AEHQ Issues – War on Terror divides 2012 candidates
[FoxNews.com]
Published May 08, 2012
Throughout the presidential campaign, Fox News will be breaking down the key issues and giving viewers an in-depth look at the positions of President Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. The first article in the AEHQ Issues series focuses on national security and the war on terror.
President Obama and Mitt Romney have faced off in recent days in a bitter debate over the alleged politicization of the Usama bin Laden raid, one year ago.
It’s hardly surprising. They don’t agree on much — be it strategy or the political rhetoric about that strategy — when it comes to the war against Al Qaeda that has outlived the man who was once the world’s most wanted terrorist.
Obama took office vowing to recapture what he saw as the moral high ground in the war on terror, to make it easier for allies to support the U.S. and more difficult for terrorist organizations to recruit. He promised to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, though Congress blocked him even when Democrats controlled the House and the Senate.
But Romney has said he’d double the size of the Guantanamo facility, if need be, and has defended the “enhanced interrogation” techniques, like waterboarding, that Obama banned as torture.
Protection of chaplains introduced as amendment to defense authorization bill
The House Armed Services Committee will have a chance later this week to consider a measure that would protect freedom of conscience for military chaplains in the wake of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), Chairman of the HASC Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, introduced an amendment to the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act that would protect military chaplains and all service members, he said, from “persecution based on their religious beliefs.”
Earlier this month, Human Events wrote about a bill introduced in January by Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) that would explicitly allow military chaplains to preach and practice their faith without fear of professional reprisal, following the repeal of a longstanding ban on gay troops serving openly, and reports that chaplains with moral opposition to homosexuality were experiencing pressure to stay silent about their beliefs.
The bill, which would also prohibit base chapels from being used for same-sex marriage services, has picked up four sponsors since the article was published April 30 and now stands at 49, but has languished in committee since January.
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