Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers’ - The former president said only a “psycho” or a “very stupid person” would’ve made such statements.
Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers’ - The former president said only a “psycho” or a “very stupid person” would’ve made such statements.
In fairness to Trump (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write…)
““He said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers,”
That’s technically correct. He did not say those things in public.
Edit I watched the ad, it does not specify that Trump said these things in public, just that he said them which is true.
He said them privately to staff members.
Confirmed by Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-confirms-trump-privately-disparaged-us-service-members-vete-rcna118543
But my favorite quote out of all this is the one that barely gets mentioned:
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/02/trump-troops-fallen-soldiers-john-kelly
Trump saying at a 2017 Memorial Day event in Arlington National Cemetery: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Trump is ENTIRELY transactional. The idea that good men would fight a war for their country purely because it’s the right thing to do escapes him entirely.
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable question to me… far more reasonable than simply assuming the people who perpetrated the US’s colonialist mass-murder campaigns in the third world was simply “good men” (supposedly) “doing the right thing.”
Good job making Trump sound more rational than you, hero.
This take just baffles me… you can disapprove of a war, and still respect people willing to put their life on the line for something they believe is right. Even in war, opposing sides have a long history of showing their enemy a certain amount of personal respect, even though they clearly disagree about something to the point of killing each other over it.
Your take is just condescending and unempathetic. You can respect someone for sacrificing themselves without agreeing with them about what they’re sacrificing themselves for. Regardless, it shouldn’t be hard to see how someone fighting to depose an infamously brutal dictator (Iraq) or a fundamentalist regime that stones women for wanting a divorce (Afghanistan) can believe that they are doing something good.
Apply your bullshit logic to the Waffen-SS or the KKK, then. Go on… I’ll be waiting for you right here.
Really, genius? I guess this must be the first time you’ve ever confronted the idea that not all people who experience warfare are mindless zombies willing to die for whatever cause the rich people (or you) told them they should die for? You and the rest of the shitlib hive mind on here are hysterically cramming onto the jingoism train simply to own Trump without realizing what a self-own that is turning out to be.
Are you talking about the “infamously brutal dictator” in Iraq that the US helped into power? That the US helped to deploy chemical weapons in his war with Iran? That one?
Are you talking about the “fundamentalist regime” that only exists thanks to the massive support the US provided to these very same fundamentalists back in the 80s together with their fundamentalist allies in Pakistan? That “fundamentalist regime?”
Good job, hero - you’ve highlighted why we should all be asking, “What was in it for them?”
Ok, I’ll try to make this simple for you: I can hold respect for a combatant that puts their life on the line in an effort to do something they believe is making the world a better place, rather than for personal gain.
The KKK is immediately excluded, because there was/is little to no sacrifice being made by those lynching others. The same goes for SS soldiers running a concentration camp. I was quite clear in pointing out that what demands respect is the act of putting your life on the line to protect or help others.
As for who put those regimes in place: That is completely irrelevant as to whether you can have respect for an individual who sees the atrocities committed by the regime, and believes they are doing good by fighting it. I have a hard time thinking that a soldier in Afghanistan is thinking a lot about who put the Taliban in power, or what they personally stand to gain from the fight when they decide to go there.
You already have - you will happily endorse some of the world’s most vilest people as long as they saluted a piece of colored fabric (preferably the one you worship) before doing so.
There is absolutely no further simplification required.
So you are perfectly ok with them as long as their their victims was free-range? I wonder what excuses you will come up with to glorify your vaunted drone operators who perpetrate terrorism while drinking Starbucks or your CIA operatives who pay proxies to do all the rape, murder and torture for them?
It fucking absolutely isn’t - you want to wax lyrically about people dying (supposedly) to “defend their country” from the very same people said country created and helped into power. Asking questions like, “what’s in it for them?” is a far more rational response to that than appealing to propagandistic Hollywood Heroism tropes… as you are doing at the moment.
Now you’re just coming off as disingenuous. So that I won’t need to repeat myself, just read my comments and try to figure out for yourself where you can find backing for what your accusing me of instead of putting words in my mouth and purposefully misinterpreting my comments or taking individual phrases out of context.
Take your time, I won’t be waiting up.
You coming face to face with the true implications of your own beliefs does not equate to any disingenuity on my part.
War is not “honorable” combatants facing off against each other in a sterile environment as a lot of military historians try to purport - it’s slaughter. The vast majority of it’s victims aren’t even combatants. When you pretend that your preferred group of war criminals “respecting” the “other side” actually matters, are you including all the dead people that couldn’t fight back and therefore do not deserve any of this rarified “respect” of yours? Or are they just uninteresting externalities and “collateral damage” that doesn’t fit into the militaristic tropes your head has obviously been filled with?
Nah, you’re still just making up opinions you want me to have so that you can think I’m an ass. Then you’re twisting my words in order to convince yourself I’m saying something I’m not.
It’s honestly kind of impressive that you’re able to go from “I respect people who are willing to risk their own well being in order to protect others, without care for personal gain.” to what you just wrote. Like… that requires some pretty heavy handed misinterpretation.
tl;dr
Good. It’s far too spicy for you, liberal.
lol spicy
also: bwahaha! you think “liberal” is a put down of some kind? like caring about other people is something to be ashamed of? What kind of egocentric narcissistic psychopath are you?
