There is a Pattern Here

And it really bothers me.

I have voted for President Obama twice.

And I cannot imagine a republican candidate who– if offered by that religious cult masquerading as the Party of Lincoln – for whom I would vote if Obama were again the alternative.

But I have questions that increasingly haunt me about our President.

One of them is:

“How has the totally obvious Bush dodge on the real costs of his middle east wars been ignored by the Obama administration? Not only did W do a war off the books, he also did not acknowledge the follow on costs – which are probably four or five times the costs of the actual war – to be considered.

And the Senate “Rs” and “Ds” alike just said “my, my” and voted to invade Iraq.

How nice for them.

That gave both sides the chance to tell their cretin voters that they were red blooded ‘Mericans.

They were going to defend the Constitution by waging war in Iraq.

That’s what many of the veterans of that war have told me.

And, while that – to me - is the ultimate indictment of those veterans participation in a really stupid expedition, to say nothing of the US education system (defending the US Constitution in Iraq – come on) it at least gave a premise for the troops to have gone. 

It was sort of like when I was in Vietnam: we were there to defend  - something.

And  was another really, really stupid expedition:

But the question still remains: “why didn’t our President arrive on the scene in 2009 with a fiery sword and  why didn’t he smite the various unclean spirits who were cooking the books and fixing spreadsheets in the endeavor to prove that our veterans were getting the service - implicit and overt - resulting from their service in Afghanistan and Iraq, when in fact they were being denied anything resembling service?”

Maybe he is a closet W supporter. That would be weird, but it would be a facile answer given the screaming fact that it is undeniable that three or four trillion dollars are lurking in the not distant future if the nation were to honor its post Afghanistan and post Iraq war obligations to the citizens who fought those wars, again and again and – in too many cases again.  That would explain why a problem that has surfaced briefly several times during the Obama administration has only recently boiled.

Now it is 2014.

We have just found ourselves – us jokes, we citizens – hearing again that the VA is probably killing people.

The question shrieks, why has this become an issue again, and why has it just seemed to have been there all along. and why are we still hearing, again, that “they” are going to get to the bottom of it?

Why didn’t “they” get to the bottom of it in 2009?

And where has the President been all this time?

Looks to me as if the off-the-books war of W has had the tacit approval of the follow on administration.

Which might be some sort of bi-partisanship, but to what end?

Unless there is a bi-partisan conspiracy in support of stiffing our veterans.

And, given the Bush/Chaney genesis of that possibility and their “we don’t need to pay for this war or residual several decades of expenses” mentality of their great war to banish the world from Saddam’s nuclear weapons, it is really curious that Obama has never stirred that pot.

The problem has become that, finally, people are dying and it isn’t possible to pretend anymore that we don’t have to pay for it.

My question is, “why didn’t our president, who is smart, who is compassionate, who sees things clearly, fix this thing on the moment of taking office?”

The only answer I can conjure really bothers me.

Several other questions follow.

But some other time.