Incomprehensibly Stupid Army Regulation Killing Americans In Afghanistan

 

Incomprehensibly stupid Army regulation killing Americans in Afghanistan by James Simpson over at Examiner

The U.S. military has developed the best system in the world for dealing with combat casualties. As medical technology has advanced over the last century, new methods of treatment have been developed, and the speed and efficiency of transport from the battlefield to essential medical services has greatly increased chances for combat wounded to survive. So it is particularly galling that with all these improvements, the U.S. Army has not similarly adjusted its regulations regarding deployment of medical evacuation (medevac) helicopters in combat zones to compensate for the realities of modern warfare. It is bad enough that the Obama administration has imposed deadly rules of engagement to reflect its leftist worldview. The U.S. Army has been racking up its own body count due to nothing more than bureaucratic intransigence.

 

A new article in Soldier of Fortune magazine, (yes that Soldier of Fortune, still kicking after 35 years), by Dalton Fury, former Delta Force Commander and best-selling author of Kill Bin Laden, has explained the problem. Army regulations require that medevac helicopters follow the Geneva Convention, which specifies that they must be unarmed and display prominent Red Cross markings. Furthermore, Army regulation forbids medevac choppers from entering a combat zone without armed helicopter escort. If armed escort is not immediately available, medevac helicopters remain grounded, regardless the emergency. Once they do go in, they become a conspicuous target for enemy forces, most of whom have never read the Geneva Convention, and would laugh it out of existence if they had.

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A Soldier's Unnecessary Death

 

No Sex, Many Lies, One Videotape, and a Soldier's Unnecessary Death by James Simpson over at American Thinker

It is not a movie. It could be labeled a comedy, a farce, even a Greek tragedy, except that people really are dying. It is, in fact, an absolutely abhorrent, disgraceful, and unacceptable demonstration of the hidebound, self-serving attitude, omnipresent throughout the federal bureaucracy and among many in our political establishment, that my agency, my mission, my job is more important than anyone or anything else.

 

It is called protecting turf, and the ugly fact, as any government analyst can tell you, is that the federal government spends more time doing it than practically anything else. (And Obama wants to give our medical care over to them, no less!) It is bad enough that these petty turf battles squander agency time and resources, but when they dictate policies regulating combat operations, they can become deadly.

 

Last month, we brought you the story about Specialist Chazray Clark, the soldier wounded in Afghanistan by an IED who died due to delays because an unarmed medevac helicopter but a few miles away could not launch without armed escort. This story first came to light through the intrepid front-line reporting of Michael Yon. And yes, he did provide a videotape. No sex, though -- only the agonizing moments waiting for the helicopter to arrive, while Chazray's life slipped away.

 

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/no_sex_many_lies_one_videotape_and_a_soldiers_unnecessary_death.html#ixzz1lhOanM3r

The GOP Must Be on the Attack

 

The GOP Must Be on the Attack by James Simpson over at the American Thinker

Many in the media and all of the Democratic punditry salivate at the concept of the Tea Party picking the GOP nominee. The groupthink/convention wisdom is that a Tea Party-ordained nominee is akin to picking Sharon Angle in Nevada or Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. Of course it's not, but no sense in letting them in on that.

 

Let the left think that the Tea Party is "dying out" (Harry Reid) or that the nominating process is a "disaster" (James Carville). These are the same sort of comments made about conservative GOP candidates or platforms prior to 1980, 1994, and, most recently, 2010.

 

The clear analysis is actually that when the left gets this loud, this angry and hateful, this emotional, and this certain, it is because the left is running scared. It ought to be. Any attempt at sober analysis cannot come to a conclusion that "Occupy" is an important and influential movement and that the "Tea Party" is a dead soldier in the battle for hearts and minds. Any such conclusion is not just partisan or wishful; it is abjectly wrong.

 

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/the_gop_must_be_on_the_attack.html#ixzz1kZ1MC44p