09.07.16
America’s Wehrmacht (the series)
Today was “Who loves America’s Wehrmacht more?” Day.
Is it Donald Trump? Or Hillary Clinton? Hard to say, it’s almost dead even.
Politico notes the Clinton campaign is running a television ad in which Trump says “I love war:”
The 30-second ad, out Tuesday, is titled “I Love War.” It features Trump uttering the phrase, “I love war, in a certain way,” at a rally last November, and features snippets of him remarking that he “knows more about ISIS than the generals do” and calling “nuclear, the power, the devastation … very important to me.”
“‘I love war,’ putting nuclear weapons on the table. The Clinton camp says that’s irresponsible,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos remarked to Kellyanne Conway at the start of their interview on “Good Morning America.”
It’s worth adding Stephanopoulos was part of the first Clinton administration, famously portrays in the documentary “The War Room.” I reviewed it this year here. [1]
In any case, someone trying to use the statement “I love war” against anyone else in 2016 America is so unintentionally hilarious as to reduce one to tetany. HRC, Libya, Iraq, Sec’y of State during years of our forever war.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are engaged in a contest within a contest right now. The bigger contest, of course, is to win the White House; the smaller contest is to accumulate the longer list of military supporters and thereby suggest to voters that the people who really know what to look for in a commander in chief have a clear preference.
The Trump campaign on Tuesday released the names of 88 retired generals and admirals who have endorsed the Republican presidential candidate, to which the Clinton camp responded Wednesday by announcing its own roster of 95 such backers.
Among the retired generals backing Trump is Jerry Boykin. Like Trump, he’s a bigot.
A long time ago Boykin was commander of the Delta Force. But for the last 16 years or so he’s travelled the country warning about Muslim infiltration, the alleged creeping onslaught of sharia law in the heartland and the badness of gay people. Boykin is nuts and he’s been mentioned frequently here.
On the other hand, I’m fairly positive that if you comb through HRC’s cast of military men you’ll find someone equally insane, only in a different way.
My pick, just on video evidence alone, is Marine General John Allen. At the Democratic Convention, allen delivered a rant that was epic. And not in any good way.
Watch the video at the link. The good parts are when Allen goes berserk, yelling that “our military” will have the finest weapons (don’t they already?) and that our enemies — “You will fear us!” The crowd chants “USA! USA! USA!” and the camera pans to blonde-haired boy waving a Clinton sign. Tomorrow belongs to us!
John Allen, like Gerry Boykin, is scary. He came off as disturbed, not as someone showing great zeal in public speaking
Who loves war more? Who can sing the loudest praises for America’s Wehrmacht?
An excerpt from Andrew Bacevich’s book, “America’s War for the Greater Middle East” would seem apt:
“It’s not that Americans today actively support the war in the same sense that their grandparents supported World War II. It’s that they see no particular reason to attend one way or another to the war’s progress or likely outcome. In a fundamental sense the war is not their concern….
“At the end of the day, whether the United States is able to reshape the Greater Middle East will matter less than whether it can reshape itself, restoring effectiveness to self-government, providing for sustainable and equitable prosperity, and extracting from a vastly diverse culture something to hold in common of greater moment than shallow digital enthusiasms and the worship of celebrity.
“Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American freedom, abundance and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect. One day the American people may awaken to this reality. Then and only then will the war end.”
In interesting news, Textron will no longer be making cluster bombs. The pool of blood worldwide, and because of American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has dropped them willy-nilly in Yemen, has apparently grown to big to ignore, even for the arms manufacturer:
Textron, the last U.S. company to build cluster bombs, announced in a securities filing this week that one of its subsidiaries would no longer produce the controversial and internationally derided munition, citing dwindling demand.
The Rhode Island-based company’s decision comes after the Obama administration halted a shipment of approximately 400 of their cluster weapons – called CBU-105s – to Saudi Arabia in May, following reports that the Saudis were using the weapons indiscriminately during their air campaign over Yemen …
Though the United States hasn’t allotted funds for cluster munition production since 2007, the CBU-105 has been readily exported to several countries since. Saudi Arabia purchased more than 1,500 of the weapons between 2010 and 2011, according to a report by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.
“Historically, sensor-fuzed weapon sales have relied on foreign military and direct commercial international customers for which both executive branch and congressional approval is required,” reads a Textron statement. “The current political environment has made it difficult to obtain these approvals.”
[1]. “The War Room??? is a movie worth watching in 2016, for how much things have changed for the world’s only superpower in obvious decline.
You’ll recognize the young and middle-aged stars of the last 15 years: George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, and — front ‘n’ center, James Carville, now an old man. Bill Clinton is the Big Dog, not as he is now, the frail old man trying to recall better days while pumping up his wife as the next president.
The doc is shot as the legacy. Bill Clinton, a people’s candidate.
There’s a moment from a speech by Al Gore in a campaign rally that could be exactly like something Bernie Sanders roarded at crowds. America was down, jobs and the economy, not fair. “The country’s gone el busto,??? says Carville. “If you can’t fix it, get out of the way!???
George H. W. Bush: “America is still great!???