V.A., Bergdahl and Hamas — 3 Obama scandals

By Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D.

LA JOLLA, California — “Avalanche,” I called it years ago, “an avalanche of scandals in the Obama administration.” That appellation is now a misnomer , depasse and risible. It has now assumed  the monstrous proportion of a destructive hurricane, of a devastating earthquake, tremor following tremor.

No good news is coming from the White House. Last week alone, three events shook up the foundations of the Republic and woke up from their lethargy even the fiercest partisans and blind supporters of the president:

1. The VA (Veteran Administration) abuses: We grew accustomed to the incompetence and waste of the VA. As in any government agency, the monopolistic character and the lack of competition leads to incompetence, inefficiency, and waste. Unlike private healthcare institutions that have to compete to survive, VA had practically no oversight and no accountability. It was reported that in certain procedures, it took eight people to perform the work of one in the private sector. Hence the astonishingly inflated budget of 92 billion dollars to manage this government agency.But what the public could not stomach were the revelations of fraud, forgery of documents, falsification of results to cover up for negligence, mismanagement, and other malfeasance that led to the death of about forty patients who were waiting for the saving care that never came. That’s unforgivable.

It is true that the endemic problems have plagued this agency for a long time, under administrations from both parties, but under the reigning president who, six years ago, vehemently denounced the ineptitude of his predecessors, the situation has deteriorated beyond repair, especially with the addition of criminal behavior to incompetence, waste, and mismanagement.

Politicians and pundits, and also government officials, have advanced some palliative solutions, most of which involve throwing more money into the mix. This illusory and elusive “remedy” has been tried before ,and failed. Only a radical solution can reverse the debacle ,and save a lot of money in the process : abolish the VA Administration, shut its doors, sell its physical properties to the highest bidder, and deliver the best healthcare to those who sacrificed much for the liberty and welfare of all, the veterans of the American wars. The only way to do it is for the federal government to buy health insurance for the veterans ,to pay their premiums and allow them to use their health providers in their area of residence. With the negotiating clout of the great number of the “pool” of veterans, the best deal could be achieved, that will save, according to experts, close to 50 billion dollars a year.

2. Sgt Bergdahl swap for five Guantanamo Taliban detainees: The people were still reeling from the VA tremor when another one, even higher on the Richter scale, hit them brutally, dealing a heavy blow to national security. The Obama government announced that it had effected an exchange of “war prisoners,” swapping five ruthless Taliban war criminals, who have been detained in Guantanamo for many years, for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl who has been the Taliban’s prisoner for five years. By doing so, President Obama has violated the law that requires the Executive to notify the Legislative, its co-equal branch of government, at least 30 days before the release of any Gitmo prisoners. Even Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, protested openly against this violation of the law and of her prerogatives. In a TV interview, she said she was ” surprised, dismayed, and very concerned,” and she rejected the silly false excuse of the government that the sergeant was very sick. Like 68% of the population, she fears a return of the terrorists to active duty to kill Americans . Qatar, which hosts the Taliban who have an office in Doha, will allow them to roam free and communicate with whomever they want and give orders and coordinate operations ,using their state-of-the-art electronic gadgets, even if they remain one year in Qatar. Kerry’s threat to kill them is risible.

Moreover, it was learned later–what Obama certainly knew, and not “from the newspaper” as he claimed in other “scandals”– that Bergdahl had left his post, voluntarily, without a uniform, a body armor, a helmet, a weapon, which at least six of his platoon team and a few generals on TV called “desertion.” He also left a note saying that he was “ashamed to be an American…” and other words of contempt for his country and his army, and emails to and from his father that could be very damning. No less puzzling, and alarming, is the image of his father on TV speaking sympathetically in Pashto to the Taliban and pronouncing, in Arabic, the sacred Islamic expression bismillah errahman errahim (in the name of Allah, the merciful…)

All this does not augur well for the future of the sergeant who , according to some reports, has converted to Islam and has collaborated with the enemy.” Only a courtmartial could elucidate this enigma. With this background ,It is outrageously stunning to see on TV the US president “celebrating , in the Rose Garden ,the victory” of the liberation of the soldier and hugging both his parents,  his long arms embracing their backs , left and right, an image that may live in infamy, and will come back to haunt him for the remainder of his term.

