In case you missed it Trump showed up at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. He wanted to make a bigly Whoo-Dee-Doo about the thirteen service members who died during the evacuation of Afghanistan. If Trump was thankful for anything at all it was for letting himself get talked into the final evacuation being pushed into BIDEN’S Presidency. It was bound to be chaotic no matter how well it was planned. And, unlike the evacuation of Americans and our friends from Saigon in 1975 this time around there were practiced terrorists who were all too skilled at mayhem and making improvised bombs.
If you’re old enough think back on those final few days in 1975. The increasingly panicked evacuation with people fighting to get onto boats, planes and helicopters to ships waiting in the south China Sea. The final collapse of the South Vietnamese Army was swift, and it promised to be the same in Afghanistan. Not just Afghans who helped us, but many Americans didn’t heed calls to get out, because they couldn’t believe we would actually wind up doing what the deal TRUMP negotiated with the Taliban required. Which was for us to leave.
I’m still haunted by images on the evening news of one specific helicopter taking off from the roof of the embassy in Saigon, with a chain of people clinging to a guy who had a death grip on one of the skids – and everyone falling away. And the clips of all those helicopters being pushed off the decks of ships to make room for evacuees. All that equipment, and all those facilities we’d built in South Vietnam wasted. If you’ve ever asked if aircraft carriers are worth the cost think about that. I don’t recall the name of the Officer but I do recall a hearing where some smart-assed Congress Critter challenged him on the cost of aircraft carriers. I can’t recall his exact words, but it was basically ‘When we left Vietnam we left behind billions in equipment, facilities and airfields. To the best of my knowledge we didn’t leave behind a single aircraft carrier.’
I’m sure even Trump remembers the withdrawal from Vietnam. Eager as he was to get us out of Afghanistan, once he made the deal with the Taliban I’m sure someone reminded him of Vietnam and the fall of Saigon. The dim light bulb went on in his head and illuminated the “Uh Oh” sign. And the one next to it saying “Be careful what you wish for.’ Once that happened it took less than a second for him to say to himself Afghanistan would be a repeat of the withdrawal from Vietnam. Or at least highly likely and THAT would for sure cost him the election. Then he lost and no way in hell was he going to have that awful spectacle happen on his watch. Better to dump the whole thing on the new President. He was after all going to run again in 2024 and it would make for a helluva campaign issue!
Given all that it’s no wonder that when Trump got word there’d be a ceremony for the thirteen service members who died during the final part of the evacuation he’d get his fat orange ass to Arlington and turn it into a campaign event. However, as has been reported today including in this article from NPR there was a confrontation with cemetery staff. Reportedly it got physical because someone from Arlington tried to block Trump and his entourage from horning in on the ceremony. Team Trump disputes this but NPR isn’t the only outlet that has reported things DID get testy and to the point of some pushing and shoving (of the staffer as in to get him out of the way) so keep an eye on this.
Officials at Arlington are standing by their account of events. Team Trump says it will produce evidence to the contrary. No word on when of course. ‘A couple of weeks?’ After ‘Infrastructure Week?’ Or after Trump reveals his “Beautiful Health Care Plan that will give everyone the very best coverage and cost people practically nothing.” I don’t know about you but I’m not holding my breath. I think an official from Arlington politely inquired why Trump and his gang (including I gather his own photographers) were there, then politely informed him former President or not he wasn’t allowed to use Arlington or any Army/National Cemetery as a stage for a campaign photo op/event. So Trump had his goons manhandle the guy out of the way. The thing is, he seems to have immediately filed a formal report.
Yes, Presidents appear at Arlington on certain occasions for specific events like Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day. It’s part of their job to do so, or if they can’t appear themselves designate someone to address those attending the ceremonies on behalf of the nation. THAT is not a campaign event. Think about it. other than those two times or unless some VIP is being buried at Arlington when do you actually see a President there? At least with cameras rolling? Here’s why per the linking article:
“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the cemetery said.
Basically, Trump had himself a campaign event at our nation’s most hallowed cemetery to try and PRETEND he actually cares about fallen troops. Again, in a perverse way he does sort of care because he had the political savvy to make sure someone else got stuck with implementing HIS withdrawal deal – and he could make (and sh*t in) campaign hay out of the whole thing. However, the bottom line is that he broke federal law in the process. The fact he’ll never be prosecuted for it pisses me off to no end. Because Trump is a heartless sonavabitch who considers every single one of those the ceremony was for to be a “sucker” or “loser” but since their deaths are of political use to him he’s glad. That they DIED. Oh how I hate that man and fervently hope he lives long enough to spend several years in prison, finally dying on some regular issue prison bunk with his last breath being of prison air!
