While Americans celebrate Independence Day, the world sees the United States as a "toothless, wandering giant" with President Joe Biden in office, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie told Newsmax on Thursday.
Much of that is because of the lack of regard from the president and his administration for the military, Wilkie told "Wake Up America."
"I think the ultimate picture of this administration is the return of those who died in Afghanistan to Dover, Delaware, and the president of the United States showing the entire world that he was inconvenienced by appearing at that very mournful and meaningful ceremony, by constantly looking at his watch," Wilkie said.
The United States has lost more than a million soldiers "since the first shots were fired in Lexington in 1775," but American soldiers are different than those from other countries because of how they treat other countries, he added.
"The American soldier has liberated more towns, more villages, more cities, more people than any other force in the history of the world," said Wilkie. "Gen. [Colin] Powell put it succinctly. He said, 'When we go abroad, we don't ask for treasure. We don't ask for territory. The only thing we ask for is a place to bury our dead.'"
But the Biden administration does not understand that, said Wilkie.
People like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan "come from a culture that believes that we are responsible for all of the world's problems and that this is not a flag worth defending or defending proudly, and that is the saddest part of these four years."
Biden, unlike others before him, also has not paid respect to those in the military who have died while he has been president, Wilkie said.
"Have you heard the president of the United States mention the names of the five Americans who were held by the Hamas death cult?" he said. "In a major conflict, you don't expect Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon to be able to call everyone."
Wilkie said that he worked under Donald Rumsfeld and Bob Gates, and at that time, President George W. Bush reached out to thousands of families and Gates and Rumsfeld made calls and wrote letters to families.
"They knew and they came from a military background," he said. "They understood what they were asking Americans to do and what the consequences of that ask happened to be."
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