Are you a member, or former member of the United States military? Do you support the Obama administration? Granted - those of you who are active duty must support the President as your Commander-in-Chief, but did you vote for him? Did you vote for him in 2012? If so, I'm having difficulty understanding why.
First and foremost - thank you, each and every one, for your service to our country. Serving the people of your country is a noble and honorable thing that only 7% of Americans volunteer to do.
Let's take a look at some of the things the President has done that affect our military.
One of the first things the President vowed to do after taking office was to end the war in Iraq and to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. I'm OK with ending the Iraq war - except that he told the entire world when it was going to happen, broadcasting to our enemies when they could move back in without fear of a U.S. presence.
His promise to close Gitmo didn't work out so well as he had no plan about where to put the war detainees and the American people didn't want them in U.S. prisons. That still may happen, although it has taken a back seat for a while.
President Obama authorized the Navy SEALs to go into Pakistan and take out Osama Bin Laden - a very positive thing. That is, until he began taking all the credit for getting Bin Laden and turning it into a political spectacle. Many SEALs turned against Obama after that, some even denouncing him after they finished their military service. Then, suddenly, a transport helicopter carrying a large group of SEAL Team 6 members was shot down, killing them all. There were suspicions that the chopper's flight plans were leaked or that the souls on board were made known to the enemy. Speculation... for now.
Recently, the President has reduced the number of meals received by our combat forces in Afghanistan. He blames the sequester - which was of his own making - and the Republicans but the truth is that he is once again turning our military into a political campaign point. And he's not even running for office - he's never come out of campaign mode.
It wasn't too long after he was elected in 08 that he said combat wounded military veterans should pay for their own medical treatment because, after all, "they volunteered." The uproar was apparently loud enough that he backed off of that little gem.
The most recent incident, and by far the most egregious as far as I'm concerned, is the trial of Major Nidal Hasan, the Army Psychiatrist who pulled out a weapon and, while shouting "Allahu Ackbar" opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 32, some of those serious and permanently.
Rather than charge Hasan with terrorist acts, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder somehow decided that his shooting incident was no more than simple workplace violence. Certainly in normal, everyday workplace violence incidents the shooter yells "Allahu Ackbar" while he's cutting down his fellow employees, right? Happens all the time...
Except it doesn't. And Hasan targeted only military people in uniform. Charging him with workplace violence prevents the dead victims from receiving military honors for their sacrifice and prevents the survivors and and victims' families from receiving the benefits they would have received had the shooter been declared and enemy combatant. Basically the Obama administration screwed over the victims and family members of the Fort Hood massacre.
Why, you ask? Could it be that this was the first terrorist attack on American soil since 2001 and the President simply did not want that on his record? It wasn't his fault that the incident happened but it would have been on the list of things that occurred on his watch and he wasn't going to allow that. The President put his political legacy ahead of the well being of those military victims and families, and basically before the military in general. And it was disgraceful.
What's worse is that Hasan was charged in 2011, a year ahead of the 2012 election. There was evidence that Hasan had been in direct communication with Anwar al Awlaki, the American born Muslim cleric whom the Obama administration declared an enemy and killed with a drone strike. The evidence of Islamic terrorism involvement in the Fort Hood shooting was overwhelming, yet Hasan was charged with workplace violence. And people in the military voted for Obama anyway.
I will never understand it.
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