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I don’t have anything insightful to say about the tragedy at Fort Hood yesterday except that the media’s handling of the event (blaming PTSD when he’d never been to combat, forcing events to fit into their narrative, the thinly veiled notion that he’s actually a terrorist or that jihadists have infiltrated the military) has been specious at best and at worst yet another reason to never watch network news. 

Still, when the early news broke yesterday, a conspiracy theorists co-worker of mine made the off-hand quip, “watch him turn out to be Muslim, possibly a sleeper terrorist that the right wing will use to their advantage.”  Odd, very odd.  Not that I believe that line of thinking. It’s just a tragedy all-around.

Nidal Malik Hasan’s religion says nothing more about Islam extremism than Timothy McVeigh’s and the Unabomber’s actions say about white men.

There was lots of chafing when President Obama decided to keep Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — the lone holdover from the Dubya adminstration.  He was a Republican, liberals complained. 

And yet, reading this profile of him in Time, I’m struck by how right the decision was to retain him and propers where they are due, the decision by then-President Bush in 2006 to pluck Robert Gates from Texas A & M  to replace Donald Rumsfeld. 

After a quietly impressive career in government that has spanned more than 30 mostly Republican years, Robert Gates is suddenly seeming almost, well, charismatic. He reeks authority. He is, according to several sources, the most respected voice in National Security Council debates. The President is said to love his unadorned manner. Much of which is attributable to the fact that, in the self-proclaimed twilight of his public career, Gates has emerged as that most exotic of Washington species — the bureaucrat unbound, candid and fearless. He tells members of Congress what he really thinks about their pet programs. He upends Pentagon priorities, demotes the military-industrial hardware pipeline and promotes the immediate needs of the troops on the front line. He fires high-ranking subordinates without muss or controversy — an Air Force secretary and chief of staff who didn’t agree with him on the need to end production of the F-22 aircraft; the commandant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who presided over disgraceful conditions; even a well-respected general like David McKiernan, a conventional-warfare specialist unsuited for the asymmetrical struggle in Afghanistan.

While most newstations are eagerly reporting the hell out of the Anna Nicole Smith story (Yes, the judge is crazy. Yes, no one knows who the real father is. Yes Anna Nicole Smith is still, in fact, dead.) or the fact that Britney Spears has entered the hallowed “Mike Tyson Zone” of craziness (thanks Bill Simmons), it seems that the inurgency in Iraq (yes, you may remember it as the country where our troops are fighting) have used anti-aircraft missiles for the first time since the summer of 2006.

Back on Feb. 7 a US Marine helicopter was struck down and all seven Marines on board died. Though the original story was buried beneath the hoopla surrounding what should have been considered less important news stories, according to the Washington Post (via MSNBC) an investigation into the military tragedy found that the helicopter was blown up from Sunnis using “sophisticated SA-14 or SA-16 shoulder-fired missile.”

It appeared that the missile used was not the Vietnam-era SA-7, which insurgents and militias are known to have, but more likely an SA-14 or SA-16. Those pose a bigger threat because they have greater range, size and ability to overcome aircraft defensive systems. The helicopter’s defensive system did not appear to deploy properly, the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James T. Conway, testified before the Senate last week. The Russian-manufactured SA-14 or SA-16 probably would have been brought into the country from abroad relatively recently.

The latest in a string of attacks against US aircraft has shown the enemy to be more patient, better armed, more prepared and also willing to change their strategy on the ground.  I’m not going to argue that an escalation in US troops is the answer but since no one in the Democratic Party has put forth an alternative plan and with the announcement this morning that Britain is withdrawing a portion of their troops from Basra it’s time for the Democrats or Republicans to grow a backbone and come up with a new strategy for our troops both in Iraq and at home.  Sending more troops to Iraq will only put more troops live’s at risk.  It’s not an answer to the quagmire Iraq has become.