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Category: Military

Armed forces, weapon systems, military budgets

Parade of Mights

I am gratified that a vast majority (89%) of Military Times reader respondents (within the bonds of the trustworthiness of any online survey) seem set against Trump’s “Mine Is Bigger Than Yours” parade, considering it a “waste” and that the troops are already “too busy.”

You know who parades around and shows off their soldiers and tanks and missiles? Countries who are afraid that others don’t respect them, and who want to impress others that they, too, have great, big, throbbing weaponry.

I would argue that it actually weakens American military prestige to resort to tactic.




Military Times

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The US military will enlist transgender people as of 1 January

A third federal court has ruled there was no justifiable basis for the Pentagon to deny such enlistment, despite Trump’s orders to do so.

Equal protection under the law — a Constitutional provision — means the law cannot treat people differently without a compelling reason. None has been presented as to why transgender enlistees need to be treated differently from other enlistees. It’s really that simple.




Judge rules to allow transgender people to enlist in the military – CSMonitor.com
Three federal courts have ruled against President Trump’s demand to bar transgender people from the military. Enlistment starts on Jan. 1, 2018.

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North Korean hostility to the US is not just about tyranny and lies

During the Korean “police action,” US strategic bombing of the North killed an estimated (by the US) one fifth of the population.

One might argue that the populations of Germany, or Japan, or even North Vietnam might have a similar grievance. But there’s a crucial difference: the Korean conflict never officially ended, one way or the other.

For Germany and Japan, they lost, big-time. They were occupied. Their history was written by the victors, and with admission (reluctant or otherwise) of the crimes and aggression of the losers that triggered and perpetuated the conflict they eventually lost.

For North Vietnam, the war brought eventual victory over the South and, by proxy, the Americans.

For North Korea, though, the war never ended — and, yes, this is where the tyranny and lies come into play, as the Kim regime has endlessly beat the drum for six decades that the Americans (and the South) started the war, that the North (handwaving China) beat them back with horrific (true) losses, but that the Americans (and the South) might attack again at any time.

In such a climate, the loss of 20% of the population, and the economic devastation that resulted, makes the North Koreans understandably anti-American — and, given that bombing, not without justification, regardless of who started the war or the zaniness and homicidal tyranny of their government ever since that time.




The U.S. war crime North Korea won’t forget – The Washington Post
Pyongyang’s hatred of America is partly based on U.S. actions during the Korean War.

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Things have gotten a little … zany down at Gitmo

Guantanamo Bay continues to be the location where a variety of alleged terrorists await trial in a weird, improvised military tribunal setup for “enemy combatants.” [1] As the trial setup is basically being made up as things go along, the rules of what can or can’t be done, and who gets to decide that, continue to evolve.

A few weeks back, the defense team for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri — facing a potential death sentence for the USS Cole bombing in 2000 — quit, claiming that they conversations with their client were being monitored, against previous court rulings. The Marine General who serves as chief defense counsel, approved their withdrawing from the case.

Yesterday, the judge in the case, a Colonel, found that General in contempt of court for refusing to rescind that approval. Brigadier General John Baker will be fined $1000 and kept under confinement in his quarters for 21 days. Meanwhile, the judge, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath, has ordered that the now-departed lawyers continue to serve, that they report to a military base on the mainland to use a secure communications system with the court, and that a (ostensibly) secure communications system could be set up with al Nashiri at their request. Spath has threatened to find them in contempt if they refuse, too.

Spath has also ordered the junior military lawyer on the team, who has no capital case experience, to continue serving as counsel and to be in charge of filing any pleadings from the defense. That lawyer has apparently refused to do so as he does not qualify as a “learned counsel” for capital cases, and the military commissions law requires that level of experience.

In the middle of this all is a dispute over whether Spath has jurisdiction to do anything to Baker, or whether Baker or Spath has control over whether the lawyers can be forced to serve (or if they can, in fact, be forced to serve).

Al Nashiri has been in US custody since 2002; he was indicted in 2011. Six years later, the actual trial has not even begun. He was identified as one of the prisoners tortured for information in the Senate Torture Commission investigation, which has been just one of the many causes for delay in his case.

