All Americans must "Push Back" against these traitorous and careless Americans in our highest positions! No conscious and no sense!
In a story that has remained largely under the mainstream media radar, Congress
announced late
last month that it would finally investigate the Aug. 6, 2011
helicopter crash in Afghanistan that resulted in 38 deaths, including 22
members of SEAL Team 6, made famous three months earlier when they
killed Osama Bin Laden. Grieving family members insist that soldiers in
the elite unit were placed in unnecessary danger by the recklessness of
the Obama administration, whose actions they
characterized as criminal. “We’re
going to dive into this,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chairman of
the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on National
Security.
The families of the slain soldiers have every right to be furious.
SEAL Team 6 is a covert unit whose operations are ostensibly classified.
As a result, it has never been revealed which members of the team were
involved in the killing of the terrorist mastermind, or how many of
those same men were among those killed when the Chinook helicopter in
which they were traveling was shot down by Taliban terrorists.
The focus of the families’ fury and shock, along with that of SEAL
Team 6 members themselves, was the administration’s desire to tout their
success in killing Bin Laden — compromising the safety of the unit in
the process. Only two days after the raid, Vice President Biden gave a
speech at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C. “Let me briefly
acknowledge tonight’s distinguished honorees: Adm. Jim Stavridis is a —
is the real deal; he could tell you more about and understands the
incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his
Navy SEALS and what they did last — last Sunday,” Mr. Biden revealed to
audience members gathered for the 50th anniversary of the Atlantic
Council, an international affairs think tank.
What followed was a testament to Biden’s disturbing ability to speak
before thinking. “And what was even more extraordinary was — and I’m
sure former administration officials will appreciate this more than
anyone — there was such an absolute, overwhelming desire to accomplish
this mission that although for over several months we were in the
process of planning it, and there were as many as 16 members of Congress
who were briefed on it, not a single, solitary thing leaked. I find
that absolutely amazing,” Biden added, apparently oblivious to the
reality that he had just perpetrated one of the more egregious leaks of
national security information in recent history.
As a result, SEAL Team 6 members realized they had a target painted on their backs. That reality was
hammered home in
a May 10, 2013 Fox News interview with Karen and Billy Vaughn, whose
son Aaron was killed in the chopper crash. Karen spoke first. “As soon
as Joe Biden announced that it was a SEAL Team who took out Bin Laden,
within 24 hours, my son called me and I rarely ever heard him sound
afraid in his adult life….He said, ‘Mom, you need to wipe your social
media clean…your life is in danger, our lives are in danger, so clean it
up right now’,” she revealed.
Billy Vaughn took on Biden in no uncertain terms. “The media has let
this man get away with saying ‘Uncle Joe’s gaffes, Uncle Joe’s gaffes,”
he fumed. “This is not Uncle Joe and he’s not some senile old
grandfather. He is the second in command of the most powerful country in
the world and he needs to take responsibility for the comments he makes
and quit being given a pass.”
Charles Strange, the father of slain SEAL Michael Strange, was also
furious. During a family conference with reporters at the National Press
Club in Washington a day earlier, Strange recounted his exchange with
President Obama at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Aug. 9, 2011.
Strange noted that, despite Obama saying he would look “very, very, very
deep into this,” he never heard from the president again. In an
exchange with
radio host Michael Savage last month, Strange took it one step
further. He claimed his son told him, “Something’s going on with the
team. Somebody’s leaking things out. Something’s going on.” Savage
asked: “Your son knew he was being sent to his death?” Strange’s
response was chilling. “They knew,” he answered. “They knew something
was up. Every one of them.”
The military has provided more than 1,000 pages of documentation to
the parents. Those documents contain the Defense Department’s assertion
that they don’t believe the SEALs were targeted following the Bin Laden
operation. Moreover in a transcript, a Defense Department official
disputes the families’ assertion that the helicopter was brought down by
an “established ambush,” contending it was “a lucky shot of a low-level
fighter” who “happened to be in the right spot.”
The families aren’t buying that assessment, and they are extremely
troubled by other questions surrounding the case as well. Of the 38
people killed in the crash, seven were members of the Afghan National
Army. They were replaced at the last minute by other Afghan military
officials who were not on the flight manifest, raising the possibility
the replacements were Taliban infiltrators.
The military claimed that when the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot
down, the bodies were badly burned and had to be cremated. Charles
Strange believes the military is lying. “I saw Mike’s dead body,”
he said in an interview. “It was clearly recognizable. He was clutching
his gun. He wasn’t burned to a crisp. Why did they cremate my boy? They
didn’t need to do that. Something’s not right.” Rep. Chaffetz, who said
he saw a photo of a deceased SEAL, echoed that assertion. “The body I
saw didn’t need to be cremated,” he said.
The military claims the helicopter’s black box was never recovered
because it was washed away in a flash flood. Yet flash floods in that
area of Afghanistan are extremely rare.
Furthermore, the families want to know why their sons were flown into
a hot combat zone in a helicopter made in the 1960s. They want to know
why such a large group of SEALS was put on a single aircraft and why no
aerial backup was deployed, which is standard military procedure when
special forces are involved. And they want to know why, during a funeral
ceremony held at Bagram Air Base in Kabul, a Muslim cleric was allowed
to recite a prayer condemning the American “infidels” to eternal
damnation.
Yet perhaps the most damnable reality of all was revealed by Karen
Vaughn at the aforementioned National Press Club meeting. “Why was there
no pre-assault fire? We were told as families that pre-assault fire
damages our effort to win the hearts and minds of our enemy,” she told
reporters. “So in other words, the hearts and minds of our enemy are
more valuable to this government than my son’s blood.”
This was not the first time the Vaughn family has challenged the
so-called Rules of Engagement (ROE) that make a mockery of American
soldiers’ ability to conduct effective warfare. Three days after
Benghazi, they were among several
Gold Star families
of servicemen lost in combat who held a press conference on the
subject. It was there the Vaughns made it known that after their son’s
helicopter went down, air support refused to fire on the enemy because
there might have been “friendlies” in the building. The ROE required the
military present at the operation to stand down as a result. Billy
Vaughn was incensed. ”Our military men go to war because they love what
is behind them more than they hate what is in front of them,” he said at
the time. “The least the government can do is give them the tools and
the proper equipment and ROE that favor our warriors more than they
favor our enemy.”
The least the government can do at the present time is conduct a
thorough investigation into the the largest loss of life in a single day
since the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan began.
Freedom Watch is
assisting some of the families of the deceased. Founder Larry Klayman
minced no words regarding what he thinks about this tragedy. “This is a
scandal even greater than Benghazi,” he said. “There we lost four valued
American lives; here we sacrificed 30 American soldiers. The big
question is were these brave Americans sold out by the Afghani
government as payment to the Taliban for the death of bin Laden?”
Perhaps a bigger question is why the Obama administration can get
away with the monumental hypocrisy of being the administration that has
prosecuted more
leakers than any other, while Joe Biden gets a pass. Republicans need
to find answers to the many questions above. Our troops and their
families deserve nothing less than a full accounting of this tragic
incident.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist currently
contributing to JewishWorldReview.com, HumanEvents.com and
CanadaFreePress.com. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net.
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