My Son the Mass Murderer

The New York Times and USA Today are planting the seeds of a bleeding-heart defense for the monster who murdered five of his fellow soldiers in Iraq: It was his third deployment, he was behind on his mortgage, he was ordered into counseling, he had trouble with his commanding officer, they wanted to get rid of him, he could never advance above the rank of sergeant, he was on his second marriage, the pressure was too great, and so on.

And to the father of this monster his son was a victim of the army--an idea cherished by the liberal anti-war media. It is to the father I write this message:

Dear Mr. Wilburn Russell,

You raised a boy with a defective conscious who grew up to be a psychopath and a mass murderer and who is deserving of neither our pity nor our sympathy but who is most assuredly deserving of a firing squad.