BAGHDAD, Iraq — A soldier in Iraq is successfully avoiding the Uniform Code of Military Justice by living inside an amnesty box, sources confirmed today.

Spc. Ray Thomas, a communications specialist deployed to Camp Taji, began residing in the amnesty box after becoming the focus of a 15-6 investigation into unauthorized drinking on post.

“It came to light that Spc. Thomas, while intoxicated in direct violation of General Order No. 1, allowed a negligent discharge of his M4 rifle in his housing unit,” explained Maj. Robert Sandusky, the officer in charge of the investigation. “Unfortunately, when Spc. Thomas learned he was facing punishment that could include extra duty and/or reduction in rank, he just disappeared.”

Thomas was declared AWOL 36 hours later when base security contractors discovered him inside a 5’x5′ amnesty box near the post airfield, along with his sleeping bag, a log of Copenhagen, and a rucksack full of MREs, according to sources.

“That amnesty box is essentially a legal forcefield,” admitted Sandusky. “Therefore our investigation is on hold pending his emergence from said box.”

Prominent experts on military law begrudgingly praised Thomas’s legal acumen.

“It’s a brilliant move,” commented Lt. Col. Simon Curcio, an attorney for the Army’s Judge Advocate General. “Under the UCMJ, nothing inside an amnesty box is subject to punishment, so they can’t touch him. If he can hold out until he leaves theater, he’s home free.”

“He’s really got them over a barrel — or over a box, so to speak” he added. “But my question is, ‘where’s he relieving himself?’ You know what, never mind. Please don’t answer that.”

Soldiers on post say that despite the lack of latrine or running water, Thomas has remained in the box for six days and shows no inclination of leaving.

“Ironically, this shitbag move displays more creativity, initiative, and discipline than I’ve ever seen from Spc. Thomas,” said Sgt. Dominic Johnson, his former squad leader. “He should be recommended for promotion to E-5 if he doesn’t end up getting a GOMOR [General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand].”

Speaking from inside the amnesty box, Thomas said he has been busy making the most of his environment.

“It’s amazing what people just toss in here,” Thomas said. “Just in the last week, I’ve collected a baggie of cocaine, a smoke grenade, a vintage Penthouse from a care package, and two extra-large dildos, which I can use to weigh down the corners of my poncho.”

“Plus, I’m supplementing my diet by licking used candy wrappers,” he continued. “Those sort of make up for all the cigarette butts and dip spitters that fall on my head when I’m trying to sleep.”

It remains to be seen whether Thomas can hold out until his redeployment flight in April, but he remains confident.

“I’m in here for the long haul, man,” he said. “You know if I’m living off MREs I won’t have to shit for at least another month.”

Are you a suicide bomber aspirant struggling to succeed in today’s saturated market? Are you envious that everyone is calling Yusuf the “Damascus Dominator” because he courageously took out a room full of children with a suicide vest? We here at Duffel Blog understand that blowing yourself up can be a daunting, if not downright terrifying task. To help you achieve the guilt-free martyrdom that comes with murder, we’ve adapted Stephen R. Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” in order to make sure that you go out with a bang.

1. Be proactive — or in this case — proactively reactive! Don’t forget that an explosion is a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions can be finicky! If you don’t have the right combination of ingredients in your explosive vest, your career is going to fizzle pretty quickly. And speaking of being proactive, there’s no reason for you to wait for a private invitation from the shadow governor of Kandahar. Get out there and seize the opportunity to maim civilians in the name of Allah. That’s what a highly effective suicide bomber would do.
2. Begin with the end in mind — or in this case — your end in mind! Take a moment to really visualize your end goal, the sound of your own body being torn apart by your misguided and deliberately misinterpreted faith. Really focus on it. The more clearly you can see the tarnishing of the world’s opinion of Islam, the more ironclad your resolve will be.
3. Put first things first — or in this case — last things first! You’re going to die. Seriously, this is it. I hope you’re comfortable with that part because there’s nothing really in here that’s going to help with coping.
4. Think win-win. Are there any creative ways that you can use your desire to become a suicide bomber to benefit other people and achieve your objective? We might suggest detonating yourself in a Twinkie factory, scattering that tasty cream for the whole world to enjoy. Barring that, you could, you know, not detonate yourself and become a contributing member of society instead. Your call!
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood — or in this case — blot out all other opinions by screaming “Allahu akbar” as loudly as you can!
6. Synergize! To be totally honest, we’re not really sure what this word means, but we’re almost positive it applies to suicide bombing, and you should definitely do it!
7. Sharpen the saw — or, in this case — the nails! Attaching sharp objects to yourself before detonation is a sure-fire way to sew even more chaos when you send yourself into the hereafter.

