Guest column

Take vets out of education funding formula

In true Washington style, there’s an ironic twist shaping up in the debate about higher education quality, value and accountability — one in which veterans are being used, under the guise of consumer protection, as weapons to attack privately owned colleges and schools.

Guest Column

CDC presented a false portrait of sexual violence

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a study suggesting that rates of sexual violence in the United States are comparable to those in the war-stricken Congo. How is that possible?

Opinion

Military needs to invest in troops, not tech

President Barack Obama’s new defense strategy champions the same arguments military downsizers have invoked since 1991: The United States must invest in technology and disinvest in active-duty military personnel. The plan unveiled Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is based on two such tenets: It must “protect key investments in the technologically advanced capabilities most needed for the future … [and] no longer size active forces to conduct large and protracted stability operations while retaining the expertise of a decade of war.” The budget thus eliminates 92,000 soldiers and Marines on the premise that future wars will require new weapons systems but not large numbers of troops. Should America need more troops, this thinking holds, it will be easy enough to find them. Technology takes longer to develop and field.

Opinion

How a 42-second video made the war tougher

"In March I returned from Afghanistan’s Helmand province after handing about 12 square miles of villages and farmlands to the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, the unit that is allegedly responsible for recording a video of Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban insurgents. The actions of these few Marines have rightfully garnered widespread disdain, but for me the affront is personal. In a 42-second video, these Marines undid everything that my unit spent seven months working to accomplish."

JBLM has problems, but it's hardly 'on the brink' of disaster

Is Joint Base Lewis-McChord "on the brink," as claimed in a Los Angeles Times article and headline Monday? (The brink of what is never spelled out, but it's safe to assume that it's not "on the brink of something good.")