OBAMA’S NEW NORMAL

 

By Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry (Ret'd)
CurryforAmerica.com

Not even at the Battle of the Battle of the Bulge in WWII, when American forces were hopelessly cut off and surrounded, were our soldiers deserted and left to be killed by a foreign army. Then, our intelligence services completely failed us and, as result, the German counter-attack took us by complete surprise. Quickly the Germans overwhelmed the American units, surrounded and squeezed them, and were moving in for the annihilation.

Unlike the senior officers of the current administration, General Patton didn’t believe in playing the whine and blame game. In one of the greatest tactical maneuvers ever recorded in the history of warfare, he reoriented his entire army, broke through the German encirclement and rescued our soldiers from certain death.  That is how throughout the nation’s history the United States military has traditionally responded to a deadly crisis like the one that happened at Benghazi, Libya. And that should have been the normal response when Ambassador Stevens and three of his men were surrounded and slaughtered.

Never before in the annals of United States’ military history has a president deserted an American Ambassador and his team members on the field of battle and left them to die, as President Obama did in Benghazi. This story has implications and ramifications that reach far beyond the middle-east where the U.S. actions – or inactions --at Benghazi will be examined, reexamined and reexamined again by our friends and enemies. The question to be answered is If America won’t fight for the life of its own ambassador; will it fight for the lives of its allies? The answer to that question delineates the nation’s new normal in the conduct of its foreign affairs.

Also, will President Obama save our nation and its economy to the same degree that he saved our Ambassador and his men at Benghazi? Is this the new normal for the Administration?  Can the American people count on Obama to maintain the strength of the nation’s armed forces, stabilize and grow the nation’s economy and fund a financially viable social security, Medicare and Medicaid as successfully as he has saved the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and his team in Benghazi? Yes, they can count on him to fail the nation in every one of those areas.

The people high up in the administration who are covering for Obama think they will be rewarded for their brazen dissembling. No doubt that’s the way it used to be, but that’s not Obama’s new normal if the Benghazi events turn completely sour and a “scape goat” is needed.  The Obama administration -- whether or not he wins the presidential election  – will throw  those who helped save his political life during the Benghazi “dust up” under the wheels of the bus with not so much as a “fare thee well.” Count on it.

General Carter Ham, the head of U.S. Africa Command (AFCOM), is a case in point. When he received copies of Ambassador Stevens’ e-mails begging for help, evidently he assembled a rapid response unit and told the Pentagon that it was almost ready and that he intended to deploy it to help Stevens. Some senior person in the Pentagon told him to “Stand Down” the unit and not to take any action to help Stevens. It appears Ham criticized the Stand Down order and essentially told the Pentagon where they could put it and continued preparations to deploy a rescue force.

While General Ham was occupied with preparing to save Stevens and his team, Ham’s second in command General David Rodriguez told him that he had just received a communication from the Pentagon saying that President Obama and Secretary Panetta had fired General Ham -- relieved him of his command is the way the military puts a firing -- and that he, General Rodriguez, was being nominated to replace Ham as Commander of AFCOM. The STARS and STRIPES military magazine has since confirmed the replacement order.

Why Obama refused to rescue the Americans trapped at Benghazi is unknown.  What is known is that they were surrounded, they desperately begged to be saved, we had forces available in the area that could have saved them and the President and the Secretary of Defense, for some unknown reason, failed to come to their aid. Perhaps it is because Obama’s new normal was not to go to the aid of our forces when they are in crisis, trapped, or facing annihilation.