November 24, 2018: Troops Spend Thanksgiving Down at the Border - Mission Unclear

 

11/24/18: Several thousand U.S. troops are celebrating Thanksgiving down along the Mexico border. They are there, and they will do their best, to “protect” the rest of us from the threat of imaginary smallpox (see: 10/30/18) and “dangerous immigrants,” many of whom look like these: 

 

Are there some dangerous individuals in any group, including the feared “caravan” that keeps Donald J. Trump up at night? Of course. There have been bad customers in every group of immigrants, starting with those who landed at Plymouth Rock. John Billington we’re talking about you. 

And smallpox? Now those Pilgrims definitely brought smallpox with them, along with their Bibles and guns. 

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 “I don’t think he understands the proper use and role of the military.” 

Col. David Lapan

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Yet, as much as Trump likes to talk about “my military” and “my generals” and pretend he has the best interests of those who serve at heart, not everyone is convinced he knows what he’s doing in that regard: 

“There was the belief that over time, he would better understand, but I don’t know that that’s the case,” said Col. David Lapan, a retired Marine who served in the Trump administration in 2017 as a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. “I don’t think that he understands the proper use and role of the military and what we can, and can’t, do.”

 

As The New York Times makes quite clear, Col. Lapan isn’t the only officer who seems to have doubts. 

“If a president routinely and cynically leverages our nation’s armed forces for short-term political advantage, the professional ethos” of the officers’ corps will be degraded, said Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired three-star Army general and a former commander of American forces in Afghanistan. “This, in turn, would threaten one of the foundational principles of our republic [emphasis added] – that our military must remain outside of politics.”

 

In fact, a group of soldiers asks Defense Secretary James Mattis when he visits the border what their mission is. “Short term, get the obstacles [barbed wire, etc.] in,” Mattis tells them. 

“Long term, it is somewhat to be determined.”