If you want to get the unfiltered skinny on how the never-ending war with Iran is going, it’s written in the dust. Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi reported this week that U.S. service members marooned in the Persian Gulf have been expressing themselves in messages fingered onto a dusty aircraft flap. The anonymous graffiti, which calls to mind the helmet scrawls of disgruntled soldiers in Vietnam, include “Operation Epstein Fury,” “Peace deal #64 incoming … ALL THIS FOR THE HOLY LAND,” and “Bibi’s cucks.” Sounds like things aren’t going so well! “I have no frame of reference, I can’t compare it to the sentiments of U.S. soldiers in previous conflicts,” Parsi wrote. “But I suspect these are new sentiments, or at least a new willingness to express them this openly and directly.”
Whether these sentiments are new is indeed unclear, but it’s not without a frame of reference. Trump has always been fairly explicit in his disrespect for the grunts who do most of the work—and all of the dying—in this racket that we call “war.”
Yould think that was obvious after he said people who got caught were losers. Those are some dumb servicemen right there. At some point you gotta say the CIC is an asshole.
I was serving in the US military the first time Trump got elected. It was an awful time for us military folks. He tried (and failed) to ban trans people from serving during that term. This was after we had announced free trans surgery for service members, so a bunch of people had already outed themselves.
I remember when he almost started WWIII by getting into a fight with Kim Jong Un online. He decided he was gonna fly to North Korea and give him a piece of his mind.
NO ONE goes to North Korea. No sitting president has ever gone there. They’re one of the most dangerous and isolated countries in the world. The citizens live in poverty because the government controls who gets to eat. Most citizens are members of their military, because military members and their families get extra rations. They mostly survive on imports from China, because their land isn’t suited to grow enough food for their own population.
Regardless, they’re isolated from the rest of the world, so all they know is whatever their state media tells them, and they’re heavily brainwashed. They’re taught that the rest of the world is suffering worse than they are and that they should be grateful to live in one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet. Keep in mind, they live like paupers from the 1950s.
They’re also taught that the Kim family are essentially immortal gods who descended from the mountains to help them. Yes, Kim Il Sung, their original leader, is still the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea. When he died, the population was informed that he’s just moved to a higher plane of existence so he can better serve the nation. His son Kim Jong Il took over his seat on the mortal plane, and when he passed away, it was the same story. Now his son, Kim Jong Un is the current mortal leader, and getting into a spat with Trump.
Trump refused to listen to his aides and went to North Korea anyway. ‘Good,’ we thought. 'He won’t be our problem for much longer.’ But unfortunately, something we didn’t expect happened. They became best friends.
Trump returned home raving about how incredible of a guy Kim Jong Un was and how efficiently he ran his country. He immediately started comparing the US to that dictatorship and asking for changes to make things like North Korea.
Fortunately for us, our government at the time was a majority Democrat government, so checks and balances stopped Trump from doing a lot of awful things. He bitched and moaned all the time, but he rarely got his way. So his first term was pretty uneventful.
Then he lost the election to Biden and refused to quit. He spouted all that nonsense about “stolen elections” and swore to run again. I was coming up on retirement eligibility and decided to take that option. I retired in the middle of the Biden administration.
And I’m so glad I did. I thankfully never had to exercise my refusal to obey orders during my service, but I’d definitely take advantage of that right during this current administration if I was still serving. A lot of us weren’t happy with Trump, and I still have buddies in the service who feel trapped and can’t get out of their enlistment without breaking laws and going to jail. It’s a dark time, but there are still plenty of allies in the military and I’m glad to see public recognition of that starting to show.
I have some friends in the military and they have a running percentage of how many bases they’ve been to lately running Fox News in common areas, because unfortunately that reliably influences a lot of folks. I’ve heard it’s been going down since Trump came back into office. So that’s hopeful.
A little over a decade ago, I was stationed at a base in the US, working on a huge IT helpdesk that catered to bases across an entire region of the world. We had two TVs in the room, one on each side wall. They were always muted with subtitles, but one was always on Fox News and the other was always on CNN.
It was interesting seeing major news reporting from both sides of the aisle (back when CNN was very left-leaning). We shared our helpdesk with a civilian IT company and they would regularly unmute the Fox News side after-hours. So during nightshift, we unfortunately got a bit more exposure to right-wing media.
