Saturday, March 4, 2017

Senior Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens and the Cruelty of Big Time Media Tactics.



Hey America, are you asleep?  Wake up and let's examine that "Presidential speech" for the joint session of our Congress the other night.  Most of the glowing reviews by print and broadcast journalists completely overlooked the fact that the speech was a cruel and heinous use of a dead soldier for media spin.  There was nothing patriotic or brave about arranging the furious applause at President Donald Trump's mention of the grieving wife of a good soldier. 

Trump's people flew wife Carryn Owens into Washington to bravely smile for the live feed C-SPAN and network video cameras in the chamber.  This little piece of reality TV was a disgusting play out of some unknown publicity manual.  The body of SCPO Owens became a shill for the Trump White House public relations strategy. 
There's something very, very wrong about hundreds of smiling people standing and cheering over the battle death of a man in uniform.  Trump intended the Yemen operation to further justify the continuing republican war to stoke fear in the people of his little banana republic of America.  SCPO Owens was the first United States combatant to die under the authority of President Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief.  Repeat:  There's something very, very wrong about hundreds of smiling people standing and cheering over the combat death of a man in uniform. 

Only an enemy cheers the death of one of our own. 

President Eisenhower said it many years ago, "The heart of darkest America is in the mid-west."  Those dark hearts have now elected the Donald and the Pence based on the promise of stopping abortions.  Because of deviant republicans we have been in a middle east war for over thirty years.  Now the White House busboys and President Trump may want to extend the war to other borders!  

Neither Donald Trump nor Mike Pence nor Mitch McConnell nor Paul Ryan have ever served one day in active military service to America.  They know very little about real national security.  No republican since Eisenhower seems to have had a clue about national security or how to carry on a war.  Look at Iraq.  Look at Afghanistan.  It is not Obama who set up the war in those places.  It was republican egotists.  Remember Donald Rumsfeld’s unforgettable media line “Shock and Awe!” used to describe the bombings and killings of thousands of civilians and enemy soldiers.  

Ike had respect for the dead.  Rumsfeld and Cheney and the Bush gang did not.  The Trump and Pence crew have even less integrity.  For them war is a media tactic.  Even worse, in the Pay-Per-Vote™ Congress the budget for “defense” spending grows geometrically while our national security remains in peril.  Combat casualties are of little consequence compared to tithes for the Super PAC. 


Senior Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens
March 5, 1980 - January 29, 2017
Rest in Peace CPO Owens

Both of SCPO Owens' parents were police officers in Florida.  His Mother, Patricia Ann Treutle was a detective who died in 2013.  Owens' father, William Owens is an honored military veteran.   

The Chicago Tribune reported President Trump had a conversation with SCPO Owens' "relatives."  So President Trump spoke to the Father and asked him to come up to D.C. with widow Carryn Owens for the grand meeting of Congress.  The Father realized the potential cruelty of TV cameras and the media limelight at the joint session, and he refused to meet with President Trump.  The Father asked for an investigation into his son's death.  

"We're very comfortable with how the mission was executed and we'll let the Department of Defense go through that review process and then see where that leads us," White House press officer Sean Spicer stated soon afterwards.  

When SCPO William Ryan Owens was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetary there was only scant coverage by the media.  What more can we as a nation ask from this family?  How President Trump and his staff and the US Congress contrived to squeeze cheap publicity from this family of true patriots is criminal and treasonous betrayal of all things American.  





1 comment:

Lindsey said...

Thanks Martin, right on ! And the exploitation of that poor women was beyond disgusting.