Calls arise for removing red crosses, adding guns on Army MEDEVAC helicopters

Hoist training is conducted with a Black Hawk MEDEVAC helicopter by the 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion at Ft. Riley. ((U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Roland Hale, CAB, 1st Inf. Div. PAO)

In my opinion, one of the best correspondents writing about war is Michael Yon. Yon is very good with a camera, agile with descriptives and understands the importance of immediacy. His knack for drawing the reader into a sensory experience of battle is indisputable.

Yon and others like the father of a soldier about to deploy for a second tour in Afghanistan are calling for removing the red cross emblazoned on MEDEVAC helicopters. Guns and weaponry would then be allowed on the helicopters

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9-11 Commission Report needs re-read as Guantanamo proceedings suspended

Guantanamo Bay became a torch for liberal media and a touchstone for justice in many of President Barack Obama’s campaign speeches. It comes as no surprise The Washington Post has reported, “[t]he Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba…” The U.S. will now return to a kinder gentler treatment for terrorists, ideally providing them full rights accorded by law and by the Geneva Conventions. The Post notes that pre-trial hearings for five 9/11 defendants, among them Khalid Sheik Mohammed, may or may not proceed—depending on the defendants’ preferences. Further, the ACLU has jumped in. The organization wants, “the unconditional withdrawal of all charges… shutting down this tainted system is warranted." Those words were attributed by the paper to Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Maybe next time a renegade political group of assassins decides to kill more than 3,000 of us, we can call the ACLU for protection. National defense doesn’t get more stupid than this.

A U.S. Army soldier assigned to Echo Company, 629th Military Intelligence Battalion, provides overwatch security at a checkpoint area near the Joint Task Force Guantanamo detention center on Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nov. 17, 2006. The company's main missions, as part of the task force, include perimeter security as well as acting as a quick reaction force should something happen inside the detention center. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy.

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