Tag Archives: guantanamo

Muslim Soldier Celebrates Ramadan at Guantanamo

The Miami Herald recently published a somewhat censored report of “Sgt 1st Class A,” an unidentified female California National Guard Soldier and Muslim. She was on her first deployment in her 20-year career, and the article briefly described her past and how she celebrated Ramadan.

Islam, she says, makes her a better soldier, “thoughtful, compassionate, understanding — all those things you need as a leader. That’s where I pull my strength from.”

In an interesting twist, the article says Read more

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Attacks Atheism, Immorality, not Christianity

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has frequently claimed that the public acknowledgement of Christians in the US military — as when a group of US Marines was baptized on a California beach — has provided propaganda and motivation for America’s extremist Islamic adversaries. As has been noted before, Weinstein’s claim has no basis in fact; Osama bin Laden railed against America’s support for Israel far more than he did any presence of Christianity in the US military.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, was recently able to release a “rambling manifesto” (available here) that mentions many things, which might have given him the opportunity to indicate the motivation behind his alleged personal planning of the attack on 9/11. While the document is addressed to the “crusaders of the military commissions” and Mohammed once refers to “crusader Soldiers,” as before, this word does not seem to be a religious attribution. In fact, Mohammed seems to claim the opposite: The evil of the Western world is its atheism and immorality:  Read more

US Navy Disregarding DADT Repeal Plan?

Update: The theme continued at the Air Force Times nearly three weeks later.

The US Navy recently announced (on its continuously updated DADT page) that it had coordinated with Japan to understand that “spouse” in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) would cover a “same-sex” couple. (Published at the Washington Post, repeated at Stars and Stripes.) As a result,

The Navy [said] in a notice to personnel that it had added Japan to its list of overseas assignments for same-sex couples…The Navy has made only Japan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, available

as overseas assignments for gay couples.

The specifics of that announcement were largely missed or simply viewed as another “victory” by homosexual advocacy groups, including the American Military Partner Association, which

described the Navy’s decision as “welcome news” but noted that the armed forces do not treat same-sex spouses equally at many duty stations abroad.

Oddly, neither the AMPA nor anyone else seems to have noted this “special treatment” for homosexuals in assignments was never supposed to happen.

The Pentagon’s DADT repeal report Read more

Mikey Weinstein vs Bill O’Reilly on Combat

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein made a fairly effective effort to focus the debacle of his “interview” with Bill O’Reilly last week on an O’Reilly quote near the end of the piece. After O’Reilly called the removal of the Nativity at Guantanamo a “cowardly” decision and questioned why Weinstein’s anonymous “clients” didn’t have the “cajones” to come on The O’Reilly Factor, Weinstein pushed back with “at least [my clients] joined the military…” In response, O’Reilly said

“I covered four wars with a pen…so don’t impugn my courage ever again.”

That retort can justifiably be criticized — but can Weinstein criticize it? O’Reilly was apparently referring to being a correspondent and experiencing a couple of “firefights.” According to his own admissions, the closest Weinstein came to combat was giving a briefing on the breakup of AT&T. While Weinstein did serve in the Air Force, he spent nearly half his uniformed career as a student.

O’Reilly looked foolish trying to buttress his combat cred with his “pen.” But Weinstein is throwing stones pretty confidently for someone who lives in a glass house.

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Military Religious Freedom Makes the DuffelBlog

Apparently, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has arrived.

The DuffelBlog — the military-themed takeoff of the satirical Onion website — riffed the recent controversy over the Guantanamo Bay Nativity scenes with a fake article entitled “Detainee Live-Action Christmas Diorama at Guantanamo Triggers Controversy.”

The site, which some might consider offensive but apparently has a Pentagon fanbase, built a satirical tale for most of the article, but finished without really having to embellish all that much:

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was circulating an anonymous e-mail from eighteen other guards that went even further, referring to “the blatantly unconstitutional activities we’ve seen aboard Guantanamo. Obviously we’re referring to the nativity scene in the chow hall…”  Read more

Former Rep Allen West on Mikey Weinstein, Nativity

Allen West, former Congressman and retired US Army LtCol, wrote that the military “buckle[d]” to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein when it removed the Nativities from the Guantanamo chow halls.  West would have responded in a way many in the military probably would have [emphasis added]:

The US military in which I served would have told someone like Weinstein to simply go “pound sand…”

I want to make sure you know exactly how dangerous this Mr. Weinstein truly is. He has referred to individuals who profess their faith as committing acts of sedition. He has taken it upon himself to attack any religious symbols or references in the US military — and recently had the words “under God” removed from the US Air Force Academy honor oath – from where he graduated, by the way.

Weinstein didn’t have the phrase “so help me God” (not “under God”) removed, but that conversation is misunderstood by almost everyone who talks about it, including Weinstein’s own supporters.

LtCol West becomes one of the few to see Read more

Mikey Weinstein wants Religious Freedom Confined to Chapel

In a short pieced entitled “Atheist says, ‘Boo!’ Navy jumps to attention,” Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty executive director retired Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews lamented the US military’s seeming subservience to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein:

“It’s just disappointing that the military, the Air Force and now the Navy, is just caving in to a shout from Mr. Weinstein,” says Crews. “He says, ‘Boo!’ and they hide – and that’s very disappointing.”

More interestingly, Crews highlights the core of the push Weinstein has most recently tried — and the one that brought him this “victory:”  Read more

Mikey Weinstein Gets Muted on Bill O’Reilly

Think what you will about Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, but this was actually fairly entertaining. Discussing the removal of Nativity scenes at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an unusually calm O’Reilly faced off with the predictably verbose Weinstein, who was more interested in hitting his talking points than addressing the question. So O’Reilly cut off his audio — but Weinstein’s mouth kept moving…

O’Reilly called the decision to pull the Nativities “cowardly,” and noted that they recognized the occurrence of a national holiday.

Video and transcript here.

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