A Military And A Government In Search Of A Spine

Remember the recent flap about creating a medal for drone warfare?  Panetta said yes, Hagel, to his credit, had put it on hold.  It would have outranked the medals given for battlefield valor.  There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

It gets worse.  Remember Nidal Hasan?  The Army psychiatrist who mowed down 45 soldiers at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding the others.

It's bad enough, now that he's being held for trial, that he's been allowed to grow the beard he was happy enough to shave while in the Army and not under arrest.  This guy has been pampered beyond belief.

Consider, he dressed in traditional Muslim dress on the Army base where he served, armed himself and shouting Allahu Akbar, attacked the unsuspecting soldiers.

Would you consider him a one man terror cell bent on destruction of members of our military?  I would.  I guess it's a good thing I don't have any input with the decision makers.  In their infinite wisdom, his crime is not being considered terrorism but rather work place violence.  Equate it with going postal. Confusion reigns.  Work place violence would be tried in a civilian court yet Hasan is being tried in a military court. Talk about blurring the edges.

Now,  to add insult to injury,  the Army is denying Purple Hearts to those stricken.  Their reason is that our military personnel are "organized, trained and equipped to combat foreign, not domestic, forces or threats.  To expand the Purple Heart award criteria to include domestic criminal attacks or domestic terror attacks would be a dramatic departure from the traditional Purple Heart award criteria."

So getting wounded or killed by a terrorist on American soil, an Army base no less, doesn't meet the criteria for a Purple Heart.  Yet they wanted to give a significant medal to drone pilots who sit safe and secure at a base thousands of miles from the action?  I can do no more than shake my head and wonder what they're doing with theirs.

The Army's reasoning went on to say that by awarding the Purple Heart to those he killed and injured would damage Hasan's ability to receive a fair trial.  Why? He killed thirteen and wounded 32 people!  The Army thinks that awarding those medals would "set the stage for a formal declaration that Major Hasan is a terrorist because the medals are awarded to those wounded or killed in any action against an enemy of the United States. Any action.  Where does it say U.S. soil is exempted?

If this man isn't an enemy of the United States, who is?  It is disgusting to watch this pussy footing around, denying due recognition to the men and women who were patriotically readying themselves to fight the likes of Major Hasan on his home turf to keep more of them from coming here.

When will we regain some back bone and stop coddling our enemies?  They aren't going to like us any better anyway!