President Barack Obama has an election to win, so he’s praising the U.S. military. “The biggest honor of my job is serving as commander in chief,” he told attendees at a top-dollar political fundraiser on Nov. 7.
That’s a new line in his fundraiser speeches; he also added that “I get the chance to interact a lot with people who are based all around the world [while] Michelle interacts with military families here, throughout the country.”
Obama quickly drafted the soldiers’ overseas military efforts to his political cause of bigger domestic government.
“The kind of sacrifices they’re making on behalf of their country, the kind of commitment and discipline, and putting country ahead of self-interest, is unbelievable,” he said, echoing his frequent claims that Republicans legislators are unpatriotically putting “party before county.”
“For that same spirit [of self-sacrifice] to be captured and to be channeled, and to be the animating spirit of Washington — that should be our goal,” he said. “Because if we do that, there’s no problem we can’t solve. There’s no challenge we can’t meet.”
Obama’s new and self-serving praise for the military — the nation’s most-respected institution — is belied by his policies, say critics.
“If he wants to keep them employed, he should keep them in service and not cut the end-strength of the services,” said Tom Donnelly, a national security expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
If he wants to praise the soldiers, “even if he is going to bug out of Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be better to celebrate [those campaigns] as a success, rather than as something that is just coming to an end,” Donnelly told The Daily Caller.
Despite his claims, Obama doesn’t visit troops “except to use them as props in a policy announcements,” Donnelly said.
Soldiers’ confidence would be boosted if Obama rolled back his efforts to cut the defense budget, said Joe Davis, a D.C. spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The VFW’s president just came back from a trip to Afghanistan where he was besieged by soldiers’ questions about feared cuts to pay and benefits, Davis said.
“Why in the middle of two [military campaigns] would the U.S. government even consider meddling with pay and benefits?” he told TheDC.
Since January, President Obama has announced decade-long defense cuts of more than $450 billion, potentially forcing tens of thousands of soldiers into unemployment.
Obama is pulling U.S. soldiers out of unfinished missions in Iraq and Afghanistan while depicting them as wounded veterans in need of medical treatment and jobs.
His deputies have suggested sharp cuts to military retirement programs and military health-care programs.
Obama’s comments at the fundraiser came five days after the Air Force announced it would fire roughly 9,000 civilian workers from an Ohio center by October 2012. More layoffs will be announced soon, officials said.
The comments came 18 days after Obama ducked into the White House’s below-ground press room to somberly announce that he would pull all U.S. forces out of Iraq. The troop withdrawal announcement came after hesitant White House officials failed to strike a deal with Iraqi leaders, who later told reporters they doubt Obama’s determination to help them fend off pressure from next-door Iran.
“We’ll honor our many wounded warriors and the nearly 4,500 American patriots — and their Iraqi and coalition partners — who gave their lives to this effort … we’ll never stop working to give them and their families the care, the benefits and the opportunities that they have earned,” Obama said from the press room podium, without acknowledging the military’s remarkable accomplishments in Iraq.
As the election nears, Obama’s political advisers are working to pump up Obama’s low-key support for the U.S. military.
On Monday, a few hours before the fundraiser, Obama hosted a Rose Garden speech, complete with veterans at his side, to announce three new measures for soldiers he called “America’s returning heroes.”
The measures amounted to six months of job-placement advice, and two online job-search sites for use by new unemployed veterans.
The president also called on Congress to support legislation that wold establish two minor tax breaks for employers who hire veterans or disabled veterans. He mentions that legislative proposal frequently as he stumps for votes on the 2012 campaign trail.
Officials at the Democratic National Committee are broadcasting a new TV-ad that praises the president for proposing the tax-breaks. “The president’s jobs plans gives tax credits for hiring veterans… Republicans have said no,” said the ad’s announcer. The ad is being broadcast in three swing-states, New Mexico, North Carolina and Ohio, according to an MSNBC report.
GOP congressional leaders say they’re likely to support a bill that contains the two tax breaks, but maintain their opposition to Obama’s $446 billion, one-year, deficit funded stimulus proposal.
First lady Michelle Obama has also repeatedly touted her support for veterans who were wounded or crippled in the line of duty. On Oct. 17, for example, the first lady appeared at an event to mark the 1,000th home-modification accomplished for veterans by Sears Corp. and the non-profit organization Rebuilding Together.
But statements by the president and the first lady rarely cite soldiers’ actual military accomplishments. Instead, they typically cite unnamed sacrifices.
In a Sept. 14 USA Today op-ed, the first lady wrote that “more than 2 million men and women have served in the war zones,” but didn’t describe what they did in the war zones.
Instead, she focused on the non-military aspects of the U.S. military.
“These military family members are some of the most extraordinary individuals I’ve ever met: the moms who always seem to pick up the extra carpool shift, the kids who take on extra chores around the house, the survivors of our fallen who step up every day to serve our communities, and the veterans and wounded warriors who have served our country heroically on the battlefield and continue to contribute here at home.”
Obama and his wife “are setting new world records” in patronizing U.S. soldiers as domesticated victims, rather than accomplished, professional soldiers, said Donnelly.
If Obama really wants to help soldiers settle into civilian life, including the ones who suffer stress from past combat, said Donnelly, “he could just change the tone of his rhetoric … [and] admit that what soldiers do is extraordinary unique and remarkably successful.”
Soldiers should be applauded for what they accomplish, not only for how they suffer, Donnelly said. Speeches should celebrate “how many Taliban or Baathists or enemies of American did a soldier kill — [because] those are the kinds of thing that have been traditionally celebrated.”