McChrystal Cuts Out the Fat

This isn't likely to make him popular with the troops: Gen. Stanley McChrystal has ordered the closure of Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, and other fast-food joints at the Kandahar airfield in Afghanistan, one of the world's busiest, to help his men focus on their main job, The Guardian reports. As a top deputy put it in a written statement, "This is a war zone, not an amusement park." The closure of some shops at the strange "boardwalk" area at the base, which contains vendors of everything from perfumes to cigars to high-end electronics, should help the armed forces "accommodate the troop increase and get refocused on the mission at hand," Sergeant Major Michael Hall said. Only troops living on the front lines, where showers are a luxury, are likely to enjoy schadenfreude at the expense of their big-base colleagues.