And, remember, this is the cool, spiffy, efficient, totally-justice-oriented site where Trump was mulling trying to send the NYC bike path terrorist to stand trial (even though to do so seems outside the scope of the law that established the military tribunals), because he considers the federal justice system to be a “laughing stock.”

More info:
— http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/chaos-in-guantanamo-as-makeshift-legal-process-hits-a-conflict-1086762051739
— https://www.thedailybeast.com/gitmo-judge-convicts-us-generalbecause-he-stood-up-for-detainee-rights

——

[1] It’s also “home” to a number of folk who the military and intelligence have determined to actually not be chargable with anything, but cannot find any countries to take them back. It’s also “home” to a number of more threatening cases that haven’t actually been tried for anything, and may never be. Yay, justice!




Gitmo judge sends Marine general lawyer to 21 days confinement for disobeying orders
The contempt and sentencing hearing took 35 minutes Wednesday morning; then Wednesday night the judge issued another order — instructing the resigned civilian counsel to tele-litigate.

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Trump’s transgender military ban gets blocked — largely thanks to Trump

Donald Trump remains his own worst enemy when it comes to trying to implement his off-the-cuff whimsical base-pleasing policy shifts. His Muslim travel ban, for example, got into repeated hot water because, while the Justice Dept. tried to claim it wasn’t a Muslim ban, it was hard to argue that the man who proudly tweeted he was going to ban all Muslims from entering the country wasn’t in fact trying to ban Muslims when he imposed the ban on a number of majority-Muslim nations.

So, too, with the military transgender ban, where Trump literally announced his intent on Twitter, notably without any input from the Defense Dept., and then only later coming forward with an actual ban policy, using as a justification reasoning that made no sense based on the Defense Department’s own study of the issue.

In the face of suits filed against the ban, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, based on the reasons above, and noting that government discrimination against an identifiable class of people requires more scrutiny than an impulsive tweet implies. Given the arguments presented, the individuals identified in the suit, and the process that the federal government (Trump) appears to have used, Kollar-Kotelly has indicated it’s likely that the suits will succeed.

Doubtless there will be appeals, but it’s good news nonetheless. A “government of laws, not men,” is a valuable thing, and it’s good to see a court recognize that.




Trump’s Transgender Military Ban Just Died in Court. He Helped Kill It
In her judgment, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote there was ‘no argument or evidence suggesting that being transgender in any way limits one’s ability to contribute to society.’

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Chad, Trump, and those US military deaths in Niger

A lengthy article (the commentary is longer than the Slate piece), summarizing a lot of what Rachel Maddow covered last night on this topic.

In short, Trump’s Homeland Security team didn’t like Chad’s response about passport security, so Chad — a strong ally in fighting Islamist extremism in central Africa — got thrown into the new Trump Travel Ban list, which seems to have prompted them to pull back from supporting US and French forces in the region [1] fighting such extremism, which may have led to the still-confused deaths of four US soldiers in Niger.

All so that Trump can claim he’s making us “safer.”

——
[1] Both countries’ local efforts are based, in fact, in Chad.

Originally shared by +Trey Harris:

This is the most important story nobody is talking about right now, and it’s a doozie.

Be forewarned: this may make you seething mad when you think through the implications. I know I really wanted to kick something, very badly.

What you need to know (so that I don’t get too discursive and just hit the high points, I’m writing this without notes from memory and from an hour of research I just did—if I get a detail wrong, excuse me; let me know, and I’ll correct it):

1. Travel ban 3.0 included, among the usual suspects, some new countries, including North Korea, Venezuela, and… Chad.

2. At the time of the announcement, Chad seemed an strange addition, because:
a) it has been an ally in anti-ISIS/Qaeda/Boko Haram operations, and our joint anti-ISIS task force with France and the UK (and others I think) was based in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena
b) though a dictatorship, it’s an important ally because its military is the strongest, most-disciplined, and best-equipped in central Africa.

3. Lots of State Department officials were quoted off the record (and many former ones, on the record) saying the addition of Chad was “bizarre”, “puzzling”, “incompetent”, and “dangerous”.

4. The rationale publicly given by the administration at the time—namely, that there were militant terrorist groups associated with al-Qaeda and ISIS operating within Chad—did not clarify its inclusion, as many other countries not added to the list have far more active groups operating within their borders (to take one obvious instance, Mali).

