Memo to Obama: Afghanistan is over! We lost!

While Walt was wondering what to make of the swap of one (1) American deserter for five (5) top Taliban commanders, something else happened. This weekend, five American servicemen were killed in Afghanistan...apparently by members of the Afghan armed forces.

An official statement of the so-called "international coalition" called the killings a "friendly fire" incident. Walt takes this to mean that the killers were not the dreaded Taliban or al-Qaeda, but the very people the US occupying forces are there to serve and protect. America's friends, you might say...or not. After all, with friends like that...

This latest demonstration of the folly of leaving American troops in the sandpit even one day longer comes hard on the heels of Obama's Rose Garden "victory lap" in celebration of the 5-for-1 prisoner swap. Woohoo, sez the Prez, we brought home this courageous hero who was "captured on the battlefield" after serving with "honour and distinction". [Actually it was Susan Rice who said that. Ed.]

OK, Susan Rice said it. But Obama told a war-weary nation that even though he was going to leave some 10,000 American soldiers in the line of (friendly) fire for another couple of years, they need not fear being left behind! Unless of course they're dead, in which case they'll be brought home in body bags -- still not left behind!

The controversy surrounding the Bergdahl deal is not about one confused and reluctant soldier. (Bergdahl flitted around with ballet and Buddhism before joining the army, but became disillusioned with the invasion of Afghanistan about 90 seconds after arriving there.) Rather it is about President Hussein Obama, his foreign policy in general and his conduct of the war in particular.

The prisoner swap represents -- or should represent -- a moment of truth for all Americans, including Susan Rice, Chuck Hagel and the Prez himself. The war is over. America lost. Again. In 2016, unless a new president [Hellery Clinton? Ed.] extends the mission again, the Americans will finally leave. Afghanistan will remain as it was -- a benighted wasteland of warring tribes. The expenditure of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives will have been for naught -- a total (and criminal) waste.

Further reading: "White House's Handling of Bergdahl 'a Joke'", by Dr. Charles Krauthammer, in National Review Online. And yes, we do have the video.

$3,000,000 reward offered to MH370 whistleblower

Walt stands to become a rich man -- about time, sez the missus -- if only he can get the phone number or e-mail address for the person or persons offering a huge reward for the whistleblower who reveals what really happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

According to BBC News, 5000 large / $5,000,000 / five million bucks is being raised by relatives of the passengers aboard MH370, who haven't been seen since the aircraft vanished into thin air two months ago (less a day). The families hope a reward of $3 million will tempt a whistleblower to tell what he or she knows. The remaining money will pay for private investigators.

Ethan Hunt, who is heading up "Reward MH370", said, "We are convinced that somewhere, someone knows something, and we hope this reward will entice him or her to come forward."

Sarah Bajc, whose partner Philip Wood was on board, said families wanted to look at the tragedy with "a fresh set of eyes". She explained, "Governments and agencies have given it their best shot but have failed to turn up a single shred of evidence, either because of a faulty approach or due to intentional misdirection by one or more individuals."

Danica Weeks, wife of Paul Weeks, another missing passenger, said, "We've been cut off so many times at the gate that we're just now having to take things into our own hands, think outside the box and just try and do something to find this plane."

Since Chuck Hagel probably isn't going to call Mr. Hunt -- not even for $3 million -- Walt hereby claims the reward for revealing (yet again) that the place to look is Diego Garcia. See "MH370: 1 + 3 = ??? Walt puts two possibilities together" and "For the second time: Diego Garcia is a key piece of the MH370 puzzle", and at least two other posts, before and since.

Any whistleblower in the US military who can provide details, and wants to remain anonymous, is welcome to e-mail Walt. I'll make sure the information gets passed on and will share the reward in a fair and reasonable manner.

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.