Thursday, October 19, 2017

Oafs At the Funeral

No bereaved person can avoid the inevitable encounter with a condoler who is congenitally incapable of sympathy. There will always be oafs at the funeral, people who blurt out something really horrible instead of murmuring something suitably comforting.

Myeshia Johnson, the newly widowed spouse of Green Beret La David T. Johnson, got an oaf for the ages when, as she rode to the airport to greet her husband's body, President Trump called and gruffly told her that her "guy" probably "knew what he was signing up for... but it still probably hurts."

At my own young husband's wake three decades ago, one mourner chirped, "Don't worry, you'll get over it sooner than you think and get married again," while a contrarian noted "You'd better not get married again, Karen. After all, the first one left you and the second one died on you!" 

There were many more condolences of that clumsy and insensitive, but well-meaning, sort. But since none of them came from the president of the United States, they didn't make the front-page news as the latest chapter in Political Distraction Theater.

The Emily Posts of political etiquette in the Age of Trump are universally incensed that he so sorely lacks the fake empathy skills of his predecessors. Other presidents have actually stuck to their boilerplate scripts and recited not only the names, but the entire life stories of dead soldiers as if they'd known them intimately their entire lives. They even developed such acting skills as the quavering voice and the tear-filled eye.

 Donald Trump doesn't believe in either crocodile tears or in sticking to scripts. So when he probably meant to tell Myeshia Johnson that "despite the dangers he knew were lurking everywhere, your husband was very brave to protect our country and preserve our freedoms by making the ultimate sacrifice," he came out instead with the equivalent of "War is hell. Shit happens."

The bereaved were rendered sadder by the fact that Trump didn't even remember to say Sgt. Johnson's name in his condolence call. And they'll be rendered sadder still by the fact that political and media critics are making this story more about Trump's poor social skills than they are about Johnson and his surviving family members. In its own front page story, headlined as an "imbroglio," the New York Times itself didn't get around to mentioning Johnson's name until the third paragraph (after putting Trump in the first graf, and John McCain in the second.) It didn't acknowledge Myeshia Johnson by name until the seventh paragraph.

What I suspect is really bothering the political establishment more than Trump's crude words is that his crude words will discourage young people from volunteering for military service. The commander in chief just committed the ultimate faux pas of admitting that people in uniform are nothing but human meat in buffer zones between the poor citizens of resource-rich countries and the US-based corporations which want to plunder those rich resources. Rather than tell recruits that the military is a great place to get job training, college tuition and other lifetime benefits, Trump just brayed out that you have a very good chance of getting killed if you join up. Presidents are supposed to celebrate and mourn and gloss over deaths, not throw a shadow over the rosy patriotic glow of it all.

And of course, Trump had also brought the latest criticism upon himself when, days before his clumsy phone call, he'd boastfully compared the frequency of his own personal condolence calls to those of his predecessors.

This latest Trump outrage, this slap in the face to everything that is stylish and sacred, also distracts attention from why the United States has troops in Niger and other parts of Africa in the first place. 

As Phillip Carter, of the liberal think tank Center for a New American Security, writes in Slate,

  Thirteen days after their deaths, we lack any real explanation for why and how Army Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright died in combat on Oct. 4. In a wide-ranging press conference, senior Pentagon officials said they were in Niger to train and advise the country’s security forces, which have partnered with the U.S. to root out al-Qaida-linked elements in Africa. The efforts in Niger appear broadly linked to the global U.S. counterterrorism campaign, which began after 9/11, an effort that now continues to expand and grind on under an  amorphous blend of legal authorities.
 Sgts. Black, Johnson, Johnson, and Wright died while accompanying Nigerien forces on a patrol near the border with Mali. Similar patrols had been conducted some 30 times previously without incident. And yet, on Oct. 4, al-Qaida-linked militants ambushed the American Green Berets and their Nigerien teammates. The ambush—and American fatalities—punctured the lie that American troops were simply in Niger for a training mission, just as American casualties have done for decades of similar missions in Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Training and advising missions frequently include combat, too; the enemy gets an important vote on deciding when and where they make the switch. Insisting otherwise insults those who conduct these missions, and the memories of those who die during them.

