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| US Senator Bernie Sanders |
There has been a lot of talk about US Senator John McCain's military record in the news this past week. How long did he serve? Is he really a war hero? What kind of torture and privation did he endure will imprisoned by the North Vietnamese? The media, like ravenous, emaciated vultures, are picking away at the Donald Trump controversy fomented over his remarks that McCain was a war hero only because he was captured:
"He is not a war hero," Trump told pollster Frank Luntz, who was hosting the session.
"He is a war hero," Luntz interjected.
"He is a war hero because he was captured," Trump said, cutting him off. "I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you. He is a war hero because he was captured. OK, you can have — I believe perhaps he is a war hero."
The divisive nature of this discussion should focus on the evasive nature of the comments.
A better question to begin asking, which the Marginalized Media has all but ignored:
What about the military service of the Democratic Party presidential candidates? What were they doing during their active, more youthful years?
The first candidate I have investigated: US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).
I called a his Burlington, VT and Washington DC Senate offices. The personnel shared with me that they could not comment on the matter. I sent a few press requests by email and voice mail.
Based on Vietnam War Draft, the Selective Service lottery targeted males born between 1944 and 1950. Sanders was born in New York City in 1941, and thus was too old to be drafted.
Still, he could have entered the military and fought for his country if he wanted to. Sanders is not a veteran, from what I have found out so far. Yet for two years, he served as the Chairman of the US Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Two years? Weren't there other Democrats in the majority better suited for that chairmanship based on their own military experience? Then again, perhaps not.
Other questions rise up:
Does Sanders have an anti-war past? Did he attack or despise Vietnam veterans and denigrate then when they returned from the combat in Southeast Asia?
It seems duplicitous to me that the media want to jump up and down over this petty tiff between Trump and McCain, when voters and readers need to consider the pressing dangers facing this country, Israel, and other nations. Islamic terrorism has taken on a menacing aggression, attacking weakened and failed states in the Middle East. ISIS is waging a genocidal war on religious minorities, including Christians, and even attacking other Muslims as apostates or undesirable elements.
Then there's President Obama's disturbing Iran Deal, which Secretary of State John Kerry has lauded as an unprecedented move toward peace, even though its main contents remain sketchy.
After nearly 18 days of intense, often fractious and highly technical negotiations in the Austrian capital, he reported an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. All that remained was cleaning up the written details, Kerry said, a task that would be completed in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Then, world powers and Iran would announce the accord to the world.
There is no clear deal outlined, and the US representatives are basically taking the Iranians' word that they will suspend their nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief. This tired diplomatic tirade has played out many times before, and the outcomes are never good. There is no honor among thieves and rogues states. None.
These pressing foreign policy issues deserve more attention than a Twitter-Social Media war between US Senator John McCain (who did serve in Vietnam) and real estate mogul/reality television star Donald Trump (who avoided the draft through exemptions).
As for Sanders, he was not a military veteran and apparently never served in the armed forces. More reporting will follow.