5. The work the US military was most closely involved with Chadian forces on was anti-ISIS/Qaeda training and Special Forces missions in the area, including Chad, Mali, Nigeria… and Niger.

6. Immediately after the ban was announced by the Trump administration, Chad voiced its protest, and announced that in response it would begin pulling its troops out of those other countries and would cease coöperation in those countries with US forces.

7. About a week after that, the incident in Niger resulting in the deaths of four Special Forces sergeants based at Fort Bragg occurred.

8. Details about the incident and what led to the American soldiers’ deaths remain sketchy. However, we do know that, prior to the travel ban announcement, Chad would likely have been involved in an operation like this, including providing air support and medevac operations.

9. We also have heard that the mission went sideways at least partly due to lack of air support, and that after there were US Special Forces casualties, there was difficulty getting medevac.

10. President Trump repeatedly refused to answer questions about this incident—the highest-casualty single event of his presidency. His staff had drafted a statement for him to issue on the incident; he ignored it and said nothing. On Monday, asked yet again, he made his specious comment about his predecessors’ not giving the same level of attention to the families of fallen service members that he had, which led to the past four days’ uproars.

11. It now appears possible to infer that the reason he did not want to discuss it was that the new travel ban’s inclusion of Chad may have contributed to the incident and its aftermath.

12. From the announcement until now, the reason for Chad’s inclusion was mysterious; the only speculation that had been advanced (without evidence) that seemed to make any sense at all was that the Chadian government had fined ExxonMobil over $60B last year, when now-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was ExxonMobil’s CEO; in other words, Chad’s inclusion had been simple personal spite.

13. But from reporting from the AP today, we have now learned that the real reason Chad was added to the list was because it had been asked to supply the US with blank specimen passports for security examination, but was unable to do so because their supply of passport paper had run out and they were still awaiting replenishment. Without supplying the requested passport specimen, Chad had failed the technical requirements being used as criteria for exclusion from the travel ban.

14. Chad asked the US to waive the requirement until they had more paper, or to accept a printed passport produced before the paper had run out instead, but the request was denied.

And, so, we’re left with a very ugly possibility: four American soldiers were killed as a direct result of Chad’s being included in the new travel ban because they had run out of passport paper that the administration had requested. And, rather than admitting this in questioning, President Trump distracted the press with an obviously false and inflammatory claim about Barack Obama’s and George W. Bush’s calls to Gold Star families, and then dragged his own chief of staff’s status as a Gold Star father into the ruckus, ordering him to go to the White House press room podium today and give him cover.

This is atrocious. I wouldn’t blame you if you want to kick something now, too.




The Unbelievable Reason Why Trump Put Chad on the Travel Ban List
And the serious implications that decision might have had.

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The NRA has the solution to the North Korea problem!

A fully nuclear world is a polite world! Amirite?

[via Boing-Boing]

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The Rambling-to-the-Point-of-Incoherence President

I’d say this zany stream of consciousness was remarkably entertaining, if it weren’t coming from the freaking President of the United States.

This reads like being trapped with your drunken Uncle Fred in the parlor at Thanksgiving and having to listen to him babble through all his pet peeves while taking long swigs of Wild Turkey at key moments. Except that everyone else in the parlor is yelling and screaming and cheering and egging him on.

Really, this is a deeply disturbing story.

(If anyone can dig up some glaring contradictions between what was reported and this video of the event, I’d actually be grateful. I can’t bring myself to watch it for an hour and a half.)




‘I love Alabama — it’s special’: At rally for Sen. Luther Strange, Trump vents frustrations in rambling speech
Trump said that his endorsement of Sen. Luther Strange might have been a mistake. He also said a lot of other things over nearly 90 minutes.

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The federal government has plenty of money for some things, apparently

The Congressional GOP is crying and wailing and gnashing its teeth that the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid are bankrupting the US government. But apparently there is more than enough money to not only boost US defense spending the additional $54 billion that Donald Trump asked for, but raising the pot an additional $80 billion — boosting the annual military budget to $700 billion, equal to the ten other highest military-spending countries in the world combined.

