This shouldn’t have been a surprise. What is a surprise is that they are coming out and saying so in public. They have to know that’s going to paint a big target on themselves, because upsetting Trump is a Very Bad Idea. Right now, at least, that doesn’t matter. This is bigger than that. One big baby does not bother them in the slightest with what they’ve seen already, ending with Petey Boy Hegseth’s tirade to all the military leaders. He didn’t impress anyone, strutting on stage like a bantam rooster. He just made them yawn (again). From The Guardian via AlterNet:
The Guardian reports veterans are condemning President Donald Trump’s politicization of the military, particularly after Trump accused Democratic lawmakers of “sedition, punishable by death.” A small group of Democrats with military backgrounds recently reminded soldiers in a public service announcement video that they are not mandated to break U.S. law at the order of their leaders. This prompted Trump to accuse the Democrats of “sedition.”
Every time I read that, it makes me angrier. Consider the source. Then he repeats it, or it gets forwarded and escalates, but that was covered yesterday. It’s not really that surprising that veterans are even angrier. This is bullsh!t. Those who represented our country all over the world, some bled for it, some died for it, and Trump is throwing around hateful, volatile words.
But the president’s comments infuriated the military’s legal community. “He uses sedition and treason very broadly and inappropriately,” said David Frakt, a retired air force officer and attorney in the judge advocate general (JAG) corps, the military justice branch. “The irony is that if anyone committed sedition or treason, it was the people that he urged to overthrow the government on January 6 [2021] – and you know, he pardoned all of those people and calls them patriots and martyrs and all the rest.” Don Christensen, a retired air force colonel and former chief prosecutor of the air force, told the Guardian that Trump’s comments on sedition are “horribly wrong.”
So what the hell *can* the vets do? Not much, it would seem. However, the veterans speaking out ought to give the members still in active duty something to think about. It’s not just Democrats that are disgusted, that understand what duty and the allegiance to the Constitution *really* means. It’s the retired military. It must be frustrating.
Coretta Johnson Gray, a former air force attorney noted that one of the first acts of incoming secretary of defense Pete Hegseth was to fire or demote legal advisors to the service branches, which she said raises concerns that the JAG corps are becoming politicized. She also expressed alarm that military lawyers are quitting the service. “It’s important to have good people who have integrity in these positions, because if you get rid of everybody who could even question, you really got a problem,” said Gray, adding that she urges active-duty senior leadership to publicly reaffirm their oath to the Constitution and their political neutrality. “You don’t want the American people to think … the military is going to change based on [who’s in charge],” she said.
BOOM. Here we are. It’s been laid out in black and white with no hesitation. “The military is going to change”. There’s always going to be some politically motivated actions. That’s a given. But the military should be apolitical. The military is our representation both at home and abroad. It must be getting hard to see what is happening to our country. How can they, can any of us, be proud of where we are?
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