Tag Archives: William McRaven

military news

RNC backs POTUS in attack on McRaven

Well, here we go.

The Republican National Committee, I guess to few people’s surprise, has backed Donald J. Trump in his idiotic attack on the Navy SEAL who coordinated the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The RNC says that retired Admiral William McRaven “reportedly” was on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s short list of potential running mates when she ran for president in 2016.

Hold … the … phone!

The president went off on McRaven during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” He contended that the Special Operations Command chief was a “Hillary Clinton backer” while he was criticizing him for not getting bin Laden “a lot sooner” than he did.

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace sought to mention that McRaven was a SEAL at the time of the bin Laden raid, but that didn’t dissuade Trump from alleging that McRaven was some sort of partisan hack.

What a joke!

Whether he was on anyone’s short list is utterly beside the point.

McRaven retired from the Navy after 37 years of service in 2014. Clinton ran for president two years after that. The raid that McRaven coordinated occurred on President Obama’s watch. The date was in May 2011, when McRaven was an active-duty Navy officer.

His colleagues all have testified to a person that McRaven is the consummate military professional who didn’t put politics ahead of his mission. Indeed, he has responded to Trump’s criticism by noting that he served under President George W. Bush as well as under President Obama. Republican or Democrat, it didn’t matter to McRaven.

So, for the president to accuse him of being some sort of cheap partisan disserves not only Admiral McRaven, but also the SEALs as well as other Special Forces troops in the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps . . .  not to mention all the men and women who wear the uniform in defense of the country.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, I suppose, that the RNC would weigh in with its own cheap political shot.

Despicable.

military news

This tempest just won’t go away

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The tumult caused by Donald Trump’s disparagement of a heroic Navy SEAL continues at full boil.

Why is that? Because the president of the United States won’t back down from the hideous criticism he leveled at retired Admiral William McRaven, the fellow who coordinated the May 2011 commando raid that took down Osama bin Laden.

McRaven, who’s now a private citizen, had criticized the president’s war on the media as a grave “threat to democracy.” Trump then responded in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace that McRaven should have gotten bin Laden “much sooner.”

Yep, he criticized the architect of the operation. He in effect denigrated the service of a heroic American warrior, who spent 37 years wearing the uniform in service to his country. He was injured training to become a SEAL. He also led the team that captured the late Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein in 2003.

So, for this president — who actually avoided service during the Vietnam War — to criticize a hero simply is beyond my own ability to comprehend. He called McRaven a political hack, a Hillary Clinton “backer” and a fan of President Obama.

Admiral McRaven is as admirable a man as one could find.

Donald Trump? He, um, isn’t.

Still, this tempest just won’t quit.

military news

The warrior responds to POTUS

Back and forth they go.

The president and the decorated Navy SEAL are at each other’s throats. I’m pulling for the SEAL.

Donald Trump — as is his tendency — fired off a totally inappropriate tweet challenging whether the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command could have taken out Osama bin Laden “sooner” than he did.

That commander is retired Admiral William McRaven, on whose watch U.S. commandos killed the 9/11 mastermind in a firefight in Pakistan.

McRaven had the temerity to declare that Trump’s attack on the media presents the “greatest threat” to the nation. Trump responded with that hideous Twitter taunt about the bin Laden raid.

McRaven has answered the president. He stands by his comment about Trump’s attack on the media. Trump also had accused McRaven of “backing” Hillary Clinton. McRaven said “no.” He isn’t a fan of the former Democratic presidential candidate. He also said he backs all presidents, because he respects the office. McRaven also notes in his response that he served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama while leading the Special Operations Command.

He told Trump, “When you undermine the people’s right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the Constitution and all for which it stands.”

If only the president understood the damage he does with his reckless and feckless rhetoric.

International news, military news

Trump hits back … at the warrior who got Osama bin Laden!

Donald Trump isn’t known for picking his targets with much care or thought. His “shoot-and-aim” approach to firing criticism scores points with his base; not so much with the rest of us.

Fox News’s Chris Wallace asked the president to respond to former Admiral William McRaven’s criticism that the greatest threat to America is Trump’s demonization of the media.