But heaven forfend we throw money around like drunken sailors (on new nuclear aircraft carriers) to help poor people get medical care. Or help people pay for college. Or actually invest in infrastructure projects. Or help the poor of our nation, or the world. Or avert climate change. Or any number of things that won’t fit a big Fourth of July parade for the President. Because, despite constant proclamations that the economy is the Biggest Economy Ever, times are tough, don’t you know, and we all need to tighten our belts.

Unless they’re military belts.




The Senate’s Military Spending Increase Alone Is Enough to Make Public College Free
Congress is on track for an eye-popping increase in military spending.

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The Man Who Saved The World

Reason, lack of panic, and the courage of one’s convictions actually can save the world. A tip of the hat to Stanislav Petrov, who demonstrated how it can be done when you’re in the right place at the right time.

Originally shared by +Stan Pedzick:

Speaking of people that there should be a statue of in every city in the world. Stanislav Petrov is the one and we should thank him every day for being brave and logical.




Man ‘who saved the world’ dies at 77
Ex-Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov reported a possible 1983 US missile launch as a false alarm.

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Because OF COURSE Donald Trump wants a military parade on the 4th of July

I mean, if the Russians (and even the French!) do it, why wouldn’t Donald want to have a big military parade of his very own? Imagine, all the tanks, and soldiers, and missile carriers, and APCs, and jeeps, and more soldiers, and everyone saluting him at the review stand. It would be like he owned the biggest set of toy soldiers anywhere!

Trump met Monday with French president Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. Trump reminisced about how much he enjoyed watching France’s military parade while in Paris on Bastille Day.

He then said he was considering ordering up a similar spectacle for Pennsylvania Avenue, potentially as soon as next year. Trump said he asked his chief of staff, John Kelly, to look into it.

And it will be the biggest, shiniest, biggest, best (did I mention biggest? because it’s not like he’s compensating or anything) military parade ever! Or so we will be assured.




The Latest: Trump considering Fourth of July military parade – ABC News

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Chaplains! gone! wild!

The military is a microcosm of society as a whole, even with the added layer of discipline and mission. So it shouldn’t be surprising that questions of religious intolerance and excessive zeal — and just plain bigotry — would find their way into the armed services. It’s troubling amongst the enlisted. It’s dangerous when it’s seen in the leadership.

But it’s particularly problematic when it comes from members of the chaplaincy. Chaplains in the military are in an odd role — sponsored by their particular faiths, they are intended to serve the needs of all the troops, not just their coreligionists. They oversee religious services, provide counsel and support. They walk a fine line between their own religious fervor (one wouldn’t expect a someone devoting themselves to such service to be wishy-washy in their faith) and supporting the people and service as a whole.

Proselytizing is dodgy. Condemning the very foundation of unity, of a pluralistic military and society, should be right out.

A U.S. Air Force chaplain who ministers to thousands of men and women at an Ohio base is asserting that Christians in the U.S. Armed Forces “serve Satan” and are “grossly in error” if they support service members’ right to practice other faiths. In an article posted on BarbWire.com three days ago, Captain Sonny Hernandez, an Air Force Reserve chaplain for the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, criticized Christian service members who rely on the Constitution “and not Christ.”

He wrote: “Counterfeit Christians in the Armed forces will appeal to the Constitution, and not Christ, and they have no local church home—which means they have no accountability for their souls (Heb. 13:17). This is why so many professing Christian service members will say: We ‘support everyone’s right’ to practice their faith regardless if they worship a god different from ours because the Constitution protects this right.” Hernandez continued: “Christian service members who openly profess and support the rights of Muslims, Buddhists, and all other anti-Christian worldviews to practice their religions—because the language in the Constitution permits—are grossly in error, and deceived.”

For a member of the military to suggest that the Constitution must be subordinated to Christ, or that other faiths are inferior and should not be practiced is, perhaps, theologically sound from Capt. Hernandez perspective, but it’s not an attitude that can be itself be tolerated within the military service of the United States — any more than a fervent evangelical Protestant preacher could be tolerated as the Rabbi of a synagogue: it’s not an assertion as to the correctness of their faith, but their suitability to the position.

I disagree profoundly with Hernandez, but he has ever right, under the Constitution, to hold his opinion. But not to preach it as a member of the US Military. It is destructive to discipline, and a violation of his military oath.

Will he be disciplined? Will he be booted? That’s quite another question.

