Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead criticized President Barack Obama for saluting the U.S. Marines guarding his helicopter with a paper beverage cup in his hand.
“Symbols are important. The military salute shows respect for higher authority and when done properly, that respect is reciprocated when the higher authority returns the salute,” Armistead said. “But when President Obama saluted Marines guarding him as he exited the Marine helicopter recently with a white beverage cup in his hand, it showed a total lack of respect for those who put their life on the line to protect the President and fight for our country. It was downright chilling to watch this video.”
Armistead said if Obama had simply removed his cup from his left hand, like any patriotic American would have done, clearing his right hand to return the salute, there would not have been any controversy about the incident. But the awkward and embarrassing salute shows that President Obama does not understand the military, which is a frightening prospect considering he routinely orders the men and women of our armed forces into harm’s way. The recent incident is part of a pattern showing Obama’s lack of knowledge about the military.
“Several years ago, in attempting to acknowledge the bravery of a Navy Corpsman and in referring to the U.S. Marine Corps, which Navy corpsmen serve, Obama pronounced ‘corpsman’ as ‘corpse-man’ and Marine Corps like Marine corpse, demonstrating unfamiliarity with a pronouncement that most American school children learn in their earliest history classes,” Armistead added.
While these matters might seem trivial to some, Armistead said that they point to a fundamental lack of understanding of the U.S. Armed Forces and the protocol involved in dealing with military issues.
“This basic misunderstanding of the military, coupled with Obama’s propensity to decide his every move based on politics, bodes ill for our nation,” Armistead noted. “Look at how long it took the President to recognize the threat from ISIS terrorists. And once he acknowledged the threat, Obama telegraphed our every move; announcing the air campaign, announcing the air attacks in Syria and saying that the first attacks there were going to be the hardest. He has also repeated, like a mantra, that there would be no American ‘boots on the ground’ although most military leaders say that ISIS cannot be defeated by air power alone and that Iraqi and Kurdish infantry and Syrian rebels might not be able to defeat ISIS on the ground.
“All of these public pronouncements gave our enemies fundamental information about what we intended to do and when and where we intended to do it. As the saying goes, ‘being forewarned is being forearmed.’ Barack Obama has done more to disrespect our military and to open our country to irreparable harm from those who want to destroy America and the freedoms that hundreds of thousands have given their life for than all of his predecessors in the White House” Armistead added.
“Imagine George Washington announcing to the press before his successful surprise attack on Trenton, NJ on Christmas Day 1776, ‘tomorrow we will cross the Delaware River.’
“I just pray that God will watch over our Armed Forces because we have a president who appears to be totally unable to do that,” Armistead added.