I didn’t know that it is not allowed, but it makes a lot of sense, especially in today’s climate. … even using the fallen soldiers (who cannot even be asked what _they_ want) for a political prop. Maybe the Mango Madman should think about what the prophet Samuel said to Saul after he called him from the grave.
Another thing is that this is a _former_ president, not _the_ president. It would have been disrespectful to the fallen for the president to march in there doing a stunt like that in either case, but now add the “former” president.
This is the party of decorum, the party of service members, the party of law and order and respect for authority?
Not with Trump, never was, never will be.
“Eager as he was to get us out of Afghanistan, once he made the deal with the Taliban I’m sure someone reminded him of Vietnam and the fall of Saigon. The dim light bulb went on in his head and illuminated the “Uh Oh” sign. And the one next to it saying “Be careful what you wish for.’ Once that happened it took less than a second for him to say to himself Afghanistan would be a repeat of the withdrawal from Vietnam. Or at least highly likely and THAT would for sure cost him the election. Then he lost and no way in hell was he going to have that awful spectacle happen on his watch. Better to dump the whole thing on the new President. He was after all going to run again in 2024 and it would make for a helluva campaign issue!”
Nope. Sorry but have to disagree on this. Trump’s ORIGINAL schedule would put the withdrawal until well after the November election. The deal made (in Feb of 2020) was to have US forces withdraw by May of 2021 (the Biden administration pushed that date back to August). So, if Trump had won reelection in November of 2020, then the withdrawal that HE made would have to be accomplished by May–within 4 months or so of the start of his second term. Of course, there’s absolutely NO guarantee that the withdrawal would’ve gone off any more smoothly in the first four months of Trump’s second term and that was part of the criticism–from Democrats–over the Biden Administration’s handling; Biden’s people pushed for the extension from May to August and we still got the debacle of a withdrawal. Of course, GOPers just completely ignored that THEIR people hadn’t done anything in the nearly full year that Trump was still in office that even LOOKED like there was any “withdrawal” in the offing. But OUR side simply assumed that President Biden would be able to achieve with the renegotiated 3 month extension what the Trumpers hadn’t seemed to do in the previous year. (I may have missed it but I also don’t really recall Trump using the deal as a major campaign issue in 2020; no “I brought an end to our war in Afghanistan” because I doubt his people wanted voters to recall that it wasn’t over with at that point and Trump’s never been good with “nuance”–nor are most of his supporters.
It wasn’t until after Trump had been forced to leave office (I so wish we could’ve had a moment when the White House police would’ve been forced to lead Trump out, at gunpoint if necessary, but he chose the more cowardly retreat of a sore loser) and months passed before Afghanistan was SUDDENLY brought back into the picture. That original agreement had largely been ignored and the extension probably got a little bit of press (but, mostly crickets) until the deadline was on us and then it looked like a repeat of the last days of Saigon. Finally, the media had its first “Biden scandal” to play with and there wasn’t a GOPer on Capitol Hill that wasn’t just itching to show how “ineffectual” President Biden was in his “failure” to deal with “Trump’s achievement.” But, again, the media coverage strongly suggested that not even the Pentagon had really been consulted (by the Trump folks) about the pesky details of what the withdrawal would consist of. And the media also showed just how unprepared the Afghan government was (which made sense since the LEGITIMATE government hadn’t even been a part of the original agreement) and how swiftly the folks who were supposed to be helping us withdraw just said, “Fork it; let the Americans deal with it–I’ve got to get my ass out of here to keep my family safe from those Taliban nuts.”
The only thing that Biden could’ve done was to go on the air and explain what all went wrong and why but he wouldn’t do that because the GOP would’ve just seen it as “blaming Trump for Biden’s problems” and it likely wouldn’t have done that much good among Biden’s supporters (in the general public or on Capitol Hill). And THAT was where Trump was able to start thinking he could use that as a future campaign issue against Biden.
I guess we’re in one of our quibbling with each other things here. Trump wanted us out of Afghanistan pretty much all along. So much so he was willing to completely capitulate to the Taliban. Yes, the deal said we’d be out by May 21. BY is the operative word in that. If Trump had had his way as soon as the ink was dry he’d have ordered the DOD to have it done within a month or two. Just start sending troops around to any Americans and telling them to pack their shit because they were headed to an airbase to be taken out of the country. For good. Whether they wanted to go or not. As for Afghans who’d done so much to help us Trump didn’t give a shit. You know it as well as anyone else. Once all the non-embassy Americans had been shipped out of the country the embassy staff itself would have been relocated to say Bagram until the final details were settled and troops could have been sent to their homes to throw all their stuff into trucks.
THAT is how Trump wanted it to happen. Get Americans out as quickly as possible and any equipment like tanks or helicopters there wasn’t time, or cargo space on planes (there’s only so many planes we have large enough to carry tanks or helicopters) to be blown up. In actuality much of that stuff was in fact disabled before the end. It might have looked like we gave the Taliban a shitload of stuff but most of it was useless to them. Only so many parts could be scrounged up by non-U.S./allied supporters.