The president’s response? He wonders why McRaven, the former head of the U.S. Special Forces Command, didn’t bring justice to Osama bin Laden sooner than he did.

You see, McRaven — a retired Navy SEAL — was on duty in May 2011 when U.S. commandos flew into Pakistan and engaged in a firefight with the al-Qaeda leader’s garrison. The troops then killed bin Laden — the 9/11 mastermind — and transported his corpse to the USS Carl Vinson, where he was given a “burial at sea.”

Trump said to Wallace that McRaven could have gotten bin Laden sooner than he did. He seemed to imply incompetent military and intelligence leadership as the reason that bin Laden was able to hide in plain sight in Abbattobad, Pakistan. He called McRaven a “fan” of Hillary Clinton and “backer” of Barack Obama. I’ll add here that Clinton was the secretary of state at the time of the raid and, oh yes, Obama was the president who issued the order to launch the mission, which I should add was carried out with no loss of American lives.

Take a look at Trump’s answer to Wallace’s question about whether the president would give credit for the mission that took down bin Laden: “They took him down but — look, look, there’s news right there, he lived in Pakistan, we’re supporting Pakistan, we’re giving them $1.3 billion a year, which we don’t give them anymore, by the way, I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us.”

Huh?

Donald Trump

‘Revoke my clearance, too’

William McRaven is an unabashed American patriot. He is a former Navy SEAL, former U.S. Special Operations Force commanding officer, a retired Navy admiral.

He also supervised the May 2011 Navy SEAL/CIA commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

He also is critical of the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

McRaven, who’s about to leave his current post as University of Texas System chancellor, has dared the president to revoke his security clearance. He said he wants the revocation so that he can stand in solidarity with former CIA Director John Brennan, who had his clearance yanked by the president.

Trump acted in a remarkable and breathtaking fit of pique at Brennan because the former top spook has been harshly critical of the president. Why, Trump just won’t have any of that.

As MSN.com reported: “[Brennan] is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him,” retired Navy Adm. William McRaven wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

“Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency,” he wrote.

I heard some chatter today that Trump supporters are actually questioning McRaven’s love of country because of his criticism of the president.

To think anyone would question this man’s patriotism simply boggles my mind. Or the minds of reasonable people anywhere.

State news

Open carry on campus? Please . . . no!

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campus carry

State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, today made it clear that he opposes the notion of allowing anyone to carry weapons on college campuses in Texas.

More to the point, as I heard his talk today to the Rotary Club of Amarillo, he said that allowing guns into college classrooms is a particularly bad idea.

He noted a key foe of the idea of allowing such activity. That would be the chancellor of the University of Texas System. You’ve heard of him, perhaps. Former Navy Admiral William McRaven once led the nation’s special forces command. He is a Navy SEAL who, according to Seliger, “knows more about guns than just about anyone.”

McRaven thinks allowing guns on campus is a bad idea.

Seliger then presented a fascinating scenario to buttress the point about how bad an idea it is to let someone carry a gun openly into a university classroom.

Suppose a professor gives a student a bad grade, he said. Suppose, then, that the grade enrages the student so much that he wants to harm the professor.

I think you get the point.

I’m not going to oppose openly the idea of allowing Texans to carry guns in plain sight. The concealed carry law, enacted in 1995, hasn’t produced gunfights at traffic intersections, as some of us — yours truly included — had feared would happen.

But there ought to be some places where we ought to restrict the open display of these weapons.

Houses of worship are among those places.

So are college classrooms.

And none of that endangers the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

 

State news

Guns soon will be going to college

It’s tough to write about this in the aftermath of that hideous shooting rampage in Charleston, S.C., but I’ll try anyway.

Campus carry legislation has become law in Texas, meaning that before long it’ll be all right for students to carry guns to public college and university classrooms.

I’m going to try my best to keep a wide open mind on this issue, even though I join University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven in harboring serious concerns about it.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/16/new-law-campus-carry-debate-begins-anew/

The Charleston carnage will take time to sort out. Dylann Roof is in custody and it’s likely he’ll be charged with a hate crime, meaning the feds will try him. As hideous as that crime is and the pain it has brought to an entire nation, it shouldn’t reflect on what has transpired here in Texas.

