Losers And Suckers

Posted: September 6, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

If you have not yet heard about the article in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg then you may think that this piece is about someone or something else other than the United States military.  Unfortunately, the title comes from the mouth of Mr. Donald J. Trump and he was referring to our military, especially to those killed, wounded or missing in action.  In accordance with the over 20,000 documented lies that the president has uttered since taking office, no one is surprised that Mr. Trump denied saying anything like that and trotted out a series of sycophants and Trump associates to deny that he ever said it.

Believe what you want, but I’ll go with The Atlantic and the corroboration of the essence of the article as confirmed by the Washington Post, New York Times, Associated Press, and Fox News.  It also fits a long pattern of actions on his part that indicate his prime interest in the military is the trappings of office and banana republic style parades and displays of military equipment.  For example, in 2018 his personal attorney Michael Cohen testified that Mr. Trump told him that he would never have gone to Vietnam.  “You think I’m stupid?  I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”

To me, it is easy to believe.  It fits a pattern of behavior and conduct in office that fully supports his belief that nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth doing unless there is some personal monetary or other reward involved.  He simply cannot comprehend that anybody would put their lives at risk for a concept such as democracy or the Constitution.  His world view is that everyone is out to get whatever they can, and to get it they will lie, cheat or steal.  If you do not do that then you are a loser or a sucker.  You are there to be had.

Apparently in his world view, no one gets rich in the military so to join makes you either stupid — literally, you couldn’t do anything else — or a sucker.  He is reported to have said to aides after a briefing by the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joe Dunford; “That guy is smart.  Why did he join the military?”

This latest revelation of the superficiality of everything associated with Mr. Trump is not surprising.  A quick look at some of his greatest hits shows that his language about the military is nothing new.  I still find it depressing.  Apparently he is not just totally transactional, but also ill-informed and basically ignorant about anything that does not involve his personal interests.

  • In 1997 Mr. Trump said during the Howard Stern Show that his “personal Vietnam” was avoiding Sexually Transmitted Diseases.  “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
  • Starting in 1999 he continually attacked Senator John McCain and called him a loser.  Mr. Trump denies this but his own Tweet from 18 July 2015 says exactly that.  The then Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security Mr. Miles Taylor attested to the fact that Mr. Trump did not want to take any honorific actions following the Senator’s death.  Indeed, Mr. Trump was outraged that action was taken.
  • Following the 2016 Democratic Convention he relentlessly attacked Khizr and Ghazala Khan after they spoke about the sacrifice of their son Army Captain Khan who was killed in action in 2004.
  • In a botched condolence call in 2017 to the widow of Army Sergeant La David Johnson she said that Mr. Trump could not remember her husband’s name (he told her he read it after stumbling over it) and said to her “He knew what he signed up for.”  When she expressed her pain over the call, Mr. Trump spent the next eight days attacking her via his Twitter account.
  • In 2017 during a meeting in the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior administration officials, he angrily told them they were all “losers.”  “I wouldn’t go to war with you people.  You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
  • In 2019 he interfered in the military justice system by overturning the war crimes convictions of a Navy SEAL and an Army Special Forces officer and another Army officer about to go on trial for war crimes.  Special interests used the medium of Fox News to get him to intervene.  He thought it was good for him to do so because it would be popular.  He said, “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill.”  Such statements show that he has no clue about the military, its honor, or its code of conduct.
  • Against the advice of his senior military and civilian advisers Mr. Trump precipitously withdrew U.S. support to the Kurds in Syria leading to a near massacre as Turkish forces poured across the border.  He left a staunch ally in the lurch in order to impress the thugish leader of Turkey.
  • This summer Mr. Trump threatened to deploy U.S. combat troops against American citizens.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley had to make two separate public statements affirming the military is not in the business of acting against our own citizens and that the non-partisan nature of the military precludes support for any candidate for public office.
  • In July of this year Mr. Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw about a third of our deployed forces in Europe to support NATO.  This is a move that certainly delights Russian president Vladimir Putin.  His stated reason for doing so was “We don’t want to be the suckers anymore.  We’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills.  It’s that simple.”  (Not surprisingly, his statement on bill paying is not accurate and shows his ignorance of how NATO defense spending works.  But hey, remember the 20,000 lies.)
  • It is well known in and out of government through published reports that Russian agents in Afghanistan put bounties on the heads of U.S. military personnel.  Taliban fighters would be paid for each American killed.  This is perhaps the greatest sign the Mr. Trump cares not one iota for American military personnel as he makes countless excuses for inaction.  Claiming ignorance, to this day he has not confronted the Russians over this outrage.  Preventing the needless loss of life for the troops and doing all in his power to keep them safe is the greatest responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief and he refuses to take action.

There are many more examples of his callous disregard for the American military.  He seems to think that all he has to do is mouth a few words at some rally and he’s done.

Do I believe that Mr. Trump is capable of calling our dead and wounded losers and suckers?  You bet I do.  His track record is abysmal.  To paraphrase another president, Mr. Trump does not ask what he can do for the country, he asks what the country can do for him.