3. Recognizing the terrorist PUG (Palestinian Unity Government)…and funding it:  The prompt recognition of the PUG by the Obama government, following the “reconciliation” of the archenemies Fatah and Hamas, with the latter still declaring its ultimate aim to be the destruction of Israel, is the best proof that Obama has been negotiating with Hamas behind the back of the Jewish state that will have to pay the ultimate price. Hamas is still on the State Department list of terrorist organizations. Negotiating with terrorists is another violation of law and common practice but also of a campaign pledge by Obama NOT to negotiate with terrorists, given in response to Mc Cain suspicion that he would .

It is now clear that the “reconciliation” du jour was a plot “to trick the Americans,” as a Hamas official quoted Abbas as saying. Its intention was purely financial : Hamas expected to rid itself from the burden of feeding, clothing, and educating its Gaza people, and above all, paying he salaries of the civil servants, rendered extremely diffcult since the new Egypt, not Obama’s favorite, destroyed the smuggling tunnels to Gaza; Abbas’ interest was to show he is the master of all of Palestine, not just the West Bank.

And who was going to pay for this plot? You and I, as dumb American taxpayers,and dumber Europeans. A nice division of labor: the West finances the “moderate” Fatah , not the terrorists ,God forbid, and Hamas,relieved of its obligations to its people, continues to receive its increased stipends from Iran and others which will be devoted exclusively to the elimination of the “Zionist entity.”

That is the agreement negotiated behind close doors by an inept president, animated by a perverted ideology and arrogant ignorance, and advised by an unbelievable assortment of clueless and incompetent liars, the trio Hagel-Kerry-Rice.

But don’t despair ! As always, the deliverance comes from the malefactors themselves. Already, hundreds of infuriated Hamas employees have attacked a few banks in Gaza, and assaulted civil servants who, like them, have not yet received their salaries because Abbas and Hamas are not in agreement on who should pay these salaries,..and Obama’s check is not even in the mail.

Meantime, for the first time, the terrorists from the North, the Hizballah, are deploying their forces around Kuneitra, facing Israel at close range in the Golan Heights, and forcing the Israeli Chief of Staff to warn of “a new military strategy to deal with the 50,000 guerrillas on its borders”  a few days after the US Secretary of State proudly delivered to the Lebanese Prime Minister, who counts Hizballah ministers in his government, a check of “half a billion dollars” ( I read it twice and I hope it is a mistake and it was only half a million) to “help the Syrian refugees” fleeing the Assad regime and its military ally, the Hizballah …of Lebanon. It is not a “Comedy of Errors; it is real!

This is one weekly crop of Obama’s misrule, a perfect trifecta of expensive and dangerous blunders.

For many years, I tried to find the cause of this strange behavior; I hesitated between incompetence, lack of experience, bad counsel on the one hand, and a deliberate attempt at “changing America” subservient to an ideology , using the same m.o. of deny, delay, accuse, scare, spin, and lie.

The rapid succession of all these catastrophic events cannot be due to “mistakes” and the administration never claimed that. Au contraire, its proponents double down when attacked :the president himself , speaking of the exchange of Bergdahl for the five Taliban leaders, said : “There was an opportunity, and we seized it; I don’t make apologies for that.” He again denigrated the “phony scandals… the scandals whipped up in Washington..” as if the facts don’t count .And Susan Rice, in her Sunday shows of sinister memory, did not shy away from calling a deserter–maybe worse– a soldier “who served with honor and distinction,” while White House officials accused the platoon comrade-in-arms, including the team leader ,who witnessed the desertion, of being “liars and psychopaths.”

As I often wrote, if we lived under a “parliamentary system” ( a la British) , any one of the “avalanche of scandals” would have toppled the government because of the primacy of the Legislative that really represents the people. The Executive is at a constant mercy of a vote-of-no-confidence, which makes it behave or else. An amendment to the Constitution is a dream. Maybe the Congress could find a (constitutional) way to hold a “President-Questions” session , akin to the PM-Questions of the British system, where the Chief Executive himself would answer questions and rebuttals for the whole population to watch on TV and see the truth which has heretofore been hidden from them by negligent and pro-Obama mainstream media that have constantly distorted reality.

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Isaac Yetiv is a freelance writer and lecturer residing in the San Diego suburb of La Jolla.  He may be contacted via isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com