Obama Marching To The Tune Of Progressive Groups
In committing an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces to join international Ebola relief efforts in West Africa, President Obama, perhaps unwittingly, seems to be fulfilling at least some of the plans of highly influential progressive groups who seek to transform the American military into more of a social-work organization.
In 2012, a number of progressive groups with deep ties to the Obama administration got together to produce a comprehensive, 96-page report titled the “2012 Unified Security Budget.” It offered recommendations for reforming the U.S. military during Obama’s second term in office, suggesting that the military combat “global warming,” aid in disease prevention in Africa, fight global poverty, remedy “injustice,” bolster the United Nations, and increase “peacekeeping” forces worldwide.
Already during his first term, Obama utilized some of the specific recommendations of an earlier military budget paper produced by the same groups.
The 2012 Unified Security Budget report makes clear the stated objective of transforming the U.S. armed forces into an operation that emphasizes conflict resolution, international military cooperation via the UN, and diplomacy.
Last Tuesday, the White House released a “Fact Sheet” announcing that the U.S. military is “partnering with the United Nations and other international partners” to help the governments of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal respond to the Ebola outbreak.
An estimated 3,000 U.S. forces will be utilized as the U.S. Africa Command is set to establish a Joint Force Command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, to “provide regional command and control support…and facilitate coordination with U.S. government and international relief efforts.”
Obama’s plan calls for U.S. Military Command engineers to build Ebola Treatment Units in affected areas. American personnel are to recruit and organize medical experts to staff the new units; one program calls for training up to 500 health-care providers per week.
While Obama has slashed funding for numerous military defense programs, the president’s plan to fight Ebola in West Africa calls for $500 million to be added to this year’s Overseas Contingency Operations for “humanitarian assistance” in West Africa.
Some of the funds will be used for “medical treatment facilities, personnel protective equipment and medical supplies; logistics and engineering support; and subject matter experts in support of sanitation and mortuary affairs,” according to the White House release.
The 2012 Unified Security Budget is a joint product of the Center for American Progress, CAP, and the Institute for Policy Studies, IPS. Previous recommendations from the groups’ yearly Unified Security Budgets have been adapted by the Obama administration.
The Center for American Progress was behind some of Obama’s first-term agenda. CAP founder John Podesta is now a White House “counselor.”
The 2012 Unified Security Budget itself recalls how the group’s policy recommendations from some of its recent defense papers have already been adopted by Obama’s Sustainable Defense Taskforce, which has notoriously recommended $1 trillion in defense cuts over 10 years.
Testimony Contradicts Clinton’s Account
In a detail largely unreported by the mainstream news media, testimony by the State Department’s diplomatic security chief at last week’s Benghazi hearing conflicts with Hillary Clinton’s explanation for why a Marine contingent was never deployed to protect the attacked U.S. Special Mission.
Greg Starr, assistant secretary for diplomatic security, told lawmakers that in his experience Marines were never deployed to protect temporary facilities, such as the U.S. Mission in Benghazi.
He affirmed that assessment a second time when Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., asked, “The Benghazi compound, we’ve already established by multiple questions here, it was a temporary facility. And Marine security guard detachments are never deployed to temporary facilities, correct?”
Starr replied, “Not in my experience.”