You may miss the old alt-right, ineffective Donald of a day or so ago. Now we have the Spiderman-infused defender of good and justice sending his Big military out with a big bomb to do what the Democrats did not dare to -- hit those inaccessible Afghan caves where the bad guys try to hide. When people ask Donald trump what drove him to the act, his big tweet response was to hug "my military." Implying that he is at least gratifying the armed services with his unbounded trust.
Breaking all over
The tweets below offer you a visual run through of what has been breaking of late, on the eve of Good Friday.
That might be an appropriate occasion to reflect on the inevitable collateral damage that is the feature of almost all military action. When we accept the world in which all deaths are not equal, those who are done in because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time are deemed expendable. The word collateral implies that.
U.S. Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ on ISIS Caves in Afghanistan https://t.co/DNVMVOB30q
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) April 13, 2017
18 Syrian Fighters Allied With U.S. Are Killed in Coalition Airstrike https://t.co/yjN5PBSvmr
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) April 13, 2017
One can surmise from these tweets that the military, upon which Trump intends to lavish $50 billion or more taken from other government programs like stopping plagues, has not been idle.
Not content with being far and away the biggest military power, it is flaunting the big bomb, perhaps waiting for a Trump fanfare. The post-bomb boasting will likely kindle a firestorm. What does the President mean claiming the military as "mine"? Think of it as an image thing. It works better than Bush standing on a deck before a banner that says "Mission accomplished."
Trump says he's given full authorization to "my military" https://t.co/3c3VKHbuFW
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) April 13, 2017
The financial damage
It dawns on us that the extravagance Trump shows using our tax dollars for his pleasures is duplicated many-thousand-fold by his commitments on the policy front.
The road to ruin seems understandable even to those who are generally moronic. If you remove a massive load of tax income from people who (though rich) do not spend, and you give the military tens of billions they do not need, and you actually believe coal is a jobs solution, well, then welcome to Club Trump.
Then there is Mr. Pompeo
CIA Director Pompeo calls Wikileaks a "hostile intelligence service"pic.twitter.com/YkIImbjr31
— Axios (@axios) April 13, 2017
Julian Assange and Wikileaks are a bit like James Comey, Director of the FBI. They both give and they both take away. They are equal opportunity destroyers. The better part of wisdom might be to examine intelligence as an idea. It would be delightful if we could go back to that time when there were genuinely bad people and people who at least meant well, and intelligence was cracking codes and faking invasion plans. Today, it has become an occasion for name-calling and in-fighting. If it is not careful it could lose almost as much respect as Congress.