Author: Poetrooper

When one chooses to write about liberal hypocrisy, the choices are seemingly unlimited. The other day I wrote about the double standard of Democrats requiring photo identification to attend their events while simultaneously opposing such a requirement for American voters. Now, in a recent column, Charles Krauthammer points to even more egregious hypocrisy at the pinnacle of the party. Entitled, “Barack Obama: Drone Warrior,” Krauthammer’s column notes that the very same liberals who were furious with the Bush Administration for torturing terrorists for essential intelligence are now quietly acquiescent regarding the Obama Administrations killing of same, seemingly on presidential whim, without review by any other authority and with absolutely no legal safeguards afforded to those so targeted.

As a soldier, I have never understood the Left’s frothing outrage at inflicting mere pain on an enemy combatant to obtain intelligence which might save friendly lives, while at the same time they take a rather antiseptic attitude toward the actual killing of the same enemy. I have always been similarly puzzled by that same odd outrage being directed at American troops, who in moments of ill-advised jubilation following victory in combat, may desecrate the body of someone who mere minutes before was most likely doing his determined best to reverse the circumstances. You have killed them, taken from them that which is the most precious human attribute they possess: life; and yet, according to the confused morality of liberals, it is an atrocity, possibly a war crime, for you to disrespect a dead husk of immediately decaying flesh from which, even most world religions concur, the human spirit has departed. While I would not encourage such demonstrations, I can see where they are the grunts’ somewhat more prosaic celebration of prevailing in a deadly contest of will, skill and courage, akin to a jet jockey’s victory roll after he’s just vaporized an entire enemy unit with a smart bomb. All the victims are equally dead with the main difference being that the grunts’ have bodies to bury while the jet jockey has a celebratory cerveza or two back at the base or aboard the carrier.

When presented with this moral contradiction, liberals, having no rational explanation for their irrational outrage, tend to splutter something to the effect that, “We’re Americans. We don’t do that. We don’t stoop to the behavior of our enemies.” None of which explains why it’s okay to kill them but not okay to torture them or disrespect their spiritless corpses. Nor is their Pollyanna view true; combat is a very brutal endeavor and American warriors fighting for their lives can be every bit as, and even more brutal, than those they are fighting. That same apple-cheeked kid from Iowa who hands out candy to the children in every village is also capable of blasting a mujahedeen into Paradise without a second thought. That capability to quickly transform from kindness to killing is one reason why we win far more battles than we lose. We are in fact, every bit as merciless on the battlefield as our adversaries. Any military force that doesn’t meet brutal force with even more brutal force is doomed to defeat. As I have written before on American Thinker, combat is not a game and in battle there is no such thing as fair, a concept for losers.

That we didn’t torture prisoners at all in the World Wars, or Korea, or Vietnam is, to put it politely, pure poppycock. While perhaps not a standard practice, torture, or rigorous interrogation was used when conditions demanded it. That was certainly the case in my war, Vietnam, where some enemy prisoners, especially those captured in an ongoing battle, were interrogated rigorously, on the spot, to obtain critically needed information regarding the strength and disposition of the forces opposing us. Did I turn a blind eye and become complicit with my silence? You bet I did. Have I ever once in the four ensuing decades regretted it? Not a chance. Did I witness desecration of enemy corpses? Again, you bet I did. One of the battalion commanders in my brigade whose radio call sign was Gunfighter and who toted a non-issue six shooter, famously had hatchets distributed to certain of his units to be used for the same purposes as American Indians had used tomahawks. They were put to work immediately and enthusiastically to instill terror in our enemy, until Westmoreland’s staff learned of the practice and ordered them confiscated. By that time though there were American paratroopers openly sporting necklaces of human ears. Grisly? Yes, but also the harsh reality of ground combat.

And no, I really don’t have any lingering regrets about that either. I saw far more evidence of torture and desecration committed by the Viet Cong and NVA against their own civilian populace than we ever inflicted upon them. It is those mental images of dead, defiled young women and children, of old mama sans and papa sans brutally tortured and disfigured before being killed that remain with me all these long years later.

