I want to make one thing perfectly clear before I start ranting--during my 26 years of daily service, I never went to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, or anywhere else in combat.
I was on active duty during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, but I was a Personnel officer -- a CW4 in charge of teams preparing soldiers to deploy overseas. I didn't go to war--I made sure soldiers going to war had all their personal business in order before they left. I took a lot of pride in that and I made damn sure the government didn't screw over some kid who was leaving his wife and 2 year old child for a year to fight a war that never should have happened in the first place.
So yeah--I was "activated" and served on active duty during both operations, but I never left CONUS (the Continental United States). A lot of my friends did, but I got extremely lucky. And I was lucky to be very good at administration and not very good with a gun.
Now, let's take a look at Donald Trump's address to the Congress of the United States last night...
He's an inexperienced chicken hawk who discussed the operation in Yeman over dinner the night before it was approved. He didn't have the intel necessary to approve the operation, but he, his 34-year-old real estate broker son-in-law, and his white supremacist dickhead adviser Steve "Brietbart" Bannon all decided, "Fuck it--let's do it--it'll be fun!!"
He's an inexperienced chicken hawk who discussed the operation in Yeman over dinner the night before it was approved. He didn't have the intel necessary to approve the operation, but he, his 34-year-old real estate broker son-in-law, and his white supremacist dickhead adviser Steve "Brietbart" Bannon all decided, "Fuck it--let's do it--it'll be fun!!"
What happened?
A Navy SEAL, Ryan Owens, was killed--along with a little girl (an American citizen)--and 12 other people. According to the Pentagon, the mission was a failure. No intelligence was obtained; the mission should never have been authorized.
And what did this pathological piece of shit "Commander-in-Chief" do?
And what did this pathological piece of shit "Commander-in-Chief" do?
First, he had his little punk press secretary who never spent a day in uniform lie about the operation and say it was a success despite the Pentagon's assessment.
Then he went on "Fox and Friends" and said the operation was already planned before he was elected and he had nothing to do with it.
Then, he used the wife of this slain American Navy SEAL who was just doing his job, as a sympathy prop at his address to Congress. He used her and then made an asinine comment about the length of the applause justifying Chief Petty Officer Owens' death.
Then he went on "Fox and Friends" and said the operation was already planned before he was elected and he had nothing to do with it.
Then, he used the wife of this slain American Navy SEAL who was just doing his job, as a sympathy prop at his address to Congress. He used her and then made an asinine comment about the length of the applause justifying Chief Petty Officer Owens' death.
Was that moment, with Owens’s widow in attendance, moving and sad? Absolutely. Did the American people rally around their president because of it? Without a doubt.
And it was also one of the most cynical things Donald Trump has done as president so far. Why? Because he did it after evading any responsibility for Carryn Owens' husband's death. The only reason this mission was approved was that intelligence told Trump that the Obama administration was reluctant to do it because it was dangerous and would yield no results.
And it was also one of the most cynical things Donald Trump has done as president so far. Why? Because he did it after evading any responsibility for Carryn Owens' husband's death. The only reason this mission was approved was that intelligence told Trump that the Obama administration was reluctant to do it because it was dangerous and would yield no results.
And that's all it took for Trump to give the nod to go ahead. He'd show Obama how it should be done.
He got a Navy SEAL and a little kid killed for nothing--and he's already forgotten all about them--he couldn't even read CPO Owens' information correctly from the teleprompter because he didn't care one bit about him.
On the same day he deflected responsibility for the raid onto the military. Such a disingenuous con. That gold star widow was such a pawn to him.
ReplyDeleteRight on the money. You should post this on Facebook. I know, I know, the appreciation is not there, I know. But there might be that one person, that one reader, that one. Picture the kid on Terminator that turned into a world leader of the resistance. Picture yourself teaching that one kid, who turns out to command the resistance, The Resistance. Don't lose heart. Resist.
ReplyDelete