Flickr Commons/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/expertinfantry/5417168174/">Expert Infantry</a>
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We know you’re riding high over the women’s World Cup soccer team, America. But how does our military measure up to its own league rivals? Let’s check the weekly scorecard! In this installment: gays get shafted, kids (may) get drafted, the ACLU gets lucky, hackers stay plucky, and Afghans play with a headless goat carcass. Yeah, nothing rhymes with that.
The sitrep:
- A British-born UN worker in Afghanistan believes he can save the wartorn country by teaching everyone how to play rugby. “The national sport, Buzkashi—a game of unwritten rules that nobody follows in which horsemen battle over a headless goat carcass—has much in common with rugby, he said.” Okay, but how long before Vince McMahon brings Buzkashi to America? (Stripes)
- OK, so. A federal appeals court tells the military to stop enforcing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The Marines tweet out an order to stop enforcing DADT. But today, the White House wants everybody to just chill out and wait until a much-heralded “senior leaders” repeal certification is done. Whenever that is. Confused? (Army Times/Time)
- Hackers 90,000, Pentagon 0. If you’re keeping score with stolen email accounts, that is. (Mother Jones/New York Times)
- The Pentagon’s No. 2 general says that budget cuts could force the reinstatement of the draft. Huh? (Stars and Stripes)
- The DOD accidentally gave the ACLU’s lawyers a classified memo on how it processes the most dangerous detainees in Afghanistan. Apparently the feds handle documents roughly, too. (Washington Post)
- Osama bin Laden reportedly wanted a tenth-anniversary terror attack on 9/11/11. Instead the Navy SEALS threw him a surprise party. (WSJ)
- In other bin Laden news, beware of Abbottabad doctors bearing Hepatitis B vaccines! No, seriously, the CIA’s cover story for its OBL operation may have set NGOs and their immunization efforts back by a decade or three. (Guardian/Foreign Policy)
- Muammar Qaddafi absolutely, positively swears on his honor that if the rebels take Tripoli, he won’t “deluge it with missiles and blow it up.” What a relief! (Army Times/Mother Jones)
