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Americans have been killed by prisoners released from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers Wednesday, triggering sharp criticism from Republicans opposed to shuttering the facility in the wake of deadly attacks by the Islamic State group in Brussels and Paris.

Paul Lewis, the Pentagon's special envoy for Guantanamo detention closure, declined to provide the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee with details. He would not say whether the incidents occurred before or after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

"What I can tell you is unfortunately there have been Americans that have died because of (Guantanamo) detainees," Lewis said during an exchange with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

via abcnews.go.com

And this is a surprise to absolutely no one.

The Bush administration's handling of terrorists captured on the battlefield had to walk the line between respect for international law and our own constitution. Indefinite detention of enemy prisoners is legal so long as the connflict is ongoing, and if you haven't noticed, yeah, there's still a war on terror.

The one bright thing the Bush administration did was to ensure that detention took place outside the jurisdiction of Federal District Courts.

The frustration is that as illegitimate, unlawful combatants in the eyes of international law, the prisoners should have been subject to court martial, and then simply executed.

But in spite of losing almost 3000 Americans on 9/11, and several thousand troops since then, we simply don't have the intestinal fortitude to do what needs to be done.

Hungry soldiers have exposed the food they are served at military bases up and down the UK – including raw chicken, maggot-riddled tomatoes and mouldy eggs.

Service men and women have been disgusted by dinners served up by civilian contractors for the Ministry of Defence.

One picture shows what appears to be a maggot lying in a pool of tomatoes.

Another shows a chicken drumstick that is bloody and raw in the middle – a major health risk.

One soldier posted an open letter to the Army hierarchy on social media, complaining about food served by private firm Sodexo.

He wrote: “Would you feed a homeless person undercooked or raw chicken?

via www.mirror.co.uk

The 3M of unit morale:
Mail
Money
Meals

Screw any one of those up, and you'll have a very unhappy troop, and unit morale will also take a hit.

And of the three, meals is the easiest for a unit commander to influence.

Rep. Martha McSally has this piece of advice for the Air Force: Ditch the bands and put musicians to work in jobs that boost U.S. national security.

McSally, R-Ariz., on Tuesday said that the service easily complains about its manning levels, and officials make it "their newest excuse" for prematurely retiring essential, close-air support aircraft like the A-10 Warthog, yet "we have hundreds of people playing the tuba and clarinet."

"If we really had a manning crisis, from my perspective, we would really tell people to put down the tuba and pick up a wrench or a gun," McSally said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing at which Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford testified. "But we're not at that place, and I'm just concerned over these conflicting statements."

via www.airforcetimes.com

I like McSally a whole heck of a lot better than the two idiots Arizona has elected to the Senate.

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Old-school rifle cleaning kits are about to make a comeback as the Marine Corps phases out its newer, soft cable kits that troops used on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The throwback change is one of the decisions to come out of the October combat marksmanship symposium here, where leadership met to streamline the service's marksmanship program.

via www.marinecorpstimes.com

So, they're going back to the old style kits that were issued when I was in.

Really, between the toothbrush and the obligatory Q-tips, all you needed was to run the rod a few times after a live fire.

From the fine folks at 5 Bravo and ASMDSS.