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Articles (2012)
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On July 1, 2010 Capt. Peter B. Hegseth was introduced at the confirmation hearing by Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-VT], Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hegseth has a BA from Princeton and is working on his Master's Degree at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Hegseth is also the Executive Director of Vets for Freedom, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans dedicated to supporting US troops in harm's way. As he opened his statement, Hegseth said: "We are a nation at war with a vicious enemy on multiple fronts. I've seen this enemy first hand...The enemy we face detests, and seeks to destroy, our way of life while completely ignoring, and exploiting the laws of warfare. This content motivates my testimony today. I have serious concerns about Elena Kagan's actions towards the military, and her willingness to myopically focus on preventing the military from having institutional and equal access to topnotch recruits at time of war. I find her actions toward military recruiters at Harvard unbecoming a civil leader, and unbefitting a nominee to the United States Supreme Court. "I know a number of my fellow veterans will testify to Ms. Kagan's personal support of veterans on Harvard's campus. And Ms. Kagan has had good things to say about our troops...But, for my money, actions always speak louder than words. And, Ms. Kagan's actions towards recruiterswith wars ragingundercut the military's ability to fight and win wars, and they trump her rhetorical explanations." (Listen to the video for the whole text.) As he began his summation, Hegseth acknowledged that despite Kagan's decision to bar recruiters fro the Office of Career Services, the number of military recruits actually increased during her tenure. "Let's be clear," he said. "This happened in spite of Ms. Kagan, not because of her. But I ask an even more important question: would not the number been even higher had she supported recruiters rather than oppose them?" As he concluded his summation, Hegseth said: "Ms. Kagan slammed the military's discriminatory recruitment policy. Yet, as a legal scholar, she knows better. She knows the policy she abhors is not the military's policy, but a policy enacted by Congress and imposed on the military. In fact, after the law was passed, Ms. Kagan went to work for the very man who signed 'Don't ask, Don't Tell' into lawPresident Bill Clinton...Harvard Law School," he said in closing, "has three academic chairs endowed by money from Saudi Arabia, a country where being a homosexual is a capital offense. So, rather than confront the Congressional source of the policyor take a stand against a country that executes homosexuals, Ms. Kagan zeroed in on military recruiters for a policy they neither authored nor emphasized. In closing, the real moral injustice is granting a lifetime appointment to someone who, when it mattered, treated military recruiters like second-class citizens." Like every good social progressive (i.e., communist), Kagan wasn't really protesting "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Like every good social progressive, she was simply protesting the right of the US military to recruitperiod. Like every good social progressive, Kagan believes when America can no longer win a war, they will stop waging them. In reality, when American can no longer win a war, we will be speaking Russian or Chinese.
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