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George Wilson's column | If we’re stuck with the F-35, let’s at least do it right COMMENTARY One highly regarded expert, Thomas Christie, would cancel the costly, highly troubled warplane but says that’s “not going to happen” because of politics, not military effectiveness. So with resignation, Christie urges making it less complicated, with not so much gadgetry and a lower price tag. 
Reality check | U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan are committing atrocities, lying, and getting away with it COMMENTARY The New York Times has now confirmed a gruesome cover-up by U.S. forces in Afghanistan -- a story broken by Jerome Starkey in the Times of London last month. It turns out that not only did American Special Operations soldiers slaughter three women in a nighttime raid in February -- they actually dug bullets out of the women's bodies as part of a cover-up. In an essay for Nieman Watchdog, Starkey writes that U.S. and NATO forces are rarely held to account for the atrocities they commit because most reporters are too dependent on access, security and the 'embed culture' to venture out and see what's happening for themselves.
Not to be trusted | How the FCC's exciting new broadband plan is a fraud COMMENTARY Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick writes that giant telecoms and cable companies -- and the lobbyists, think tanks and astroturf groups they fund -- have so corrupted the debate over broadband that what may look like progress actually amounts to small steps toward antiquated standards that taxpayers have already paid for many times over.
Initiatives show amazing results, but who notices? | Bill Gates wants money from Congress COMMENTARY The multi-billionaire testifies on behalf of global health spending, saying vaccines, drugs and innovative approaches are saving millions of lives. It’s a cause that’s not well understood, he says, and not very well covered.
George Wilson’s column | QDR, the Pentagon’s kabuki dance with Congress COMMENTARY QDR stands for Quadrennial Defense Review. It could also stand for Quite Disappointing Report. ‘Rebalance’ is said to be a goal but military analyst George Wilson has heard that kind of euphemism before.
Examining Congress | Filibusters and the warping of the Senate COMMENTARY| March 70, 2010 There’s a place for filibusters, Fordham political scientist Tom DeLuca says, but he holds that using them routinely to block legislation in the Senate is not only wrong, it’s unconstitutional.
Culpable Congress? | Tax favors, IBM, and the murder of Vernon Hunter COMMENTARY| March 62, 2010 David Cay Johnston examines how a 1986 tax favor for IBM led a Texas man to crash his plane into an IRS office building 24 years later. He sees an early warning sign of deep trouble in America, rooted in Congress's abuse of its power to tax.
George Wilson's column | Tell us again, please: What’s the reason we’re in Afghanistan? COMMENTARY During the Vietnam war an American army lieutenant colonel told George Wilson, ““Maybe if we can’t explain this war, we shouldn’t be here.” Wilson says that President Obama should substitute Afghanistan for Vietnam and take that message very seriously.
| Writer charges abuse of justice in the Kerik case COMMENTARY Andrew Kreig, who is forming a group to promote oversight of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, says the former New York police commissioner was a victim of overly aggressive, improper tactics.
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