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“Where is the Leadership?”
Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating IV
We learned last week of Charles Keating IV, 31, a Navy SEAL who was killed in action in Iraq. From the Wall Street Journal:
Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating IV was killed Tuesday during a firefight with Islamic State in Iraq, the third American service member to die in combat since the Obama administration began fighting Islamic State there in 2014. Petty Officer Keating was part of a quick reaction force deployed to rescue another group of American service members who were meeting with local forces in the area. His death outside the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul has raised questions about the role of American service members in Iraq and the nature of the U.S. mission.
Keating, a high school track star in his native Arizona, went on to compete at Indiana University before joining the Navy. He was married in a private ceremony before deployment; he and his wife had planned a more public celebration this November, when he was scheduled to return.
I don’t know why, but this news makes me really angry. President Obama crowed about “ending” the war in Iraq, withdrawing all forces over the objections of top brass. Then — when military action was, nonetheless, required — he insisted it would not involve “boots on the ground.” Then, he insisted the troops he sent would be advisors, not to be involved in combat. Anyone paying attention knew these assertions could not be true. Did the president delude himself, or lie to us?
And as Obama sends the best of our young warriors — in the prime of their lives — to fight, there is no apparent strategy for victory, other than waiting for the arc of history to bend the way he wants it to. What, exactly, is the point of their mission? It’s as if President Obama is replicating the same desultory half measures that characterized our initial involvement in Vietnam, only this time, he’s had thirteen years in which to study.
So, to again quote our Secretary of State: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?
Published in General
I am with you, SoS. I don’t think that any valiant soldier, airman, sailor, or marine who dies in service to our nation is a “wasted life”, but I want us to exert full value from their sacrifice. We owe it to them, their families, and their colleagues.
It was frustrating in the extreme to hear POTUS’ mouthpiece say “He died in combat, but it was not a ‘combat mission.'”
Godspeed, Chief Keating. Fair winds and following seas.
This is why we should not go to war halfheartedly. When America goes to war halfheartedly, people die.
Charles Keating IV died because we have awful and incompetent people running the country.
I can’t “Like” any of this. But I sure appreciate the post and the comments. I’m just mostly quiet about this, lest I bother the Obamaphiles here who insist he loves the country and just doesn’t know how to show it.
How is this any different than saying LBJ or maybe even Nixon didn’t love his country? They fought a war they do not seem to have intended to win!
Heartbreaking. I pray for comfort for his family, and I pray for our nation. We need God’s guidance desperately right now.
Sorry, Titus, not going to engage on it. Obama hates the US and this is just one finger of that fouled arm. There’s no parallel. If that’s not sufficient, there’s no point in wading through the rest.
I’d agree that the same action can have different causes. That LBJ & Mr. Obama are half-hearted Cs-in-c for different reasons.
I cannot agree that citizens should talk this way about the C-in-c. I suppose you think change at whatever cost is the way. I remember when you used to say, first Trump, then Cruz. I’m still shaking my head. At this point, if you only said about the president what Mr. Trump says, I’d be grateful!
None dare call it treason.
Yeah, pretty much. None dared call it–almost none–when it communist infiltration of the state in the ’30s-’40s. Maybe there ain’t that much justice even in the land of the free, home of the brave. But it’s the best this world’s got or is likely to get.
President Obama and I have one thing in common. He is counting down the days that he will be no longer the Commander in Chief. There is one small difference, I started that same countdown a little less than eight years ago.
“Mad Dog” Mattis for President in 2016
“Demonstrate to the world there is ‘No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy’ than a U.S. Marine.”
I like that much better than “Make America Great Again”
Or at least make a movie! Write a book! Someone let people know what a man really is. Manliness being publicly replaced by effete half-educated types or ruthless vulgarians–what a shame…
I will engage. Titus, have you not read the several posts where we discussed the Vietnam War?
LBJ cannot be accused of not loving America; he can be accused of mis-managing the conflict in Vietnam.
Nixon cannot be accused of not loving America. He took over a bad situation, changed direction and brought in a new staff. He achieved success on the ground, reinvigorated the Army of South Vietnam, established a stable situation that included the negotiations at the Paris Peace Talks, and then turned the fighting over to South Vietnam. The victory was discarded by the Democrats who overrode Gerald Ford’s veto to embrace defeat.
Both LBJ and Nixon were great patriots and flawed men.
