UPDATED. new VIDEO: Deadly DCA air crash - OTJ training + DEI

Regular readers will know that Walt is not one to jump to conclusions. [**cough** Ed.] However, I do think it's not too soon to start asking questions about yesterday's collision of an American Eagle CRJ700 and a UH600 helicopter belonging to the US Army. Here's the audio of Air Traffic Control directing other aircraft around the scene, with video of the moment of impact. 

 

The American Eagle airliner was carrying 60 pax and a crew of four, all of whom are presumed dead. The precise number of victims was unclear as rescue crews are still hunting for survivors, and recovering the bodies of those who didn't make it.

We do know that the Army chopper was on a training flight -- OTJ training in the middle of one of America's busiest and most complex airspaces. We also know that until President Trump signed his EO a few days ago, the American military was prioritizing the hiring of vizmins, BIPOCs, wimmin, trannies and others who "experience sexuality differently", without regard to their aptitude or qualifications. 

We would like to know who was flying the helicopter at the fatal moment. Whose voice is heard saying they could see the airliner? Was he/she/it a DEI hire? Same question for the air traffic controller who apparently didn't realize that the two aircraft were flying at the same altitude or warn them of the impending collision.

Just asking, you understand.

UPDATE ADDED 2/2/25

Looks like I got the answer I was expecting. Not such an unwarranted suspicion as some have suggested. 

In this video, Michael 'Rocket' Blackstone, a professional pilot with 26 years as an airline pilot, as well as an aerobatic airshow performer and stunt pilot asserts that the likely causes of this horrific accident are now pointing toward the 28-year-old 500-hour pilot, Captain Rebecca Lobach.

Capt. Lobach was apparently at the controls of the PAT-25 H-60 helicopter. She was allegedly taking a competency check ride with Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, 39, who was evaluating her even though he had only about 1000 hours himself.. 

  

These H-60 pilots failed to "see and avoid" the American Eagle CRJ traffic called out by DCA tower after stating that they had the traffic in sight. Clearly, the H-60 crew did not have the traffic in sight, failed to steer left as directed to pass behind the CRJ, failed to fly at or below the required 200' MSL, maximum altitude on the helicopter route. 

The ATC controller passed the full responsibility of in-flight separation at night to a helicopter crew whom he saw never make any heading changes to avoid the American Airlines aircraft. 

Mr Blackstone argues that this situation was completely avoidable, and many regulatory changes must be implemented immediately to protect the flying public from the dangers of military training missions.

Disgraceful! West Point to remove portrait of Robert E. Lee

Another wave in the tsunami of leftist iconoclasm sweeping America is about to hit West Point, the military academy of the United States Army (President Joe Brandon, Commander-in-Chief).

For 70 years, a portrait of General Robert E. Lee, the greatest American military leader of all time, has graced the Academy's library. But the twenty-foot portrait, showing General Lee in his Confederate uniform, could soon be coming down.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 established a commission to rename military bases that honour Confederate generals, and otherwise erase from memory all references to the "enemy" in the War of the Secession, in the name of political (if not historical) correctness. 

The commission is expected to recommend that West Point -- now led by the first black Superintendent in its history, Lieutenant-General Darryl Williams -- remove anything that commemorates Robert E. Lee's association with the Confederacy.

The creation of the commission was one of the reasons President Trump, who had given the commencement address at West Point in 2020, vetoed the 2021 NDAA. After his veto was overridden by Congress, his administration named four individuals to the commission, all of whom were immediately removed by Brandon's Defense Secretary Lloyd James Austin, who is black. 

In Ken Burns' Civil War series, a freed slave is quoted as saying "Bottom rail on top now!" And so it is in this case. Retired Admiral Michelle Howard, the Navy’s first female four-star admiral and the first black woman to command a Navy ship, now serves as chair of the iconoclasm committee. 

Other members include retired General Thomas Bostick, the first black graduate of West Point to serve as chief of engineers of the US Army. The downgrading and degrading of General Lee, even though he was opposed to both slavery and secession is nothing less than the revenge of the Democrats and triumph of their diversity hires.