 




Christians in U.S. Military ‘Serve Satan’ If They Tolerate Other Religions, Air Force Chaplain Says

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On 9-11, sixteen years later

As I look around at posts and shares and tweets this morning saying, “Never forget,” I have to ask, “How could I?”

I’ve started and discarded over a dozen posts on 9-11 over the years, mostly because they got into too-tangled webs of blame and accusation and grief — grief not just over the loss of thousands of lives in the terror attacks themselves, but the hundreds of thousands, millions of lives cut short or crippled by the conflicts since, and the veering of American history (and that of the world) into something darker and more dangerous.

It’s important to remember 9-11, not just for what happened, but for what changed, and continues to change, following it. We won’t have the perspective to appreciate it fully until decades more have passed, but what we can see from within the still-ongoing blast wave is more than sufficient to mourn over.

#911

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Trump actually does have a foreign policy. Just not a very good one.

One might think that Trump’s foreign actions are as inconsistent and zany as his domestic ones. But the author says there is one … and, not surprising given its simplicity, it isn’t working very well.

The Trump doctrine, in a nutshell, is that the United States is by leaps and bounds the most powerful country in the world, and by all rights should be taking greater advantage of that power. Any agreement we make, with friend or foe, should favor us absolutely; if not, there’s no reason for us to maintain it. When we tell other countries what to do, they had better listen, and if they don’t, we shouldn’t do business with them. Diplomatic and trade relations with the U.S. are privileges, and the threat of withdrawing those privileges is a shamefully underused lever for shaping other countries’ behavior.

Thus Trump withdraws (or threatens to withdraw) from trade agreements he thinks are not sufficiently profitable to the US, wants an expensive build-up of military force, and suggests that cutting off all trade with China is both doable and desirable if China doesn’t stop trading with North Korea.

The thing is, it’s not based on reality. Not even on past reality. Trump may be following rules that worked in cut-throat property deals, to twist the arms of municipalities or suppliers, but American leverage in military and economic power isn’t nearly that great, wasn’t designed to be used that way, and can’t actually be so used without doing a lot of harm to the US as well.

Could we survive cutting off trade with China? Yes, but it wouldn’t be pretty (for either country), would likely throw the US into a huge economic downturn (we sell a lot to China, you know), and the Chinese have a lot of leverage to strike back. Could we turn North Korea into a glass parking lot? Sure, but aside from the butcher’s bill in doing so, the collateral damage done to North Korea’s neighbors, and to America’s reputation, would be horrific (and that’s even with the assumption that the DPRK can’t yet hit US territory with something nuclear).

Bluster and braggadocio only work if you don’t get called, or if you can back up your bluff. Trump can’t do either — and the nations he is going up against know it.




The Trump Doctrine Falls Flat

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Book Review: “Inferno” by Max Hastings (2011)

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book as touted as telling about WW2 through personal diaries, letters, and other individual accounts, which made me think that was the only thing it would do. But besides providing an engrossing look at the conflict through the eyes and pens of people who were not the military and political leaders involved (which is usually all one hears from), it also provides a very solid account of the conflict from the macro level, along with cogent analysis of how and why different aspects occurred. It stands as a history in its own right, rather than just a recitation of primary sources.

But those primary sources provide their own insight and horror. The bottom line one gets is that the title — “inferno” — was all too accurate for anyone involved. Whether civilian or military, Europe or the Pacific, Eastern Front or Western, Axis or Ally or Neutral, officer or grunt, farmer or clerk, young or old, rich or poor, WW2 was pain and deprivation and terror and loss. There is little glory, no white hats without deep bloody spatters of moral compromise, from atrocities and war crimes by all parties to alliances of convenience and deals with devils for long-term goals (worthy or otherwise) at the cost of short-term defilement. If it can be deemed a “good” war for the winning side, it was only because the alternative of loss would have been far worse for the world.

Excellent and moving history, net improved by Ralph Cosham cultured narration for the audiobook. While at first the dryness and lack of dramatic emotion in Cosham’s voice feels over-restrained, the subtleties eventually come out, and stand as a counterpoint to the butchery, atrocities, and suffering being portrayed.

Good stuff, highly recommended.

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As the adults in the room try to reassure us that everything will be fine

Tillerson, Trump, and Mattis

Two very odd (well, in terms of “normal” US politics) notes from two of the more “mature” senior cabinet members, Tillerson and Mattis.

First, Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, appearing on Fox News Sunday, where he was asked by Chris Wallace about the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination pointing at Charlottesville and Trump’s tepid reaction to the racism and white nationalism on display there as disturbing. Emphasis mine.

WALLACE: Does that make it harder for you to push American values around the world when some foreign leaders question president’s values?

TILLERSON: Chris, we express America’s values from the State Department. We represent the American people. We represent America’s values, our commitment to freedom, our commitment to equal treatment to people the world over. And that message has never changed.

WALLACE: And when the president gets into the kind of controversy he does and the U.N. committee response the way it does, it seems to say they begin to doubt are—whether we’re living those values.

TILLERSON: I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values or the commitment of the American government or the government’s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values.

WALLACE: And the president’s values?

TILLERSON: The president speaks for himself, Chris.

WALLACE: Are you separating yourself from that, sir?

TILLERSON: I’ve spoken—I’ve made my own comments as to our vales as well in a speech I gave to the State Department this past week.

(Video and transcript. More of the story here. )

“The president speaks for himself” is a phrase we keep hearing over and over from the White House. Some of the time — like when it comes from whoever is acting as Trump’s press secretary, it means, “I’m not going to try to explain exactly what the President is saying because I don’t want to put words in the President’s mouth and/or damned if I know.” From others, though, it begins to feel like a distancing in position from the speaker and the President they serve while still respecting the chain of command.

Mattis and Tillerson

Meanwhile, we also have informal video of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, reassuring some troops this past week that they need to “just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”

Mattis notes in the video that the United States has two “powers” in the world: “the power of intimidation, and that’s you, if someone wants to screw with our families, our country and our allies,” but also “the power of inspiration, and we’ll get the power of inspiration back.”

(More on the story here. This was apparently before Trump’s Friday evening diktat about transgender members of the military.)

It’s a weird couple of data points. Both men seem to be acknowledging in their own way that the US image abroad is currently not what it should be, and that conditions at home are likewise, but in vague enough language to avoid actually critiquing the figure at the center of the problem, their boss.

Part of me thinks of a ship’s captain telling their crew to buck up, keep steady, and depend on the the ship to ride out the storm, she’ll hold together. Part of me thinks of a battered wife trying to convince their kids that Daddy loves us all very much, he’s just going through a hard patch right now. Part of me thinks of the Internet, designed to deal with damage to the system by rerouting and bypassing nodes that are unreliable.

I don’t know. But this really, still, does not seem normal.

As expected, Trump moves forward with a military transgender semi-ban

I use the term “semi-ban” intentionally, as the measure bans new openly transgender recruits, but leaves in question the fate of the hundreds of (openly) transgender service members currently in uniform. It does, though, make it clear that the Defense Dept. cannot pay for any medical care regimens for those service members (except in life-threatening circumstances), and their status remains open while the Depts. of Defense and Homeland Security (the directive applies to the military, DHS, and the Coast Guard) evaluate “how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant.” That evaluation is to go over the next six months.

(“Lethality”? Is there a question whether transgender troops are less capable of killing other people?)

While the directive from the White House leaves the respective Secretaries a lot of wiggle room in their evaluation, in a sense that’s kicking the can down the road for the President himself, as he can say that he’s following through on the evangelical impulses of the far Right (as advised by his VP), while still not actually doing all that much at the moment aside from stopping further recruiting. It will be hard to challenge something that’s effectively still under evaluation.

But once that study is complete, then what will happen? If the DoD again determines that some (or all) transgender service members can be retained because they are “lethal” enough, will the White House accept that judgment? And will the ban on new recruits still hold up, if people already in are allowed to stay in? And how will all those congressfolk react who were so piously objecting on both sides of the aisle over how someone who wants to serve should be allowed to serve? Will they intervene before then? And, it being an election year, how will that play into the matter?

It’s arguable that what had been originally tweeted as an outrageous new ban is is simply kicking things back to pre-2016 and turning it into yet another study. As this had already been done (and follow-up studying of implementation details had been under way), it’s both maddening but difficult to pin down something specific to object to other than further delay and the guy who’s ordering it.

