I think Trump dishonoring veterans is remarkable because of its blatant flouting of convention. Just like his admission to Bill O’Reilly that “America’s not so innocent.” He’s not wrong. But its unimaginable that any other president would equate Russia with the US the way he did—and get away with it.
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Well seems like we’re at war with education, science, the environment, the press, Nordstrom’s or anything else that fool can’t understand.,
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truth, justice, and the American way
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Correct!.. and I forgot to add Clinton and Obama and snowflakes.
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And Mitch with the hints at criminal investigation! Hedging his bets? Sorry Mitch, you will go down too.
Flynn, here is the State Witness lounge - please start singing.
Yikes. You’ve just pointed me to a second reason for supporting Trump.
(Besides all the countless reasons I have for opposing him, that is).
True. Only that convention is the same convention that allowed my own country to start two world wars. Where I’m from, that convention has been thoroughly discredited for 72 years.
If an American president is flouting it, that’s good news.
That interview flew below the radar of Austrian media, I hadn’t known about it. And that is probably because there’s nothing remarkable in it, except for the fact that Trump is having a moment of sanity.
Calling the president of another country a murderer on TV is generally not considered good diplomacy.
And refusing to admit, or taking offense at someone else for admitting, that mistakes have been made and crimes were committed in your country’s foreign policy, is considered “blind, raving nationalism” where I’m from. Especially when the crime has cost half a million people their lives and the mistake gave rise to the IS.
So, what else would one expect an American president to say who has the stated goal of improving relations with Russia?
Asked to call Putin a murderer, Trump instead admits something that everyone around the world already knows and that only a blind nationalist would deny. This does not really “equate” Russia and the US, but it creates enough of an equivalence so that Trump can be diplomatic towards Russia and not explicitly call Putin a murderer, without denying it either. Nicely done, I’d say.
Just for comparison, do you know of any European head of state who went on record calling GWB a murderer and a war criminal? No? Well, while most people around here would agree that he is both, most people also wanted to keep America as a friend. So our politicians need to be diplomatic.
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I think he means that the nation is at war with itself, referring to the conflict between branches of government and security agencies since Trump got in.
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I don’t have much use for John McCain, but his conduct as a POW was genuinely heroic. Trump’s dismissal of McCain—Trump prefers heroes who don’t get themselves captured—was reprehensible. And I don’t stand up and cheer when the president of the United States refuses to disparage Vladimir Putin of all people, and instead takes the opportunity to say the country he "leads’ is just as bad as Putin’s Russia.
I’m not interested in sifting through Trump’s words to find spots where he stumbled into the truth. I think Trump is a sack of shit.
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Except that ain’t what’s happening.
Trump isn’t criticising militarism, he’s celebrating it. But he is simultaneously attacking any veterans who don’t support him.
The relevant historical analogy is the WWI/WWII “stab in the back” myth. Jewish Germans and Austrians actually volunteered for military service in WWI at higher-than-average rates, in an attempt to prove their loyalty. But that didn’t stop them from being slaughtered by militarists twenty years later (as I’m sure you know).
For the American analogy, see the Nisei battalions of WWII. For a more recent version, see Captain Humayun Khan.
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My money says Trump and Bannon are gone within 3 months. Probably much sooner.
Too much uncertainty, even for those with something to gain.
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He’s attacking people who don’t support him. I don’t agree with defending his victims because they are veterans. I’d rather defend them because people don’t deserve to be attacked for failing to support Trump.
After all, he also attacks white people who don’t support him, and nobody in their right mind would say “how dare he attack white people”.
The post-WWI myth that the German army was undefeated in the field but that evil civilians back home gave the country away at the negotiation table in order to seize control and establish the Weimar Republic? That’s been compared to some things that have been said about the Vietnam War, but I don’t see how it applies here.
As for Jewish volunteers in WWI and Nisei battalions in WWII, I see the parallels to Captain Khan, but I don’t quite see your point. Did you want to suggest that Khan joined up to “prove his loyalty”, or did you expect that dying in an illegal war of aggression should exempt him from being a target of Trump’s racism? That racism towards Khan is somehow worse than racism towards some other Muslim American of similar ancestry who did not serve in the military?
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The point I was trying to make is that it is entirely normal for a political faction to be simultaneously militaristic and to treat the people in their military with murderous contempt.
I agree with you that the extreme American glorification of military service is fucked-up and destructive. But giving a free pass to people who shit on ideologically-opposed subsets of veterans ain’t gonna fix that.
Trump isn’t looking to demilitarise. He’s looking to ensure that the military is purged of any resistance to his actions.
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Ideally, Flynn’s Russia calls are the thread that eventually leads to lying under oath and impeachment charges.
Or the Chaffetz-led hearing stalls and goes nowhere.
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What were you THINKING? I mean, dear God, the man bragged about groping woman…
Americans only care about women based on the criteria of how easy they are to masturbate to.
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According to the Senate’s own website the last official declarations of war by the US were on 4th June 1942, against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Hence my comment.
Indeed. The SS treated the regular German army like shit even as Hitler was telling the German people to admire their armed forces. I know, I know it’s a Nazi comparison but these days there are just so many of them.
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The Irish certainly could have done without him, but he did at least undo some of the damage in England caused by the Civil Wars.
Apart from the opportunity for confusion, William, Prince of Orange and Nassau, has the priority in naming. And the US doesn’t have a royal family (yet).
Concierge of Orange? Caddy of Orange? Orange Groper-in-chief? But not, please, the same name as King Billy.
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The Naranja Rajah?
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I made this point to my brother, who directed me to the medals that are being issued (National Defense Service Medal).
Point being, from a military perspective I can see what kool aid the guy is drinking. I am not saying you’re wrong, but I am pretty certain he was referring to the “War on Terror”–just like I said in my original post at the beginning of the thread.
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Don’t worry, I’m not giving him any free passes. I just don’t want to be suckered into approving of militarism in order to disapprove of Trump.
I don’t like how Trump treats ideologically-opposed subsets of people, but I won’t complain about how he treats veterans or about how he treats white people, because as an anti-militarist I don’t believe that veterans are entitled to special treatment, and as an anti-racist I don’t believe that white people are entitled to special treatment.
Neither am I, and your assessment seems to be more or less correct (though it’s been a while since I’ve seen a literal sack of shit, so I can’t be sure).
But if I stumble over a spot where Trump said something true, no matter whether he stumbled into the truth, or whether he thinks he’s lying - I won’t criticize him for speaking the truth.
I might complain that he doesn’t mean it, that he’s lying, that he’s all talk, that his deeds and his other words contradict what he’s saying.
I would stand up and cheer if I believed he meant it. Also, I repeat that saying that “we’ve also done bad things, so I don’t need to call them names” is far from saying “we are as bad as they are”. Hell, he even downplayed the war crime of attacking Iraq as a “mistake”.
The world needs a US administration that does not steer the world into another full-on cold war. A president that does not routinely refer to his counterpart as a “murderer” is a first step for that. The Trump administration is not that administration, unfortunately, and I never meant to imply that it was.
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O’Reilly: But [Putin]'s a killer.
Trump: There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?
Also…
Trump: [Putin]'s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.
My reading of Trump’s remarks is different from yours, I guess.
Edit: Sorry for any confusion. This was a reply to zathras.
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