The front wall of the room had a bunch of large monitors with live network maps and status charts for all our bases. At night, I would connect to one of those large monitors and stream movies to it. It usually distracted my shift away from the news.
CNN was very left leaning
Bahahahahahaha
Like in another dimension? Because I still wouldn’t believe it.
Damn even military people can’t stand him anymore uh. How hard is it to be a sitting republican president and keep the support of the troops seriously.
In my military service, we saw Republicans praise us publicly, but then turn around and cut all our benefits and funding behind the scenes. The only reason military members still have any benefits are because of Democrats blocking Republicans. Otherwise, we’d be borderline slaves; nothing but warm bodies for the government to throw at our enemies. (If you serve in the Army or Marines, you’re practically that already)
My uncle retired from the US Air Force in the mid-'90s. Because he retired, he was automatically given free medical and dental for the rest of his life. He never earned any disability rating from the VA, but they’re covering him completely. His civilian spouse also got free medical and dental for life, just for being married to him.
I retired in 2022 from the US Air Force. They told me I would only get medical coverage for any disabilities the VA approved a claim on. Everything else, I’d have to get my own separate civilian medical insurance to cover. My wife had to serve herself and earn her own disability ratings to get any medical coverage. That retirement benefit has been extremely neutered in the past couple decades, thanks to Republicans trying to end VA coverage for veterans.
The Donvict’s incompetence in governing is abysmally lower than most people realize. His focus is on corruption, like insider trading and suing/criminalizing political enemies, not serving the American public, and definitely not helping people that he himself considers suckers. Too many MAGA supporters mistake Trumpepstein’s nationalism for patriotism.
If you served/serve and you support these chucklehead cunts you are fucking stupid. It takes a special kind of shit sipping moron to support a draft dodging child fucker that has done nothing but shit talk veterans his whole life. You deserve everything you get dumb fucks.
It’s not just donnie…it’s most of the Republican party. Sure, maybe a few outliers respect the actual troops for something other than photo-ops and for a wedge issue to try to hit liberals with.
Most of the right’s love of military is concentrated in…love of defense contractors and plenty of fascist posturing.
What gave it away? Was it the “losers and suckers” comments? Or the nigh-unstoppable dismissive arrogance and miserable legislative support?
How anyone got past “I like soldiers who don’t get captured” is just insane to start with.
If it wasn’t the suckers and losers comment, why wasn’t it the drastic cuts to VA benefits? Or him pissing on the sanctity of Arlington National Cemetery and having his people assault an Army employee for a campaign photo op? Or him outright saying he’s ok with soldiers dying in Iran?
The Orange Pedo will sell out the troops for a little praise from Putin.
Yeah he doesn’t hate the troops, he just knows they are his pawns. They’ll bark and sit when he says, that’s their job. Anyone in the upper ranks he didn’t care for he had removed.
If he can trade pawns for monetary game he will every time.
“Hate” is probably too strong of a word, but Trump clearly has contempt for our troops.
He hates losers. It must suck to hate yourself that much.
I sometimes wonder if he resents decent people for their decency. Like, the concept of giving up something for someone else obviously makes no sense to him, but maybe at some level he understands that some people do it easily, and maybe if he could understand it people might start to genuinely like and care about him.
More than likely he probably just thinks decent people are suckers to be used by him, the main character.
I’m sure he thinks the idea is dumb, but what he really hates is someone getting attention for being a decent person. That’s his real kryptonite. Having to give deference to people with qualities he could never bring himself to have while they are lauded for it.
Well he did refer to vets as “suckers and losers” in his first term, so I’m pretty sure it is the latter.
Could be like homophobia. “People like that exist and it scares me to think that I could be like that even if I’m not so I hate them because they scare me.”
A rich kid whose daddy bought his way out of serving and spent his younger years blow drying his hair and hanging out with Epstein is “ real American” and tough guy for MAGA dummies.
Don’t forget raping children.
The ol Bill Hicks position: “For the war, against the troops”
Only too them a decade
They keep voting for him though…
Are they quitting in large numbers? Do they have that option if the economy sucks?
They don’t have the option regardless of the economy. You don’t quit the military. You either get discharged generally, or honorably, or you leave with a dishonorable discharge, which is the equivalent of having several felonies on your record.
Maybe take a dishonorable discharge if the alternative is ruining millions of lives? Oh i forget you ain’t allowed to tell people to deal with their own mistakes.
They’re just realising this now?
