Opinion Forum

The Political Year That Was

December 31st, 2009

2009 has been, if nothing else, newsworthy.

It is the year Barack Hussein Obama became our president; began his destruction of our economy in the name of “leveling the playing field; named a wide variety of unqualified “friends” to important positions in government and the judiciary; broke virtually every campaign promise; repeatedly apologized to the world for U.S. indiscretions; signaled to the world that we are now a kinder, gentler nation and not as much of a threat to dictators or terrorists; won the Nobel Peace Prize based on … well no one really knows what it was based on … and began the government takeover of a large percentage of the free market.

It should therefore be no surprise that this is also the year that our national debt rose to historic levels; our unemployment rate rose to a level unseen in decades; bankruptcies rose to obscene levels; Muslim terrorists felt free to resume their attacks on United States soil; and most countries seriously considered basing their currency value on something other than the U.S. dollar.

All this was bad but, at least in my opinion, the most disturbing, most despicable, and most surprising event of 2009 was the following statement made by General George William Casey Jr., the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, in reference to the terrorist attack at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas by an openly hostile Muslim Army Major, an attack that left 13 dead and 38 wounded:

We have to be careful because we can’t jump to conclusions now based on little snippets of information that come out. And frankly, I am worried — not worried, but I’m concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that. It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.

Granted, General Casey didn’t have all the information about the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, but it’s obvious that his concern, his sympathy is not with the victims — it’s obvious that diversity is far more important.

The fact that this attitude of political correctness, this level of appeasement has infiltrated the highest levels of the military should scare the crap out of you!

A bunch of other things happened this year, of course, and you can review most of it CNN.com. The CNN version is, of course, more comprehensive and far less polarizing.

(This article was also posted at My View from the Center.)

Articles written by Harvey Grund
Tags: Casey, diversity, Hasan, Muslim, Obama, political correctness, terrorist
Categories: Economics, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

2 Responses to “The Political Year That Was”

Dan | January 1st, 2010 at 7:52 pm

What a thoughtful commentary. If history was left to the reactionary the truth defined by the superficial you would have made history today. Tough statements made by tough guys are really not worth the time it takes to read.

Harvey | January 2nd, 2010 at 5:32 am

Thanks Dan; I always appreciate an honest thought unvarnished by social or political correctness; that’s also what i try to provide.