Ed Ross

The ongoing controversy over whether or not Muslims should build a mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan fits conveniently into a false narrative — perpetuated by biased reporting and misinformation — that confrontation, not dialogue and cooperation, is the hallmark of America’s relationship with Muslim Americans and the Islamic world. It also exposes the fallacy that political correctness and pandering to Muslims are the best way to build bridges to them. (more)

Secretary Robert Gates wants to make sweeping budget cuts in overhead at the Department of Defense (DOD). For starters, he has proposed eliminating Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) in Norfolk, Virginia, a 10 percent cut in contractors, the reduction of at least 50 generals and admirals, and the elimination of 150 Senior Executive Service (SES) civilians. I applaud Gates for his initiative. Not only will it save money for the needed modernization of weapons and equipment necessary to maintain our military capabilities, but it will make the DOD more efficient and effective. (more)

The visit Sunday to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, cruising off coast of Vietnam, by high-ranking Vietnamese military and government officials was not a big story in the United States. Teams of U.S. military personnel have been conducting MIA-remains-recovery operations in Vietnam for 20 years. U.S.-Vietnam relations have been steadily improving since 1995 when the two countries normalized diplomatic relations. A U.S. warship visited Ho Chi Minh City in 2003. It was, however, big news in China, especially in the news reports circulated among China’s ruling elite. (more)

As soon as Wikileaks posted the 91,000 reports they call the “Afghan War Diary” online, some people immediately compared them to the “Pentagon Papers.” Daniel Elsberg’s 1971 leak of a top-secret Vietnam War study revealed 20 years of presidential-administration deception about American involvement in Southeast Asia. The Afghan War Diary is a reprehensible and damaging revelation of secret intelligence sources and methods that places the lives of U.S. warriors and Afghani informants at greater risk, but the Afghanistan war’s “Pentagon Papers” it’s not. (more)

Things haven’t been going well for Democrats lately. President Obama’s poll numbers are tanking. They’re at risk of losing control of the House and Senate. Their policies are unpopular. And they’re so jittery that last week they threw an African-American Department of Agriculture employee, Shirley Sherrod, under the bus before they had all the facts because they’re afraid of Fox News. Some people say this is all Barack Obama’s fault. He’s too ideological, too inexperienced, and too self-centered, and he’s led the Democratic Party astray. I disagree. I think Democrats have just lost their groove. (more)

With Democrats headed for a man-made disaster in November and the Obama presidency increasingly looking like a quagmired domestic-contingency operation, speculation about Hillary Clinton running for president in 2012 is on the rise. We know Secretary Clinton has a strong desire to be the president, but will she step down as Secretary of State and challenge Barack Obama, the first African-American president and a fellow Democrat? And if she won her party’s nomination what are her prospects for winning the general election? (more)

Democrats are in for a historic defeat in November. Republicans may recapture both the House and Senate. Barack Obama may even lose the 2012 election. But before Republicans, conservatives, and Tea Party supporters draw too much encouragement from these prospects they should read "Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties" by Ruy Teixeira. The paper, put out by the Center for American Progress, the progressive think tank funded by George Soros and run by John Podesta, lays out Democrat’s current and future strategy, and it contains some sobering facts for Republicans. (more)

“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” said Captain Renault to Rick in Casablanca as a croupier hands him a pile of money. The police captain had the good sense to at least feign indignation when he found himself in an awkward situation involving illegal activity. Renault, of course, condoned the gambling by participating in it. (more)

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Since President Barack Obama took office, the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” has been in free fall. The first manifestation of this decline, shortly after the President’s inauguration, was Obama’s sudden return of the Winston Churchill bust from the Oval Office, loaned to the U.S. by the British people as a gesture of solidarity after 9/11. A series of incidents followed. Now, the British even see the Obama administration’s treatment of BP in the wake of the Gulf oil spill in this light. Rough periods in the relationship are nothing new, but this one is different and likely will prove very difficult to undo, if it isn’t already too late. (more)

China’s on-again-off-again approach to U.S-China military interaction and Beijing’s refusal to allow Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to visit China during his recent Asian trip reveals a dysfunctional military relationship that’s the result of much more than Beijing’s displeasure over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. It reflects fundamentally different national strategic objectives and the changing locus of leverage that result from China’s growing power and influence relative to the U.S. (more)

President Obama’s critics have called him many things. Now, criticizing him for his reaction to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, they’ve begun to call him “incompetent,” comparing him to Jimmy Carter. If that label sticks, the Obama presidency, like Jimmy Carter’s, is doomed. Even worse, if President Obama doesn’t act decisively and quickly to stem the tide of destruction, the oil spill will cause irreparable damage to millions of people’s lives and to the country. (more)

Forty-three Memorial Days ago—four wars ago now—I was a second lieutenant artillery observer with the 9th Infantry Division’s Mobile Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. The day I set out for that incredible combat zone five months earlier, I began a journey to an unknown destination, a place inside myself I had not yet discovered. (more)

The resignation of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Dennis Blair, is a symptom of a more serious problem within the Obama administration than the failures of the DNI. It’s a problem that won’t disappear with Blair’s departure. Fixing it requires more than appointing the right replacement. It requires a hard look at the DNI position itself and how President Obama and his White House oversee it. (more)

Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, which opened to mixed reviews in American movie theaters on May 14, is an excellent educational film for current and future conservative American politicians. It reinforces the importance of championing limited government, individual rights, and freedom over the pursuit of self interest. (more)

Every war requires a unique grand strategy, but certain strategic principles never change. They apply to all wars and are essential to victory. So why is the Obama administration deliberately avoiding the one most essential to winning the war with Islamist-Jihadism? (more)

A Vietnam veteran, on April 30, the 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, I reflected on my two tours of duty there. On May 1, “Immigration-Day,” I watched protesters on television march in opposition to Arizona’s new law on illegal immigration and the failure of the federal government to enact “comprehensive” immigration reform. They reminded me of anti-Vietnam-War protests, and got me thinking about what they have in common. (more)

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ leaked memo to National Security Advisor General James Jones (U.S.MC Ret) that said the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s continuing movement towards a nuclear weapon capability raised some eyebrows. And so it should. But neither the American people nor the White House should need a memo to alert them to this reality. As Fredrick the Great said “Negotiations without arms are like notes without instruments.” The Obama administration’s Iran policy has no melody because it has no threat of arms. (more)

On October 31, 2008, at a campaign rally at the University of Missouri, candidate Barack Obama said “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Not everyone took him literally. In the fourteen months since he became president, however, he has clearly demonstrated that is precisely what he intended to do. It’s what motivates his supporters and infuriates his opponents. It is the standard by which Americans ultimately will judge his presidency. (more)

I wasn’t going to write about President Obama’s new nuclear weapons strategy--a central tenet of which is that the U.S. would not authorize a nuclear strike against a nonnuclear country in retaliation for a chemical or biological attack if that country is in compliance with its nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). (more)