Supporting the Troops, GOP-Style
Senate Republicans have successfully blocked a three-month expansion of troop leave, which the Democrats hoped would provide pressure to withdraw without cutting off funds. John McCain called the effort to give our fighting men and women 15 months off between combat deployments "dangerous."
Senate Republicans have successfully blocked a three-month expansion of troop leave, which the Democrats hoped would provide pressure to withdraw without cutting off funds. John McCain called the effort to give our fighting men and women 15 months off between combat deployments “dangerous.”
Your support matters…BBC:
Supporters of the bill, which was also narrowly defeated in July, said opponents were ignoring the troops’ interests.
“In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the president than protecting our troops,” Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said.
Senator Chuck Hagel, one of six Republicans who backed the bill, said: “We cannot continue to look at war and the people who fight and die in wars as abstractions, as pawns, as objects.”
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The appointment of lobbyist Mark Esper to lead the department should be a huge scandal. That it isn't speaks volumes about our priorities.
Just shy of three months since Chuck Hagel was obliged to vacate the position, the Obama administration has a new secretary of defense -- and Ashton Carter has his work cut out for him.
Unbelievably enough, a bankrupt 13-year-old policy of war to the horizon remains ascendant in Washington, and “war fever” seems to be breaking out yet again. In this context, it's curious that four crucial aspects of war, American-style, were missing from the blitz of Hagel reportage.
Chuck Hagel's departure from his post as defense secretary has been attributed to his failure to fit in with the Obama cabinet's crowd. Among his other reported deficiencies was that he was only a sergeant in Vietnam, twice wounded.
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