Trump was pissed it took so long to actually get a withdrawal deal worked out at all. But I’m sticking to my contention that he had getting us out of Afghanistan as a goal. A foreign policy “achievement” he could bray about because let’s face it – most Americans had long ago realized that the country was never going to become what we had hoped.
But it was always destined to end in chaos. I think we at least agree on that, and that it was chaos in part because so many Americans resisted leaving for so many months. Sometimes it was for honorable reasons as in trying to foster the evacuation of Afghans who’d helped us. Even those who were NGO workers simply trying to fulfill other functions (helping build better agriculture, production of goods in factories, medical facilities etc.) had good intentions and it’s understandable they didn’t want to see all the years of effort they and predecessors had put in go to waste. But especially with so many of those they didn’t REALLY believe we were pulling out. Not until those final few chaotic weeks.
As for the collapse of the Afghan Army and all those cops we’d trained that too was predictable once they too knew we were really leaving. Going back to Vietnam once Da Nang fell it was just a matter of weeks until we saw what we saw. In those final days there were soliders in Vietnam literally stripping off their uniforms and grabbing civilian clothes out of places be it stores or abandoned luggage to try and blend in with the civilian population and not be swept up by the NVA. Hell, we saw a lot of that in Iraq when their army realized the war was lost. They didn’t want either us or ‘never give up’ Sadaam loyalists rounding them up so they ditched their uniforms and tried to be civilians.
Even with a comprehensive plan that was fairly well executed there was going to be a point where EVERYONE knew ‘this is really it’ and we’d have a Charlie Fox Bravo Oscar (cluster f**k bug out) on our hands. Trump’s tunnel vision was such he never actually thought about that even if some advisors tried to tell him UNTIL he got his deal signed. I will always believe it was only then that someone forced him to sit and watch footage, perhaps one of those old news specials that lasted an hour of the withdrawal from Vietnam. Or just put some pictures of the panic in the streets around the embassy, desperate people hanging from and falling off the skids of helicopters taking off, a few minutes of film clips of people being shoved onto large transports at Da Nang before we lost that, and then the big airport in Saigon, the boatlift from the coastline out to Navy ships, and of course heliicopters being pushed over the side to create deck space for evacuees.
Trump I’m sure saw a lot of that on the news back when he was young. And suddenly didn’t have tunnel vision. THEN delaying the inevitable debacle until AFTER the election made perfect sense to him. And when it dawned on him that he might indeed no longer be President he deliberately chose to not just leave the whole bad of shit for his successor, but do all he could to load it up withe cherry bombs and light the fuse.
But I return to your point about the “By” date of the withdrawal. That was the drop-dead date. The point at which the Taliban would consider all bets off and that any American still in the country was fair game for kill or capture. Trump could have ordered the evacuation while he was still President including BEFORE the election and if finally dawned on him how bad he’d look.
Who’s surprised that the orange pustule would disregard federal law in order to prove he does, in fact, respect the military. As if laying a wreath for a photo op erases his numerous examples of disrespect. I can’t imagine what my father, may he rest in peace, a decorated pilot who fought in WW!!, would think of the flagrant use of dead soldiers for political gain. Disgusting, like so much of what that pig says and does.
As Kevin Cosner’s character said about his son on Yellowstone…” if a man ever deserved a beating, he does.”
Hey you trumpers wearing our nation’s uniform: PHUCK YOU NAZI LOVING TRAITORS! If it were up to me ALL of you would be discharged immediately with a DISHONORABLE discharge. This is just another example of this nazi’s abuse of our heros.
I’m wondering if the dumber than any self-respecting rock snooze-fest orange idiot has just bailed out of the soup pot and into the hot fry pan …
His VERY PUBLIC statement about losers and such, broadcast to various channels, making a large gob of pissed-off Americans wanting their hands around his orange painted neck …
His actions lately have been to fix this obvious enormous cut against our hero’s past efforts to save our Country’s way of life and all the glory they earned in that last breath they had was under his thumb of stupidity and personal cruelty, grinding them into the dust of his ineffectual self-importance …
How many offended families of these fallen hero’s, think Trump’s stupid photo-ops are a sign of his true feelings?
If any one of these families were given their own Heavy-Hitter, handmade Ash ball-bat was in the same room with Trump, do you believe for a minute they would NOT think about slamming his ugly face with it?
Trump has always been a coward/bully and, if it was not so blatantly awful what he just did at our special resting place, it would be laughable and a chance to make him into the freaking crook and worthless use of our oxygen he actually is … Laughing at Trump for anything, especially a phony photo-op would help dig the post holes he needs to trip into …