This editorial will appear in tomorrow’s print edition.

From our corner of the United States, the reach of 9/11 can be measured quite literally – in miles.

Washington lies 2,400 miles from New York City. But television and the Internet annihilated that distance on the day of the attack.

Like people in New Jersey or Connecticut – or London or Tokyo – Washingtonians watched in mounting horror as jetliners were deliberately flown into the twin towers. We saw the New Yorkers jumping to their deaths, the skyscrapers collapsing, the desperate survivors fleeing floods of billowing ash down city streets.

Later, the pathos of countless photographs posted on walls, pleading for news of missing loved ones. Funerals with empty caskets. Thousands of children who’d lost parents. Immense ruins burning apocalyptically for months.

After the attacks came 7,000 more miles – the distance between Washington state and Afghanistan.
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I am not often surprised at what appears on the opinion pages (especially since I read the pieces before they appear), but today’s column on war and peace by Eugene Robinson almost took my breath away.

Robinson complains at length about America’s continuing war in Afghanistan without once mentioning the name of the man who is prosecuting that war – Barack Obama.

Obama at some point deserves responsibility for the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan; I mean, we’re fast approaching the fourth year of his presidency. Robinson somehow neglects to note that Obama stepped up America’s involvement there.

Robinson’s …

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This editorial will appear in Thursday’s print edition.

This is all you need to know to understand why a Joint Base Lewis-McChord Ranger and Steilacoom resident was awarded the nation’s highest military honor Tuesday:

Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Arthur Petry already had been shot in both legs when grenades came at him and fellow soldiers during a firefight in Afghanistan four years ago. He grabbed one of the grenades, and in getting rid of it, his hand was blown off. Then Petry applied a tourniquet to his own arm – and kept fighting, barking out orders to help his unit prevail.

After all that, Petry could have been excused for leaving the Army, for saying he’d sacrificed enough for his country. Instead, the husband and father of four stayed in – and even returned to Afghanistan for another tour of duty. Today, he’s back at JBLM helping other soldiers wounded in war. Read more »

This editorial appears in Wednesday’s print edition.

The Cold War ended in 1980s after leaders of the Soviet Union realized they weren’t buying more security with unsustainable military spending – just more antagonism abroad and poverty at home.

The United States isn’t in the same hole, but a growing number of defense advocates – people who genuinely care about the nation’s military strength – are recognizing that something’s got to give.

Foremost among them is Robert Gates, who’s stepping down this week as secretary of defense. Serving under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Gates has skillfully outmaneuvered Pentagon power blocs to kill or curb immensely expensive weapons programs – the F-22 Raptor, example – designed to fight large conventional wars.
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This editorial will appear in tomorrow’s print edition.

The prosecution of war crimes at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Afghanistan promises to become one of the Army’s most honorable episodes – if it focuses as much attention on commanders as it has on enlisted soldiers.

The trials and hearings at Joint Base Lewis-McChord have revealed an attitude of intolerance of atrocities and criminal behavior that might have been dismissed as the cost of doing business in previous wars. Last week’s sentencing of one defendant, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, shows how tough the Army has gotten.

Morlock pleaded guilty to three counts …

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The more details emerge in the ongoing courtmartial at JBLM, the more I am reminded of the epic Vietnam movie, “Platoon.”

Hate to get all literary now, but these allegations of murder and dismemberment in Afghanistan and Iraq follow a distinctly familiar script:

Westerner ventures into backward land on civilizing mission (or profiteering mission – take your pick). Westerner progressively loses moral compass. Corrupted by power and dark impulses, Westerner winds up more savage than natives.

The book is Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” Or if you prefer the cinematic version, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” Or any number of real-world clashes between predatory European colonial powers and dark-skinned people.

The Taliban-enabled 9/11 attacks being still vivid in my mind, …

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Concern about the war in Afghanistan isn’t news, but it’s noteworthy coming from U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks. A major power in Congress, Dicks is one of the nation’s chief makers of defense policy and has a strong grip on the military’s purse strings.

As chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, he’s well briefed on the war and visited Afghanistan twice this year.

Visiting us today, he described the war as “a big question mark” – tougher than Iraq, in part because “79 percent of the people are illiterate,” heroin production is widespread and “corruption keeps getting worse.”

“There’s …

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