign policy. Until recently, …

What Lies Beneath: Bahrain’s “New Citizens” Fuel Unrest

If you want to know more about one of the fundamental issues at the center of Bahrain’s protest movement, it might be worth taking a look at some of the Pakistani newspapers. Today’s Tribune is running a story about a recruitment drive in Pakistan for Bahrain’s security forces. To be sure, there is nothing new about how the Gulf …

France Recognizes Libyan Opposition Government

Props to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for becoming the first international leader to recognize the opposition battling Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi as the rightful representatives of their country. But should it have taken this long for someone to make such a no-brainer decision? And what’s taking Sarkozy’s peers so long in …

Echoes of Spain in Libya’s Civil War?

Addressing the rag-tag citizens’ army on the barricades of Madrid in 1936 preparing to face the fascist army massed to storm the city, Dolores Ibarruri — the revolutionary better known as La Pasionaria — laid out the creed of those who would give their lives to defend Spanish democracy: “It is better to die on our feet than to live on …

Why Asia’s Men in Green are Celebrating

It’s budget time in Asia, and the men in uniform (along with their numerous plainclothes colleagues) must be thrilled. In China, where the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress (NPC) has gathered for its annual confab in Beijing, the military was gifted a 12.7% increase in spending, bringing its yearly coffers to $91.5 billion. …

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