Ed Morrissey on Hot Air:
I don’t disagree with most of what Glenn Beck says in this piece. Courts-martial for Navy SEALS who allegedly gave a terrorist a fat lip while in custody? Does the Navy court-martial sailors who give each other fat lips? Would a SEAL stop at a fat lip if he actually got out of control? (I know a couple of SEALs, and I highly, highly doubt it.) Few would disagree with the thought that we should put the men and women who dedicate their lives to this country as our first priority, either, and that we should give them the resources to win fights when we put them in the middle of a war. But going on national television and advising them not to re-enlist? Beck does that here, and that’s one step too far.
Oh, is he mad…
Here’s the video in question.
Because Opie and Anthony are on vacation, I happened to listen to a bit of Beck’s program this morning, and you know what? He’s not wrong.
Soldiers are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for a bunch of reasons. For one, we’ve been fighting a politically correct “don’t hurt anyone, be nice, build nations” war in both countries for entirely too long with no end-game in sight, and trying to do it with the smallest amount of soldiers possible and the smallest amount of equipment possible. Gone are the days of Stormin’ Norman who believed that you go into a country, demolish the enemy in crushing fashion, and bring our soldiers home. Now we’re in the days of drops of piss traveling through an entire ventilation system in a military prison and landing on a Koran next to an air conditioner vent being front page news.
We don’t have the stomach for these wars, and right now we have a President who, for 10 months in office, utterly ignored them, as well as the commanders on the ground begging for more troops; those same commanders who our President, while campaigning, told Senator McCain that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to. At the same time, our President is struggling to figure out how he’s going to fund a massive overhaul of the health care system, spending us into oblivion, and all while our soldiers continue to die in two wars it’s becoming clear he has no intention of “winning” and instead is looking for an exit to.
Under those conditions, you’d have to be out of your mind to recommend anyone re-enlist.
Morrissey’s claim that if Olbermann or Matthews had said such a thing it would cause a riot are correct, but that doesn’t make them less true, and many people in the comments section said as much. One former soldier even applauded Beck’s remarks, and he’s conflicted over letting his son elist at all…
Yeah, what Beck said sounds a bit radical, but I contend that he’s not saying anything that most of us have thought for the past few years. Neither Bush nor Obama had/has the stomach to go into Afghanistan and bring down the wrath of God on Al Qaeda and then bring our troops home. That became evident when The CIA closed down their Bin Laden Dept. If they gave up on looking for that bastard, then why send more or our children in to die in this game?
People who listen and watch Beck are not as mindless as people may think. If any of his viewers disagree with him, they will surely let him know by calling in his radio station and giving him what for. At this point, I just can’t find a reason to disagree with Beck on his feelings and I think I laid out why. I don’t treat such a statement lightly. I understand honor and sacrifice, but I think it’s become foolhardy to sacrifice the blood and honor of our children when they haven’t been backed up all along the way. It’s time to bring them home since our “leaders” have no stomach to get the job done.
I want to close with one thing Morrissey says…
We’re a nation at war, with the best and most professional army in history. We should trust that they can calculate the benefits and drawbacks of reenlistment with much greater insight than civilians, and refrain from using that process for political purposes — and especially refrain from encouraging our best and brightest to leave when we need them the most.
When our best and our brightest are getting no support from those commanding them (and I’m talking those above the military; the Senators and our President (both Bush and Obama)), there’s nothing wrong with expressing opinions. Beck’s statement was simple: he would not advise anyone close to him to re-enlist. Period.
I don’t see what the problem with that is, especially considering he has two sisters and a nephew in the fight. If anything gives him the right to opine, that does.
