Okay, that should be “Will invade foreign countries for rank and appropriations” but Literature R Us puts snark over accuracy every time. What is indisputable is that retired Admiral William McRaven is shit fit petrified that drunken Donald Trump might actually knock over the punchbowl that has, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, ladled out literally tens of trillions of dollars of unnecessary spending to the military intellectual complex, all of it either wasted or counterproductive, literally (as the kids say) making us less safe!
In a recent issue of the New York Times, the good admiral launches an attack on our worst president that has more logical gaps, false analogies, non sequiturs, and dangling conclusions than a Lindsey Graham press conference. For starters, his head (which of course he may not have written) is “Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President”, a statement that is 1) undoubtedly true and 2) not at all justified by what follows, for what is under attack—or, rather, what the (again, good) admiral believes (albeit erroneously) is under attack, by his description, is his appropriations, for this is the core of the admiral’s worries:
[I]f we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice — what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?
If our promises are meaningless, how will our allies ever trust us? If we can’t have faith in our nation’s principles, why would the men and women of this nation join the military? And if they don’t join, who will protect us? If we are not the champions of the good and the right, then who will follow us? And if no one follows us — where will the world end up?
Got that? If we don’t come to the rescue of all those peoples languishing under the boot of tyranny, “where will the world end up?” I won’t try to parse all the admiral’s inconsistencies, though I do wonder how the Iraqis and Afghans could be languishing under the boot of tyranny since the U.S. “freed” both nations not so many years ago. “Mission Accomplished”—remember that? But, as to the admiral’s larger point, I would say that even if he were right, he wouldn’t be right. That is to say, even if President Trump were presiding over a “retreat” of America’s armed forces around the globe—which he entirely isn’t—he wouldn’t be “attacking” our republic.
In fact, Donald Trump is attacking our republic, as I have argued approximately a million times and is attacking our military in particular. But he isn’t reducing our commitments abroad, which is a great misfortune. But the fact that he even talks about such things frightens the good admiral into frightful nonsense.
Afterwords
What is particularly upsetting about McRaven’s piece is that he seems to be piggybacking on the case of former Navy Secretary Richard Spenser’s eloquent, despairing resignation letter, changing the subject from Donald Trump’s assault on the honor of the U.S. military to his non-existent assault on America’s grossly overextended commitments overseas, and, ultimately, America’s grossly over-expanded military spending.
Over at the American Conservative, William S. Smith (“Welcome to the Potemkin Village of Washington Power”) points out that McRaven seems to mimic current calls for Trump’s impeachment (the case for which I believe is overwhelming), for the high crime and misdemeanor of threatening the U.S. Navy’s budget:
[I]if this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office — Republican, Democrat or independent — the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.”
McRaven, or his speechwriter, has a good eye, and a veritable Cuisinart of a word processor, for the sort of prose that sets Wilsonian Hillary Clinton/Samantha Power hearts pounding.
UPDATE
Two years ago, the National Review explained how the Zumwalt class destroyer program contracted from a projected 32 ships at a total budget of $42 billion to three ships at a total cost of $22 billion—three ships that, moreover, were almost totally dysfunctional while each costing more than an aircraft carrier three times its size! No wonder Admiral McRaven needs a new war! Or maybe two or three!
