From "'You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals" (WaPo)(adapted from the new book "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America")(describing a meeting that took place July 20, 2017).
Ironically, it makes the people Trump called "dopes and babies" look like dopes and babies.
Why should their feelings be coddled?
The "sacred space" was "the Tank" at the Pentagon:
2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly.... The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there.Trump brought his own boardroom style. He got elected offering that. I see no reason why he should be expected to change to a style of "reverence and decorum" because that's what others in the room are used to and feel comfortable with. Why should those people be facilitated in their comfort and established old ways? During the Vietnam War era, we would have reacted with derision at expectations like that.
Here's an article (from January 2019) quoting Trump about The Tank:
"When I became President, I had a meeting at the Pentagon with lots of generals. They were like from a movie. Better looking than Tom Cruise and stronger. And I had more generals than I've ever seen, and we were at the bottom of this incredible room. I said 'this is greatest room I've ever seen.' I saw more computer boards than I think that they make today."ADDED: Derision and contempt.
IN THE COMMENTS: Ken B wrote:
From Fodor, Top 10 American Sacred Spaces
1 Gettysburg
2 Arlington Cemetery
3 That cool windowless room with all the monitors
4 Bunker Hill
5 Nancy Pelosi's Closet
6 Ford's Theater
7 Nancy Pelosi's Other Closet
8 The Washington Monument
9 Faneuil Hall
10 Fort Sumter
Posts
258 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 258 of 258here's a lesson, for any 3 or 4 star flag officers out there reading
Remember how, when you talk to your subordinate junior officers; you treat them like crap?
And you Justify it, telling yourselves: it's motivational! i don't REALLY think they are maggots?
Guess what?
The President of the United States is YOUR Commander in Chief. YOU are HIS junior officers
He's TRYING to Motivate... YOU, you big dopes.
"Rather than getting him to appreciate America’s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses."
Right there is the fucking problem. No one elected these people. They aren't in charge of protecting the country from the president. Their job is to do their fucking duty, and how to protect the country ultimate rests on his shoulders, not theirs.
Sounds like a bunch of swamp monsters Obama promoted b/c their fealty to PC bullshit instead of killing people and breaking things,i.e., the military's job.
Plenty of people have said it already but if the “folks” in that room were Obama appointees they got there by sucking up and kicking down. I hope they’ve been cashiered or reassigned.
"They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. “How does the commander in chief say that?” one thought. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”"
'Let's find out by leaking it to our buddies at the Washington Post' must have been the thought immediately following these ones.
Good News LLR-lefty Chuck!!
Your girl Hillary is coming out with ANOTHER biographical video to "re-introduce" herself to the American public!!
Finally!!
At long last!!
The wait is O-VER!!!
Chuck said, "Bob, I'd like to put you down for, 'C. I don't know if Trump said it, and I don't care.'"
Chuck, I have no idea if Trump said it or not, and I have no way to know. Ever.
I do care whether he addressed the brass this way. If yes, what inspired him to do so? If no, why did someone write a fake story about it?
As AZ Bob said, "I wish there was more context for this incident." I'm curious about it. But, my curiosity will never be satisfied.
You are right about one thing. Trump will get my vote in November.
“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.
Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can, under certain circumstances, be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.”
– General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord
My son in law was a Marine officer. After his return from Afghanistan I told him I thought the military was the one part of the federal bureaucracy that functioned well. He disagreed. He believes most of the senior officer corp are careerists with the skills of most mid level managers. What he actually said in his first response was. "If we ever go to war they are going to get a lot of us killed."
Harold Stassen, called, 'Hillary you need to leave'
I was mistaken the elder Elphinstone dealt with shaj shuja who would be kicking till 1842, first in 1806
when homeland before it went pearshaped first tackled Afghanistan, in 2013, it had one character who is the haquanni stand in, I believe played by nagedan the Iranian actor, asking why americans were still there, the stock answer was 9/11, but his rejoinder is 'but then you stayed' (and wore out your welcome)
different actor,
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1485637/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t20
Apparently no one present protested nor got up and left the room or later offered to resign, much less did resign.
So, yeah, dopes and babies, and not who he would want to go to war with.
this is what they were focused on, like a laser,
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/homeland-staff-cast-cia-advice-obama-administration
which is rare, because they were more competent then the administration, but that's a low bar,
Sorry if this has already been said. The guy that says "He's a fucking moron" was not thinking "Gosh darn it Jim, say something". Okay.
Has anyone seen the videos of SEAL training or even military Basic Training? All these offended officers have and even participated in their own and were probably subject to some dressing down throughout their career, but before they reached this exalted position. Why didn't they speak up and defend themselves, if there was a defense to be made?
What he actually said in his first response was. "If we ever go to war they are going to get a lot of us killed."
I encourage anyone who wants to know about the present Army to read two books.
