I want to share an experience that I had many years ago that I have shared only in part before this, and then with just a small number of people.
In 1970 I was in the military and I was part of an event that was called the Jordanian Crisis. This crisis was a fierce battle between Jordan’s military and parts of the PLO and other groups (some that would morph into Hamas) and at first did not directly involve the U.S. military, but we were in the region. You can read about this engagement if you google it, but for now I will just shorten it by saying that the Jordanians, after a lengthy time, were successful in removing some of these groups from Jordan, and they ended up in parts of Lebanon which is part of the reason that Lebanon is in such dire straits today.
I was part of the communications staff for the Commander of the Sixth Fleet and stationed on the flagship in the Mediterranean Sea. Our ship, a carrier group, and assorted other ships were sent to the Eastern Med to monitor the crisis and we stayed at sea for over 60 days in that capacity. While we were there we were flown over every day by Russian bombers that we nicknamed bearcats – they were a Tupelov (Tupelov is a maker of aircraft sort of like Boeing is in the U.S.) model of Russian aircraft and I do not remember their designation. The bearcats came from the Black Sea area and we used to follow them on radar as they approached us. Every time they flew by they were trailed by U.S. Navy jets. It became a very tense time for all concerned.
One of my responsibilities was to hand carry messages that we received and walk them over to the war room on the ship where the Admiral and his staff were waiting for orders. Since the messages were marked ‘For Eyes Only’ I had to wait while they were read and an answer was formulated to send back to the U.S. What I want to stress is that before we ever left port and the whole time we were at sea messages were going back and forth and in them were plans on what to do in Jordan (should Marines be sent ashore, how many, how heavily armed, what support should they have from the guns aboard ship, from the planes on the carrier, what should be done about the Russian bombers, and most importantly, what would the casualty figures be. There was not just one plan – there were often two or three contingency plans in the messages and people in the U.S. and the admiral on site were deciding which plan would be chosen.
This brings me to the present day and Donald trump’s claim about the U.S. response to the shooting down of a military drone in the Straits of Hormuz. Our Donald (the very stable genius) who is in reality a coward, a liar and morally bankrupt, made it seem like the planes were in the air and while they were there he came up (all by himself mind you) with a question – What about the casualties? In his accounting no one else had thought of that, but since he is such a concerned and downright smart guy, he asked an important question, and then called off the strike. This is simply a huge lie – one of many that he tells on an almost daily basis. My experience above, and just common sense, tells you that if a strike were being planned there would be multiple contingencies generated and each one would include a casualty estimate before any orders were given.
Trump tells this lie for many reasons – he always wants to present himself as the guy in charge and the guy who is smarter than anyone else in the room. He knows, or at least I think he knows, that the military is not going to refute his claim. He is, unfortunately the President and any military officer who says that the President is informed of casualties in the planning of any operation BEFORE they take place will end up being assigned to a radar station in the farthest reaches of the Adak Islands.
I am sick of his lies. I am sick of his disrespect for the military by making it seem like the military is negligent in its planning and only he, the great Private Bone Spurs, can discern that there may be casualties. This is the same person who insults Gold Star Families, who insults POW’s (remember John McCain?), who tried to force election boards from counting ballots from active duty troops overseas, and who deployed troops to the southern border as a midterm stunt, and who actually had some of his sick friends from Mar-A-Lago try to run the Veterans’ Administration. He is truly a MAGA(T).
When do the lies stop? Unfortunately, only when he is out of the office.