In America’s wars, failure Is the new success.
The 2016 presidential election gave Americans the “Winningest President and the Losingest Generals.” For some, it was victorious, just what they wanted. For most of us, however, it was calamitous.
Americans now have three wartime generals who influence President Donald Trump’s thoughts, words, and actions. They are the ones who control the military and America’s war policy.
The three have convinced Trump “to release the military (and the CIA) from significant oversight on how they pursue their wars across the Greater Middle East, Africa, and now the Philippines. They even convinced him to surround their future actions in a penumbra of secrecy.”
“These are central casting. If I’m doing a movie, I’d pick you general,” President Trump said during his inaugural luncheon at the Capitol, pointing at Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and who is now Chief of Staff General John Kelly.
TomDispatch’s Tom Engelhardt provides provocative insight. Here are a few excerpts:
“It was bloody and brutal, a true generational struggle, but give them credit. In the end, they won when so many lost.
“James Comey was axed. Sean Spicer went down in a heap of ashes. Anthony Scaramucci crashed and burned instantaneously. Reince Priebus hung on for dear life but was finally canned. Seven months in, Steve Bannon got the old heave-ho and soon after, his minion, Sebastian Gorka, was unceremoniously shoved out the White House door. In a downpour of potential conflicts of interest and scandal, Carl Icahn bowed out. Gary Cohn has reportedly been at the edge of resignation. And so it goes in the Trump administration.
“Except for the generals. Think of them as the last men standing. They did it. They took the high ground in Washington and held it with remarkable panache. Three of them: National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, Secretary of Defense and retired Marine General John Mattis, and former head of the Department of Homeland Security, now White House Chief of Staff, retired Marine General John Kelly stand alone, except for President Trump’s own family members, at the pinnacle of power in Washington.
“Those three generals from America’s losing wars are now triumphant.
“In America’s war on terror, such things should be considered tales foretold, even as the losing generals of those losing wars strut their stuff in Washington. Elsewhere on the planet, the U.S. military’s plans for 2020, 2023, and beyond will undoubtedly be yet more landmarks on a highway to failure. Only in Washington do such plans invariably work out. Only in Washington does more of the same turn out to be the ultimate formula for success. Our losing wars, it seems, are a necessary backdrop for the ultimate winning war in our nation’s capital. So all hail America’s generals, mission accomplished!”
 |
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly
and Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr.
|
By Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch
