Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers’ - The former president said only a “psycho” or a “very stupid person” would’ve made such statements.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    5 months ago

    In fairness to Trump (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write…)

    ““He said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers,”

    That’s technically correct. He did not say those things in public.

    Edit I watched the ad, it does not specify that Trump said these things in public, just that he said them which is true.

    He said them privately to staff members.

    Confirmed by Trump’s former Chief of Staff, John Kelly:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-confirms-trump-privately-disparaged-us-service-members-vete-rcna118543

    But my favorite quote out of all this is the one that barely gets mentioned:

    https://www.axios.com/2023/10/02/trump-troops-fallen-soldiers-john-kelly

    Trump saying at a 2017 Memorial Day event in Arlington National Cemetery: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

    Trump is ENTIRELY transactional. The idea that good men would fight a war for their country purely because it’s the right thing to do escapes him entirely.

    • masquenox@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      “What was in it for them?”

      Sounds like a perfectly reasonable question to me… far more reasonable than simply assuming the people who perpetrated the US’s colonialist mass-murder campaigns in the third world was simply “good men” (supposedly) “doing the right thing.”

      Good job making Trump sound more rational than you, hero.

      • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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        5 months ago

        This take just baffles me… you can disapprove of a war, and still respect people willing to put their life on the line for something they believe is right. Even in war, opposing sides have a long history of showing their enemy a certain amount of personal respect, even though they clearly disagree about something to the point of killing each other over it.

        Your take is just condescending and unempathetic. You can respect someone for sacrificing themselves without agreeing with them about what they’re sacrificing themselves for. Regardless, it shouldn’t be hard to see how someone fighting to depose an infamously brutal dictator (Iraq) or a fundamentalist regime that stones women for wanting a divorce (Afghanistan) can believe that they are doing something good.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          This take just baffles me… you can disapprove of a war, and still respect people willing to put their life on the line for something they believe is right.

          A Toast to the Troops… All the troops. Both Sides.

          You can respect someone for sacrificing themselves without agreeing with them about what they’re sacrificing themselves for.

          RIP to Sgt. Rufus “Baby Ears” McGuffin. He died doing what he loved. Ripping the ears of babies and putting them on a big necklace that he would wear around camp.

          • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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            5 months ago

            “All the troops, both sides” is half my point when pointing out that enemy combatants historically have often held respect for each other.

            Yes, I respect a combatant fighting for something they believe in that’s bigger than themselves, people not fighting for personal gain, but because they want to give someone else a better life. That’s regardless of what side they’re on- even if they’re on the side I’m actively trying to kill.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              enemy combatants historically have often held respect for each other.

              Torturing POWs to death as a form of respect

          • masquenox@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            He died doing what he loved. Ripping the ears of babies and putting them on a big necklace that he would wear around camp.

            Just another “All American Hero,” eh?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Trump is ENTIRELY transactional. The idea that good men would fight a war for their country purely because it’s the right thing to do escapes him entirely.

      In fairness, you only need a bunch of good men to fight a war purely because it’s the right thing in order to counter the bad men fighting a war in order to do a bad thing.

      Maybe if Trump’s attitude had been more common in Berlin in the 1930s, or more common in the US during the 1960s or in Israel or Russia during the 2020s, we’d have skipped a few nightmarish atrocities without having a bunch of good men perish in the process.

      • El Barto@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        You are cherry-picking and going off rails.

        But to humor you, how far back do you want to go?

        Because the U.S. was founded on atrocities committed against the people who already lived in North America.

        And the U.S. funded operations to topple legitimate governments in Central America, a time in which a lot of good people died because of it.

        So, don’t paint the U.S. as “the good guys who should listen to Trump.”

        But again, this is entirely a red-herring.

        The truth of the matter is, Trump is a piece of shit who doesn’t respect the people who sacrifice their lives for his safety.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          So, don’t paint the U.S. as “the good guys who should listen to Trump.”

          There are plenty of good people in the US who have resisted the Trumpian brand of ethnic nationalism and the capitalist death drive. And quite a few of them died for their country (or, at least, their friends and family and neighbors). But they’re not the ones we celebrate on Memorial Day. Not officially, anyway.

          The truth of the matter is, Trump is a piece of shit who doesn’t respect the people who sacrifice their lives for his safety.

          Trump was never in any danger. His father was a fascist who idolized the Italian and German dictators running roughshod over Europe. If they’d somehow managed to marshal enough fossil fuel and methamphetamine to do a reverse D-Day and put Axis soldiers onto the Atlantic seaboard, the Trump family would have been the first in line to great them as liberators.

          Why on earth would he be celebrating the Roosevelt Democrats and Eugene Debbs Socialists who were out firing on his ideological allies and business buddies on the other side of the Atlantic?

          Trump wasn’t going to pay homage to the allies of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. You think he wants to bend the knee for a bunch of tankies?

          • El Barto@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Trump is compromised. He is with the tankies. Because the tankies own him.

            Edit: downvoted by tankies.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              He is with the tankies.

              We talking about the college leftists protesting Israel or the police riding around in military surplus?