The folk I feel sorry for are the transgender individuals already serving, who entered the military to defend our country, and who now have to wait for months, not knowing their fate, because their Commander-in-Chief thinks they’re a bother, or because he wants to pander to some of his base.

They deserve much better. I hope they get it.




Trump signs directive banning transgender military recruits
President Donald Trump on Friday directed the military not to move forward with an Obama-era plan that would have allowed transgender individuals to be recruited into the armed forces, following through on his intentions announced a month earlier to ban transgender people from serving.

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Yeah, about those “divisions,” Mr. President …

Apologies to Rachel Maddow for not being able to do a decent pause and screen photo here that doesn’t make her look like she’s had three two many martinis, but I was struck (multiple times) during her show tonight about the difference between …

… Trump’s message in the crawl to the American Legion today about how it’s “time to heal the wounds that divide us” and that there is “no division too deep for us to heal” …

… even as the Wall Street Journal is breaking a story that the Trump White House will be issuing directives to the Pentagon in the next day or two on barring admission into the military for openly transgender people.

You keep talking about healing divisions, Donald, even as you keep adding new ones.

 

In Album 8/24/17

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Donald Trump and the Never-Ending War in Afghanistan

Key points from Trump’s speech.

1. American soldiers are really, really, really cool! The best in the world! Yay, us!

2. American soldiers are completely unified and have never had any divisions, and that is so, so wonderful. (Ignore that women in the military were highly controversial and divisive and still are, that blacks in the military were highly controversial and divisive, that gays in the military were and are highly controversial and divisive, that any transgender soldiers in the audience have no idea if they’ll be allowed to be in the military in a week or a month or a year, and let’s not even talk about the non-citizens who are also tenuously still in the military).

3. If only our nation could be as united and loving and loyal to one another as the military is. If only there weren’t all these darned divisions.

4. (Please ignore my past mockery of President Obama using a teleprompter, but it helps me sound presidential.)

5. So about the war … it’s being going on a long time. In case you hadn’t noticed.

6. Rebuilding countries is stoopid and expensive. We just want our safety and their money.

7. It’s a good thing I’m a detailed study guy, and I’ve been studying and studying, and I’ve made decisions.

8. (Did you know that “Asia,” like “China,” has three syllables?)

9. First, we need an “honorable and enduring outcome,” so we need a victory.

10. Second, a rapid exit (like that guy did in Iraq) will leave a vacuum. We want to do whatever is necessary to make sure that the bad guys won’t win after we leave.

11. Third, there are a lot of bad terrorist guys in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan is being a bad country. And they have nukes.

12. I’ve inherited a real mess. I was given a bad hand, but I can handle those big and intricate problems and solve them.

13. It’s not going to be a hasty withdrawal. Don’t expect anything hasty, or soon, or any time you can mark on your calendar.

14. We will destroy terrorists. They are bad people. And nobody will want to join them.

15. We will learn from history, aside from the history that says nobody from outside wins in Afghanistan.

16. We will not have schedules. We will have conditions. So, again, don’t mark your calendar.

17. Oh, and we won’t tell anyone how many troops we are sending. Because if anyone in the US knows, then the enemies will know.

18. Maybe we can eventually have the Taliban in negotiations. But nobody knows when it will happen. Might be never.

19. Afghanistan has to rule its own society. We won’t dictate to them how to live or govern. We are not nation-building.

20. Pakistan has been sheltering terrorists. So we’re going to ally more with India. Especially if they can help pay for economic development there.

21. I’m going to take the reins off of the military to let them do whatever they want to kill the bad guys. Because what could possibly go wrong.

22. Hey, I won the battle of Mosul! Record-breaking success!

23. We’re going to use overwhelming force. That might imply we’ll be bumping up troop levels, but we’ll never tell.

24. Oh, and NATO will help pay for it and send troops. I’ve made that clear. And they’re happy to do it.

25. We are going to make Afghanistan pay for this, too.

26. We expect Afghanistan to develop a good, productive society. But we won’t tell them what to do. We’ll just help defend our economic interests there.

27. (Women’s rights in Afghanistan? Pish-tosh. That’s nation-building.)

28. Our commitment to Afghanistan is limited. Even though we intend to wind. But Afghanistan has to pay their own share. Even if we want to win. But if they aren’t winning, then we won’t give them a blank check.

