President Bush today asked for a $439.3 billion defense budget for fiscal 2007, which begins this Oct. 1. He sent the wartime Pentagon plan to Congress saying that it is needed to fund the US military to fight irregular forces such as terrorists as well as future rival nations. The new budget, while large, actually represents a cut from $443 billion that DOD, at this time last year, said that it would seek for 2007. Pentagon spending accounts for only 16 percent of the new $2.77 trillion budget, with the majority of spending going to entitlements. Over the past 25 years, entitlement spending has nearly doubled, from $758 billion to $1.4 trillion (in today’s dollars), even as defense spending sank.
The top Air Force commander on on the Japanese island of Okinawa has clamped down alcohol and issued a curfew for junior enlisted Airmen and Guardians at Kadena Air Base for the next month. The order came roughly two weeks after a U.S. Marine was arrested for allegedly robbing and…