We as a nation have listened to how we must support the troops as if the Republican Party is the only Americans that care about how the "troops" are cared for and treated.
They attempt to smear all who dare speak against the war or President Bush's prosecution of the wars in Iraq and and Afghanistan as being unpatriotic and AGAINST the troops. Under the fold we will look at the facts since the last presidential election and the campaign slogan "A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept".
The first opening shot after the 2004 election was the end of Congressman Chris Smith R-NJ the Chairman of the House VA Committee, it seemed that he had managed to piss off the White House and Speaker Dennis Hastert, as he opposed the White House plans to raise fees for prescriptions and user fees for low level or low income veterans. This article from the Nation shows the opening shot on Veterans.
The crackdown on GOP moderates continued last week as the House leadership ousted Representative Chris Smith as chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs for his tireless advocacy of veterans rights. Smith--like House Ethics Chairman Joel Hefley--did his job a little too well.
Smith served on the Vets Committee since arriving in Congress twenty-four years ago and became its chairman in 2001, angering the GOP top brass with his opposition to stingy VA budgets and ability to pass bills across bipartisan lines. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay--who wanted Smith punished two years ago--got his wish when House Speaker Dennis Hastert inserted GOP poodle Steve Buyer as Chairman and took the unprecedented step of throwing Smith off the Vets Committee. (Ironically, Smith is also a major figure in the anti-choice movement.)
Under a rule change adopted in 1995, Hastert can remove any committee chairman he deems incompetent or disloyal--now code words for bucking conservative conformity. During his four-year tenure, Smith authored twenty-two bills benefiting veterans: increasing veteran education funding through the GI bill by 46 percent, allocating $1 billion for homeless vets and $1.4 billion for expanded healthcare programs, and providing an extra $100 million in benefits for surviving spouses.
"It's almost as if no good deed goes unpunished," Smith told the Trenton Times. "In Baghdad, when somebody's bleeding, they're not Democrat or Republican. This is one committee that should have nothing to do with politics." Even Republican operative Bob Novak put fury to paper in a column yesterday. "The extraordinary purge buttressed the growing impression of arrogance as Republicans enter their second decade of power in the House," Novak wrote.
Then there is Dr. David Chu who started a firestorm, which started calls for his termination with these remarks as noted by Congressman Chet Edwards
The fact is that we are spending too little, not too much on our veterans and military retirees. The truth is that last year's budget for veterans health care did not even keep up with inflation. So, in effect, we had a real cut in veterans health care spending during a time of war. What happened to the principle of shared sacrifice during a time of war?
I find it outrageous and offensive that Secretary Chu blamed veterans for trying to undermine our Nation's security, when just as easily this administration, along with Dr. Chu, could suggest perhaps we reduce a little bit of that $124,000-a-year tax break that the administration and the Republicans in Congress have given to people in America making over $1 million a year.
Maybe before we start blaming military widows for undermining our Nation's security, maybe before Dr. Chu starts criticizing veterans and military retirees who risked their lives in Vietnam and Iraq, Korea, Iwo Jima and Normandy, maybe they should look at their own policies that have provided tax breaks for Members of Congress, tax breaks for people making over $1 million a year that, in my opinion, make a farce out of the quintessential American value and principle of shared sacrifice during a time of war.
I would hope Dr. Chu will quickly retract his outrageous attack on our Nation's finest, those men and women who have served our country so admirably in uniform.
Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the administration before the sun sets another day will say that Dr. Chu's statement does not reflect administration policy. I hope that the Republican leadership in the House joins with me in a bipartisan effort to criticize this outrageous and wrong attack on America's military veterans and retirees
Then there is of course the VA Secretary James Nicholson who misled Congress last year about the financial position of the VA and ended up going back to Congress just months after proclaiming the VA "has plenty of money" not once but twice for additional funds, they ended up giving the VA almost 2 billion dollars for FY 2006, exactly the amount of money Senator Patty Murray D-WA and other Democrats had requested 2 months previously and the Senate VA Committee, denied the request.
Secretary Nicholson has also made statements about PTSD being "cured" which flies in the face of the National Center for PTSD
a Veteran Affairs created and owned website. There are methods for coping, medications for the treatment of the symptoms, but alas "no cure" as he has suggested.
Everyone by now has seen the stories about the soldiers being deployed on medications for PTSD back into Iraq, the soldier on trial for the murders of the teen age girl and her family was seen by mental health in Iraq, and told of his homicidal thoughts, they sent him back to his unit, we are all watching that play out in the news.
If this is support, I don't need it or want it, our Congress needs to demand BETTER for our military and the veterans and their FAMILIES, PTSD is a family disease.