Did you liberals suddenly start caring about anything except preserving your precious status quo? When?
since always, since you’ve literally described conservatives.
You don’t know what “liberal” means, do you?
Masquenox is a troll. Don’t take their bait.
After reviewing their comment history, I think Masquenox has strong controversial opinions and a bellicose attitude, but is not a troll.
After reviewing their modlog history, I think Masquenox displays a level of emotional incontinence that is effectively the same as trolling.
lol putting that up on the shelf with ‘verbal incontinence’, I like it.
I do set a line between ‘cantankerous’ and ‘troll’ more leniently along the annoyance scale than others. I say let the dork be a dork, not everyone has social skills.
I do see what you mean. I think when a dork engages in repeated personal attacks they cross the line for me regardless of their intent.
It’s a philosophical question akin to Baudrillard’s “simulate a robbery” idea.
‘Repeated personal attacks’ – oh, well I missed that, that’s different from clumsy or cranky.
Thanks. Now I have to go ask the duck what “bellicose” means…
It means you’re looking for a fight, which usually involves bouncers and shit.
A Toast to the Troops… All the troops. Both Sides.
RIP to Sgt. Rufus “Baby Ears” McGuffin. He died doing what he loved. Ripping the ears of babies and putting them on a big necklace that he would wear around camp.
Just another “All American Hero,” eh?
“All the troops, both sides” is half my point when pointing out that enemy combatants historically have often held respect for each other.
Yes, I respect a combatant fighting for something they believe in that’s bigger than themselves, people not fighting for personal gain, but because they want to give someone else a better life. That’s regardless of what side they’re on- even if they’re on the side I’m actively trying to kill.
Torturing POWs to death as a form of respect
Trump doesn’t understand the question because he doesn’t understand doing things for the betterment of anyone but himself.
For most of history, you didn’t ask “what’s in it for me” when the king/prime minister/ The Church/ or President came asking (country irrelevant). That’s a relatively new luxury due to perspective of the digital age and disagreements with (the US) Government due to transparency.
For most of history “what’s in it for you” was actually getting fed and clothed better than the average peasant. Serving the king was what was in it because you didn’t have to sleep in pig shit and milk the cows every morning. You’d actually get fed for mealtimes instead of playing the barter game all summer and fall just to have enough food to store in salt barrels for winter. And even better, if you tickled enough enemy hearts with your pointy stick there WAS some land and money for you, provided you survived.
Some countries through history also revere their veterans (with actual respect and benefits) so military service itself was the honor. While I understand it’s a dramatization -the beginning of Disney’s Mulan is a great display of it. Her father is it is '60s or '70s and has already served once and has a bad leg. The emperor sends out a call for war and the guards show up in town. When they call his name he sets aside his cane and picks up the summons because that’s what you did. It is what was expected of him and he did it without complaint.
You’re arguing for both sides of the argument.
First you argue that people obeyed rulers because they didn’t question authority.
Then you argue people obeyed rulers for their own benefit and material gain.
That’s. Hmm. I never considered he might be on the Autism spectrum before.
He’s not. He’s just an asshole. He can read social cues, he just doesn’t care. That’s why it can be tiring to deal with people with autism. They’re not assholes, but they act similarly.
In fairness, you only need a bunch of good men to fight a war purely because it’s the right thing in order to counter the bad men fighting a war in order to do a bad thing.
Maybe if Trump’s attitude had been more common in Berlin in the 1930s, or more common in the US during the 1960s or in Israel or Russia during the 2020s, we’d have skipped a few nightmarish atrocities without having a bunch of good men perish in the process.
You are cherry-picking and going off rails.
But to humor you, how far back do you want to go?
Because the U.S. was founded on atrocities committed against the people who already lived in North America.
And the U.S. funded operations to topple legitimate governments in Central America, a time in which a lot of good people died because of it.
So, don’t paint the U.S. as “the good guys who should listen to Trump.”
But again, this is entirely a red-herring.
The truth of the matter is, Trump is a piece of shit who doesn’t respect the people who sacrifice their lives for his safety.
There are plenty of good people in the US who have resisted the Trumpian brand of ethnic nationalism and the capitalist death drive. And quite a few of them died for their country (or, at least, their friends and family and neighbors). But they’re not the ones we celebrate on Memorial Day. Not officially, anyway.
Trump was never in any danger. His father was a fascist who idolized the Italian and German dictators running roughshod over Europe. If they’d somehow managed to marshal enough fossil fuel and methamphetamine to do a reverse D-Day and put Axis soldiers onto the Atlantic seaboard, the Trump family would have been the first in line to great them as liberators.
Why on earth would he be celebrating the Roosevelt Democrats and Eugene Debbs Socialists who were out firing on his ideological allies and business buddies on the other side of the Atlantic?
Trump wasn’t going to pay homage to the allies of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. You think he wants to bend the knee for a bunch of tankies?
Trump is compromised. He is with the tankies. Because the tankies own him.
Edit: downvoted by tankies.
We talking about the college leftists protesting Israel or the police riding around in military surplus?
“You can never criticize bad things because good things exist, too!” ☺️
Since when is it the right thing to do? 93% of wars, particularly ones where the US is involved, are about making rich people richer.