One of them is "Jawbreaker" about the CIA when it still worked.
"Jawbreaker" tells the story of Special Forces when they were taking down the Taliban before "Big Army" arrived and told the SF guys to"shave and get into uniform." It went downhill from there.
The other is Dakota Myer;'s book about the battle he was in in Afghanistan.
Myer's book tells how he survived because he was being punished for shooting back at mortarmen who were bombarding his base. He was punished because they were not in uniform, a requirement to shoot back.
Just finished reading the Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. It is amazing to me how, even then, so many who wear the uniform of an officer are not especially interested in fighting and winning the Nation's wars.
Boss chews out subordinates. Leftists get the vapors.
Add it to the Articles of Impeachment.
in other news,
https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/isis-leader-dubbed-jabba-the-jihadi-captured-in-iraq/
Here's another one for moron LLR-lefty Chuck:
"Lincoln as Commander in Chief
A self-taught strategist with no combat experience, Abraham Lincoln saw the path to victory more clearly than his generals"
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lincoln-as-commander-in-chief-131322819/
My favorite Lincoln anecdote involves Lincoln being asked by a reporter what he estimated the total number of Confederate soldiers under arms to be.
Lincoln replied about 10,000,000. When it was pointed out that was an impossible number Lincoln replied he arrived at that number by simply listening to all his Generals who had lost battles who always claimed to be outnumbered 10 to 1!!
In 1970, on the USS Great Sitkin (AE-17) we got Captain Harry Gerhard as our commanding officer. He was definitely out to make admiral and was a giant pain in the ass.
When we were in Gitmo for 4 weeks of training, we could not go on deck unless we were in whites. Not just crappy old, dirty, whites, but near inspection quality. When you are working 16 hour days, in 100 degree heat, hotter in the engine room, and you can't even get a breath of air without changing into whites, which you can't even do because there is no water to wash with, morale suffers.
He left us to become CO of the USS Constellation (CVA-64) About the time he became CO they started having race riots on the Connie. Actual race riots with black sailors refusing duty (what would normally be mutiny) fighting white sailors, areas of the ship where whites could not go. Reports were it was pretty bad.
Gerhard only lasted about 8 months on the Connie (Jan-Sept 71). Karmic Justice, IMHO.
This describes a "sort of" mutiny that took place just after Gerhard left.
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/18/archives/the-constellation-incident-a-sort-of-mutiny.html
John Henry
“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid.
A retired Army colonel turned CEO told me that he put his subordinate officers into a 2x2 matrix. Matrix headings were HI/LO IQ and HI/LO Motivation.
For HI IQ/Hi Motivation officers, he got out of their way and let them do their jobs.
For HI IQ/HI Motivation officers, he inspired them with his leadership skills.
For LO IQ/LO Motivation officers, he provided clear structure and explicit guideline for them to do their jobs.
For LO IQ/HI Motivation officers, he made every effort to run them out of the service because they tended to run 100 mph in the wrong direction. I wonder how many of the these types were promoted by Obama.
Something else that jacked a lot of enlisted jaws in the Navy of the early 70s was the POWs. Not the POWs themselves, of course, they were shipmates and we felt for them.
The treatment of them. Every week, it seemed like there was some activity to remember the POWs.
What irritated us was that POWs were mostly officers, mostly aviators and pilots. The air Navy doesn't like to think of itself as really part of the regular navy. They are special. They tend to live a pretty sweet life. And the Air Force is considered "The alternative to military service"
These guys were getting memorialized but nobody ever mentioned the enlisted guys of any service who were getting the brunt of the horrific deaths.
POWs were not well treated but they were fed, housed, not, generally dying. QMCS Mo0ney, who I worked with in 73-74 served on riverboats and got burned severely with white phosphorus. He looked like something from a horror movie. Physically OK for duty and he stayed in but he took some getting used to to look at.
Where was the ceremony for him and the tens of thousands of others like him? Where were the ceremonies for the 50m, mostly enlisted, that died in Vietnam.
The POW flag still annoys me. I know it shouldn't. I know that is not rational, but it does.
MIA's mostly enlisted, got tagged onto it later and I am happy for that.
John Henry
Maybe if instead of being hell bent to "train" Trump to be an internationalist they should have engaged in a genuine dialog about how he sees things and how they see things.
It sound like he felt condescended to and patronized, because that is exactly what they were doing. Not the way to handle a boss with low levels of emotional controls to begin with.
Trump's ideas may have been poorly formed and not well thought out, but when you have a boss like that you do NOT get on your high horse and act all superior. And it's not as if our military and diplomatic arms have been going from success to success since 1945--maybe they all need to reflect, too.
I don't know if what I am suggesting would have worked, Trump has never had to defer to anyone since his old man died, but it would have had a damn better chance than what they all did, which was a guaranteed loser. And it makes me wonder about them at least as much as it makes me wonder about him.
