We were in the car heading for a nearby Long’s for a few items when NPR broadcast an amazing short interview with retired Major General Randy Manner who once served as acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. He spoke bluntly and directly about the language, images and policies on display during this week’s meeting in which the president and the secretary of defense war addressed the top brass of the combined military services.
Manner said Trump’s call to use deployment in U.S. cities for training was “absurd.”
“…if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the president, it’s actually comical,” he said.
And when Hegseth and Trump spoke of lifting constraints on actions in warfare, these were “the words of potential war criminals,” Manner said.
And there’s a lot more.
“I absolutely want to reassure the American people that our military will never turn our back on them, and you can absolutely have faith and hope in us that we will never abandon you. We will always have your back. We do not pledge allegiance to follow an individual. We pledge allegiance to defend the Constitution of the United States, to do things that are right, and that’s why the American people can count on us, and that we will not be divided.
You can listen to the 6-minute interview with the link below, or go directly to a transcript.
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Thanks, Ian, Every single person in the Trump Administration, particularly Trump, is completely unqualified for their job and wholly incompetent. It’s time for good human beings to stand up, throw the bums out now. Let’s not mistakenly think that the Democrats are the answer either.
I honestly don’t see why using available resources, including the National Guard, to address rampant crime in some cities is considered a bad thing. It feels like the dislike for Trump is so strong that some people are willing to overlook murders, carjackings, and other violent crimes, almost treating them as collateral damage in their “fight” against him. I’m glad that NPR can continue cherry-picking its stories without rebuttals without the use of tax payer dollars as of today. I think common sense has gone out the window.
It’s simple. Listen to the general. Police are trained in crime control, criminal investigations, defusing potentially violent social situations. Soldiers are not. They’re trained in the lethal violence of war. Two very different things with very different skills required. So just in practical terms, it just doesn’t work. As mayors and governors have been saying, the federal government can simply give local police and law enforcement federal resources if it’s a resource issue. And it’s simply false to say that “people” overlook murders and violent crimes because they hate Trump. But crime rates overall have been dropping for a number of years, including violent crimes. Of course, this may be inconvenient, so the government has started eliminating official crime data sources. I don’t know if it was because they conflicted with the political narrative, simply mindless budget cutting, or something else. But it hurts the efforts to respond to crime by eliminating important information on trends, changing demographics, etc.