Robert E. Lee was a man of deep integrity, whose ancestors helped found the United States of America. He was born, it was said, in the same room as two signers of the Declaration of Independence -- his uncles Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee. He graduated first in his class at West Point, and went on to become Superintendent of the Academy. 

Later, Lieutenant-Colonel Lee fought with distinction in the Mexican-American War, and led the unit that went to Harper's Ferry to quash John Brown's little rebellion. Within days of the South's attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln offered Colonel Lee -- he had been promoted -- command of all the Union forces. 

General Lee declined, saying that he could not take up arms against his "country", by which he meant the Commonwealth of Virginia. (It was common, in those days, for people to refer to their state in that manner.) "If Virginia stands by the old Union," he wrote to his son Custis, "so will I. But if she secedes...then I will follow my native state with my sword, and if need be, with my life."

Robert E. Lee was a great American patriot. To dishonour him by removing statues, paintings and other monuments to his very existence is disgraceful.

The Aghanistan war: It was all for nothing

When I began this blog in July of 2009 [! How time flies when you're having fun! Ed.], the two countries closest to my heart (and other organs), the US of A and Canada, were heavily involved and invested in the Afghanistan "mission".

It looked like a war to me, but politicians of both blue and red stripes, on both sides of the World's Longest Undefended Border (TM), kept assuring us that it was a peacekeeping mission. Or maybe a peace-making mission. Or how about "nation-building"? I called BULLSHIT on that from Day One of WWW, as did many skeptics including Dr Ron Paul.

No-one paid attention. Many demonized Dr Paul and other anti-war thinkers and writers as "unpatriotic". The pro-war types told us that this was, after all, part of the war against terrorism. (Back then, some even dared to use the phrase "Islamic terrorism".) "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them there!" "Nation-building is the best way to defeat the Taliban!" More bullshit, piled higher and deeper.

Those who opposed the war argued that the Taliban weren't out to get us, so much as to get us out of their country. It was a Muslim civil war, we said, in which we had no business meddling... no dog in that fight. Let them duke it out.

This week, the Washington Post is serializing "At War With the Truth: a secret history of the Afghanistan war", a massive report, based on hitherto secret military documents, proving that... wait for it... the whole Afghan war was a blunder from the getgo -- a colossal waste of money and lives. Putting it another way, we who opposed the war were right, after all. Lifetime pct .979.

MSN carries Monday's part of the WaPo report under the headline "Wasteful spending and half-baked ideas: U.S. officials reveal how massive rebuilding projects in Afghanistan backfired". The newly revealed government documents raise profound questions about the execution and results of the war in Afghanistan and the massive nation-building effort that surrounded it. No wonder, then, that the American government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents -- 2000 pages of interview records -- under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Through the interviews we hear the voice of Gen. Lute and scores of others who detail the core failings of the war that persist to this day. They underscore how three presidents -- George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump -- and their military commanders have been unable to deliver on their promises to prevail in Afghanistan. Here's a sample.

In 2015, US Army Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as the White House's Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers, "We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan -- we didn't know what we were doing. What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.... If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction...." He blamed the deaths of 2400 American military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

Since 2001, more than 775,000 US troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Besides the 2300 (that's the Dept of Defense number) who died in that shithole, 20,589 were wounded in action.

The number of Canadians who went to Afghanistan and didn't return was much smaller -- 158 soldiers and seven civilians died -- but proportionately greater than US casualties. 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces served in Afghanistan. 158 soldiers and seven civilians were killed. Walt ran a body count, in those first years of WWW, each time asking the question "Why did they die?"

Another 2000 Canucks were wounded in a "peace-keeping/nation-building mission" (read" war) which began under a Liberal government and was then enthusiastically embraced by a Conservative government. In 2006 and 2008, Conservative and Liberal Members of Parliament voted together to extend the "mission", at a projected cost of as much as C$18 billion. The Canadians finally realized the war was unwinnable, and bailed out (of military involvement, at least) in 2014. The Americans are still there.

The conclusions of the Post's report -- that the war lacked clear direction and purpose, that the American government misled the public about the war's progress, that the effort to establish a new government in Afghanistan was misguided and quickly corrupted, that billions of dollars in aid and development money were mishandled -- should trouble not just Americans, but citizens and taxpayers of every country meddling in the Muslim civil war. Can our politicians please just cut the BS, bring the trooops and "foreign aid" personnel home, and leave the Islamists to make of their countries what they will. Please!!!