Since Trump became president and elevated the military to even the highest echelons of his civilian cabinet, ground troops have been granted unprecedented leeway all around the world. The Guardian quotes one unnamed former official as saying "Decisions about when and what to engage have been devolved right down to unit level. Any soldier knows that if you give guys on the ground more independence, then they will be that much more aggressive and will take more risks.”

Trump has given his "guys" all the freedom in the world to protect the freedoms of the global oligarchy. If they didn't know what they were getting into then, they probably are getting a nasty reality check right about now, thanks to his unabashed oafishness.
 

10 comments:

Jay–Ottawa said...

"This latest Trump outrage, this slap in the face to everything that is stylish and sacred, also distracts attention from why the United States has troops in Niger and other parts of Africa in the first place."

Thanks to the lazy MSM's preference for covering Trump's gaffes and howlers, our Rhinoceros-in-Chief is forever in the limelight explaining his wonderful self, not his administration's policies. He serves the establishment superbly by distracting us with a dazzling gift for boorishness. Meanwhile, his appointed captains of empire carry on in the background.

The same business of empire flourished under Obama but without the drama. The US involvement in Africa is not new; it's big and getting bigger. Among other things, the multiplying bases allow the US to cover one more continent with drones. Nick Turse has been reporting on the African buildup for years with periodic essays at TomDispatch and then a book.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/books/175985/tomorrow%27s_battlefield%3A_u.s._proxy_wars_and_secret_ops_in_africa/

The US-in-Africa story would be on the front page, refreshed after each jump in the US casualty count, except for Trump who keeps blocking the view with his antics.

Another reason why Sgt L.D.T. Johnson's death is dismissable, not just by Trump but by the rest of the country, is explained by Nixon's brilliant idea of an all-volunteer military. Why don't we just hire mercenaries, invent our own Foreign Legion, or give young and fit illegal immigrants the choice of enlisting or being expelled back to their land of origin?

There will be no meaningful opposition to the Pentagon until all American families have skin in the game. That means reinstating universal conscription––the draft.

Karen Garcia said...

Jay,

Thanks for the historical background and referral to Nick Turse. I'll give his reports another read.

Of course the US military is in Africa for reasons of corporate greed, not to fight "terror," especially as concerns greed for oil and mineral deposits, which are subject to competition from China. Obama and his wife traveled to Africa in 2013 to join their good pals, George and Laura Bush, to do P.R. in Tanzania for Exxon-Mobil. This stunt was deemed so successful that they brought it home to D.C. the following year as a "Spousal Summit" - oil plunder was actually propagandized as a women's rights issue.

http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/2016/12/russophobia-made-simple.html

The Democrats absolutely loved Rex Tillerson then, and they love him now, as they ridiculously cast him as the maligned victim of Trump's ignorance and ineptitude.

For all intents and purposes, Trump is still very much their very desirable "Pied Piper" candidate.

Mark Thomason said...

Four Americans were killed. For some time, the US was unsure if the fourth man was dead, or if he was doing "escape and evasion." They were not sure until his body was found, some distance away from the others. While it was unclear, the military correctly kept a lid on what was happening, and what had happened. It did that to give him his best chance, if indeed he was alive.

That does not excuse Trump.

That does help explain how this got off to a weird start, which then got worse and worse. Things that start bad often seem to keep getting worse. We called it "snake bit" in legal cases. Once snake bit, it was hard to break out of that cycle.

Take a situation with a difficult start, and add Trump to the mix. It is then not a surprise it went so badly.

Again, I mean to excuse nothing, but understanding the truth and its dynamic is always worth something.

Anne said...

It's the Trump Show every night on the evening news, with one Trump piece after another instead of real news. They're taking the easy, lazy way out and focusing on the person of Donald Trump instead of policy in their endlessly boring game of Gotcha.

The media is so obsessed with Trump the person that even when he blurts out the truth, they can't handle it.