With these seven habits, your career as a suicide bomber is guarantee to be long (but also short), prosperous, and full of life (but also death). The most important thing is not to be discouraged — be highly effective!

ALLEPO, Syria – An angry and tearful Syria informed the international community today that it is most definitely pregnant, the result of a late pull-out by the U.S. after a long intercourse, sources confirmed today.

Syria’s news followed a White House announcement that as a result of an agreement with Turkey, the U.S. will withdraw military forces from Syria on a timeline being developed. Critics claim the withdrawal jeopardizes the Syrian Democratic Forces, which receive American military weapons and support.

“What bullshit. Since 2013, the U.S. was all like, ‘I really care about you,’ and ‘don’t worry I’ll be careful,’” Syria told reporters. “How was I supposed to know the U.S. would only stay in long enough to spawn a bunch of freedom fighters but pull out as soon as it got some international booty call offer from my thotty neighbor, Turkey?”

“Turkey acts like the queen bee around here because she thinks our father, the Ottoman Empire, loved her best like, 100 years ago,” Syria added. “Now thanks to her cozying up to America I’ll be left with a lot of children who are pissed off and heavily armed. And their deadbeat daddy’s initials are U.S.A.”

Foreign interventions require clear national goals, operations crafted to achieve defined objectives, and strategic considerations, according to foreign policy experts. Asked how many of these elements the US intervention in Syria included, Dr. Owen Killian at the Brookings Institution responded, “Pretty much none of them. The U.S. appears to have entered Syria with little planning about how long to stay, how to end the affair, or the impact of fucking around in the Middle East.”

“This basically shows all the forethought and follow through of a drunken frat boy,” Killian continued. “You can’t stop the biology of intervention. Disgorging forces into a country without protection almost always results in a lot of angry offspring, especially if Marines are involved.”

Syria said she regrets the affair.

“I should have seen this coming,” Syria said. “America pulled the same shit in 1984 when it withdrew from Lebanon, and that left the world with that psycho brat named Hezbollah.”

Although a contingent of French forces will remain in Syria, the American pullout raises the potential for competing powers to fill a regional power vacuum.

“Who’s going to help me raise these kids?” Syria asked. “That nut case ISIS will steal them in a Damascus minute if I turn my back. Russia and Iran are lurking around, but they’re creepy and crazy. China is always willing to send money, but that comes with a lot of strings. Only France seems to be really committed to sticking around.”

“Are you kidding me? France?” Syria added with a sigh. “Great. My kids are going to grow up to be fucking mimes.”

Days after President Donald Trump announced he would be pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, a Marine first sergeant on the ground has refused to let any of them leave until “every swingin’ dick” has filled out their leave chits, sources confirmed today.

“Hold on there, motivators. No one’s going anywhere until you all have a daggum hour-by-hour safety plan in place,” said 1st Sgt. Ray Thornton. “And there ain’t no way in hell the CO will approve these chits until squad leaders have inspected every friggin’ POV.”

Thornton stressed to the Marines that anyone planning to travel farther from Syria than the allowed 200-mile leave boundaries would need to have a special plan in place and would need to call CENTCOM every 24 hours to check in.

