Sixty-six American troops died in Afghanistan in July, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the Afghanistan War thus far, the Washington Post and others reported.
Casualties of the Afghanistan War have recently been tabulated by the Congressional Research Service, including statistics on American forces, of whom around 1100 have been killed, as well as allied forces, and Afghan civilians. Although the three week old CRS report does not include the very latest figures, it provides links to official and unofficial sources of casualty information that are regularly updated. See “Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians,” July 12, 2010.
A number of other noteworthy new CRS reports that have not been made readily available to the public were obtained by Secrecy News, including these (all pdf):
“Terrorist Material Support: An Overview of 18 U.S.C. 2339A and 2339B,” July 19, 2010.
“Terrorist Material Support: A Sketch of 18 U.S.C. 2339A and 2339B,” July 19, 2010.
“Veterans Medical Care: FY2011 Appropriations,” July 27, 2010.
“U.S. Sanctions on Burma,” July 16, 2010.
“U.S.-Australia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation: Issues for Congress,” July 7, 2010.
Sen. John McCain inserted a nice tribute in the Congressional Record on April 28 to CRS analyst Christopher Bolkcom, our friend and former FAS colleague, who died last year. See “Remembering Christopher C. Bolkcom.”
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.