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theatlantic:

Why Do We Care What Obama Thinks About Gay Marriage?

President Obama can order the assassination of an American citizen but he cannot order the performance of a same-sex marriage. The problem isn’t his lack of power in the second case but his appropriation of power in the first. Yet his equivocation about marriage may matter in November at least a little; stating a position for or against it could matter a lot; his assassination authority will likely matter not at all.  

Make war, not love. The targeted assassination of citizens merely suspected of terrorism enjoys popular support (a 79 percent approval rating), while same sex marriage passionately divides us, generating heated controversies that the president hesitates to touch. It’s an ugly portrait of post-9/11 America: More people are concerned with restricting their neighbor’s right to marry than the president’s power to kill. 

It’s no wonder his position on marriage is “evolving;” so is the position of the public. Besides, if Obama declared for or against gay marriage, his declaration would have symbolic, not legal value. His administration has already exercised the primary legal power it possesses in this debate by declining to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition and federal benefits to same sex couples married under state law. DOMA is now subject to a strong 14th Amendment challenge involving a defense of states’ rights, not an invocation of federal, much less presidential, power.

Read more. [Image: Reuters]

thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

• A policy shift for the US over drone strikes launched against Al Qaeda in Yemen now allows the military to fire without knowing the identities of those who could be killed.
• An explosion in the Syrian city of Hama killed 70. BBC’s Jim Muir reports that the explosion could not have been achieved through conventional shelling.
• An inside look at the Free Syrian Army shows committed revolutionary fighters intent on fighting on.
• US and Afghan officials reached an agreement on a pact affirming US withdrawal in 2014 and economic commitment through 2024.
• Over the weekend, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was denied entry to Afghanistan by Karzai. Here is his account of the matter.
• Pakistan announced that it successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile on Wednesday.
• A US envoy is currently in Pakistan to address the issue of re-opening NATO supply routes.
• I wrote a piece for The Risky Shift about ongoing violence in Karachi.
• A new paper out by Chatham House argues that if Egypt fails to fix its economy it could face a second coming of the revolution. 
• Sudan continues air strikes on South Sudan.
• Former Liberian president Charles Taylor was convicted of eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the role he played in Sierra Leone’s insurgency in the 1990s. Here’s the judgment summary.
• The UK has announced reforms to the European Court of Human Rights.
• The US has agreed to reduce the size of its forces in Okinawa.
• As a result of reporting done by Spencer Ackerman for Wired, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey has ordered a full investigation to scour anti-Islamic sentiment from military training. 
• A new report by the GAO says that the Pentagon squanders millions of dollars in poorly thought-out weapons buys because of a strategy called concurrency. Concurrency is the practice of putting a weapon on the final production line before full testing.
• An inspector general’s report out on Monday declared that the VA overstates how quickly it provides veterans with mental health care. A hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs saw a lot of challenges to the VA’s current culture that “give[s] more importance to meeting meaningless performance goals than helping veterans.”
• The Army is, meanwhile, encouraging new ways of diagnosing and treating PTSD in ways that try to accommodate for the ways in which soldiers tend to speak of their symptoms.
• The Army is increasing oversight at now-infamous Joint Base Lewis-McChord by moving division headquarters there.
• The Marines are taking steps to move women into ground combat units at the battalion level and have opened up infantry officer school to female students, although women still are barred from infantry service. The message sent by Marine commandant Gen. James Amos says that information about mixed gender units and female combat service taken from these steps will impact “future recommendations regarding the potential assignment of women to ground combat element units.” 
• The Pentagon has asked Congress to make improvements to benefits for federal civilian employees working overseas in combat zones.
• A new Pentagon spy agency has been established: the Defense Clandestine Service.
• An interview with Sebastian Junger about Tim Hetherington (who was killed with Chris Hondros in Misrata a year ago last Friday) and his new organization, Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) to offer freelance journos with emergency medical training.
• Karley Marquet and Annie Kendzior have both filed suit against former defense sec’y Gates, the former superintendents of West Point and Annapolis, and the current secretaries of the Army and Navy for ignoring and failing to act on the pervasive sexual harassment in the nation’s top military training schools.
• A student veterans group has revoked the charters of 26 for-profit schools for misrepresenting themselves to boost a military friendly image. You should all watch this PBS Frontline piece about for-profit schools shamelessly taking advantage of returning veterans.

Photo: A soldier in the 82nd Airborne directs his rifle at the doorway after coming under fire. Zharay District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Baz Ratner/Reuters.