“I signed the wrong block on my leave chit, and now I’m stuck in Raqqah by myself until after New Years,” said Cpl. Ryan Payne. “This sucks!”

Within hours of Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, Thornton had the entire formation covered and aligned by the border to prepare to leave, but they ended up being stuck there for days waiting for the armory sight count to be up.

“Count it again!” shouted Thornton, enemy artillery rounds falling around the Marines. “And who the hell submitted this roster as an Excel spreadsheet? I asked for a PDF!”

At press time, all troops had been recalled to Syria for an emergency police call to find a missing canteen.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a public call today for the U.S. to take action on the feral drones marauding the skies of eastern Afghanistan.

“When they escape these drones roost in our mountains and attack our vehicles and machinery,” Ghani said. “If the U.S. is serious about rebuilding the country for the future, they will act on this problem before it gets out of control.”

Abdul Jabbar Naeemi, the governor of Khost Province, claims that feral drones have destroyed over three hundred vehicles, essential infrastructure and some of the swankiest bed down locations in his province.

“It is becoming an infestation,” he said. “The Americans introduced these things to our land, they must do something about it before it is too late.”

Kabul University’s top Dronologist, Dr. Feroz Sherazi, said the problem has grown worse over the years because of the isolation of the Hindu Kush Mountains.

“There are no natural predators and tons of poppy and scrap metal,” he said. “It’s a perfect breeding ground. That’s why we are seeing entire nests develop hellfire missiles.”

Ghani’s cabinet has a proposal that asks for $8 billion over four years to wrangle all the drones onto a preserve in Badakhshan Province. Local aide workers will neuter the drones once they reach full maturity then administer a vaccination program to prevent rust accumulation.

The Taliban have also made action on feral drones a precondition for peace talks with the Afghan government along with the withdrawal of all foreign troops and the transfer of Justin Bieber into their custody.

For its part, the Pentagon maintains that it has complete control of every drone it has ever brought to Afghanistan, and the CIA issued a rebuttal that was completely redacted.

TIJUANA, Mexico — A massive caravan of illegal strippers heading to the U.S.-Mexico border was stopped at the border by a deployment of U.S. soldiers with engagement rings, sources confirm today.

The strippers, most of whom were from South America, had joined the annual march to the U.S. border seeking asylum at one of the many strip clubs outside of 29 Palms. Most had been walking for months with little food, water, or shelter. The drastic conditions resulted in the perfect storm of losing a bit of weight, tightening up c-section scars, and weakened judgement, which made them the perfect target for a third marriage.

“We met them in a three to one ratio, so we knew that it was critical to engage them immediately,” said Col. Todd Richardson, Task Force Lonely Patriot Commander. “Then they started throwing rocks. By our Rules of Engagement, that meant we could throw rocks back at them— and by that, I mean cubic zirconia.”

“Tear gas? Oh, that’s not tear gas,” said Richardson. “They’re crying because they’re happy. This will be the best 3-6 months of their lives.”

At last estimate, 30 percent of the strippers, which arrived just today, are pregnant with military dependents to be born in six months.

“It’s hell out there,” said Chaplain (Maj.) Bobby Weatherly. “I’ve never been under so much strain to pull together so many marriages so quickly. We’re out womanned out there. I had to call in close pair support.”

The troops have been stationed on the border since October to stop any illegal immigrants from entering the country. By the end of the month, 100 percent of the stripper caravan is expected to enter the country legally as military spouses and build their own businesses selling essential oils.

“This has been a glorious military exercise,” said Richardson. “From the second they started throwing those rocks, I told the boys the penguins threw rocks as a sign of affection and that they were weapons free with those rings.”

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Four zip-tied Somali nationals placed bets on how many Navy SEAL memoirs they would be featured in, according to three SEAL memoirs already published since yesterday’s stand-off.

