{"id":32471,"date":"2012-10-19T08:45:43","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T12:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=32471"},"modified":"2012-10-19T08:45:43","modified_gmt":"2012-10-19T12:45:43","slug":"should-veterans-endorse-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32471","title":{"rendered":"Should veterans endorse candidates?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you remember the Center for a New American Security which was pushing for radical changes to the military retirement<\/a> system? Well, now they’re warning that we veterans should sit down and shut up<\/a> during political campaigns.<\/p>\n

The problem is that very few American voters make the distinction between retired military personnel and those on active duty, notes the study, which was also written by Kyle Dropp and Peter Feaver. Active-duty personnel are not allowed to wear uniforms at political events and make political speeches.<\/p>\n

The campaigns, in turn, are aware of this and tend to recruit the highest-ranking retirees they can find to support candidates, particularly \u201cflag officers\u201d \u2013 admirals and generals.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetired senior officers may think they are drawing fine distinctions between the formal institution of active-duty military and their own views as retired citizens, but the truth is that no one, especially not the campaigns, is very interested in their views as private citizens,\u201d the study says.<\/p>\n

While the report finds that these endorsements do not appear to notably sway voters, the problem is that over time these endorsements have the potential to erode trust in the military.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, since the military is most trusted institution in this country, and the government’s most successful agency, I’m sure there’ll be eroded trust because we endorse leaders. I don’t remember anyone complaining when Medal of Honor recipient, Paul Bucha publicly<\/a> came out in 2008 and supported Barack Obama for president. But, now when a group of Special Operations folks come out to attack Obama, it’s suddenly going to “erode trust in the military.”<\/p>\n

This is particularly true of some of the negative political ads this campaign season, when retired Special Operations Forces officers attacked President Obama for discussing the strike on Osama bin Laden\u2019s compound, Golby says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real downside to negative ads is that they do create a perception that the military doesn\u2019t support one candidate, and they raise questions about whether military leaders will be able to faithfully carry out the orders of the other party,\u201d he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, please provide an example of that ever happening in the history of the United States. In fact, when certain people did indeed refuse to serve as ordered, like the birthers, members of the military were quick to condemn them, regardless of our political stripe.<\/p>\n

And then they quote Martin Dempsey’s scolding of the Special Operations Speaks criticism of Obama as if Dempsey has no political dog in the fight, or as if Dempsey’s words are so sage, we’d have to agree.<\/p>\n

It sounds more to me like the lack of public endorsements from veterans is not helping the campaigns of Center for a New American Security’s choices for this season. Here’s a warning from me to the Center for a New American Security; the fact that you involve yourself in projects that are not in the interests of veterans, you’re in danger of having trust in anything you say eroded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you remember the Center for a New American Security which was pushing for radical changes … Should veterans endorse candidates?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberals-suck","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}