Reposted from Leaning Straight Up.

Veterans are pissed…as they should be. Funny thing is that now, after this slight, a lot who were not very disgruntled…are.

And Napolitano’s attempt to appease them is pointless when she has said she stands by the report’s conclusions.

US govt faces veteran anger at extremism report

The US Homeland Security Department, under fire for saying US forces returning from the Iraq and Afghan wars were potential right-wing extremist recruits, said Wednesday it honors US veterans.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to douse anger among conservatives and veterans groups like the American Legion over a report from her department warning of a rising threat of right-wing extremism.

“We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not — nor will we ever — monitor ideology or political beliefs,” Napolitano said in a statement amid charges that the department had done just that.

Which, in fact, they have.

American Legion chief David Rehbein on Tuesday blasted the report as “incomplete, and, I fear, politically-biased” and took special aim at its warning that returning veterans having difficulties reintegrating society could be recruited by right-wing groups for possible terrorist attacks.

In a letter to Napolitano, Rehbein underlined the document’s mention of Oklahoma City bombing author Timothy McVeigh’s US Army background and called it “as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.”

“The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation’s uniform during wartime,” said Rehbein, who group comprises some 2.6 million members.

Napolitano said she accepted Rehbein’s request for a meeting and stressed: “I will tell him face-to-face that we honor veterans at DHS and employ thousands across the department, up to and including the deputy secretary.”

Uh, what about the rest who don’t dance to your tune? Who don’t have to answer to you for their jobs?

The report said that fears of possible new restrictions on firearms, as well as troubled veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”

Rehbein said the accusation, levelled in an April 7 document designed for local law enforcement officials, was “without any statistical evidence.”

And that is just scratching the surface of why it is bad.

The Liberal distrust and hatred of the military is legendary, as this once again shows.

Though to be fair, a few Democrats are standing up and being outraged at this.

But the top House Democrat with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security said in a letter to Ms. Napolitano that he was “dumbfounded” that such a report would be issued.

“This report appears to raise significant issues involving the privacy and civil liberties of many Americans - including war veterans,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in his letter sent Tuesday night.

It’s a start. Obama has distanced himself…I am waiting for his condemnation. But considering that he has said essentially the same thing:

“Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives,” he said. “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I won’t hold my breath…

Trackposted to Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Political Byline, third world county, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, CORSARI D’ITALIA, Stageleft, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Categories: Protests
Tags: features