Standing on the back of a dead hero (part 2)

Credit: Task and Purpose.

This is a follow up about a post from earlier today, where a US Congressperson exploited the death of a hero to make political points.

I am still upset about it, because unlike most of the Hollywood, NYC, or Washington Elites, I have relatives in the military.

I figured that Trumpieboy made an awkward remark that was, alas, misunderstood.

But does anyone in his or her right mind think he said something deliberatly cruel to ridicule the hero or the widow? Of course not. But as a doc, I know that:
a: people sometimes misunderstand what you say

B. in times of stress and grief, often the messenger gets blamed.

But here, I suspect the congressperson, after the call, inflamed the widow's grief to make her think the president was ridiculing her. Huh? What sane person would twist a sympathetic phone call this way? To upset the poor widow more than she already is upset?

Or was it to reframe what was said, so as to have the widow "remember" the phone call in the way that the congressperson suggested, so she could twist the death as political fodder?

(In times of stress, people do not remember things accurately, which is why often docs have papers signed with a witness pressent, or even tape the conversation for high risk patients).

But it gets worse. The Congressperson then went and told her story of cruel Trump to the press, who immediately picked up the story: it was all over the news.

This was worse than using the story to ridicule the President: The story implies he deliberately was cruel.

So General Kelly, who also lost a son, gave a speech about how hard it is to lose a son, and how hard it is for a president to talk to a family when this has happened.

So what does the congressperson do?

Victory Girls says it best:

Today Chief of Staff General John Kelly shamed Rep. Frederica Wilson... for politicizing the death of an American soldier. So how did Rep. Wilson react? Did General Kelly humble her? Did she apologize? No. And not only no, but hell no! In fact, Wilson called herself a ‘rock star.’ And then she laughed about it, so very pleased with herself.... 

it was never about supporting Sgt. La David Johnson’s pregnant widow and their young children. It was all about making political hay.

Let’s be honest here — she doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about this Gold Star family, except when they were politically expedient. As a result she got the attention she craves, and now she thinks she’s a “rock star.”

Sigh.

And a prayer for the families of the soldiers, not just the Green Berets but the soldiers of Niger who died. They too are trying to protect their families and loved ones against the Bokuharum, who are terrorizing both Christian and Muslims in that area of Africa.

Drudge has a link about "investigating" the deaths, but as I noted in a different post a few days ago,  StrategyPage noted last week that this was a training exercize, where the Green Berets were training local soldiers, and they did not pick up that there were bad guys in the area.

as for air support: SP also notes that after the Niger attack, the French, who are in the area doing similar training against terrorists, supplied helicopters and backup quickly.

So no, it has nothing in common with Benghazi, which is another "talking point" that some are trying to raise.

Dirty little secret: Special Forces soldiers are all over the world training locals to fight in the war on terror: not just American but Australian (in Indonesia) and French (in North Africa). And these soldiers get little publicity, of course.

For example, right now the US is helping with the siege in the Southern Philippines. Not as combat soldiers, but in gathering intelligence, and in training (our soldiers know "jungle warfare" but not urban warfare, so training was needed to lower the casualty rate and protect civilians).


Similar things have happened here, when the military  trains against the Abus in the South, or even against the NPA: Usually you train where it is supposed to be safe, but it's a big area, and the bad guys often have spies that tell them where the soldiers are going, so you get attacked anyway. And sometimes the soldiers get killed.

That is sad, but that is war.

And like medicine, the dirty little secret is that you don't win all the time: Patients who should live sometimes die on you. And I still have terrible memories about these fights against Death, that I lost.

So excuse me if I remain angry at a narcissistic politician who dances on the graves of those defending the country.

if she wants to ridicule people, why not start to ridicule the Bokus who have killed thousands of civilians. And maybe ridicule their supporters who send them "aid money" or their supporters in the west who see them as the good guys because they hate America and will pretend they only want peace, so they will feed the press with negative news of "mission creep" or "the Muslims don't want us there" or similar propaganda.

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update:  It says a lot that, at the end of the long sorrowful speech by the General, that he gave another example of an out of place speech at a different memorial service by the congresslady involved, and used the proverb empty barrels (make the most noise) implying she didn't care about the dead FBI agents they were honoring but her speech was about her own wonderfulness.

So not only did the MSM ignore the powerful speech by General Kelly, taking one description out of context to distort the meaning of his speech, but they now are echoing the speech as racist.

Sigh. This is fake news: Not making up news, but by cherry picking and distorting and mischaracterizing what is said.

And it will be picked up by the 3 minute hate types on Facebook and Twitter, as if it was true.

And to paraphrase Instapundit: THIS IS HOW YOU GET TRUMP.