Veteran Democrats use Day 3 of DNC to put verbal crosshairs on Trump
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- Last week the Republicans used Day One of their convention in Cleveland to tee up national security issues, rolling out military veterans like "Lone Survivor" SEAL Marcus Luttrell and former head of DIA Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to attack Hillary Clinton for her inaction around the force protection disaster in Benghazi, Libya and her reckless handling of classified emails while serving as Secretary of State.
Several veterans advocates who'd also attended the RNC in Cleveland had wondered aloud, after a couple of days of next to nothing on the topic of issues facing the military, whether the DNC was going to mount any counter to Republican accusations and what they'd presented on behalf of the military and veterans community the week prior. Yesterday they got their answer as the Democrats brought out the party's own platoon of military veterans to put the verbal crosshairs squarely on Donald J. Trump's center of mass.
Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, a Marine veteran who served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, set the tone in the afternoon when he kicked off the Veterans and Military Family Counsel session with some very specific criticisms about Trump.
"The Republican nominee for president goes around praising Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein," Moulton said. "Specifically, about Saddam Hussein, he praised him for killing terrorists. Let's just remember who Saddam Hussein termed 'terrorists.' There are American troops like me. He killed hundreds of Americans. And there were tens of thousands of innocent Shite civilians in his own country whom he massacred in the streets. It's pretty unfathomable that we have a major party nominee who says things like that on the campaign trail."
Moulton, who just returned from a Congressional junket to Iraq and Afghanistan, went on to accuse Trump of having a bad effect on the morale of troops on the front lines.
"I would never purport to speak for all the troops, but there was remarkable consensus around those dinner table discussions that Donald Trump is a threat to our country," Moulton said. "And when you're hearing that from the guys who are literally putting their lives on the line as we sit here today, it makes you stop and think.
"If there's one group of people who Americans will listen to it's all of you who have put your lives on the line for our country. It's all of us who have the credibility to say, 'I know a little bit about our national security because I was part of it.'"
Moulton's remarks were followed by an equally pointed attack against Trump from Illinois Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs after her helicopter was hit by enemy fire in Iraq.
"We're talking about a man on the other side who this morning said he wanted to renegotiate the Geneva Convention," Duckworth said. "Well, let me tell you what: When you've sat in a downed aircraft outside the wire after you've just been shot down and you're bleeding to death, you got a whole different perspective about the Geneva Convention."
"[Donald Trump] categorically wants to send more young women and men into combat," said Will Fischer, veterans representative for the AFL-CIO, who followed Duckworth on the stage. "His kids, like Donnie Jr., ain't putting on a flak jacket anytime soon."
After the Veterans and Military Families Counsel session concluded, We Are The Mighty had an exclusive audience with more than a dozen flag and general officers who were present this week to show their support for Hillary Clinton.
"One of the most important things is understanding the value of partnerships, coalitions, and alliances for the U.S. to be able to carry out its missions," retired Navy Rear Admiral Kevin Green said. "Candidates for commander-in-chief need to understand that's how we avoid unnecessary wars, that's how we leverage our allies and our friends to do the kinds of things we need to do keep the United States safe and secure."
Green framed Trump's business approach to foreign policy as a liability, saying, "If you consider the relationships with other nations as transactional – what do I get if I give you this? – it undermines our national security."
"Reality TV has nothing to do with [national defense] reality," added Rear Admiral Harold Robinson, a retired Navy chaplain. "He can say three lies during the day and then deny them. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines need to be looked at in the eye and told God's own truth when we ask them to go out there and kill or be killed."
"The commander in chief doesn't have any checks and balances," said retired Air Force Major General Maggie Woodward. "He makes a decision on the spot and we execute it. That's why it's so terrifying to have a guy that we all believe is not qualified or temperamentally fit for that position."
"One of the things I discovered, not only leading troops in combat but also while in charge of recruiting for the Marine Corps, is what we had to tell America in order to have their sons and daughters be part of the military," said retired Lieutenant General Walter Gaskin. "They expected us to be professional, to lead, and to be knowledgeable of the world where we were sending their kids. We have to do that again so that the average person understands what's about to happen if the person putting them there is alienating our allies and the Muslim locals in the areas we're going to be fighting in."
But the final thought for the day on matters of military readiness and national security was reserved for Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA and Department of Defense.
"Donald Trump says he gets his foreign policy experience from watching TV and running the Miss Universe pageant," Panetta said from the main stage at the Wells Fargo Center during his primetime appearance just before President Obama's speech that closed out the program. "If only it were funny, but it is deadly serious."
The response from the Trump campaign to the daylong fusillade was muted by Trump standards. The usually prolific candidate was idle on Twitter until late in the day when he tweeted something about how shooting deaths of police officers were up by 78 percent and that the country doesn't feel great already, a counter to a statement made by Obama during his remarks.