When Trump said we wasted a trillion dollars in the Middle East which could have gone to infrastructure, the media ignored that cost and declared him dead as a candidate for not supporting the war. When Trump disagreed with Jeb! that W obviously didn't 'keep us safe' because 9/11, duh, the media all but accused him of heresy and declared him dead as a candidate. When Trump admitted that the rich and famous get away with grabbing pussy, the media condemned him as being the only pig in town and declared him dead as a candidate - all while ignoring their own role in covering up for a long line of Presidential pigs, Congressional pigs, Hollywood pigs, and rich businessmen pigs for decade after decade. They have as much self-awareness as Trump does.

I think it's safe to say that because he is so transparent and such a poor actor, nobody believes Trump is sympathetic or empathic no matter how hard it may occasionally try. Nobody believes he's really patriotic, and nobody believes he doesn't lie or that politicians in general don't routinely lie. The only thing credible about Trump is his authentic and consistent self-promotion, something voters knew full well before voting him into office.

They voted for him despite all those negatives because they believed he couldn't be bought and that his drive to be successful would bring more success and change to the country than anyone else. They were ready to roll the dice, especially after seeing how President Obama played it safe from Day 1 in order to stay in the good graces of his bankster donors, then Hillary promising more of the same while hanging her flashing neon For Sale sign up on Wall St. Let's not forget, as the media has, that it was the Clintons who introduced sleaze in all its manifestations to the White House, yet those grifters are treated as classy and respectable.

Trump is Trump and always will be. He's incapable of shame, so the media needs to quit the Shame Game. They're not just boring everyone with it, they're setting him up for re-election by openly judging and criticizing his every little move.

The public just wants Trump to have an opportunity to do his job. By keeping him in the spotlight while acting themselves like a pack of hyenas, circling, nipping, and biting at him relentlessly, they make him look like he's not being treated fairly. Nobody likes hyenas, even when they're attacking a warthog.

spam bucket said...

The Daily Caller has an opinion piece by Jena Greene worth reading.

"Warping the tragedy of a fallen soldier into a PR stunt is lower than low. It’s dismal. I can certify this first-hand. My father was a Marine Corps helicopter pilot and was killed by hostile fire in 2004. I was 10 years old."

"At the time, my father was one of the highest ranking soldiers to die in Iraq. The press surrounded our house for days, hoping to get a glimpse of the newly bereaved family. Flowers, cards and casseroles poured in. We received exactly one letter written and signed by President Bush and the first lady. We didn’t get a phone call from the president, and we didn’t expect to. It was not protocol for the commander in chief to personally phone a Gold Star family."

"I know dozens of families who have lost loved ones in the war since 2004. None of them have received phone calls from Bush or Obama. It wasn’t protocol (and still isn’t) to call families after the death of their soldier unless it is VERY high-profile. And in that case, you’ll probably meet the president in person at Dover to receive the remains together."

"And I can personally guarantee you that a phone call is the last thing on a family’s mind after they learn their soldier won’t be returning. Do you know what I was thinking about when I was 10 and just learned about the death of my father? My safety. My family’s safety. How we were going to pay for college without him there? Who was going to walk me down the aisle when I got married someday?"

"I wasn’t sitting by the phone waiting for the president to drop a line."

"The fact that Trump is even attempting to call every new Gold Star family is itself honorable. It’s one of the toughest things a president can do..."

http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/18/my-dad-was-kia-in-iraq-heres-why-we-shouldnt-bicker-over-phone-calls/

Kat said...

the Democrats turn to Wall Street predates the Clintons. The Clintons and other "new democrats" just got the message. Remember, Carter appointed Volcker who did so much to wreck working class living standards and hasten deindustrialization. Obama called this guy a "hero"!
As for Trump, I just get frustrated talking with friends and family about him. he is a president like no other! I try to argue that he actually is like any other Republican when you look at what he wants to do. If they would talk about say, his awful tax "reform" plan or his appalling cabinet picks, his bellicose talk about Iran, or crap, whatever is going on behind his outrageous tweeting go ahead! Its all good guys v bad gus all the time I guess.

