Monday, July 29, 2013

"Phony Scandals" vs. A Phony Administration


It's been a long time since I've seen a U.S. president so intent upon telling the people that everything's just fine inside his Administration, that there's nothing to see here.  Last week he referenced nebulous "phony scandals" taking public attention away from all the, um, good things he wants to do.  By phony does he mean. . .IRS terrorism. . .or the NSA dipping its fishing hooks into places they were never supposed to go?  Does he mean Benghazi?

In other words, maybe there's much more to investigate about this bunch than we already know, and we already realize Obama's may be the most secretive and closed "open" Administration in history.

And now something new, not chronologically new, but certainly fresh on the public radar -- and this one may trump the horrors of Obama and Hillary Clinton's continuing Benghazi "scandal"  several times over. 

But first a necessary diversion. . .

Radio talk show hosts of a political bent, either local or national, frequently seem to exist purely on the basis of their arrogance.  Egotistical?  You bet.  But, for better or worse, their success usually translates into their ability to infuriate as well as inform.  If you just listen to the message you'll learn something.  If you actually phone in to engage the host, you're probably asking for trouble because they always win after the telephone disconnect.

Michael Savage comes to mind, and we've mentioned him previously.  Yes, he loves animals and generously supports saving elephants and other critters whose very extinction creeps ever closer because of the evil that men do.

But Savage (okay, that's what he goes by) routinely throws up a rather caustic side on his popular evening radio show.  Dr. Savage, a successful decades-long author of everything from spy novels to books about nutrition, can be annoying, crude and rude with callers, often belting out his concerns for America's troubles and the world's traumatic events in a piercing rant, and occasionally he emphasizes his points by shouting into the microphone like a madman wielding a jackhammer. 

By the way, he doesn't seem at all interested in the subject of UFOs.  Maybe that just depends upon the day of the week.

Yet -- it took me a long time to acknowledge one little detail:  The man is brilliant.  He sometimes becomes tangential, but he knows where he's going and how to make a point.  And, wow, is he on to something big now.  Something terrible.  Something that may reach way, way up in Washington, official depository of mystery, corruption and, more often than we probably are aware, heroics.

Ever since August of 2011, when 30 American service personnel -- including team members of Navy SEAL Team Six, the unit whose highly trained specialists killed Osama bin Laden just months earlier -- and several Afghans perished mysteriously in a helicopter crash, Michael Savage has smelled a proverbial rat, and he wasn't about to let this tragedy and numerous unanswered questions be swept under a rug of bureaucracy.  He repeatedly called for an investigation and conducted interviews with parents of the slain men on the air, as circumstances behind the crash became increasingly bizarre and families' frustrations in attempting to get answers more problematic.

Now, thanks in no small part to Michael Savage's unrelenting pleas and outrage, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on National Security has promised a full investigation at last.

Grace Vuoto, writing for the World Tribune on July 26, reflects parental frustration in getting answers from both President Obama and military higher-ups:  "Instead of being told the truth about  what happened that night, they have been bullied, mocked, intimidated, ignored and repeatedly lied to."

Further, the families are aware of evidence indicating they've flat-out been mislead, and being informed that the helicopter "black box" disappeared in a "flash flood" hardly satisfies them.  All bodies were cremated before the families were even informed of their disposition, and parents' reports of their sons quickly writing out wills even before whatever mission they were on transpired are intriguing.  Further, why did satellite surveillance supposedly become suddenly disrupted just as the crash took place?

There is much to explore about the crash, allegations of murder, last-minute replacement of Afghan personnel by possible Taliban members aboard the fatal flight and -- according to Savage -- suspicions that the chopper and its crew may have been taken out in revenge for bin Laden's killing.  He had raised such questions in his latest novel, A Time for War, and as interest piqued amongst World Tribune, Fox News and other sources, everything came to a head and firmly grabbed congressional investigators who became amazed and outraged by, especially, the accounts of how the families were treated by officials.

Obviously, the military's Commander-in-Chief and his tools of opportunity provide a major focus of interest here. 
 
Let's be hopeful that Rep. Chaffetz and his colleagues get to the bottom of what seems almost a bottomless pit of lies and corruption regarding this incident.  The families, at the very least, deserve to know what really happened to their brave and dedicated children who served to protect all of us.  They, the soldiers who were and are citizens just like us.