If either of those scenarios takes place, press secretary George Little said, “we would be looking at, in all likelihood, the smallest Army and Marine Corps in decades, the smallest tactical Air Force since [the branch] was established and the smallest Navy in nearly 100 years.”

George Little

Automatic cuts to the Defense Department would take place, through the 2011 Budget Control Act’s sequestration mechanism, if the Committee members don’t offer a plan to reduce the deficit by Nov. 24. The cuts would also take place if the whole of Congress fails to adopt a plan by the Committee in December.

For the Defense Department, that means another $500 billion from defense spending over 10 years, on top of $350 billion in cuts already identified over the same period.

The department has been looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been adamant, Little said, that moving to sequestration would be a “devastating” scenario for the nation’s security.

The secretary “has reiterated time and time again that we don’t have to choose between our fiscal security and our national security,” Little said, “but if we go to sequestration, we would very well have to make that choice.

Little said that $1 trillion in cuts would make it necessary for the Pentagon to break faith in some areas — including jobs and salary benefits — with those in uniform who are serving the nation.

“In a time of war,” he said, “that’s unacceptable.”

At the Pentagon, internal analysis shows that sequestration also would have a profound impact on the U.S. industrial base, he added, by threatening many of the 3.8 million military and civilian jobs that the sector represents.

“We’re not talking about just military jobs, we’re also talking about jobs in the private sector that support the innovation and creativity and capabilities that we need to keep America strong,” he said.

Moving to sequestration and the additional budget cuts it would require, department officials believe “would potentially add 1 percent to the national unemployment rate,” Little said.

Panetta, he added, has made Congress aware of the consequences of such deep defense cuts.

“We want to make it very clear [to everyone] that sequestration is a red line that this government should not cross,” Little said.

“This fall my tour at JFCOM is complete,” he said in an e-mail to Marine Corps Times. “At this rank, my future is up to the DOD leadership/Cdr in Chief, so I’ll see what, if anything, they intend for me to do.”

Coy as it may seem, that’s the equivalent of posting his resume for the next job. And Marine Corps Times pretty clearly wants Mattis’ next job to be Commandant of the Marine Corps, as you can see from the article produced. It’s not surprising: Mattis is one of the most respected generals in the entire military; easily the most respected Marine general; a commander of Marine infantrymen in Iraq; and a counterinsurgency scholar-practitioner.

This is all via Richard Allen Smith of VetVoice, who observes, “For anyone who has an interest in COIN, this is a good thing.”

“My personal opinion is that unless we can strip away the emotion, agenda and politics and ask [whether] we somehow enhance the war-fighting of the United States Marine Corps by allowing homosexuals to openly serve, then we haven’t addressed it from the correct perspective,” Conway said.

Conway is implicitly assuming that the interests of the Corps and the interests of gays and lesbians are two different things. But there are, in fact, gay Marines. In early 2007, Gen. Conway famously sent a memo, known as the ‘Every Marine Into The Fight’ memo, to the Corps, instructing them that it was his expectation for every Marine seek a combat deployment. His testimony sends the message that some Marines are more valued than others — not for their combat prowess but for their identity. I’m having trouble finding a full transcript of the hearing, but none of the reports about it indicate that Conway made an argument for why repealing ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ would reduce combat readiness, something that has not happened in any military where open gay service is permitted, as Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, indicated to CNN earlier this week.

The late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and candidates Bill Russell and Tim Burns (house.gov, Bill Russell for Congress, Tim Burns for Congress)

In the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, Lt. Col. (ret.) Bill Russell got a taste of political superstardom. He’d been running against Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for a year, inspired by the congressman’s opposition to the Iraq War. In a bad year for Republicans, he’d struggled to get traction. And then, two weeks out of the election, Murtha told a newspaper’s editorial board that he represented a “racist area” that wouldn’t support Barack Obama for president.