Anne said...

There's a uranium mine under French control which is located just north of this base in Niger. That's why it was French aircraft that responded to the attack on the Green Berets. If it's not uranium in Niger, it's rare earth minerals in Afghanistan, oil wells in Iraq, gas pipelines in Ukraine, gas pipelines in Syria, etc. General Smedley Butler nailed those business interests nearly a hundred years ago in his book 'War Is a Racket'.

Since the election of Donald Trump, the PTB are beyond themselves with fear that they are losing control of the narrative and the public will turn against empire, especially after all the domestic problems that Bernie Sanders helped bring to the forefront, preceded by Occupy. We know there's a propaganda campaign going on right now that's directed at us (and Black Activists, a new category of domestic terrorists), but the reason hasn't been entirely clear other than promotion of war with Russia. Let's call it Operation Unity.

Listen carefully to various voices of the Establishment as they drop the word Unity more often, along with Conspiracy Theories. That's official messaging as voiced by various 'reputable' players so we won't know that it's coming from the Global Engagement Center which is coordinating Operation Unity. National Unity! is the new National Security!

The surprisingly appeal of Bernie Sanders' message in the 2016 elections and the shocking election of Donald Trump was the real impetus for Operation Unity. The sheeple weren't just discontented, they actually broke out en masse from their holding pen and elected a rogue, putting at risk not just the official narrative by blurting out outrageously truthful comments, but potentially gumming up the gears of the War Machine.

The official narrative functions as a pair of ideological blinders that confines our visual field to only what they want us to see. That's why Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader,a Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, et al are not interviewed on the national news, not even by PBS/NPR.

From the Consent Factory, Inc, January 13, 2017-

The primary aim of official propaganda is to generate an “official narrative” that can be mindlessly repeated by the ruling classes and those who support and identify with them. This official narrative does not have to make sense, or to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. Its factualness is not the point. The point is to draw a Maginot line, a defensive ideological boundary, between “the truth” as defined by the ruling classes and any other “truth” that contradicts their narrative...It is designed to be absorbed and repeated, no matter how implausible or preposterous it might be.

The current “Russian hacking” hysteria is a perfect example of how this works. No one aside from total morons actually believes this official narrative (the substance of which is beyond ridiculous), not even the stooges selling it to us. This, however, is not a problem, because it isn’t intended to be believed … it is intended to be accepted and repeated, more or less like religious dogma.

The point of all this propaganda is to delegitimize Donald Trump, and to prophylactically reassert the neoliberal ruling classes’ monopoly on power, “reality,” and “truth.” In case this wasn’t already abundantly clear, the neoliberal ruling classes have no intention of giving up control of the global capitalist pseudo-empire they’ve been working to establish these last sixty years. They’re going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants … after which life will go back to “normal,” and liberals will do their best to forget this unfortunate period where they pretended to believe this insipid neo-McCarthyite nonsense."

'Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works'

https://consentfactory.org/2017/01/13/why-ridiculous-official-propaganda-still-works/

spam bucket said...

Condolences Karen for your encounter with boorish condolers three decades ago. Your writing is so seamless I did not initially make the connection that it was you.

Re Jay: "Nixon's brilliant idea of an all-volunteer military..." is also morally bankrupt. All good peace-loving Americans must demand a return of the draft.

Animagus said...

In the meantime, while all this foofaraw is swirling around Kelly and Sarah Sanders, Trump has just given himself the power to recall 1,000 retired pilots to active duty in the Air Force.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/20/air-force-recall-many-1-000-retired-pilots-address-serious-shortage/785344001/

He has done so "by expanding a state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush after 9/11."

That's SIXTEEN years of a state of emergency.

This is what dictatorship looks like, my friends.

Jamie said...

Rep. Wilson is a user. She runs to the media after a private conversation between Trump and a widow -- for obviously the purpose of distorting what really happened. In reality, the phone transcripts looked very reasonable to anyone not in the grips of Trump Derangement Syndrome.