Carson calls for US troops to patrol border with Canada

The campaign for the GOP presidential nomination gets stranger and stranger, as the also-rans view to trump Trump. Today, presidential wannabe Johnny Carson [Are you sure of the name? Ed.] called for the deployment of soldiers along parts of the world's longest undefended (until now) border.

Carson, who is currently moving to the back of the bus ["pack", surely! Ed.] in the polls, made the proposal as part of his "Seven Steps to a Safer America" plan. It was originally supposed to be "Twelve Steps" but that number seemed a bit sketchy, somehow, besides which seven was all they could come up with.

The sixth step of the Carson Plan is this: "President Barack Obama and Congress should immediately deploy the National Guard and military troops to patrol the US southern border as well as designated spots along the northern border."

Which spots Mr. Carson has in his alleged mind was not made clear, nor was the reason he believes current security measures along the Canadian border are inadequate. Perhaps Mr. Carson is unaware that the US Border Patrol, or whatever those thugs call themselves, are already armed and surly.

Mr. Carson is not the first putative Republican candidate to suggest new defensive measures up north. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, now out of the race, was widely and rightly ridiculed for musing about the possibility of a wall along the Canadian border.

It may be that Mr. Carson's is trying to counter the perception that he is weak on foreign policy, weaker even than the incumbent president and his predecessor, Bush II. His plan includes a formal declaration of war against the Islamic State, the formation of a stronger coalition to fight the extremist group, and the creation of a "refugee safe zone" in northeast Syria.

Along with most state governors and the majority of Americans, Mr. Carson does not want the US to accept any more tired and Muslim masses. That may be where Canada comes in, since the Canucks are opening their arms and their wallets to followers of the Prophet. Another couple of hundred "refugees" will arrive in Toronto later today. Once landed, with "Maple Leaf Cards" safely in hand, some of them may well head south. But don't worry. If Mr. Carson has his way, the US Army will be there to repel them.

How our governments gull us into supporting unjust, unwinnable and STUPID wars

"Gull" is defined in Ed.'s Annadales's English Dictionary as "v.t. To make a fool of; to trick; to mislead by deception". Gulling the voters is a black art practised since time immemorial by politicians throughout the world. Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." But he and his successors have mostly succeeded in fooling most of the people most of the time.

This is particularly true when it comes to persuading peace-loving people that making war is in their best interests. Walt believes that most people would prefer not spend their fortunes and lives and fortunes waging war, not to kill or be killed. But our so-called leaders -- Obama, Bush, Harper, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Blair, Cameron, Harper (choose the one(s) you've been gulled into voting for -- tell us doing so is in the national interest, which means in our best interests. Total bullshit, but most of the people buy it, most of the time.

The sad thing is, they get away with it -- with sending our boys (and girls and "others") where they themselves would never go, with spending your (not their) tax dollars by the billions -- so easily. How do they do it? Here's a quote from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring:

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship....

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brough to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country greater danger. It works the same way in any country.

Herr Göring said that in 1946, shortly before he was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity. The quote appears at p. 215 of Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory (Doubleday 2009), which Walt recommends highly.

Where Men Win Glory is the story of Patrick Daniel "Pat" Tillman, RIP, killed by members of his own platoon on 22 April 2004 while on patrol in eastern Afghanistan. Before enlisting in the US Army, Corporal Tillman (he was promoted posthumously from the rank of Specialist) was a football player, who had a pretty good run in college ball and then in the NFL. He walked away from this $3.6-million NFL contract because he was deeply troubled by 9/11, and felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In other words, he was gulled by Bush II, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and all the others who dragged America into the Muslim civil wars for the sake of... of what? Oil? Bringing civilization and democracy to the heathens? Or... what?

When Mr. Tillman signed on, the US military and its propagandists (Hello, Jim Wilkinson!) tried to make Tillman an inspirational emblem for their "Global War on Terror", but he refused to do any media interviews. Soon after beginning his first tour of duty in Iraq, the scales fell of his eyes. He openly declared the war was "illegal as hell". The more he saw of the American invasions of Iraq -- the "battle" of Nasiriyah, for instance -- and Afghanistan, the more disgusted he got, but he was determined to finish his three-year hitch as matter of duty and honour. Sadly, an inexperienced and trigger-happy US Ranger ended his life.

