By Diana West on Saturday, February 04, 2012 5:04 AM

The Department of Defense official announcement:

The Department of Defense announced toda annouced the death of a the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

 Lance Cpl. Edward J. Dycus, 22, of Greenville, Miss., died Feb. 1 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. 

This incident is under investigation.

The Jackson Clarion Ledger's report:

Mississippi's first casualty this year from the war in Afghanistan died at the hands of an Afghan soldier who was guarding a joint operating base with him in the Helmand province, officials said. ...

"He's not just another dead soldier," said childhood friend Kayla Bevill. "He wasn't killed by 'the enemy.' He was killed by someone that was supposed to be helping him guard, and that's what hurts the most."

...

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By Diana West on Friday, February 03, 2012 6:11 AM

Sally Quinn thinking Georgetown thoughts ...

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This week's syndicated column:

Even after all these years, journalist-socialite Sally Quinn still embodies a Washington way of thinking – a heart-of-Georgetown, A-list set of salon-tested assumptions “everyone” knows that provides attitudes for any occasion.

Take the surreal state of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. One day, William G. “Jerry” Boykin, a highly decorated retired Army general and ordained minister, and a founding member and leader of Delta Force, was scheduled to speak at a West Point prayer breakfast. The next day, following a campaign to stop Boykin’s appearance by what the New York Times describes as “liberal veterans’ groups, civil liberties advocates and Muslim organizations,”...

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By Diana West on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 4:56 AM

Eight years and three months ago, I wrote a column inspired by the furor over statements by General William Boykin attesting to the religious dimension of the so-called war on terror. The thought that there might be a religious dimension to Islamic terrorism is, absurdly and disastrously,  the Big No-No-No of our age (as noted once or twice in my body of work). That a devout Christian might appreciate the religious dimension of Islamic terrorism and express it in Christian terms is similarly verboten. And if he dare express it in the uniform of the country that expunges this key piece of the strategic puzzle, doctrinally, historically culturally, in its official war- and policy-making capacities,. "furor" breaks out.

Back then, I decided to imagine how future historians might explain this early controversy in the "war on terror."

"The 'war on terror,' later rechristened -- sorry, renamed --...

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By Diana West on Saturday, January 28, 2012 9:42 AM

France has decided to pull out of Afghanistan in 2013, only one year early, following the recent killings of six French troops at the hands of their (and our) wonderful uniformed Afghan allies.

The decision hasn't gone over too well with Afghan MP Tahira Mujadedi, who argues that Afghan forces are not (all together now) ready to go it alone. As for those recently murdered sons of France, Miz Mujadedi isn't exactly overflowing with condolences or mea culpas (does that even translate into Dari or Pashto?)

"When military forces are present in a war zone, anything can happen," she said. The French troops "are not here for a holiday," she added.

Sacrebleu.

By Diana West on Friday, January 27, 2012 6:26 AM

This week's syndicated column:

No doubt Deborah Scroggins believes she just published a dual biography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Dutch parliamentarian, and Aafia Siddiqui, jailed al-Qaida terrorist, and so she did. What may surprise the biographer, however, is that she also provided a third study: post-9/11 moral equivalence.

This begins with Scroggins’ outre decision to pair a peaceable writer and politician with a violent al-Qaida scientist who married Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew and co-plotter after 9/11...

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