“Three shots in the dark, and the sacred rite of warfare had ended,” read one description of the mission in 2nd Class Petty Officer Jim MacDonald’s memoir “After Action: Hindsight through NVGs.” “It was a scene that has played out countless times in history: a little boat rocking in the moonlight that was like the gaze of Valhalla, a band of pirates arguing heatedly about how many airport bookstores would carry ghostwritten accounts of their capture.”

Another account of the event appeared in 2nd Class Petty Officer Joe Silvo’s “No Fear: Lessons on Hard Core Leadership for Market Uncertainty.”

“Hard core leaders eat accountability for breakfast,” read the opening paragraph of Chapter One: Hard Core Competencies. “But it can also make even the hardest core leaders feel vulnerable. For instance, when a band of pirates ridiculed me to tears as shameless self-promoter who would disgrace the Navy by cashing in on the prestige of the SEAL name to sell schlock to corporate executives, I almost didn’t ask them for a quote for this book.”

The betting took place after SEAL snipers killed three armed pirates who had taken an American oil tanker crew hostage in a small boat in the Gulf of Aden. Four Somalis were left to contemplate their fates as the SEALs moved in.

“As the bow of our boat parted the mist, we heard groans of agony rising from the pirate’s dinghy,” recalled Chief Petty Officer Ruben Martinez in “Crunch Time: Navy SEAL Secrets to Rock-Hard Abs.”

“Prepared for an ugly scene, we were surprised to find the pirates alert and unharmed, resigned to the fact that they would be reduced to two-dimensional caricatures in the many, many books that would be written about this non-event.”

The captives were driven to piracy by social and environmental forces that were out of their control, which should be considered when depicting them in film or literature, according to screenwriter Katherine Heller who designed the memoir-writing phase of SEAL Qualification Training.

“Picture a community devastated by war, disease, starvation, and neglect, and drop it right at the edge of the sea,” she told a class Wednesday, underlining “Raise The Stakes” on a chalkboard. “It’s the brutal friction between these two realities — the barbarity of man, the endlessness mystery of the raging ocean — that wrought these charact … I mean, survivors, and drove them to confrontation with the most hardened killers in the US military.”

“This is ‘Lone Survivor‘-level sales for anyone who does it right,” she added.

As Duffel Blog went to press, the four as-yet unnamed men were en route to a holding facility in Norfolk, Virginia, where they will face a grueling schedule of interviews by the hundreds of SEALs currently writing memoirs.

HELMAND, Afghanistan — A smart bomb has been used to destroy something that costs more than a smart bomb for the first time since the introduction of precision-guided munitions in 1968, sources confirmed today.

U.S. forces employed Hellfire laser-guided missiles to destroy five Taliban gun trucks as they prepared to attack Musa Qala, a district center in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

“We assess the value of these trucks that we destroyed as being about $200,000 a pop,” Gen. Austin S. Miller, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters. “A Hellfire missile only costs $115,000. This was the most efficient strike we’ve seen in this war yet.

The White House said the strike is proof the administration’s strategy in Afghanistan is working.

“This is what winning looks like. It’s proof that we’re putting the Taliban in a place where they be forced to negotiate,” said a senior administration official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They can’t afford this.”

Some Pentagon officials have pushed back on this assessment.

“The armored Humvees that the Taliban had stolen from the Afghan National Army originally cost $220,000, and we paid the Afghan interior ministry $8,300 in bribes to get them into the country,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told reporters. “Also, the Taliban were using these as substitutes for trucks that they buy for $800 in Peshawar. So the general’s assessment of the replacement cost of these vehicles is not accurate.”

Foreign policy experts have raised concerns the White House could be overstating the long-term effects of the strike.

“This will not have a significant impact on the outcome of the conflict,” noted John Gentle, a foreign policy expert at RAND Corporation. “The U.S. spends $167 million a day in Afghanistan, and the American people don’t even know we’re still there. I don’t think they really expect our forces there to be efficient at this point. What is an efficient war, anyway?”

Samuel X. Clemens of No Such Agency contributed to this report.