Our sincerest hope is that nothing does happen in Texas’s public universities that can be traced directly to the campus-carry law that Gov. Greg Abbott signed.

Concealed-carry legislation brought many concerns to Texans. I was one of them. Our concern about concealed-carry did not materialize, meaning that it didn’t result in street-intersection shootouts caused by fender-bender accidents.

Only people with concealed-carry permits will be allowed to pack heat into the western civilization lecture halls, which means they’ll at least have some training on how to use a handgun.

The question remaining for McRaven and other university administrators is how they’re going to implement the law, allowing students and faculty members to bring guns onto campuses.

I wish them all well.

And yes, I truly am hoping for the best.

 

State news

Texas is about to add to its reputation

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Ask a non-Texan to characterize the Lone Star State and the folks who live here in a sentence or two and you’re likely to hear the word “guns” mentioned.

“Texans love their guns.” “Texans would just as soon shoot someone as argue with ’em.” “Don’t mess with Texas, or someone with a gun will get ya.”

That kind of stuff.

Well, the Texas Legislature is likely to enhance or embellish that reputation if it approves two bills — over the expressed opposition of chiefs of police and at least one highly senior university administrator.

Open carry and campus carry bills are likely to become law in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott says he’ll sign them both.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/26/texas-house-takes-campus-carry-ahead-key-deadline/

Lock ‘n load, Texas.

Police chiefs oppose the open carry bill that will enable those with concealed carry permits to pack the heat openly, strapped to holsters on their hips.

University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven opposes the campus carry bill, which would allow concealed carry licensees to bring weapons onto college campuses.

The top cops and the chancellor have the same fear of both bills: They have the potential of creating tragedy, either through accidental shooting or self-inflicted gunshots wounds.

Both pieces of legislation give me the heebie-jeebies. Yes, the concealed carry law enacted in 1995 did the same thing, but it’s generally turned out all right in terms of its impact on Texas society. There haven’t been the spasms of violence in intersections over fender-benders that some of us feared when concealed carry became the law in Texas.

With open carry and now, with campus carry, I continue to get the nervous jerks over knowing that we’re (a) going to allow guns to be carried in the open and (b) allowing guns into university classrooms.

Retired Admiral McRaven, a former Navy SEAL who later headed the U.S. Special Forces command, has an interesting take on the campus carry bill’s potential impact. According to the Texas Tribune: “’If you’re in a heated debate with somebody in the middle of a classroom, and you don’t know whether or not that individual is carrying, how does that inhibit the interaction between students and faculty?’ McRaven asked at a Texas Tribune event in February. McRaven and others have suggested gun-wielding students might intimidate classmates and professors to the point of curbing freedom of speech.”

Maybe all this concern is overblown. Then again, maybe it’s justified.

I fear the worst if the cause for justification presents itself.

 

State news

Campus-carry gun bills are reloaded

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Yeah, that’s the ticket.

College and university campuses have been victimized for decades by gun violence, so what do some Texas legislators want to do? They want to allow folks to pack heat onto those campuses.

That’s the way to solve the issue of gun violence. Bring in more guns.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2015/01/texas-lawmakers-reload-campus-carry-bills/

Texas Senate Bill 11 has 19 co-sponsors, which under the new rules of the Senate makes it eligible for vote in the full Senate. SB 11 won’t allow guns into campus hospitals, nor will it allow guns in elementary schools. I guess that’s a small victory for common sense.

When I read a blog posted by the Houston Chronicle about the bill’s status with the University of Texas System, well, I got a bit confused. The blog states: “Similar legislation has been proposed in previous years but failed after heavy opposition, especially from campus leaders. University of Texas Chancellor William McRaven recently came out against the effort.”

I can’t tell by reading this post whether McRaven — a retired Navy admiral and one-time SEAL — opposes the legislation or opposes the effort to derail it.

Whatever the case, the notion of allowing more guns onto higher education campuses makes this Texan — that would be me — quite nervous.