I think after 16 years they ran out of excuses, but you notice there was no one in that room who 'supposedly' challenged him, I think we should have learned from Vietnam, that large expeditionary forces, do not work in the long run, apparently we didn't learn this lesson among others, Now one can come to the opposite conclusion, that the Taliban are in the right, and that's plain ridiculous, but since the Deobandi ghazi first challenged the brits in the 1830s, that has been the challenge,
Not good at winning wars
Not good at persuading the boss
What are you losers good for?
Let's get back to Senator Sinema.
'What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?'
Trust me, they already know. Only the Dunning-Kruger generals are in the dark.
We support our troops when they shoot their officers. - Code Pink
Hmmmm.
What changed?
D. If Trump shot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue, he would not lose my vote.
Somebody give Chuck cab fare to 5th Ave.
Blogger Chuck said...
Yes indeed. Thanks for bringing up the "shithole countries" example.
Chuck, you magnificent simpleton!
Trolling you is sooooooo easy it almost isn't fun.
John Henry
Chuck:
Someone can speak to whether or not they think it happened without speaking to whether they would approve or not if it did happen.
Someone can speak to whether or not they would approve if it happened without speaking to whether or not they think it actually happened.
You are apparently under some psychotic delusion that one cannot do so. That if one set of people address the first issue, and another set address the second issue, they are contradicting one another.
Hence your ridiculous poll's lack of what is probably the most prevalently held opinion, option E: I doubt it happened given the well known mendacity of the source, but whether or not it did, I would approve of Trump saying what the article claims he said.
Two utterly different questions. One does not preclude or even impinge in the slightest way on the other.
This is just one more example of your completely inability to logic.
Chuck said: What is unusual about Trump -- himself a Vietnam era draft dodger -- is that he would speak to a group of them together in such reckless and dumbass terms.
Mocking some grown men behind closed doors is not reckless or dumbass. If generals can't handle being called dopes and babies by a President, they shouldn't be generals. They make decisions that put their subordinates in much greater danger than being called a dope or a baby; they had better be able to handle some drill sergeant treatment from the President.
Trying to blame a terrorist attack on a youtube video was dumbass. Sending sensitive and classified information between top officials unencrypted through a homegrown mailserver was reckless and dumbass.
If Trump is a fucking moron, it should be a required qualification in the future for all presidents of the US.
Most effective president in my lifetime, and I’m 75.
As for Tillerson being a better businessman than Trump? Tillerson inherited a huge global empire and was an administrator. Trump actually built one.
Well, you know, you don't go to war with the Dopes and Babies, you want... you go to war with the Dopes and Babies you have.
E. If Trump had a terrorist eliminated in the middle of the Baghdad airport I would still vote for him.
I find real examples more compelling than fake news.
As for Tillerson being a better businessman than Trump? Tillerson inherited a huge global empire and was an administrator. Trump actually built one.
Good point,. Tillerson did some very smart things, like his ploy with Guyana when Venezuela nationalized the lExxon oil wells but he was not a founder.
'How does the commander in chief say that?' one thought. 'What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?'..
They would be thinking. Oh crap, finally a president who knows how pathetic we have been for over a generation. These guys deserve every Ass chewing they get, they have sucked just about my entire life.
The new editor of Army Times"
"Exit polling in the 2016 presidential election saw military members and veterans vote nearly two-to-one in favor of Republican candidates," according to the Military Times, the Army Times' parent publication.
"Does anyone else feel like Donald Trump's endorsement of anything makes the rest of us immediate hate that thing?" Sicard tweeted in May 2019.
"Okay I hate @realDonaldTrump" she tweeted in September 2018.
"I mean, I hate Trump," she tweeted in May 2017.
In January 2019, she tweeted she had lost followers because of "all my callouts of @POTUS."
That same month, she said, "I only say this as someone who doesnt want to see Dems lose. Not to hate on EW, but I don't know if another white woman is the right choice to rouse minority support, and she's definitely not going to take back the Rust Belt. I want the party to bet on a person who can do both."
Does Chuck know about this ?
If this really happened and those guys didn't do anything about it, those guys really were dopes and babies. If they didn't resign, they valued their retired pay more than their honor. If they didn't leak it to the Wash Post or CNN, it didn't really happen. When I was a Jr Officer in DC, if somebody's parking space got moved one space away from the Pentagon, it was leaked to the Wash Star or the Post.
One of the reasons that I stopped reading Althouse is that she insists on taking garbage media like WaPo seriously.
I’ve not seen anything published in that rag that was true for a decade, including the weather.
1) What was the last war these generals actually won?
2) If you're a general and you can't take this, resign. For the love of God, retire already.