29. We will make common cause with any nation fighting against this global threat. Because human rights? Who can afford that?

30. I’m spending vast amount on our nuclear arsenal and missile defense.

31. We always win!

32. Arlington National Cemetery is the most spiffy place in the world because our soldiers are better people than any others in the world.

33. We must stand together and be unified, otherwise we are betraying our troops and America. You’ve been warned.




Read the Full Text of President Trump’s Afghanistan Remarks – The Atlantic
“No place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms.”

View on Google+

Tweetizen Trump – 2017-08-21: “Vacation’s Over”

Good morning, Donald! I hope this brand new day, and this brand new week, finds you hale and hearty and ready to serve all the people of the United States with joy, perseverance, and compassion.

Or, we can just turn to your Twitter stream and see what was up this weekend into this morning.

[Being a look at the @RealDonaldTrump Twitter account, with a glance at the @POTUS account, grouped for your topical pleasure.]

ALOHA, STEVE

Ah, yes, the rise and fall of Steve Bannon. It’s interesting, Donald, that someone just reading your tweets would think that Bannon was quietly moving on to some bigger and better service, having fulfilled his mission. It seems it was a bit more tumultuous and abrupt than that.

You do realize that (a) Steve previously held that job at Breitbart (so not “new”) before joining you on the campaign trail, and that (b) Breitbart has been going full bore at the “Fake News” in his absence.

On the other hand, buttering Steve up might not be a bad idea, as the possible targets of his next attacks might be closer to home than you might like [1] — your daughter, your son-in-law, your Friends at Fox, maybe even you. You might have blown that whole “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” thing, Donald.

BOSTON

(All of the following were cross-posted to @POTUS)

So things seemed to start off in your coverage of the large counterprotest in Boston just as one might expect — railing against “anti-police agitators” and praising the police force there.

But then something weird happened …

Well, one thing that happened is that the counter-protest turned out to be large and pretty peaceful, and the rumors of wide-spread anti-police agitation (cough) turned out to be pretty small beer (30 arrests out of 30-40,000 present is pretty trivial) [16]. As to why you abruptly pivoted into a chorus of “Kumbaya,” Donald, it’s … well, a bit hard to fathom.

At any rate, it’s good to see such a positive sentiment coming from you as a unifier, as someone not completely divisive, who doesn’t search for scapegoats to blame his bad press on …

THOSE WASCALLY WEPORTERS!

I have to wonder, Donald, how your whole “Fake News” campaign continues to go. I mean, trust in the media as a whole is definitely way down (and in a partisan fashion), though it doesn’t seem to be similarly buoying you back up. I just wonder if your constant repetition of the theme helps you, or if it starts to seem like you’re just fobbing your own problems off on “bad coverage” and “mean media” and the like.

Apparently Falwell said you don’t have a racist bone in your body, citing your hard work to help inner city minorities. Not quite sure what “hard work” that is, or how that directly disproves accusations of racism (certainly your earliest days in business weren’t promising here, and some of your present urban housing customers don’t seem all that happy).

Of course, not all Liberty U alums are as thrilled as you are with Falwell’s unwavering support of you. But, hey, “sometimes you need protest in order to heal.”

You retweeted a comment from some random person (who hadn’t posted before three days ago) replying to that tweet:

https://twitter.com/Aroliso/status/899623930503233536

To which you replied:

Really? For that you retweeted some random, anonymous tweeter, Donald, and thanked them? That’s where your ego needs are?

Um … you’re not going John Miller on us again, are you, Donald?

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

(All of these were retweeted by you on @POTUS.)

Because we need a memorial to the amorphous (and … um … concluded?) war on terrorism, apparently.

For those who hadn’t read anything about it, this has to do with two police officers killed during a potential drug bust.

Oh, and LESM is a hashtag for “Law Enforcement Social Media”.

There has been a rash of US Navy collisions of late, Donald [23]. I know that’s not personally your fault, and I’m know someone, somewhere is searching for common themes, but it’s something you might want to more visibly look into yourself to report to the American people. If you’re going to cover yourself in glory when the US military does cool stuff, you need to be seen taking responsibility and follow-up action when they don’t.

Your and/or your Social Media Minion also tweeted …

… about your amazing and decision-filled trip to Camp David as you wrapped up your Bedminster vacation.