Scott Jennings

The last major decision of President Barack Obama was to commute the sentence of a traitor whose most recent accomplishment since giving battlefield secrets to Osama bin Laden was undergoing a taxpayer-funded sex change transition. It was a fitting end to a failed presidency that leaves President-elect Donald Trump mess after mess to clean up on the world stage.

Let’s revisit the curious case of Chelsea Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning). He was court martialed in 2013, “three years after Manning was first detained in Iraq for suspicion of having leaked the video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack that killed several Iraqi civilians. He was subsequently charged with the leak of 750,000 documents that were a mix of U.S. military battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic cables,” according to ABC News.

This was no small leak — news outlets routinely describe Manning’s actions as the most “extensive” or “biggest” such breach of military secrets in American history. This person will forever be mentioned in the same breath as Benedict Arnold, John Walker, Robert Hanssen, Edward Snowden and Aldrich Ames.

Manning gave our military secrets to WikiLeaks, which published it for our enemies. Remember Osama bin Laden? The information Manning stole was found on the notorious terrorist’s computer during the raid that sent him to his everlasting reward, according to evidence submitted by the government during Manning’s trial.

Manning helped our enemies by leaking sensitive information to a foreign organization. Period. He was arrested, confessed, and subsequently sentenced to 35 years in a military prison. His actions put America at risk and endangered the lives of “foreigners in dangerous countries who were identified as having helped American troops or diplomats,” according to The New York Times.

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Afghans, Syrians, and Iraqis — brave people who continue to live in treacherous places — were put in extreme danger by Manning. These people helped America with the understanding that their actions would be kept secret. Because of Manning, their lives and the lives of their families are forever in peril. In future battles, when our military is looking for allies among local populations, who will trust that America can keep their secrets or can guarantee their safety?

Somewhere along the way, his days of trying to destroy America safely behind him, Brad decided he was Chelsea and demanded the government pay for his conversion from man to woman. And we did, as taxpayers ponied up $50,000 for a traitor to receive everything from “counseling to hormone therapy, and…gender reassignment surgery”.

Fast forward to Tuesday, when Manning’s strange tale ended with Obama commuting his sentence over the objection of Defense Secretary Ash Carter. A “former intelligence official described being ‘shocked’ to learn of Obama's decision, adding that the ‘entire intelligence community is deflated by this inexplicable use of executive power.’ The official said the move was ‘deeply hypocritical given Obama's denunciation of WikiLeaks' role in the hacking of the (Democratic National Committee),’” a CNN report said.

Obama cultivated a reputation as being critical of those who leak information, as Manning and Snowden did. But whatever anger Obama harbored for those who wish to harm America melted away when presented with the opportunity to strike one more blow for his extreme left-wing social ideology (a worldview which did Hillary Clinton no favors in non-urban areas during the election).

After eight years, Obama’s duties as commander in chief were less important to him than making the politically correct decision to deliver the traitor Manning a more comfortable life. Obama, tired of saluting those who serve, slapped them in the face on the way out the door.

Obama has repeatedly destroyed the morale of our troops and weakened American security. His reach for a foreign policy legacy led to the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, which was sold by an arrogant staff that laughed about lying to reporters who “literally know nothing” as Obama national advisor Ben Rhodes said to The New York Times magazine. Obama has left our alliances with key allies in tatters, the final insult coming when the U.S. failed to stand up for Israel during a recent vote in the United Nations Security Council.

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And, most obscenely, Obama stood idly by and watched the unfolding slaughter of innocent civilians in Syria’s Aleppo, a bloodbath that will stain his legacy the way the Rwandan Genocide stains Bill Clinton’s. Together, the last two Democratic presidents ineptly looked on as upwards of 1.5 million people were murdered.

If Obama felt one shred of shame, he would send his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize back with a note of apology to the people of Aleppo.

The necessity and urgency of American leadership and a foreign policy vision unclouded by the extreme liberal ideology demanded by Obama’s political base cannot be understated. Trump’s work is now more than just moving American foreign policy forward; he must dig out of the deep hole left him by the Obama administration.

America’s weakness invited the Russians to attempt to muck around in our election. It invited the Chinese to snatch our military equipment from the water. It makes our friends question America’s ability to know the difference between right and wrong, or to do anything about it.

But hey, at least Chelsea Manning’s happy.

Scott Jennings served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush from 2005-2007.

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