Online donations flooded in to Russell’s campaign. Polls showed him on the verge of knocking out Murtha, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and one of the senior members of the House. National media trekked into the rural, southwestern 12th district of Pennsylvania looking for a ray of Republican hope. In the end, Murtha rallied and won by 16 points — his lowest margin in decades, but enough to make the Russell surge seem like a mirage.

[GOP1]On February 8, Murtha died unexpectedly, setting up a May 12 special election in his district — the only one in America that voted for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in 2004 and the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008. It’s the sort of largely white, largely pro-life, conservative area where political reporters once found ticket-splitting “Reagan Democrats,” and the sort of district that needs to flip if Republicans are to take back the House of Representatives in 2010.

But taking this seat, say Republicans, won’t be as easy as it looks on paper. Democrats interested in the race include former state Treasurer Barbara Hafer and former Lieutenant Governor Mark Singel, as well as Murtha’s plugged-in district director Mark Critz. Republicans, however, are grappling with Russell and one other candidate — elected Republicans in the district have, so far, begged off on the expensive-looking race.

Some local party leaders, who will choose the nominee on March 11 in a private vote, are looking past Russell at Tim Burns, who has more personal wealth and deeper ties to the district. Russell isn’t budging, telling TWI that he’ll wage a primary campaign for his party’s nomination — also on May 12 — even if denied the special election endorsement. Base Connect, the campaign firm that has managed Russell’s fundraising in both cycles — taking a substantial amount of it back in fees — is working to convince conservative voters across the country that denying Russell the nomination would be tantamount to a betrayal of the base.

State Republicans aren’t buying it.

“Bill has, the last time I checked, $216,000 in the bank,” Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleeson said in an interview with TWI. “You and I know that’s not a lot of money for a House race.”

Russell, in an interview with TWI, said that Gleeson had always written him off because, despite their partisan differences, he was “directly beholden financially to John Murtha” thanks to business that Gleeson does in Johnstown, the district’s biggest city and Murtha’s old political base.

“In the last campaign, he did nothing for me,” said Russell. “The party produced a slate card for voters with the names of the candidates on the Republican ticket, and my name was left off. When the presidential campaign stumped here — three times — I was never invited to speak at the rallies. So I have very little trust and very little faith in the state committee. I’ve been busy building support with the people of the district.” Having moved to the district after retirement, Russell argued that his work has erased the “carpetbagger” charge that Murtha clubbed him with.

Gleeson shrugged off the criticism. “Bill’s always had a chip on his shoulder,” he told TWI. “I knew John Murtha for 38 years, and he weakened our Republican ticket by being larger-than-life. I lost a state legislature race in 2008 because Russell was surging in the polls and Murtha turned out his forces to come out for the Democrats. He hurt me!”

Nonetheless, Russell’s campaign team has been driving home the message that to nominate another candidate would be to throw the seat to liberal Democrats. At last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Base Connect employees handed out “No NY-23 in PA-12″ buttons, comparing Russell’s race, and his quest to win over local Republican leaders, with the mess that ended up sparking an intra-Republican Party war and electing Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.). Freedom’s Defense Fund, a 527 group which shares office space with Base Connect and works for the same candidates, showed conference attendees an ad campaign it was running in the district, selling Russell as a tried and true conservative who deserved the nomination. The 527 group even paid Zogby and Associates for a poll — it revealed Russell as the choice of Republican voters by 30 points, although most voters had heard of neither candidate.

Neither the poll nor the ad has done anything to dissuade Tim Burns, a small businessman and Tea Party activist who told TWI that he was confident of lining up the Republican leadership support he needed to grab the special election nomination.

“Bill Russell sat in my house,” said Burns, “and told me that the reason he got into race was that he was upset about what John Murtha had said about the Marines at Haditha.” Murtha had accused eight Marines of complicity in a 2006 massacre in that Iraq town; seven were later cleared. “He moved into district to take on Murtha. I grew up in the district, in Johnstown. And I will outwork the competition. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

At CPAC, some Russell allies told TWI that the local party committees backed Burns, who made a fortune in pharmacy technology before selling the business in 2003, because he could spend enough money to help the rest of the ticket. Gleeson didn’t knock down that speculation.

