The tragic shootings earlier this month at Fort Hood have raised a number of questions throughout the country. How could this have happened? Was it terrorist driven? Were there warning signs that could have prevented this? Did the shooter act alone?
But what concerns me is the one question that was seemingly raised but never really answered, and then quickly shoved under the rug. That question centers around how Maj. Hasan was actually subdued. Who shot him and ended this rampage of violence?
On his first Veterans Day as president, Barack Obama was seen in all the usual places, paying homage and his respects to all those — fallen and still among us — who fight for our freedom. The day of honor and remembrance came as a painstaking review of his strategy for the war in Afghanistan is under way, and Obama is reportedly poised to increase troop levels there in the coming months.
In the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre, there has been
much analysis and commentary: What did this heinous episode mean; what caused this
violence? The Army officials’ responses and that of the commander in chief
yesterday at the memorial service in Texas were measured, smart and right on.
Even more interesting was David Brooks’s op-ed, titled “The Rush to Therapy,”
in The New York Times.
There is a scene in Steven Spielberg’s film “Saving Private
Ryan” in which a young man has his arm blown off. He stumbles around, gazing at
his shattered limb, unsure of what to do.
The generals, the policymakers, the old men in suits, do not know if President Obama possesses the obstinacy that guided Lincoln and Churchill, and which must guide all war presidents to some degree. So writes David Brooks in his column today in The New York Times. He is referring to the attitudes of experts in think tanks and the Pentagon he talked to about Obama’s pending decision on Afghanistan. They are looking for that one good man. Brooks and Co. have been looking for him since long before 9/11, when they sat around the offices of the Weekly Standard trying to decide which countries to invade. The tin man, the cowardly lion, all of Dorothy’s children, seeking the wizard who will save them. But finding only golem, halfway now to Jerusalem.
Is Gen. Stanley McChrystal a believer in the Christian Apocalypse in Jerusalem, like preacher John Hargee and the 700 Club’s Pat Robertson? At the beginning of the war on Iraq, a few New York rabbis tried to warn us about this but few listened. Today the website Jews on First is a useful watchdog on this issue. But we know almost nothing about McChrystal, and our fate, fortunes and American lives are suddenly in his hands.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates obviously works very hard at being inscrutable. He is a definite adherent to the "Speak softly and carry a big stick" approach. So when he gently suggests in a speech that President Barack Obama's advisers should deliver their advice "candidly but privately," you can bet he's swinging a club at Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
McChrystal was anything but private with his insistence that the U.S. needs to send thousands more troops into harm's way on the treacherous Afghanistan battlefield he commands.
Starting on Jan. 31, 1968, combined forces of the North Vietnamese Communist Army and the Viet Cong launched surprise attacks, with more than 80,000 communist troops striking more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns and the national capital.
Anyone who has had the experience, as I had, of wandering in the vicinity during the Tet Offensive would have by now fully gotten that Yogi Berra feeling of déjà vu all over again. The generals, the men in suits, so fully self-assured and autonomous; the top political leadership, oh-so-coy and reassuring. But they have no clue as to where they are going and how they will get there. There is one difference between this and Vietnam. Jim Webb, the Democratic Virginia senator who served heroically in Vietnam, said recently that he saw positive exit possibilities in Vietnam. He sees none in Afghanistan.
Last year, Congress approved funding to make retroactive payments of $500/month served to U.S. troops who were stop-lossed, or held in uniform beyond the end of their service contracts. That'd be anytime between Sept. 11, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2009. If you're a veteran or know a veteran who's been stop-lossed, be the first to know as soon as retroactive backpay is available.
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