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.