Putin’s Obedient Servant

Posted: July 3, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Mr. Donald J. Trump continues to work hard over the last week to cement his status as the Worst President Ever, there are numerous examples of his total failure as a leader and as a person.  Whether it is continuing to espouse that COVID-19 will “sort of disappear”; promoting “white power”; holding thinly disguised rallies at national monuments; or running for president of the Confederacy, there are large numbers of occasions when one can only shake your head and hope that the election gets here soon.

And then it gets worse.

There may be no part of the job of President as important as that of Commander-in-Chief.  People die when the president gets it wrong.  For that matter, people sometimes die even when everything goes as planned.  It is a tough world and it is part of the pact between the military and the American people that service men and women will go in harms way to protect and defend the Constitution and our way of life in exchange for the promise that their lives, talent and American treasure will not be wasted in futile exploits and that those in charge — all the way to the president — will do all that they can to keep them safe in an inherently dangerous profession.  In the military it is known as force protection.

As a country, we can be reasonably certain that the recent revelations that Russian operatives worked with the Taliban in Afghanistan to put a bounty on the lives of US and coalition service members are true.  The evidence is startlingly clear.  The price for an American death was as much as 100,000 dollars.

Within a normal administration this would have caused one of several, or multiple, courses of action to kick in immediately upon learning of this threat.  The Russians would be warned at the highest level of government that this was a dangerous game that must stop immediately.  Likely, sanctions would be leveled against all involved.  Probably, especially if further evidence was uncovered, those involved in Afghanistan would have been on the receiving end of a capture or kill operation.

As we know, sadly this is not a normal administration.  The official announcement was that no action will be taken against Russia.

And then it gets worse.

Mr. Trump says, “I think it’s a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats.”  These remarks came on 1 July after several days of credible reporting that Mr. Trump continuously decried and belittled.

The excuses for inaction have come fast and furious.  Among those floated were the assertion that Mr. Trump was never briefed on the situation.  When that was reported to be inaccurate, the excuse was that it may have been in a written intelligence document but no one verbally briefed him.  When that did not quite pass the smell test,  the reason given was that the intelligence reports were not “verifiable.”  Well now.  That is not an intelligence term.  Most  intelligence reports in this vein are not verifiable.  The terms of art are “credible” or “not credible.”  When there is credible evidence of a terrorist attack, it is not verified that an attack is actually going to happen until it does.  The country does not — or at least did not — wait for an attack before acting.  The killing of Osama bin Laden was based on credible intelligence — they did not know for sure that he was in that villa at that time — it was verified when they got a DNA match from the dead body.  The terms that Mr. Trump and his enablers use are just gobbledygook designed to deflect from Mr. Trump’s dereliction of duty as Commander-in-Chief.

Rather than being bogged down in the weeds over who was briefed and to what level, etc. etc. etc.  the real question should be what action would a president take once the story broke?  The answer is easy.  The president picks up the phone and calls for an immediate update and then works with his staff for appropriate responses to counter the Russians or to put out a credible explanation as to what actually happened should the facts have been misinterpreted.

So now we all know about it.  Who knew about it when is not now important.  What is Mr. Trump going to do?  Apparently, whine about how it is unfair to him and that it is all designed to make him look bad and on and on with his usual “poor me” schtick.  Despicable.

It seems that the lives of US service men and women fighting our nation’s wars are less valuable than whatever political ax Mr. Trump has to grind.

The signal to Mr. Putin?  Do whatever you want Vlad because the USA is not going to hold you accountable.  It is open season on Americans abroad and on our national security at home.  Kill our folks.  Interfere in our election.  Conduct cyber attacks on our businesses and infrastructure.  Do whatever you want because the stable genius in the White House will not do anything to upset his personal apple cart full of Russian money.

To me, that is the best and most plausible explanation as to why Mr. Trump refuses, time and time and time again, to do anything to upset his “friend” Vladimir Putin.  My sense is not that Mr. Trump is protecting Mr. Putin.  My strong belief is that Mr. Putin is protecting Mr. Trump’s secrets and Mr. Trump is afraid that if he says or does the wrong thing, the Russians will put it all out there.  Putin is the name, blackmail the game.

No one with oversight responsibility has yet to see Mr. Trump’s taxes or the financial records of Trump, Inc.  Mr. Trump has fought long and hard in court to keep those records secret.  I am willing to bet that those records are full of illegal at the worst, unethical at the best, transactions.  Mr. Trump and Trump, Inc. had multiple bankruptcies.  US banks stopped lending him money for his far flung schemes.  My bet is that Russian oligarchs, beholden to Mr. Putin, bailed him out and in return Mr. Trump and his businesses helped the Russian Mafia to launder money and to conduct other illegal schemes.

Have you ever seen the movie The Godfather?  It’s all you need to know as to how Mr. Trump is entangled with the Russians.  And believe me, Mr. Trump is not the Godfather.  I don’t think he is even as smart or as skilled as Fredo.

We know that our values are totally corrupted when the Commander-in-Chief will take no action to protect our troops and the Party of Trump in the Congress stays silent.  It is hard for me to decide which is more loathsome — a president that will not do his job or members of Congress that protect and defend a corrupt president rather than our troops.