“Tim Burns has indicated he can be a self-funder, to a certain point,” said Gleeson. “I told him he’d better get ready to cut some checks. Raising the money you need for a race like this in two months is, like, impossible.”

The possibility of a self-funded race by Burns appeals to Republicans who worry that Russell’s fundraising might not translate to expenditures in the district. According to FEC reports, Russell has raised more than $2.8 million in this election cycle but only has, as Gleeson pointed out, $216,000 in the bank. Base Connect — which changed its name from BMW Direct in 2009 — is well paid for its work. In the final quarter of 2009, Russell’s campaign paid $85,542.83 for “direct mail – creative” to Base Connect. It also paid $2490 to Electronic Reporting Systems, $64,017.79 to Legacy List Marketing, and $18,400.70 to MacKenzie and Company. All are headquartered at Base Connect’s offices at 1155 15th Street NW in Washington. But Russell told TWI that he had built on their work to find more than 5000 donors and 1700 volunteers inside the district.

“Base Connect has raised a lot of money with direct mail,” Russell said, “and in our district that’s the best way to get your message out. It’s incredibly gerrymandered.” There are, he pointed out, five different TV broadcast areas covering the district.

Typically, races for open seats draw more candidates than challenges against incumbents. But the absence of Murtha — despised by conservative activists, dogged by investigations for his relationships with lobbyists — has cooled down national enthusiasm for this race. Russell, who’d been a conservative hero at blogs like HotAir.com in 2008, isn’t attracting much attention for his new bid.

“He’s an appealing candidate,” HotAir.com blogger Allahpundit told TWI in an e-mail. “But between the loss of anti-Murtha sentiment and the fact that there’ll be so many more races attracting attention and conservative dollars this year, I’m skeptical that he’ll do especially well. I haven’t heard any chatter about him in awhile, either; the buzz around GOP veterans who are running for House seats all seems to belong to Lt. Col. (ret.) Allen West.“

A small group of German officers opposed the loyalty oath to Hitler despite great political pressure. They courageously honored and respected the moral and institutional values they represented and knew to be right. We who are Marines are proud to see that our commandant has shown similar courage in the face of political pressure to allow avowed homosexuals to become Marines.

A cold chill shivers down the spines of men when they contemplate the physical acts of homosexual behavior. It is important the American people know that their Marines, and our commandant, have spine enough to notice and oppose this folly. I hope they will honor the many generations of Marines who sacrificed for American freedom and will remember to vote for and support those who will work to “keep our honor clean.”

That’s an actual letter published in The Washington Times by a retired Marine colonel named Art Corbett, who probably commanded gay Marines and perhaps was commanded by them.

Adm. Mike Mullen’s message in this hearing? Bring out the buckets.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed a “fundamental difference” in thinking about partnership with the Afghans “really, since Gen. McChrystal got there.” The non-bucket experience Alford alluded to was, Mullen said, “mentoring and training.”

This is partnering. And it’s getting everyone off their bases, and out with the community. Those two differences are significant.

We’ll see how that works in practice. Well, in truth, I don’t want to see that closely …

The Marines and Afghan forces are continuing to patrol and have begun engaging with key leaders in the districts in order to better understand the concerns and needs of Afghans in the area. Once security is established, civil affairs personnel and other non-governmental organizations and agencies will begin establishing programs aimed at building long-term governance and development throughout the Helmand River valley.

One Marine has been killed in action, and several others have been injured or wounded since the operation began. Yesterday, south of Garmsir, one Afghan man began to approach a group of Marines and was warned to stop. He did not stop, despite a series of warning indicators being employed. The man continued to walk toward the Marines at a rapid pace without saying anything to them. A warning shot was fired, and when he still did not stop, a Marine fired a single shot, wounding the man. U.S. Navy corpsmen immediately treated the man, and he was evacuated by MEB forces to Bost hospital in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, where he is in stable condition.

Small Wars Journal has a strategic overview of the mission from its commander, Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson.