You have likely heard about the debacle at Arlington National Cemetery where Don Trump and his team took pictures and video of him laying a wreath honouring the war dead. Steve Benen writes:
As the week got underway, Donald Trump probably thought going to Arlington National Cemetery would be a good idea. The former president, despite his awful record related to respecting U.S. troops and veterans, appeared eager on Monday to exploit the third anniversary of a terrorist attack in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghans.
The first problem is that such video incursions are forbidden in the military cemetery. The second problem is the fact that this cowardly, bone-spurred military refusenik has incorporated the video into his campaign, as you can see in the video below.
Jules Morgan 🧸
@glamelegance
There it is, his disgusting campaign video and the real reason he went to Arlington Cemetery. Like and repost the video so that everyone will see the truth.
Americans are said to revere their military. I can't help but wonder how the true patriots feel about this transparent and disgusting ploy by Trump to elevate himself at the expense of the dead.
UPDATE: This voice from the heartland sets the record straight about Trump:
Sad thing is that when this f%#@r dies he will have a military parade in his 'honor' !
ReplyDeleteJust another of life's cruel ironies, TB.
DeleteI am not sure but I think the "rural commentator" has the US–Taliban agreement partly wrong. I do not think that the agreement covered Afghan troops.
ReplyDeleteThe Taliban seems to have kept the agreement not to attack US forces even after the USA failed to withdraw by May. I was rather surprised at their patience.
It is also interesting that, as far as I can tell, the Afghan Gov't had no part in the withdrawal negotiations. So much for supporting one's allies.
Re Al Quaida, it looks more like the US was inserting various jihadi groups into Afghanistan than that the Taliban was welcoming them. If one thinks about it, why would the Taliban, a mainly ethnically and linguistically Pashtun organization, want a mob of Arabic-speaking terrorists in their country? Not to mention, I believe there are significant religious differences between the Pastuns and Salafi Al Qaida.
I still hold to my initial thought at the time of the US bug-out that the entire fiasco showed how incompetent and/or arrogant the Pentagon was. Either the Pentagon thought that they could simply ignore Trump's plan to withdraw troops as they did in Syria or they were too utterly incompetent to do sensible contingency planning for an orderly withdrawal.
This last seems likely in any case. Any competent military should have a last-ditch contingency plan of evacuation if they know their government is making noises about a possible withdrawal.
Thanks for your commentary here, Anon. It sheds new light on the entire episode.
DeleteAmazing what the main stream media misses!
ReplyDeleteOne has to wonder if this is because of laziness or policy?
Years ago we , in the west, ridiculed Pravda !
While I still have a reasonably high regard for mainstream media, I do find a number of unreported or underreported stories on a variety of reputable sites on the internet, Anon. Given the economics of news gathering these days, it doesn't surprise me that traditional media are missing a lot of stories and perspectives.
DeleteEvery military action the USA has taken since WWII has resulted in controversy regardless of the political party of the day.
ReplyDeleteAll too often military actions have been to support the control of natural resources rather than freedoms!
That said the US military has done some wonderful aid work, it's Navy in particular.
At the end of the day I still cannot figure out why an ex president who had obviously evaded serving by virtue of the wealth of his family commands ( a poor choice of word) such adoration by those that really served be they at the pointy end or just washed bottles?
TB
I'm as mystified as you are regarding the mindless support Trump seems to command, TB.
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