Navy SEAL’s mom blasts Romney for politicizing death of her son

10/10/2012 1:47pm by 487
glen doherty

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton honor the Benghazi victims at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony held at Andrews Air Force Base, September 14, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

As John’s written before, Mitt Romney and his staff have admitted that when Americans lives are at risk, Team Romney smells “opportunity.”

So it’s no surprise that Romney saw the death of American Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, during the recent attack on America’s consulate in Libya, as an opportunity to take partisan advantage.  He admitted in the 47% video that he’s keeping his eyes open for such opportunities.

Unfortunately for Romney,  the Navy SEAL’s mother saw her son’s death as less of a godsend.

“I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama,” said Barbara Doherty, Glen’s mother.

Showing yet again how clueless Mitt Romney really is about the world outside of the US, he is actually suggesting that the heroics of the Navy SEAL Glen Doherty show how important it is for the US to police the world.

While the actions of Doherty were impressive, and show why Navy SEALs are so highly regarded, in no way is that or should that be the model for US foreign strategy.

Here’s Romney exploiting the death of Doherty to attempt to make a point on the election trail.

Citing a CNN report that Doherty had been killed while trying to help others at the consulate, Romney expressed his admiration—and likened it to the leadership he says the country needs now in Washington.

“When he and his colleagues there heard that the consulate was under attack … they went there. They didn’t hunker down where they were in safety. They rushed there to go help,” Romney said. “This is the American way: We go where there’s trouble. We go where we’re needed. And right now we’re needed. Right now the American people need us.”

It’s questionable whether Romney (who sat out Vietnam in a Parisian mansion) really appreciates the impact constant war has on military families. Many families have been without a parent for years due to the heavy needs of wars in the region. If you have a family fortune like the Romney’s, you probably can’t understand the difficulties this presents.

When you are a pro-war protester like Romney, who isn’t interested in fighting or sending his own kids off to fight (much like other GOP chicken-hawks), you can’t be expected to understand that there is a significant difference between saving your own team who is under fire versus diving head first into an entire region that is in turmoil. One is a small (very important) mission, while the other is a fight that will go on for years.

After eleven years of war and multiple return missions for military families, plus a financial drain on the US, how can a serious candidate even think of endless war? Since we now know that the Romney Class is absent from the front lines in terms of fighting the war or paying for it financially, they remain clueless about the impact on American families as well as on locals abroad.

Everyone wishes that it was as simple as waving a magic wand and solving problems in the Middle East and beyond, but it doesn’t work that way.

Romney recently criticized Obama by saying “hope is not a strategy,” and he’s not wrong, but that’s hardly what I’ve seen from Obama in the Middle East. Hope may not be a strategy, but pretending as though we can afford more war and more foreign entanglements is the most ridiculous, idealistic heaping of wishful hoping that we’ve seen since the cowboy George Bush was in office.

How’d Bush’s foreign policy work out for the US?

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An American in Paris, France. BA in History & Political Science from Ohio State. Provided consulting services to US software startups, launching new business overseas that have both IPO’d and sold to well-known global software companies. Currently launching a new cloud-based startup for the Microsoft market. Full bio here.

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