Ted Nugent: President Obama Is Personally Responsible For Epidemic Of Veteran Suicide
Ted Nugent is under fire for saying Barack Obama is the “enemy” who is personally responsible for a spate of veteran suicides.
The conservative rocker was speaking at an event for the Republican Party of Maricopa County this weekend when he made the inflammatory remarks, calling on Republicans to oppose the president.
“Here’s your job, Republican Party,” Nugent said over the weekend in comments posted online by Right Wing Watch. “Twenty to 25 of those guys kill themselves every day, and they haven’t told you why and they haven’t told anybody else why but they told me why: because the commander-in-chief is the enemy.”
Ted Nugent said Obama is directly causing may veterans to kill themselves because “they are in absolute frustration and heartbreak that their boss, their commander-in-chief, violates the Constitution that he has made an oath to, while their hero warrior blood brothers are being blown to smithereens and blown up while executing their oath to the same Constitution that the president, the vice president and the attorney general violate.”
The remarks drew quite a bit of controversy, with many calling out the rocker for his remarks on Obama.
Ted Nugent: Obama Is Causing Veteran Suicides http://t.co/nLWNLpB6E4 IDIOT! @TedNugent have you been to war? Didn’t think so #DraftDodger
— Jim Ross (@jimv_ross) April 3, 2015
Ted Nugent should quit commenting on politics and go back to what he does worst, music.
— Chuck Martin (@MrChuckMartin) April 3, 2015
Ted Nugent’s remarks on Obama came after the Pentagon noted that suicide has become the leading cause of death among American military members, dropping war to No. 2. Suicide accounted for three in 10 military deaths for the period of 2010 to 2012, which the study covered.
Military suicides increased dramatically at the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and some experts had hoped the rate would level off as more veterans returned home.
That was not the case, the Washington Post noted.
“And yet the suicide rate within the military is holding steady. The number of active-duty suicides in 2013 dropped by roughly 19 percent compared with 2012, but 2014 has seen them inch back up. This year, the military had lost 161 active-duty troops to suicide as of July, the most recent data available, compared with 154 during the same six-month time period in 2013. The numbers for the citizen-soldiers of the reserves and the National Guard have been even more dire, climbing 8 percent from 2012 to 2013, from 203 to 220. Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told me in an interview, ‘I don’t think we’ve hit the top yet on suicides.'”
This is not the first time that Ted Nugent drew controversy for remarks on Obama. He has previously called Obama a “subhuman mongrel” and “an evil, dangerous man who hates America.”
[Image via The Everlasting GOP Stoppers]
