The Continuing Debacle

“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.”– Baudelaire

How Trump began his masterpiece of doublespeak to the leadership of the American military, summoned to Quantico, Virginia, this week:

"We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day – every day, the guy’s falling downstairs – and I said, that’s not our president. We can’t have it. I’m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs, I walk…very…slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just, try not to fall, ‘cause it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen, and it became a part of their legacy, you know. Walk nice and easy. You don’t have to set any records. Be cool! Be cool when you walk down, but don’t…don’t bop down the stairs. The one thing with Obama…I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen…da-da-da-da-teh-deh-bop-bop…I’ve never seen…he would go down those stairs, bop-bop, he wouldn’t hold on, he’d go down those stairs, I said, it’s great! I wouldn’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually, bad things are gonna happen, and it only takes one. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell. We had nothing."

Trump told the generals, he wants the military to occupy Chicago because Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is “stupid” and didn’t make his own money (neither did Trump, but he lost a lot of his dad’s):

"I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. Not National Guard, but our military. Because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid. They threw him out of his family business; he was so stupid. I know the family. But he becomes governor. He’s got money. Not money that he made. But he ran for governor, and he won and now he criticizes us all over."

As loco as this rationale sounds, it’s probably a more substantial casus belli than they have for droning Venezuelan fishing boats in the Caribbean. Trump told the stone-faced military brass that the enemy they need to start focusing on is the “enemy within.”

"Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control."

Generals gathered at Quantico for lectures by Trump and Hegseth. (Screengrab Fox News.)

The president wasn’t pleased by their stoic reaction to his declaration of war on American cities: "I never walked into a room so silent before…If you want to applaud you applaud. You can do anything you want. If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. There goes your rank and there goes your future."

Hegseth: “As history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it. That’s why pacifism is so naive and dangerous.” Return to your tomb, Prince of Peace! Put down your pen, Count Tolstoy! Stand aside, Mr. Gandhi!

Trump, who can’t help bragging about the secrets he knows, lets one slip during his harangue of the generals about sending two nuclear attack submarines to the Russian coast:

"We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, a nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made. Number one: you can’t detect it. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines. Russia’s actually second in submarines. China’s third. But you know, they’re coming up, they’re coming up. They’re lower in nuclear, too, but in five years they’ll be equal. They’re coming up, they’re coming up. But you don’t have to be that good with nuclear. You could be one-twentieth of what you have now and would still do that damage that would be, you know, that would be so horrendous. But I announced that based on his [Putin aide’s] mention of nuclear, and it was really a stupid person that works for him who mentioned the word nuclear, I moved a submarine or two, I won’t say about the two, over to the coast of Russia. Just to be careful, because we can’t let people throw around that word. I call it the N-word. There are two N-words and you can’t use either of them. You can’t use either of them. And, frankly, if it does get to be used, we have more of them than anybody else. We have better. We have newer. But it’s something I don’t even want to think about. But once somebody mentions it, that submarine started there immediately. It’s just lurking, but I’m sure we weren’t going to have to use it. But it’s amazing. It undetectable. Totally…Ours is. Theirs isn’t. Thier’s is totally detectable. We can detect them easily. We go right to the spot. But we have genius apparatus that doesn’t allow detection. It doesn’t allow detection at all, by anybody. Above water or below water. Just incredible. We’re way ahead of everybody."

Hegseth: “It is tiring to look out and see fat troops, likewise unexpected to see fat generals leading command, it is a bad look. Bad and not who we are.” If Hegseth gets tired just looking at his hefty troops and their leaders, is he really in that great of shape? And what about the Commander in Chief?

When Ralph Nader campaigned on “cutting fat” from the Pentagon, he was referring to the budget, and big-ticket weapons systems like SDI and the F-35, not the waistlines of generals.

Hey Pete, what’s the ideal fighting weight for a drone operator?

If Napoleon’s troops had been fatter, more of them might have survived the winter retreat from Moscow. Something for Pistol-whipped Pete to contemplate as they approve long-distance strikes on Russia.

WSJ: “Trump considering lifting restrictions on use of US-made long-range weapons for Ukraine to strike inside Russia.” The Trump faithful must be suffering from ideological whiplash. Just as they’d learned all of the pro-Russia arguments by rote, he proposes doing things to Russia even Biden and Victoria Nuland wouldn’t have done.

Hegseth: “We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack and toss bunks, swear, and yes, they can put their hands on recruits.”

from Full Metal Jacket.

Hegseth to the generals and admirals at Quantico: “You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us, and that’s okay. Because they could never do what you do. The media will mischaracterize us, and that’s okay. Because deep down they know the reason they can do what they do is you.” (Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard.)

Gillian Branstetter: “It’s impossible to separate Hegseth’s vision of ‘warrior culture’ from his storied history of violence against women, fundamentalist faith in the patriarchy, and his own pathetic insecurities. His own mother has said as much.”

Trump on Portland: “It looks like a war zone… Unless they are playing false tapes, this looks like WW II. The place is burning down. You must be kidding. This place is a nightmare. It’s one of the worst. It’s brutal.”

One would think the manufactured “evidence” to justify the US military invading an American city would be higher than the standard Bush set for invading Iraq, but, no, all they’ve got are five-year old videos shot by the Proud Boys and rightwing media prankster Andy Ngo…

Thelma Johnson: “I’ll tell you how bad Portland is, I went downtown to get my usual ‘Sanctuary Lake’ scented candles, but they were out, so I had to get ‘Rosemary & Sage’ instead. I’m 83 years old, I don’t have time for this.”

Will Trump’s troops pull down Raymond Kasky’s statue of Portlandia (our version of Saddam) when the “liberation” of Portland has achieved “mission accomplished” status?

Portlandia by Raymond Kasky. (Screengrab from KGW)

George Stephanopoulos: “Do you believe it’s appropriate to use American cities as training for the U.S. military, calling those people in the American city as the enemy within?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson: “I’m not going to comment on your characterization of what the President said.”

CNN: “Some people took issue with the president saying his directive for Secretary Hegseth was that American cities should be used as training grounds for the military for future wars. Did you take issue with that?”

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): “I don’t think he’s actually meaning that our cities are going to be training grounds.”

CNN: “Why do you think he didn’t mean that? Because he said this could be an issue for the people in this room.”

Turner: “I think he doesn’t mean in the manner in which you said it.”

CNN: (Quotes Trump) “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. Not National Guard, but our military.”

Turner: “It’s a common theme of his.”

Joe Scarborough: “When the law forbids the military from being used for crime prevention, do you have any concern about the president talking about using the military to fight ‘the enemy within’ and use cities as a training ground?”

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): “Again, what is so unfortunate is that we’re even having this conversation–”

Scarborough: “I’m just asking you a simple question. Do you support the military being used for crime control in American cities?”

McClain: “Do I like it? No, I don’t. But at some point, people have to follow the law.”

Scarborough: “Back to the question — do you support the military engaging in crime control?”

McClain: “What I care about is safety.”

Jimmy Kimmel: “I love the idea that Donald Trump is lecturing these guys on fitness. Listen up, generals, the Pillsbury Dough President wants you to do Pilates. If you get so fat you start breaking escalators, you are unfit to serve in the military.”

 -Jeffrey St. Clair

CounterPunch