Two Curious Things About Trump's Remarks on His Military Parade
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The big military parade that will be taking place along the National Mall in Washington this Saturday is shaping up to be not so much a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th birthday but rather a high-octane ego boost and joyride for President Donald Trump.
It has been widely noted that the event happens to fall not only on the Army's birthday but on Trump's as well. The convergence is no mere coincidence. After all, this year will also mark the 250th birthday of the Navy and the Marine Corps, on Oct. 13 and Nov. 10, respectively. But the president has not announced plans to join—much less preside over—their festive, if less grandiose, celebrations.
Trump says the Army parade will display—and demonstrate that America possesses—'the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest Army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we're going to celebrate it.'
Apart from the fact that submarines are the Navy's pride, not the Army's, and can't be hauled out for any sort of public display, two peculiarities stand out in Trump's remarks. First, all of the weapons that will be rolling down, or flying above, Constitution Avenue—26 Abrams tanks, 28 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and 27 Stryker vehicles, and several dozen personnel carriers, as well as more than 50 helicopters—were built long ago. In fact, the Army hasn't built any new tanks or fighting vehicles in this century. In other words, the boasts—which aren't incorrect (the Abrams and the Bradley do rank among the world's greatest armored vehicles)—don't align with Trump's claims, in other forums, that his predecessors ravaged the military and left the country defenseless. (At a House hearing on Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made similar claims and asserted that he and Trump had vastly improved our preparedness—even though they haven't yet submitted a detailed defense budget, much less enacted it, or developed and built any of its proposed weapon systems.)
More striking is what Trump omitted from his list of enthusiasms: the men and women who serve in the armed forces. Trump clearly doesn't care much about any of the people who train, fight, or die for our country. It's worth recalling the claim, made by his former chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, that Trump once derided fallen soldiers as 'losers' and 'suckers.' Trump denies he ever said that. But if you believe the president over the general, consider that, earlier this year, Trump changed the names of Memorial Day and Veterans Day to 'Victory in World War II Day' and 'Victory in World War I Day.' The change is significant—and appalling. It means that the vast majority of American veterans have no day of their own to commemorate. (About 66,000 World War II vets are still alive, but that amounts to less than one-half of 1 percent of the nation's 15.8 million living veterans from all wars.) Nor do the families of those who died in more recent wars—around 36,000 in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam, 4,500 in Iraq, and 2,200 in Afghanistan, among others.
Trump has no interest in memorializing service or sacrifice for their own sake. (Remember his dis of John McCain, who was tortured in North Vietnamese jails for five years after getting shot down: 'He's not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured.') Winning is all that matters in Trump's book—and our most solemn national holidays have been altered to reflect his mindset.
Even winning is an abstract concept, floating on bombast. Trump wanted to throw a massive military parade in his first term after French President Emmanuel Macron hosted him at the cavalcade in Paris celebrating Bastille Day. French troops marched down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées alongside tanks and armored vehicles as fighter jets swooshed over the Arc de Triomphe. Trump was elated. Back home, he told everyone he could that he needed to stage his own version—and to 'top it.' His defense secretary at the time, retired Gen. James Mattis, hated the idea, telling his aides that he'd 'rather swallow acid.' Mattis responded by saying the parade would cost $90 million—a deliberate exaggeration, according to a Pentagon source of mine at the time. The ploy worked; even Trump backed off, seeing the price tag as too high.
The parade this Saturday is said to cost $45 million, not counting the expense of disrupting much of the city for four days and repairing the damage done by tank treads. (Each Abrams tank weighs 70 tons, almost twice the avenue's maximum capacity.) This seems like a lot of money, given the latest round of Department of Government Efficiency budget cuts. But it's a lot less than the $134 million that the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in California is estimated to cost. And that show of force is no less performative or unnecessary than the parade in the nation's capital.
Trump may hope that the parade will provide another occasion for force as well as show. Trump told reporters on Tuesday that 'those people that want to protest' at the parade 'are going to be met with very big force.' Those protesters, he added, without identifying who they might be or what they might be protesting, 'hate our country,' so, he repeated, 'they will be met with very heavy force.'
Notice: He wasn't warning of a forceful response to violent protesters—just to 'people that want to protest,' who, he claimed, by definition, 'hate our country.' He doesn't seem to be aware—or, if he is, he doesn't care—that citizens' protest is an American tradition every bit as hallowed as the Army. Nor should his remark be dismissed as a lighthearted joke. In his first term, he suggested that National Guard members should be ordered to shoot protesters in the leg. His defense secretary at the time, Mark Esper, calmly said he couldn't do that. Trump's current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth—who speaks excitedly about 'the warrior ethos,' campaigned for the pardoning of war criminals, and expresses utmost loyalty to Trump—might savor the opportunity.
This is his birthday bash, goddammit, and he's not going to let some pacifists or immigrant-loving protesters upset the party.
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