Someone Needs to Educate Trump about This

Not too long after 9/11 the dean of the business school at my place of employment organized the annual late August faculty retreat on the Gettysburg battlefield, about a ninety minute drive from Baltimore.  We were told we were to learn about “leadership,” one of the favorite business school buzzwords (not as favored as “diversity” of course). The guide was a retired military officer who was then employed by the national park service as an expert on the battle.  Since 9/11 was not so long in the past, he took the opportunity to somehow connect his discussion of the Battle of Gettysburg to current foreign policy.  He spouted what was already the Pentagon Party Line:  “If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them over here.” I informed him that it was our presence “over there” that would be the sole motivation for them to fight “over here” but of course he ignored me and didn’t even bother to respond.  That has been the Pentagon/Neocon Party Line “justification” for invading the Middle East ever since.  Pure bullshit in other words.

Watching Tucker Carlson’s interview with the president last night, I was disappointed with the president’s response to Carlson’s question of why he doesn’t bring all the troops home from Afghanistan after nineteen years.  His response was (paraphrasing): “Well, the generals come to me and say: ‘Sir, I’d rather fight them over there than over here.'”  Someone needs to explain the concept of “blowback” to The Donald.

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7:05 am on July 2, 2019