But did the US military's propaganda machine relent? Nooooooo! At first, the Army told credulous reporters that Corp. Tillman had been killed by enemy fire. It wasn't until 28 May 2004 that the Pentagon notified his family that he had died as a result of a friendly fire incident. The family and other critics allege that the Department of Defense delayed the disclosure for weeks out of a desire to protect the image of the US armed forces and portray Corp. Tillman as a hero of a just war.

In Chapter 33 of Where Men Win Glory, we read:
The White House was frantic to come up with something to divert attention from the deadly quagmire that Iraq had become, precisely as Osama bin Laden had gleefully forecast. The president [Bush II] was facing an increasingly tough campaign to win a second term in the White House, the election was barely six months away, and his approval ratings were plummeting. When Tillman was killed, White House perception managers saw an opportunity not unlike the one provided by the Jessica Lynch debacle thirteen months earlier....

Following Tillman's death, there was nothing to prevent the Bush administration from using his celebrity to advance its political agenda. [Jim Wilkinson's successors] wasted no time in concocting a narrative about Tillman that they hoped would distract the American public in the same way that Wilkinson's fable about Lynch had....

While he was alive, Tillman had been the object of tremendous public fascination, and White House officials guessed that selling him as a fallen war hero would send the media into an orgy of adulatory coverage. They were not disappointed.

Well, the Bush Wars in the sandpits of Iraq and Afghanistan are over. It's hard to say who won, but not so hard to say who list -- the people of America and the other members of the "Coalition of the Willing". And the American wars of empire (or oil, or whatever) didn't really end. They only morphed into the Obama War against terrorism, another "just war" to bring the benefits of civilization and democracy to the benighted... wait, didn't I write that before? Yes, we've seen this movie before -- there actually is a made-for-TV movie: The Tillman Story -- and we'll see it again... and again... until we listen to real leaders like Ron Paul and refuse to be gulled any more!

Thinking about Charlie Hebdo: Kurt Vonnegut's views on freedom of speech and the role of the artist in society

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was an American writer -- one of Walt's favourite novelists. His works, such as Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973), blended satire, gallows humor, and science fiction. In spite of, or perhaps because of, his stint in the United States Army during World War II, he was until his death a committed pacifist. He was also a supporter of the ACLU and a crusader for not only freedom of speech but freedom of thought.

Kurt Vonnegut was born on 11 November 1922, eight years exactly after the Armistice that ended World War I. He dies on 11 April 2007, having lived through the Vietnam War and the first years of the Oil Wars or Gulf Wars or Wars Against Terrorism -- whatever you want to call them. I don't know if, prior to his death, he had ever read or even heard of Charlie Hebdo, but I imagine he would have applauded their lampooning of organized religion and secular sacred cows.

Back in 1973, Mr. Vonnegut was interviewed by Frank McLaughlin, for Media & Methods and by David Standish in Playboy, the magazine that men of my generation pretended to read. Perhaps we should have paid more attention when thinkers such as he cast pearls before us such as these comments about the role of artists -- writers, cartoonists and the like -- in our society.

From the Media & Methods interview:

I agree with Hitler and Stalin about a lot of things. Basic agreement with them and with...almost every dictator is that an artist should serve his society, and I would not be interested in writing if I didn't feel that what I wrote was an act of good citizenship or an attempt, at any rate, to be a good citizen.

What brought my ancestors over here from Germany was not oppression over there, but simply the attractiveness of the United States Constitution.... I was raised to be bughouse about the Constitution, and to be very excited about the United States of America as a Utopia. It still seems utterly workable to me, and I keep thinking of ways to fix it, to see what the hell went wrong, to see if we can get the thing to really run right.

[Now] I am heartbroken and confused.... I finally understand that I am not protected by the U.S. Constitution. I have never been protected by it, and it's only a piece of paper that we in America have always been dependent upon. The goodwill of those who govern us...that's all that has ever protected us....

