Were U.S. Veterans Benghazied?

Originally posted at American Thinker.

In an article published online at FinancialTimes.com, Geoff Dyer says that the indignity swirling around the Obama administration concerning the unnecessary deaths of “dozens” of U.S. veterans in a VA hospital in Arizona threatens to “engulf” the president.

Dyer writes that the outrage surrounding Benghazi is contrived and that health care reform “fortunes … are improving,” then suggests that the shoddy medical treatment of military veterans, some of whom Obama prevented from entering the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. last year, “has the potential to attract broad political condemnation” of the Obama administration’s competence.

Before commenting on the VA scandal, maybe the overly protective Mr. Dyer should first exercise a little journalistic curiosity and take the time to observe how the commander-in-chief treats those who endeavor to protect him.

Moreover, with all due respect to the author, isn’t the VA hospital just another example of the sort of bungling that’s been going on for six years?  And doesn’t this more recent scandal reflect the same ineptness that negatively impacted Benghazi and stands to severely impact what Dyer calls the “improving fortunes” of health care reform in the future?

So let’s begin by looking at the similarities between Benghazi and the VA scandal.

Thanks to the pervasive incompetence of an administration that cares more about distributing free contraceptives, reducing carbon emissions, freeing convicted illegal-alien murderers and rapists, and congratulating gay athletes than its members cared about the lives of an American ambassador, a diplomat, and two former Navy SEALs, another 40 or more American veterans have also died unnecessarily.

The Benghazi four perished in Libya at the hands of terrorists.  Here at home, our military veterans suffered for months while waiting for a doctor’s appointment that would never happen and perished at the hands of our nation’s bureaucratic terrorists. 

The similarities are striking: Americans who are or have been in service of our country are in distress and cry out for help and are put on hold.  And then, after people die, a whitewash ensues, and Barack Obama pretends he found out about it at the same time everyone else did. 

In short, the veterans who died were Benghazied.

If one had to predict what’s next, Secretary of Veterans Affairs/retired four-star general Eric Shinseki will reluctantly step down, and behind the scenes, Obama administration heavies will quietly shut down whistleblowers and assign scapegoats.  To shore up those efforts, Obama’s media lapdogs will be recruited to call justified outrage “contrived.”

After all, in the words of our esteemed former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, if the body bags are zipped up and dirt has covered the flag-draped coffins, at that point, “what difference does it make?”

From Benghazi, let’s move along to the no-brainer of how the VA scandal reflects on the supposed “improving fortunes” of health care reform.

For all intents and purposes, prior to implementing ObamaCare, the persistent problems surrounding VA medical care should have forewarned America that despite the president’s grandiose promises, bureaucracy and health care do not mix. 

Think about it – those who are now coordinating the medical treatment of 300 million people are from the same government who mismanaged the medical needs of the U.S. veterans – promised health care that they never received and died waiting for.

That’s why it’s likely that, from Obama’s point of view, shredding machines and two sets of books were necessary for the common good.  Because if Americans were aware that nine million eligible U.S. veterans don’t actually have adequate, accessible health care, it wouldn’t bode very well for the other 291 million Americans now forced to depend on ACA largesse.  Thus, cover-ups are a necessary evil, required to protect and support the larger, more scandalous ruse.

Geoff Dyer, who writes about the fantastical “improving fortunes” of health care reform, also writes about the VA system’s problems, but he seems blind to the connection between the two when he states:

The result has been a constant struggle to meet new demands, despite big spending increases. The budget for the VA has risen from $73.1bn in 2006 to $153.8bn this year. However, the number of outpatient visits at its facilities has increased from 46.5m in 2002 to 83.6m in 2012.

According to Dyer, “[t]he VA, which runs 152 hospitals and 817 outpatient clinics, has long suffered from delays and a dysfunctional bureaucracy.”  That places health care reform in the same dysfunctional category as the Veteran’s Administration health system, only on a greater scale, no?

In 2010, right about the time that ObamaCare was being touted as the answer to all of America’s health care woes, the struggling VA claimed they would be implementing a “new appointments system, which promised a 14-day wait for an appointment with a primary care doctor or a specialist,” but never delivered.

Recently retired physician Sam Foote, after working for 24 years for VA hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona, blew the whistle on the situation.  He revealed on CNN that as many as “40 patients had died after being placed on a hidden waiting list that could last for up to a year, while officials at the hospital shredded documents and faked evidence to make it seem as if waiting times were under control.”

So there you have it.  Despite the fawning journalists who view the atrocities within the VA system as a challenge to Obama’s improving status, the scandal that’s about to blow wide open is just more of the same Obama-influenced government ineptitude that will likely be proven endemic to the whole system.

Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that the man who is a master at slithering his way out of multiple controversies will be held accountable for a travesty that may wind its way back to the White House.

Still, at this late date, if the wish for true American justice were to be fulfilled, how fitting would it be for the deaths of 40 or more American heroes – not in battle, but in government-run VA hospitals – to deliver the final blow that frees America from the scourge that is Barack Obama?