Thursday, September 29, 2016

Obama criticized by US miltary and veterans regarding terrorism, women in combat and veteran's hospitals


Military personnel and veterans challenged President Obama, often aggressively, on his refusal to use the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” his decision to open combat jobs up to women and the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs at a town hall meeting here Wednesday.

Obama was at this Army base near Richmond to take part in a military-focused special that aired Wednesday night on CNN. The cable network selected questioners who were respectful but who reflected a military population that is more conservative than the population as a whole and generally skeptical of the president’s performance as commander in chief over the past eight years.[...]

A mother whose 19-year-old son was killed in Baghdad in 2007 pressed Obama more directly on the subject, asking him, “Why do you still refuse to use the term ‘Islamic terrorism’?” Obama countered that he did not want to conflate murderous terrorists with “the billion Muslims . . . who are peaceful, who are responsible, who in this country are our fellow troops.”

An active-duty Marine officer challenged the president’s decision to open combat jobs to women, saying that studies conducted by the Marine Corps showed that such units performed “notably worse” and that women “suffered staggeringly higher rates of injury.”

“Why were these tangible, negative consequences disregarded?” she asked.

Obama said that he had not acted out of political correctness and noted that women have been fighting at great risk in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade. “I want to make sure our starting assumption is that if you can do the job, you should be able to get the job,” he said.[...]

Among the toughest questions he fielded was one from a woman who said her husband had waited a year for an appointment from VA. When he finally saw a doctor, his cancer was misdiagnosed and not treated.

“First of all, my heart goes out to you,” Obama said. He then said that he had increased the VA budget by 85 percent over the course of his presidency but that there was more work to do

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