Thursday, August 25, 2005

One Day In the Life Of Deuce-Four

If only the Extreme Media had journalists in Iraq like Michael Yon, despicable wastes of skin like Cindy Sheehan wouldn't be able to draw flies if they stripped naked and doused themselves in corn syrup....

[HT: Hugh Hewitt]

UPDATE: I noticed this passage in Mr. Yon's latest post, but since Cap'n Ed highlighted it, I can't not reinforce it:

The terrorist [that wounded Lieutenant Colonel Erik Kurilla] turned out to be one Khalid Jasim Nohe, who had first been captured by US forces (2-8 FA) on 21 December, the same day a large bomb exploded in the dining facility on this base and killed 22 people.

That December day, Khalid Jasim Nohe and two compatriots tried to evade US soldiers from 2-8 FA, but the soldiers managed to stop the fleeing car. Then one of the suspects tried to wrestle a weapon from a soldier before all three were detained. They were armed with a sniper rifle, an AK, pistols, a silencer, explosives and other weapons, and had in their possession photographs of US bases, including a map of this base.

That was in December.

About two weeks ago, word came that Nohe's case had been dismissed by a judge on 7 August. The Coalition was livid. According to American officers, solid cases are continually dismissed without apparent cause. Whatever the reason, the result was that less than two weeks after his release from Abu Ghraib, Nohe was back in Mosul shooting at American soldiers.

LTC Kurilla repeatedly told me of - and I repeatedly wrote about - terrorists who get released only to cause more trouble. Kurilla talked about it almost daily. Apparently, the vigor of his protests had made him an opponent of some in the Army's Detention Facilities chain of command, but had otherwise not changed the policy. And now Kurilla lay shot and in surgery in the same operating room with one of the catch-and-release-terrorists he and other soldiers had been warning everyone about. [emphasis added]

Here's a reason to be pessimistic about the GWOT. Why the devil are we releasing jihadis to return to their grisly business? Doesn't that just play right into the Extreme Media's ploy of the daily U.S. body count?

And did you catch from where Nohe was released? Abu Ghraib. Now you tell me, and be completely honest: Which was worse - putting panties on terrorists' heads and making them play nudie Twister, or turning them loose to kill more Iraqis and our own soldiers?

I'm still for mining these animals for all the intelligence we can get and then "disappearing" them. But surely we can all agree that once captured they should, at the very least, never, EVER be let go.

The President says ad nauseum that this is a war and we're in it till the victorious end. Putting an end to this "catch & release" nonsense would be a good first step toward making good on that pledge.