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.”
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.
Here is a story where he clearly thinks troops are stupid, and he showed it by insulting a dead soldier to the soldier’s general father.
Here’s a story where Trump staffers got into a pushing match with cemetery officials at Arlington National Cemetery because Trump wanted to take a political video and photo op, even though it was illegal and disrespectful.