On the other hand it is fair to accuse Obama of not loving America. He frequently focuses on American problems, both real and imagined, and takes every foreign speaking engagement as an opportunity to apologize for America’s perceived injustices. He refers to our “colonial” past and celebrates our enemies. He inherited a stable situation in Iraq from President W and promptly pulled out American troops to leave a power vacuum, leaving the opening for bad actors to seize power in large areas. Obama has exacerbated the divisions between the aggrieved communities that are championed by the social justice warriors in ways that have left our cities more unsettled and violent than before. Our military, finances, workforce and communities are all worse off than before Obama.
I saw an awful obituary in my local paper. They ran an Associated Press obit of Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating IV. It had very little information about a brave American who was killed in Iraq. It had a lot of information about Keating’s grandfather who was a major player in the S&L scandal of 1989.
Those sorry journalists could not praise the slain officer, nor were they willing to discuss his reason for being in Iraq; I suppose because such a discussion would inevitably reflect poorly on Team Obama. Instead, they went about grinding an old socialist ax.
The journalists are the enemy.
When I wrote the post, I considered mentioning his paternity. I decided against it because the man’s life is about his own exceptional actions. You are absolutely right about the media. In fact, if they actually did their jobs instead of driving their agendas, the course of the war would have gone differently and Obama may not have withdrawn prematurely.
Here is a link to the Arizona Republic’s coverage
I dissent. As a matter of formality, conservatives telling each other the liberal president is not a patriot is probably not going to help anybody deal with the partisanship.
There is a lot to disentangle here about the relation between speeches & deeds, but I despair of your attitude. What’s the point of talking about this when you’re so vehement you leap over everything that deserves attention to make sure you’re on the record–though it doesn’t sound like the first or last time–declaring the man doesn’t love his country.
By your lights, I’ve no idea why you might think, if you do, that Mr. Clinton or Mr. Carter loved their country! Maybe you’d concede Truman. How about JFK? How about FDR? How about Wilson? Any ‘great patriots’ in that crowd? Just how partisan is patriotism with you?
Is FDR calling Americans fascists for wanting to go back to their way of life the speech of a great patriot? How about Wilson?
Titus, I have no idea what you’re on about, I don’t know why you’re on it, and I don’t care.
This is certainly the wrong thread for a useless academic lecture. If you must despair, please do so quietly.
Sounds like Mr. Carter if you substitute ‘irrational fear of Communism’ for ‘post-colonial stuff’–how did he talk about Vietnam & America?
Also, remember FDR’s last SOTU address. How did he talk about America?
I hope you have good reasons not to work your way to full out-and-out ‘you can’t be a liberal & a patriot’ partisanship.
This ain’t your dance to cut in, Ball. The man says he wants to dance, it’s not for you to say no.
There’s nothing I can do about you caring, but the knowing part I can fix. It’s not right to turn patriotism into this kind of partisanship. This makes leaping to conclusion look sainted by comparison. It makes ‘holier than thou’ the very mark of humility. Whatever’s beyond ‘open & shut case’–that’s where you are.
The facts are people are being beheaded by ISIL, Woman are being raped, sold into sexual slavery and forced into marriage with ISIL members. Obama has failed to take any effective action to end this violence.
We are virtually duplicating the fantastically stupid mistakes that led to the travesty of Viet Nam. “We” have learned nothing. Well, “we’ve” pretty much perfected the art of killing our military forces for no rational purpose whatsoever.
I’d add, not a lot of irrational purpose either. You have one party that’s at least occasionally for fighting wars & one party that’s for losing them sooner rather than later. One of’em knows American politics & the other one depends on you to buy their memoirs once they’re out of office, I guess-
I have loved America with patriotic passion my whole life—but I have not been a conservative my whole life. Far from it. I have been wrong when it comes to naming issues, wrong when it comes to the solutions I affirmed, wrong in my political reflexes and yet a patriot.
This much I could have said at any point, however, and is what I wish Obama would say (and know): “Charles Keating IV could have been my son.”
You can’t fight an enemy unless you call the enemy by name, and you have to listen to your military advisors – O does neither. Sad day for this soldier’s family, new wife and our country.
Yes – beautifully said Kate.
We have yet to see anything from this administration – not an Oval office press conference during primetime, regular updates like Bush used to do, and he has let the Middle East falter onto itself. There is a genocide of Christians, Syrians no longer have a country, and he can’t call the enemy by name.