We have entered a period now when our government doesn't really seem to like us much. I find this oppressive, and realize that the Constitution can't help much, can't help at all, really, if our leaders come to dislike us -- which they apparently do.

From the Playboy interview:

I agree with Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini that the writer should serve his society. I differ with dictators as to how a writer should serve. Mainly, I think they should be...agents of change. For the better, we hope....
We [writers] are expressions of the entire society.... And when a society is in great danger, we're likely to sound the alarms.

I have the canary-bird-in-the-coal-mine theory of the arts. You know coal miners used to take birds down into the mines with them to detect gas before the men got sick. The artists certainly did that in the case of Vietnam. They chirped and keeled over. But it made no difference whatsoever. Nobody important cared. But I continue to think that artists -- all artists -- should be treasured as alarm systems.

Walt suggests that, now that a dozen canaries have been killed by fanatics of a "deviant form of religion" (to use the Pope's words), perhaps the "leaders" of the Western world will hear the alarm and take some action beyond mouthing platitudes about peaceful coexistence and the brotherhood of man. Or perhaps not....

Source for these quotes: Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, edited by  William Rodney Allen (University Press of Mississippi, 1988).

Iraq: Is calling in air strikes enough?

The Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities of Iraq clearly needed help to resist the invasion by the Sunni Muslim terrorists who call themselves "the Islamic state" (ISIS). The word "genocide" springs to mind when 1000s of people are herded like sheep -- lambs to the slaughter -- to the top of a mountain and told that they must either convert to Islam or die.

Divine intervention is called for, prayed for. But God and the Pope have no divisions, as Joseph Stalin famously said, so help must come from those that do. Walt therefore applauds the decision of President Obama to authorise the bombing, by drones and manned aircraft, of ISIS artillery and other positions.

But a question nags at my mind [or what passes for such. Ed.] Can the air strikes be anything but a prelude to an invasion by ground forces? Air power first, tanks and troops next. That's what happened in Iraq the first time. And in Afghanistan. And in Vietnam. That's because air power, awesome though it may be -- remember those scenes in Apocalypse Now? -- is never, by itself, sufficient to enable a foreign power to defeat an army or guerrilla force of locals. Take Gaza as today's example. Hamas isn't beaten yet, and the Israelis know it.

If the Gaza argument isn't persuasive enough, consider the thoughts of Matthew Bunker Ridgway. General Ridgway held several major commands in the United States Army and was most famous for resurrecting the United Nations war effort during the Korean War. Several historians have given him the credit for turning the war around in favour of the UN side.

To quote from The Fifties, by David Halberstam (Villard Books, New York, 1993): In World War II and Korea, and in Korea particularly, [Gen. Ridgway] had seen what the Air Force had promised to do with strategic bombing and how limited, in fact, strategic bombing was as an instrument of policy. If we bombed, he argued, we would end up inevitably using ground troops. Ridgway saw air power as as a sort of high-tech aspirin; it gave some immediate relief, but it did not cure the underlying problem.

In Walt's view, we can no longer refer to the ISIS forces as just terrorists. They are a large, well-trained, well-equipped, battle-hardened army. They are in control of large chunks of Syria and Iraq. How they can be defeated without yet another Western invasion of those countries is our dilemma for today. If anyone has a solution, please don't write to me. Send it to the Prez, because neither he nor his advisors seem at all sure of what to do next.

Sgt Jasmine Jacobs: Racist US Army don' like ma do!

"To go through the natural hair journey, and come to terms with the fact that you're beautiful the way you naturally are, and then an entire organisation wants you to cover up all that, makes you doubt yourself."

So says Sergeant Jasmine Jacobs, of the Georgia National Guard, originator of a petition demanding the repeal of US Army Regulation 670-1, which updated the forces' grooming standards. Here's what the rules say about hairstyles.

* Braids are authorised, but they "must be of uniform dimension, small in diameter (approximately 1/4 inch), and "show no more than 1/8 inch of scalp between the braids".
* Cornrows must also be 1/4 inch in dimension with no more than 1/8 inch of scalp showing. Cornrows can be braided or rolled, but not twisted. Only one style can be worn at once.
* Any unkempt or matted braids or cornrows are considered dreadlocks and are not authorized.
* Hair's bulk that "exceeds more than 2 inches from the scalp" is forbidden, and short hair must be longer than a quarter-inch from the scalp.

