The President of the United States likes to trumpet his support for the military. But this past weekend, Max Boot writes, Trump showed his contempt for the military:
On Saturday afternoon, the president was scheduled to attend a ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where 2,289 U.S. soldiers are buried — a small part of the 116,000 Americans who gave the last full measure of devotion during World War I. It was the sort of solemn occasion that U.S. presidents have considered an integral part of their duty at least since the Gettysburg Address. But Trump couldn’t be bothered.
The White House explained that bad weather grounded the helicopters that Trump and his entourage were planning to take. Yet somehow bad weather did not prevent French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from attending outdoor ceremonies commemorating the end of World War I that afternoon. Somehow bad weather did not stop Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired general John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, from attending the very ceremony that Trump could not make.
But he loves to turn his country's soldiers into political props:
Trump shows what he really thinks of the troops by using them as political props. He deployed 5,600 troops just before the midterm elections to guard against the supposed threat posed by a few thousand unarmed refugees hundreds of miles from the U.S. border. He even suggested that the troops should commit the war crime of opening fire on migrants who threw rocks.
The Pentagon grandly dubbed this Operation Faithful Patriot and circulated pictures of troops in full “battle rattle” stringing barbed wire, only to quietly drop the ludicrous moniker amid Election Day. Conveniently enough, Trump and his friends at Fox essentially stopped speaking about the caravan once the votes were cast. But, as the New York Times reports, the troops are still in the field, without electricity or hot meals — or a mission. They will likely spend Thanksgiving away from their families.
This is a man who worked overtime to stay out of Vietnam. So, Boot writes, when Trump says he is pro-military, don't believe him:
He has no understanding of what soldiers do or the honor code by which they live. His idea of military service is marching in a parade — and he is peeved he couldn’t have one in Washington this Veterans Day. Through his words and deeds, the commander in chief shows his contempt for the men and women in uniform.
Contempt is the operative word. Trump has plenty of it -- for everyone and everything that isn't labelled Trump.
Image: Medium.com
4 comments:
.. Elect and then tolerate a banana republic president ?
What else to say, but the country is then a banana republic ..
As the country slides further into corruption, sal, Trump's contempt grows.
When it comes to that type of contempt regarding military operations and observances, Trump has plenty of it, but I can think of a more disgusting and blatantly transparent instance of exactly that with a source much closer to home.
Jul 25, 2006
“UN officials said Israel was warned repeatedly that its attacks were endangering lives of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, before the attack that killed the four peacekeepers.
“According to a UN preliminary report, UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon called the Israeli military 10 times in a six-hour period to ask it to halt bombing.”
…
“Ireland has filed an official protest with Israel. China has also demanded that Israel apologize for the attack.
“Austria's foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, told her Israeli counterpart by telephone that the bombing was unacceptable and urged Israel to stop its attack on the area.”
…
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn't believe Israel deliberately attacked a United Nations post in southern Lebanon in a bombing that killed four UN observers, including a Canadian.
"’I certainly doubt that to be the case,’ Harper said on Wednesday. …
“Harper pointed to the fact the government of Israel has been ‘co-operating with us in our evacuation efforts, in our efforts to move Canadian citizens out of Lebanon, and also trying to keep our own troops that are on the ground involved in the evacuation out of harm's way.’
“He said he wants to find out why the UN post was attacked, but also why ‘it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war.’"
And later:
“[T]he Canadian official inquiry into the Canadian soldier’s killing was mysteriously removed from their government’s websites for ‘security reasons’”, [later to be restored by the succeeding Liberal government.]
There’s something more insidious here than “not being bothered”, all the more so from a creature so ever eager to enjoy the next flypast? When it comes to bogus respect for the military and hiding behind the troops, our boy could give Trump lessons. There must be a stronger word than “contempt”.
The moral philosophers claim there are two kinds of sin, John: sins of commission and sins of ommission. It's when we fail to respond to wrong doing that we enable it.
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