One of the ways I save time and energy when reading Althouse comments, is to keep moving whenever I see a comment by anyone named "Chuck". I've had to learn over the past several years that it isn't worth my time to read even a word.
And with what has come out on Afghanistan from the Washington Compost, if true, they should be called scoundrels, thieves and grifters instead!
In the '90s, the Clintons used the fake Tailhook 'scandal' to cashier those flag officers who resisted dressing women in soldier/sailor costume, and having to pretend they were regular military. Obama cashiered the flag officers who resisted the LGBT infiltration. Ain't many warrior Flags left. BTW. Tulsi Gabbard was never in combat. She was a medic assigned to a Hospital Unit...not a Combat unit. In other words, kinda like a nurse at a M.A.S.H. I say that not to denigrate...every soldier loves the medics/nurses, but I contacted her campaign to correct the misinformation that was swirling around. Much to my surprise, her campaign immediately responded, and I didn't hear of her being called a combat soldier, or in combat after that. (except here). It's a stolen valor thing. Anyway, I sent her campaign $100 just for being honest.
Not to worry. The Army has more embedded Mental Health Teams than tanks. I'm sure there is one just the hall from that vault. Send the whiners there.
If you want to understand what Trump was referring to, read Robert Coran, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War . Boyd was a part of a 'fighter mafia' that took on the top USAF brass and managed to ram through, over their resistance, some of the best fighter planes every built—the F-15, F-16, and A-10.
There's a cozy little relationship between the higher military ranks that Ike referred to as "the military-industrial complex." In the Pentagon they support bloated and ineffective hardware knowing that when their retire (early for those in the military) there will be comfortable positions in that industry waiting for them. The military was one of the first to create the revolving doors between service in government and service in an industry dependent on government money.
Is this the same sacred space where all those brilliant strategic decisions about Iraq and Afghanistan were made?
Where the ROE decisions were made that tied our combat troops hands?
That sacred space?
Worked 35 years in DoD starting as a GS-5 intern and retiring as a GS-15. You'd like to think that the guys at the top of the heap are the best and the brightest but as I got high enough in the hierarchy to watch them operate and interact with some of them I came to the conclusion that it is very much a mixed bag. Some were truly outstanding, some were good, some were mediocre and there were even some about whom I wondered how in hell they ever achieved the rank that they had. The closer they were to the lower end of that scale, the bigger arseholes they became. Insecurity I'd guess. They knew they didn't really belong there.
Had dinner last night with a retired Colonel (and several other retired military). Jimmy has some disturbing tales about the very top brass and a few inspirational ones.
It is the same, IMO, in any large organization.
FWIW, he's voting Trump.
No wonder the enlisted troops love Trump. He calls out the bullshit of the generals to get them killed but can’t win a f#cking war.
Plus, as anyone in the military knows, achieving general rank is inherently a political process. These are Obama generals. The same kind who think that “diversity is the Army’s greatest strength”.
Assuming that this is true:
Tillerson thought to himself, 'Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren’t you saying something?'... The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out.... Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard. 'He’s a f---ing moron'
If none of the generals or admirals told the President that his language was inappropriate, then their lack of action was dopey and moronic. Also, what does it say about SecState Tillerson that he was thinking "Gosh darn it, Jim, say something". Under the circumstances, wouldn't a serious SecState with backbone have simply jumped in and said something himself, since after all he's a damn Cabinet office, not a gosh-darned notetaker.
Obama promoted his top officers by whether they supported his transgender policies. Obama's entire purpose was to destroy our military. He did a LOT of purging of our most effective generals.
Tailhook Scandal during the HW Bush Administration.
Obviously many here are not familiar with the late Col Hackworth's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hackworth PERFUMED PRINCES analogy from a war long ago, seemingly no longer remembered even after 58K souls believed in the perfume.
Trump's analysis was probably 100% accurate. As with all other walks of life ability in the military is distributed on a bell curve. We can survive the mediocre generals during peacetime, but in a war i want the ones at the far right side. See - as mentioned above - Custer, George A; The Army of the Potomac; the US Army in Europe in early WWII; Dereliction of Duty by McMaster; ask yourself why someone in the military hasn't lobbied to get out of Afghanistan
Trump's analysis was probably 100% accurate. As with all other walks of life ability in the military is distributed on a bell curve. We can survive the mediocre generals during peacetime, but in a war i want the ones at the far right side. See - as mentioned above - Custer, George A; The Army of the Potomac; the US Army in Europe in early WWII; Dereliction of Duty by McMaster; ask yourself why someone in the military hasn't lobbied to get out of Afghanistan
Assuming the truth of this, it is the obligation of those who disagree with the Commander-in-Chief to resign. Last honorable man who did this in my memory was Cy Vance, Sr., Sec'y of State for Jimmy Carter who quit over the the decision to try to rescue the hostages in Iran.
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