Need us to draw you a picture? Here it is, straight from the Army Manual for the Functionally Illiterate.

Sgt. Jacobs feels put upon because she "no longer has options for [her] natural hair care." She told an interviewer, "I would have had to constantly be putting on a wig or figuring how to get weave sown into or glued into my hair, because none of my natural hair styles were authorized any longer."

What's a black girl to do?! "Where is a soldier in the field supposed to get her weave done?" asks Lori Tharps, co-author of Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. And of course that's the root of the complaint. While the regulations apply to all soldiers -- regardless of race, colour or creed -- Sgt. Jacobs called them "racially-biased", using the hair of honkey women as a baseline. ["hairline", surely! Ed.] Apparently the Army hasn't noticed that black hair, which grows out rather than down and is very curly, is difficult to pull into a bun or wear loose in an even manner, styles which are OKed by the new guidelines.

Inevitably, the usual suspects have accused the Army of racism. "These updated regulations [are] very discriminatory," says Congresswoman Barbara Lee -- black, female, Democrat, California. Ms Lee's own hairstyle (see official picture) would probably pass muster, but, she told BBC News, "They used words such as 'unkempt' and 'matted' when referring to traditional hairstyles worn by women of colour."

Maybe so, Walt says, but they didn't use the N-word... "nappy". All the same, the backlash from the Volvo liberals and lamestream media led Defense Secretary Chuck "5-for-1" Hagel to call for a policy review. At the end of April he gave military leaders three months to "evaluate comprehensive regulations as they pertain to black women".

And in May the House of Representatives approved an amendment to the defence spending bill, calling for a review of the policy. Walt predicts the return of the afro, as America continues to celebrate diversity.

US Army brands Walt and Ed. "extremists"

Yes, dear readers, we've finally been outed. Walt [and Ed. Ed.] are members of a group of dangerous extremists. So says "Extremism and Extremist Organizations" -- a slide presentation used in training US Army Reserves in Pennsylvania.

Please don't check your calendar. April Fools Day has come and gone, but this Army training material is real! Click on the link and check it out for yourself. Scroll through to Slide 24 and you'll find a list of 17 forms or types of "religious extremism", such as the Ku Klux Klan and National of Islam. Also included are "Catholicism" and -- at the top of the list, no less "evangelical Christianity".

The text below the slide explains that “Every religion has some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs, and traditions are the only ‘right way’ and that all others are practicing their faith ‘the wrong way,’ seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others.” [sic]

Well, DUH. If you don't believe your faith is "the right way", then why would you hold to that faith? Practising Christians -- and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and so forth -- cling to the tenets and practices of their religions precisely because they believe that doing so will make them better people/please God/save their souls/whatever. That's what they -- I should say "we" -- believe.

Last time I looked at the Constitution of the US of A -- not to mention that of other so-called "Christian" nations -- freedom of religion was guaranteed. An American, Aussie, Brit or Canuck [That's enough citizenships. Ed.] is free to believe whatever he or she pleases...even if he or she is wrong.

You would think, wouldn't you, that the Army of the US of A would be required to uphold and protect the principle of religious freedom. Apparently not. Slide 4 says, “Extremist organizations’ goals are inconsistent with the Army’s goals, beliefs, and values with regard to equal opportunity.”

Which means that, in the words of Slide 5, "Soldiers are prohibited from participating in an extremist organization’s public demonstration or rally, taking a visible leadership role in the organization, or distributing literature on behalf of the organization." That part about "a visible leadership role" would seem to place Army chaplains in an invidious position, to say the least. And God help the evangelical Christian soldier who distributes Bibles!

The slide presentation prompted a protest from the (US) Archdiocese for the Military Services. Its call for a review of Army training materials states "The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist." Sounds to Walt like that's extremist language right there!

What the slide presentation really is is yet another example of the aggressive secularism and extreme political correctness which permeates the US government -- every root and every branch -- under Barack Hussein Obama.

