Banana Republic Trumpzi military parade - echo from Pennsylvania
Echo from John L. Micek published in the Pennsylvania news ~
Penn Live
Donald Trump wants a military parade, just like the one he saw in France. Of course, there's no such thing as an Arc d'Triumph or Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Washington DC. Nevertheless, there is a very visible Trump Hotel, where a parade review stand could be positioned in the sight of TV cameras. Certainly, the optics of a Washington DC parade going past the Trump Hotel were, no doubt, in Donald Trump's egotistical mind when he directed Secretary Mattis about organizing a Trumpzi military parade "just like they do in France".
Pennsylvania Opinion: So, Donald Trump, a (so called!) noted fiscal conservative, swamp-drainer, and compulsive saber-rattler, wants a massive military parade through the streets of downtown Washington D.C.
Of course he does.
Of course he does.
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2018/02/a_military_parade_in_washingto.html#incart_2box_opinion
While Congress scrambled to avoid yet another shutdown, we learned that officials at the Pentagon and the White House are starting the planning for a display of military might that wouldn't look out of place on the streets of Pyongyang, Moscow, Beijing or Berlin in 1939.
Trump's desire for a parade, modeled on one he during a trip to France last year (Quelle horreur!) apparently emerged during a Jan. 18 meeting with senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known, fittingly enough, as "the tank," The Washington Post reported.
"The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France," a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Post. "This is being worked at the highest levels of the military."
Trump's epic case of edifice complex is well known.
In Trumplandia, everything is grand and great and huge and beautiful - like his "great military," or the "beautiful chocolate cake," he enjoyed with Chinese President Xi Jinping while he bragged about American airstrikes in Syria last year.
So it's entirely logical, if entirely offensive, that Trump would glory in the sight of tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and other weaponry, along with soldiers, marching at attention and saluting, filling the streets of the nation's capital.
Because Trump, as commander-in-chief, can order those soldiers to salute him.
Not so much for Democratic members of Congress, whom Trump accused of treason, for failing to stand and applaud during his State of the Union speech last week.
What apparently eluded Trump was that his political opponents - from a co-equal branch of government - were exercising a constitutionally protected right to remain silent.
But for Trump, the Constitution is a technicality, a mere formality on the way to exercising his will. In any event, we now know that he nodded off after the Fourth Amendment, so there's no actual proof that he's conversant with the actual text.
The White House has since said that Trump was joking when he accused Democrats of treason.
But it's hardly a laughing matter. Some members of Congress, such as Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., are veterans who have proudly served the country.
Accusing them of treason isn't a joke. It's an insult of the highest order.
So when Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost her legs while serving in Iraq, dismissed Trump, who received five Vietnam deferments, as "Cadet Bonespurs," she spoke from a particular position of moral authority.
As The Post reports, meanwhile, it's unclear how the military would cover the cost of moving its equipment to Washington, an effort whose price-tag could run to the millions of dollars.
If Trump really wants to show his support for the military, he'd work with Congressional leaders to solve the perennial pickle over the passage of a defense appropriations bill.
Defense Secretary James Mattis told a Congressional committee this week that the military needs "predictabilty" in its funding if it's going to flourish.
"Let me be clear: as hard as the last 16 years of war have been, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of the U.S. military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act's defense spending caps, worsened by operating in 10 of the last 11 years under continuing resolutions of varied and unpredictable duration," Mattis, a former Marine general, said, according to The Post.
With those kind of problems looming, it makes zero sense for the military to spend an indeterminate amount of money to simply gratify the whims of the 45th president.
There are far better ways for Trump to show he cares about the military. Putting the nation in the same company as our strategic rivals and outright adversaries isn't one of them.
While Congress scrambled to avoid yet another shutdown, we learned that officials at the Pentagon and the White House are starting the planning for a display of military might that wouldn't look out of place on the streets of Pyongyang, Moscow, Beijing or Berlin in 1939.
Trump's desire for a parade, modeled on one he during a trip to France last year (Quelle horreur!) apparently emerged during a Jan. 18 meeting with senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known, fittingly enough, as "the tank," The Washington Post reported.
"The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France," a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Post. "This is being worked at the highest levels of the military."
Trump's epic case of edifice complex is well known.
In Trumplandia, everything is grand and great and huge and beautiful - like his "great military," or the "beautiful chocolate cake," he enjoyed with Chinese President Xi Jinping while he bragged about American airstrikes in Syria last year.
So it's entirely logical, if entirely offensive, that Trump would glory in the sight of tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and other weaponry, along with soldiers, marching at attention and saluting, filling the streets of the nation's capital.
Because Trump, as commander-in-chief, can order those soldiers to salute him.
Not so much for Democratic members of Congress, whom Trump accused of treason, for failing to stand and applaud during his State of the Union speech last week.
What apparently eluded Trump was that his political opponents - from a co-equal branch of government - were exercising a constitutionally protected right to remain silent.
But for Trump, the Constitution is a technicality, a mere formality on the way to exercising his will. In any event, we now know that he nodded off after the Fourth Amendment, so there's no actual proof that he's conversant with the actual text.
The White House has since said that Trump was joking when he accused Democrats of treason.
But it's hardly a laughing matter. Some members of Congress, such as Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., are veterans who have proudly served the country.
Accusing them of treason isn't a joke. It's an insult of the highest order.
So when Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost her legs while serving in Iraq, dismissed Trump, who received five Vietnam deferments, as "Cadet Bonespurs," she spoke from a particular position of moral authority.
As The Post reports, meanwhile, it's unclear how the military would cover the cost of moving its equipment to Washington, an effort whose price-tag could run to the millions of dollars.
If Trump really wants to show his support for the military, he'd work with Congressional leaders to solve the perennial pickle over the passage of a defense appropriations bill.
Defense Secretary James Mattis told a Congressional committee this week that the military needs "predictabilty" in its funding if it's going to flourish.
"Let me be clear: as hard as the last 16 years of war have been, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of the U.S. military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act's defense spending caps, worsened by operating in 10 of the last 11 years under continuing resolutions of varied and unpredictable duration," Mattis, a former Marine general, said, according to The Post.
With those kind of problems looming, it makes zero sense for the military to spend an indeterminate amount of money to simply gratify the whims of the 45th president.
There are far better ways for Trump to show he cares about the military. Putting the nation in the same company as our strategic rivals and outright adversaries isn't one of them.
Comment from a reader in West Enola PA: "The condition for a parade in DC should be when the backlog at the VA hospitals and for disability claims are eliminated and all currently homeless vets are provided for."
Labels: John L. Micek, Penn Live, Pentagon, West Enola
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 6:01 PM
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