Admiral John Kirby Calls Trump’s Lie To Troops “Unconscionable”
Retired Rear Admiral Kirby wasn’t pleased that Trump chose to tell the troops in Iraq that he had given them their first pay raise in 10 years (they get one every year), calling the lie “unconscionable.” It’s unclear why this particular lie is more unconscionable than the other 8000 or whatever, though it’s probably the dumbest, given that the troops know what they’re being paid.
Yet it’s actually not stupidity; it’s mental illness. Think about this. What must have been the reaction of those soldiers when they were on the receiving end of a bald-faced lie about how much money they get to take care of themselves and their families? Can you find a way to believe that a sane person would do that?
We need to recognize this, and take the constitutionally mandated actions accordingly. There isn’t a day that passes that the U.S. doesn’t continue to lose its standing in the world, while Putin publicly boasts about how quickly and effectively this is happening: “America’s global dominance is coming to an end, with the U.S. itself accelerating that process with a string of mistakes ‘typical of an empire,'” he said the other day at his annual address. “Luckily this monopoly (on world power) is disappearing,” he added. “It’s almost done.”
You have to give Putin credit. He’s achieving his life’s dream, i.e., ruining America, and he hasn’t even used a BB rifle or a water pistol to get it done. I’m not saying that the U.S. is in danger of a Russian invasion–yet. We are, however, dealing with an incredibly bright, avowed enemy, who’s testing hypersonic rockets. What must NATO be thinking about this?
There is every indication that Putin’s trying to pull an Alexander the Great and take over the world. And every minute Trump’s in the White House Putin gets another step closer.
It doesn’t get any more obvious. Observing this happen all around us is like looking out your office window and seeing a kid playing in traffic; it’s hard to watch.
Craig,
Your obsessional hatred of the President, is making you in danger of completely unbalanced and paranoid.
Russia and Putin, are no danger to the USA ! You seems stuck in a time warp, a time when the old USSR and the Warsaw Pact still existed. Today, the old Warsaw Pact nations, are firmly pro-western and more than equal their former Russian masters, even without their West European allies.
You write in fear of ““America’s global dominance is coming to an end ” Now most people around the globe would imagine that to be a good thing, not negative !
I’m afraid your dreams of an “Imperial America” with global dominance were never true, and inconsistent with the true American values. Likewise, your desire for evangelizing US crusaders spreading a Walt Disney/Reader’s Digest version of American values and way of life, is also a silly fantasy.
Russia is incapable of threatening US interests, the Russian economy is small and very fragile, less than 8% of the USA. Smaller than Canada, or the UK, about the same as Australia, Spain or South Korea.
The Russian military is much smaller, patchily e3quipped and not really capable of fighting a first rate power. Russia’s economy is fragile relying on the export of gas and oil.
Your paranoid claim, “Putin’s trying to pull an Alexander the Great and take over the world” is so bizarre, it makes the excesses of the President Trump’s overblown rhetoric seem restrained in comparison !
President Putin is struggling to maintain an increasingly disillusioned and fragile Russian Federation, fight an expensive war in Syria, facing mounting inflation and economic deprivation as a result of increased US sanctions and Whitehouse pressure, endless expensive and uncontrollable minority border disputes and internal ethnic separatist conflicts.
Russia is even more concerned with Chinese expansion than the US, but has no effective means of combating and expanding PRC.
As for your description of the President’s visit to troops in Iraq, which the WP, CNN, and NYT claimed didn’t occur until the BBC run a video of the President in Iraq, the president didn’t “lie”.
The story seems to have originated with NBC News, which ran the story ” President Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime”. [https://nbcnews.to/2Cy1Brj Dec 26, 2018 ]
As for the pay debacle, what the President didn’t do in his enthusiasm was detail what he meant. Although the US military does receive pay increases every year, due to congressionally mandated budget caps, these increases have been shrinking over the last 10 years until they’re almost non existent.
President Trump, did persuade Congress to reverse this nearly 10 year trend and provide a 10% increase in funding for pay, allowances and other items.
Unfortunately, for the average serviceman this probably represents only a 2.7% increase in actual pay. (the Presidents critics don’t mention the increases in allowances, which apply especially to those serving overseas, which technically aren’t included as ‘pay’).
Military pay was increased 2.6% in 2018, and the 2019 National Defence Authorization Act bumped it up another 2.9% for next year. The raise in the 2019 budget was the largest one in the past nine years,
The President’s claim is not exactly untrue, but it’s unnecessarily confusing. It’s true the President asked for a 10% increase in service pay, and while it’s technically true that ‘remuneration’ has increased by that amount, the President’s claim shows he’s either misinformed or hasn’t checked on the real effect of his request. neither are laudable qualities in either a President or a CEO.
Either way, the troops have a right to feel disappointed by the President’s sweeping claim. The President has also given an antagonistic media another mishap to exploit in their war against him.
As for John Kirby, while it’s true he’s a retired US Navy Rear Admiral, he’s also a former member of the Obama administration, Democrat political activist and employee of CNN.
As a fervent political opponent of President Trump, his opinions are hardy unbiased or objective. His former rank does not entitle him to speak on behalf of the military, since these days he’s just a hopeful political aspirant and media talking head.
Calm down and get real, the “Russians are not coming” and the President’s rhetoric sometimes becomes overly enthusiastic.
The President certainly deserves a reality check when his enthusiasms become overblown, but not an endless torrent of negative (often invented) abuse, with no attempt to understand or objective analysis of his valuable and positive actions or policies.
Just yelling abuse isn’t helpful, or constructive, it’s just petulant and childish.