Morale is surely important, but I tend to be skeptical of conclusions drawn by journalists from surveys since the issue of morale in Iraq seemed to be heavily used to undermine our war effort there. I suspect much the same will be done with this information now that Afghanistan is no longer the "good war."
That said, we surely need to support troop morale. But this part of the story is absolutely ridiculous:
Efforts already under way to get more health workers to the Afghan war could be hampered somewhat by last week's shooting. The psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder was slated to go to Afghanistan. Some of the dead and wounded also were to deploy there to bolster psychological services for
soldiers.
Yeah, darn the bad luck on that, eh? Is this author seriously asserting that the killer psychiatrist Major Hasan would have been an asset to any troubled soldier or Marine in Afghanistan, but for his unfortunate little murder spree at Fort Hood? Really?
Note that the author isn't just saying that the murder and wounding of some mental health workers by Hasan will cause difficulties. No, that is another effect mentioned. The first effect that will harm our efforts is that Hasan was slated to go to Afghanistan--but now won't go.
Now just where did I put my clue bat?
