Category Archives: Military
Gitmo Propaganda
It turns out that prisoners released from Gitmo to Yemen are participating in Overseas Contingency Operations against the United States. Not only that, they’re committing Man Caused Disasters! The Commander in Chief has responded. He’s still closing Gitmo but he’ll be sending the prisoners somewhere that is not Yemen. Dr. Krauthammer analyses this here.
18 Month Extension
I’m not sure what to make of this. Evidently the “vital threat to our national security” will end in 18 months.
An officer I met in Baghdad during our USO trip told me it will be much tougher to win in Afghanistan than Iraq and might not be worth it. Here’s smart guy George Will saying it won’t end well. Here’s smart guy Robert Kagan in the Washington Post saying yes it will. And here’s smart ass Ralph Peters in the New York Post calling it surrender in advance.
Do No Harm
Two weeks ago I was in Iraq drawing cartoons for happy soldiers headed home to Fort Hood. A few days earlier I had drawn troops, doctors, and other medical staff at Walter Reed hospital in Washington, DC.
Fortunately, I didn’t meet anyone like Major Nidal M. Hasan. In 2007, as a resident at Walter Reed, Dr. Hasan gave a “medical lecture”. You can read about it in this Washington Post story by Dana Priest. Along with talk about beheading and boiling oil (UK Telegraph) he says, “we love death more than you love life”.
That kind of talk may cause you to miss your flight at the airport, but Hasan was sent to Fort Hood as a psychiatrist. At Fort Hood he gave away his possessions and, while shouting Allahu Akbar, allegedly shot 43 people, killing 13. His former Imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, on the lam in Yemen, called Hasan a hero.
I hadn’t figured on jihad in Texas.
As for claims that Hasan was just one more stressed out GI, David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, thinks the military “may be the most resilient part of American society right now”.
