Former congressman Allen West is furious about the announcement of new defense budget cuts, calling them “unconscionable” and part of “Barack Obama’s game plan to weaken the United States of America.”…. In an interview with the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios today, West called defense secretary Chuck Hagel a “turncoat” and a “traitor to the men and women in uniform.”…. The Tea Party leader told Rios that the Obama administration wants to intentionally harm military service members and their families because they are “not their constituency.”…. “Their constituency is basically the welfare nanny state, their constituency are the people who they can get hooked on government largesse, their constituency is the growing poverty class and also the growing food stamp class,” West said.
I always love listening to Conservatives carry on at some length and volume about how committed they are to shrinking government. Government spending, to their way of thinking, is Of The Devil; therefore the less of it there is the better off America will be. This means no social program is safe, whether education, health care, or other social service programs. We all have to make sacrifices, the argument goes, and so we have sometimes have to make uncomfortable choices…with one notable exception. No, it’s not subsidies for the 1% and Big Business, though those are certainly worthy subjects best left for another time.
I’m talking about military spending, and no Conservative Congresscritter worth their bona fides would ever even consider cutting outlays for defense. I mean, who loves America more than a Red Meat Conservative, right? Unfortunately, this self-professed love for and devotion to our military can make discussing changes, cuts, or reforms virtually impossible. Welcome to the wacky world of Allen West, the former Tea Party Congressman from Floriduh and a former Army officer who served in Iraq. (A little background for perspective: West was cashiered for discharging a pistol next to an Iraqi detainee’s head during an interrogation session. I know; it’s SO difficult to find acceptable ways to intimidate evildoers these days, amiright??) That, in his estimation at least, makes him an expert on all things military.
West, being the confirmed patriot he is, has his panties in a wad over Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s proposed staffing and budgets cuts. Now that we’re no longer at war in two theaters halfway around the world, a reasonable person might think it a good time to reconsider and perhaps reorder our military priorities. Not Allen West, for whom even the suggestion of change borders on treason.
Then again, West seems to believe that virtually anything Barack Obama does is an impeachable offense.
Implicit in West’s argument is the undeniable fact that he despises Barack Obama with every fiber of his being…but his objections to Hagel’s proposed cuts aren’t at ALL political in any way. When George W. Bush was in office, Republicans (justifiably) demanded that those who opposed Bush’s policies at least respect the office he occupied. By and large, Democrats complied, as they should have. With a Democrat in the Oval Office, it appears that what was good for the goose doesn’t apply to the gander. People like West feel have no problem with disrespecting the President personally and professionally. Tossing all manner of vile, unsupported, and scurrilous accusations at Barack Obama is no problem…because Allen West loves his country JUST. THAT. MUCH.
Ah, but I digress. The question at hand is how to adequately structure our military to address threats we may face today and in the future. Do we need to have a military presences in 150+ countries worldwide? Do we need new weapons systems of increasing lethality? Can we possibly provide for an adequate and robust defense capability based on today’s realities and not what we’ve faced in the past? Or are we so wedded to the military-as-jobs-program idea that no Congressman would accept spending cuts or reordered priorities that means job losses in their districts? Is it about defense or jobs?
The problem with West’s way of thinking is that priorities and threats change. You’d think that as a former Army officer he’d understand the need to occasionally reexamine and reorder priorities. You don’t have to look far back in American history to understand what’s happened when we’ve been forced to respond to a military conflict we were unprepared for. Leadership, then, could be argued to be the willingness and ability to make decisions and choice that might prove unpopular and uncomfortable. Sometimes things have to change.
No one wants to see bases close or weapons programs ended when it will impact their community and/or their livelihood. Sometimes adapting to threats we face today means recognizing that we can’t respond with a military designed to fight wars we faced yesterday. It means recognizing that change, however uncomfortable and inconvenient it may be, is necessary from time to time.
West and those who think like him would do well to recognize that swaddling self-interest and hatred of the President in patriotism is neither decent nor productive. Until and unless we’re willing to address the world we live in as it really is, we’ll be left with questions we can’t answer because of a collective unwillingness to face unpleasant truths.
There’s also the very real possibility that this has nothing to do with defense spending or protecting the Homeland. In West’s case, it’s just another excuse to pummel and denigrate a President he despises beyond rationality. It’s not about America or ensuring that our military has the tools it needs to do what we demand of it. It’s about using every available opportunity to insult, degrade, and disrespect a President that West and others on the Far Right hate in terms that defy rational explanation or understanding.
Now THAT’S leadership, eh? Or perhaps not.
