WASHINGTON (The Dissociated Press) - President Obama Monday observed the Memorial Day tradition of laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery and then ordering the bombing of a third world nation. Mr. Obama supplemented those traditional presidential activities this Memorial Day, his first in office, by organizing a pick-up basketball game in the White House gymnasium.
During the brief, solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the President saluted the men and women of America's fighting forces, "both living and dead," as "the best the country has to offer."
"Personally, I think the dead ones are the most outstanding," Mr. Obama remarked extemporaneously. "They tend to put fewer demands on the Veterans' Administration, and we don't see quite as many of them cutting off their ex-girlfriends' heads and putting them in bowling-ball bags."
Immediately after laying the wreath and observing a moment of silence, Obama wondered aloud why the country's "fallen warriors" felt such a sense of duty to serve, knowing they might have to make "the ultimate sacrifice."
"Why in an age when so many have acted only in pursuit of the narrowest self-interest have the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of this generation volunteered all that they have on behalf of others?" Obama asked the gathering of several hundred military personnel and their families.
Not realizing that the question had been rhetorical, a large portion of the audience shouted, together, in reply, "Because, except for military recruiters, there was nobody left working in their schools, and other than selling drugs, they had no other viable career options!!"
President Obama also used the occasion to defend his decision, nearly two weeks ago, to fight the release of photographs documenting the abuse of Afghan and Iraqi detainees in US military custody on the basis that the pictures "might incite resentment" in those two peoples toward American forces. This, as opposed to the warm and generous attitude toward Americans that have been engendered by, say, the massive destruction and ongoing US occupations of their entire countries.
The President's decision reversed an agreement the government had reached with the American Civil Liberties Union, which he had backed, to release photographs of prisoner abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib and a half-dozen other US-run prisons after the ACLU prevailed in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit first filed in 2004.
Explaining the administration's backtracking, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the time that he and the President had both changed their minds about releasing the photos after receiving an urgent memo from the top military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David McKiernan, saying "Exercise extreme caution. If those pictures get out, they're definitely going to know we're here."
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