So perhaps you’ll understand why, with that kind of grounding in reality, I’m with Krauthammer on this issue. Liberal Democrats, loudly condemning torture while simultaneously condoning their anointed leader to have a free, completely unaccountable hand in doling out death from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to foreign (so far) terrorists, and, as Charles notes, sometimes their non-combatant families, have taken hypocrisy to a new lethal level. Obama’s campaign team in releasing such information in an effort to lend some badly needed macho to their dear leader’s wimpy image may have taken ineptitude to a new level as well; perhaps not lethal but possibly politically fatal.

And a closing thought as I anticipate a chorus of objection from many of the conservative readers here who tend to think like liberals on this particular issue of torture: one of the primary differences between conservatives and liberals is the ability of most conservatives to face the world as it is and deal with it, while liberals see life as it should be and maintain a constant state of angst because it is not as they wish.

And never will be…

Over at American Thinker, author, William A. Levinson, has an interesting take on the Obama Campaign’s efforts to make it seem as though our affirmative action commander-in-chief personally led the raiding party of SEALs that took out Osama bin Laden. Levinson refers to this cynical exploitation of our troops as “Barack Obama’s Stolen Valor,” and suggests that a shortened version, dropping the Barack, would make a pointed bumper sticker during this election season.

Levinson is spot-on, of course, in applying the premise of B.G. Burkett’s seminal book in his assessment of Obama’s shameless attempt to appear to be what he isn’t, a decisive military tactician and boldly courageous combat leader. Think about it, what is the difference between that counterfeit claim and those of this little worm, “Ronad” Mailahn and the other phony warriors Jonn exposes here regularly, other than the higher level of the deception and the far greater significance of Obama’s theft of valor?

One of the comments to Levinson’s piece is insightful in noting that Obama is intimately involved with seals but not SEALs. Obama is surrounded by trained political pinnipeds that perch on their pedestals, barking their approval of his every command, flapping their flippers enthusiastically as they do his bidding in return for smelly morsels of political spoils.

This is exactly what a nation gets when it applies the misguided concept of affirmative action to the selection of presidents and commanders-in-chief.

It just occurred to me that perhaps someone should Photoshop Obama’s haughty mug onto that pic of Sergeant Major Mailahn. it just seems so appropriate. Know what I mean?

ADDED: Thanks to Mark for the updated photo.

Barack Obama is in favor of gay marriage. This week. Who knows how his position may evolve once he’s cashed all those Hollywood and entertainment industry checks that are now pouring in due to our president’s adoption of a new wide stance. If all those in the gay, lesbian, blah, blah, blah society think they have this guy in their pocket, they’d better count their fingers before they think they’ve won this fight. Based upon what Barack Obama has so often done to those who are no longer useful to him, they may spend the next four years politically flattened out on the road to sexual liberation, covered with massive tire treads. The possibility exists of roadside IED’s.

But for now, Obama’s for gay marriage and based on details in his announcement, that includes our military. Now that, folks, should provide for some interesting situations in base housing. How do you suppose the sergeants major and master sergeants and sergeants first class are all going to respond when a couple of gay specialists throw a wine and cheese tasting pool party at their quarters right in the midst of enlisted housing, inviting all their civilian acquaintances from the local gay bars and bath houses? One who has served can only imagine the response, worse even for gay lieutenants in officers’ housing.
But for now, we must understand that Barack Obama is taking this courageous wide stance for all those gay people in the military who are out there fighting on his behalf. Three immediate questions come to mind: First, is it only the gay military folks who are fighting on his behalf? Second, if it’s all our troops fighting on his behalf, does that now mean they are no longer serving the nation at large? Has, under the imperious Obama administration, the United States military become some sort of Praetorian Guard, whose allegiances belong only to Dear Leader? The third and most important question is this: When you take away his teleprompter, just how big a fumbling fool is this demonstratively failed product of affirmative action?

Good grief, even the rawest buck sergeant knows that his troops are first loyal to themselves, meaning the immediate, cohesive unit, starting with their squad, moving up through platoon and company to a tenuous battalion loyalty; then to the mission, and as a distant last, to flag and country. In six years of active duty in the Army, most of one of those in ground combat, I never once heard a soldier express the belief that he was serving on behalf of John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, the presidents of the time. Not once. Had any trooper done so, he would have immediately become suspect by his entire chain of command. For this inept commander in chief to reference the troops as fighting on his behalf can only lead to one conclusion:

Obama’s been staring at his own image in the golf course pond for far too long and far too often.