The Military Threat
Coming to the Streets of D.C. Next Month
The Republican President’s Memorial Day weekend speeches - at West Point and Arlington - are being analyzed and critiqued everywhere today. People chuckle - and/or gasp in horror - at the toxic levels of narcissism, and the lack of mental discipline and focus that is evident in his rambling speeches. But don’t be fooled by the questions about the President’s mental acuity, or the uneasy laughter about it all. There is something far scarier underlying them.
In her newsletter today, Heather Cox Richardson notes how in the West Point speech the President “attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and said: “The job of the U.S. Armed Forces is not to host drag shows to transform foreign cultures, or to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun,” he said. “The military's job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, and any place.” (In fact, the mission of the Department of Defense is “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.”)”
This is from an archived website, dating to 2016. Note that here the military is “deterring and defeating aggression and coercion” - I still have my objections, but the tone is manifestly different from the current Republican Administration’s aggression against everyone - likely including me and you, gentle reader.
I went to the internet to check on what the Department of Defense’s mission statement actually is. Most of what I found is identical with what Richardson quotes here in her parenthetical. But “lethality” and aligned synonyms are seeping through and gaining prominence in statements from the Republican Administration.
The synonym-spouting Rock Pigeons clarify meaning!
Go back to what the President blurted out at West Point:
“The military's job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, and any place.”
Dominate and annihilate. The softer terms - “deter” and “ensure…security” - are being brushed aside to lay the emphasis on lethality. Annihilation and deterence in warfare are not compatible. What the Republican Administration is suggesting in its policies and its rhetoric (however weird and haphazard that rhetoric may seem at times) is a Defense Department that operates more like a mercenary force of sadistic killers and torturers than the disciplined army of a mature democracy.
Much of what I am writing today recapitulates an essay I wrote back in February on “Lethality.” What has changed in the mean-time has been seeming chaos at the Department of Defense. The Signal Chat scandals; the firing of top aides; the loss of White House trust in Pete Hegseth. Today comes the news, via The Guardian’s headline, that “Trump ADVISERS lose confidence in Pentagon leak investigation Hegseth used to justify firing three top aides” (my emphasis added).
The Pentagon scandals and in-fighting are not the point either. They distract the press, but I don’t think they are distracting the architects of the Republican Administration. Their ultimate trajectory is to transform the United States into a police state at home and a bullying terror abroad (projects that have always had more traction, both latent and blatantly obvious, in American life than some might want/choose to admit). To reach these interlocked goals, the military of the United States will be used against American citizens, and the American military will commit abundant war crimes abroad, up to and including renewing our existentially disgraceful track record as the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons in warfare.
And to achieve that goal, the “advisers” shaping this Republican Administration do not ultimately need Pete Hegseth. He’s not a useful idiot, unless you remove the “useful” part of that descriptor. He was brought to this position because he was a pretty boy on TV whom the POTUS enjoys seeing. The only reason he is still in office is because the people who are actually ruling the country are appeasing the useful idiot that they really do need - Donald J. Trump. Just like foreign leaders and perceptive editorialists, the people who are running the country in the name of Trump have figured out his psychology, which, frankly, is not that hard to do. Never back down. Insult your opponents. Never admit an error. Radiate strength. Be pugnacious about everything, because being pugnacious means never having to say you are soft.
I am a generous appreciator of all aesthetic phenomena, and have long sought to find beauty even in styles and genres that are inimical to my tastes. But I must say, I see zero beautiful faces in this picture. I would invite zero of these people to my house. I gain no pleasure in seeing these faces on my TV. I do, however, appreciate that the photographer, Carlos Barría, has used the old “Batman” convention of placing villains askew. I see you, Mr. Barría, and I applaud you. Courage manifests in acts big and small, and sideways!
And so, from that Guardian article (laudable except for leaving the “advisers” unnamed) note the following response from the seat of power:
A spokesperson for the White House said in a statement: “President Trump is confident in the secretary’s ability to ensure top leadership at the Department of Defense shares their focus on restoring a military that is focused on readiness, lethality, and excellence.” (again, the added emphasis is mine)
It sounds like three simple words - “readiness, lethality, and excellence” - but it is not as simple as it seems. For what are we ready? At what are we excellent? The only one that has any genuine actionable reality in this word soup is “lethality.” That we will be ever-ready to inflict a lethal response, and that we will be excellent at being lethal. This is a united theme in this Republican Administration. And in his bumbling, fumbling way, Trump had said the same thing at West Point - “dominate” and “annihilate".” To which he added “anywhere, anytime, and any place.” No exclusion of our own soil in his thinking, or in what the anonymous advisers are saying.
These Rock Pigeons speak truth about synonyms. Annihilate is a genocidal term.
The June 14th Military Parade will reveal the wet dream of this Republican Administration - military might, intimidation, and assumed lethality as an ongoing reality of the American streetscape. It is good that there will be demonstrations against it, of course. But the six-week hiatus from national demonstrations was such a grave error - far more than even I thought at the time - leaving those of us who are resisting with no discernible nation-wide momentum going into this event. Perhaps our spirit of resistance is alive, on a slow simmer that will erupt as a volcanic force on that day. Please may that be so. We need to stop the madness, and build a better nation and planet!
The Synonym-spouting Rock Pigeons still bring wisdom when they switch to Antonyms