The Archdiocese "calls on the Department of Defense to review these materials and to ensure that taxpayer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform." If you're American and you agree, write to your Congressperson... as if it will do any good.

Footnote: According to Slide 24, "Mormans" [sic] are extremists too. Walt and Ed. are not "Mormans" or even "Mormons". And we wish they'd stop knocking on the door of our log cabin. But we think they're entitled to believe in the golden plates and all that without being demonized by the US Army.

Lawyer for killer soldier says no evidence against his client

The BBC reports today that "Steel-drivin' John Henry" Browne, who represents the American soldier accused of massacring 16 Afghan villagers in their homes last week, has said there is "no forensic evidence" against and "no confession" by Staff Sgt. O.J. Simpson. [Ed., please check name.]

Sgt. Simpson is resting comfortably at Fort Leavenworth, getting grief counselling as well as legal counselling over charges which may be filed this week. Or not. Despite repeated Afghan assertions that more than one American was involved in the killings, the sergeant remains the only suspect.

Civilians, shmivilians -- in the Middle East, who cares?

When I wrote about the atrocity in Kandahar, my point was that those who support the American invasion of Afghanistan should be ashamed, dismayed, even outraged... but not surprised. Massacres of innocent civilians by US troops have happened before, and will almost certainly happen again.

I gave the example of the My Lai massacre of 1968, an egregious example of the premeditated and unjustified slaughter of civilians which the US military at first denied, then covered up, then tried to excuse. One "man", William Calley, was sentenced to life imprisonment, but served just three and a half years under house arrest.

Yesterday someone reminded me of the Haditha massacre, which was carried out by American troops in the middle of the glorious war against Iraq. On 19 November 2005, 24 unarmed Iraqi men, women and children were killed by a group of US Marines in Haditha, a city in western Iraq. They were all civilians.

There again, the strategy of the US military was deny, deny, deny. An initial Marine Corps communique reported that 15 civilians were during an attack on a convoy, and eight "insurgents" were killed when the Marines returned fire. However, Time magazine didn't buy the official explanation, and hassled the Marines into investigating.

The inquiry found evidence that "supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians, including unarmed men, women and children". At least three officers were officially reprimanded for failing to properly initially report and investigate the killings. Over a year later, eight Marines were charged in connection with the "incident".

Another nine months went by. Then the authorities dropped charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, who has been accused of murder, and Capt. Randy Stone, accused of failing to investigate the incident. Why were the charges dropped? Because it was felt that Iraqis would be unlikely to come to the USA to testify!

Let us pause here to consider that Staff Sgt. Bob Bales, the "single individual" named as the perpetrator of this week's murders in Kandahar, has been spirited out of the Middle East to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he will undoubtedly receive a fair trial... if any Afghans can make it to the USA to testify.

Getting back to the Haditha massacre... In August 2007, the investigating officer recommended the dropping of charges against Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum. However, in October, his commanding officer decided the charges should not be dropped, but lowered to involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

By June of 2008, six defendants had had their cases dropped and a seventh had (to no-one's surprise) been found not guilty. Not so Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich. In October 2007, the investigating officer recommended that Wuterich be tried for negligent homicide -- something less than murder -- in the deaths of two women and five children. Further charges of assault and manslaughter were ultimately dropped, and Wuterich was convicted of a single count of negligent dereliction of duty -- something less than negligent homicide -- on January 24, 2012. That's right... 2012!

Was Wuterich punished for murdering seven people? Oh yes indeed! He received a reduction in rank and cut in pay. No jail time.

Iraqis voiced understandable disbelief and outrage, after the six-year US military prosecution ended with not a single one of the Marines sentenced to jail. The Haditha massacre has been linked to the decision to withdraw US troops from Iraq at the end of 2011. Now Afghanistan's democratically elected (?) president Karzai has called for American soldiers to get out of Afghanistan, or at least out of the rural villages. No wonder.

Footnote: On 14 December 2011, the New York Times published excerpts from classified transcripts of military interviews from the investigation into the Haditha massacre. In the interviews, Marines said civilians were killed "on a regular basis". The deaths of 20 civilians is described not as "remarkable" but "routine. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson described such things as "a cost of doing business". And then Americans wonder why they are not welcome in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the Middle East...except maybe Israel.