Word: aircraft
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...very serious, long-term, systemic problems," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week. Budget shortfalls - only five of the 28 members are meeting the alliance's goal of spending 2% of their GDP on defense - are hurting the war effort. The resulting dearth of helicopters, cargo planes and spy aircraft is "directly impacting operations in Afghanistan," Gates said...
...some effect. There have been 17 strikes by unmanned aircraft in Pakistani territory thus far this year, according to the Long War Journal, a nonprofit online publication that tracks such attacks. The spike was triggered in part by a Dec. 30 suicide attack that killed seven CIA officials at an Afghan outpost. The Haqqani network and Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud apparently aided the suicide bomber; some reports say Mehsud was wounded, possibly killed, in a Jan. 14 strike. Meanwhile, the remote-control pilots operating Predators and Reapers continue to peer at their video screens, hoping to catch sight...
...passed on GPS coordinates of the bases used by the Pakistani Taliban - extremist tribesmen who see Islamabad as their enemy No. 1, not the NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan - so that the Pakistani military under General Khan can hammer them with artillery or aircraft strikes. These sources say that several dozen American "trainers" are passing on intelligence on the Pakistani Taliban that was gleaned from the eye-in-the-sky drones...
...past, during warmer times between the two nations. Part of Beijing's restraint this week may be due to the fact that the meeting came during the Chinese New Year, the country's biggest holiday, when most officials are on leave. But after China allowed a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to visit Hong Kong this week, China is sending signals that it doesn't want ties to decline too sharply. (See pictures of the Dalai Lama's six decades of spiritual leadership...
Smaller government is a venerable American philosophy - though one not always consistent with the public's passion for Medicare, farm subsidies, mortgage deductions, aircraft carriers and name-your-favorite-cut-of-pork. And calling forth the spirit of America's tea-dumping colonists in Boston has never been easier than it is now. One irony for Obama is that the Tea Party movement is using his own organizing techniques against him: Meetup.com announcements, Twitter tweets, viral videos, e-mail trees and all the other innovations falling under the politically potent umbrella known as social networking. Indeed, in the online...