Anti Military Industrial Complex Trump?
It was a stunning statement from the mouth of a sitting U.S. president during a sit-down interview aired yesterday on FOX.
Well, I’m the one that talks about these wars that are 19 years (long), and people are just there. And don’t kid yourself, you do have a military industrial complex. They do like war……I said, I want to bring our troops back home — the place went crazy. They want to keep– you have people here in Washington, they never want to leave. I said, you know what I’ll do, I’ll leave a couple hundred soldiers behind, but if it was up to them they’d bring thousands of soldiers in…
Someday people will explain it, but you do have a group, and they call it the military-industrial complex.
They never want to leave, they always want to fight…
Trump calls out the Military Industrial Complex by name & says they don’t want troops to leave pic.twitter.com/tSFfeHwcXP
— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) May 20, 2019
This begs the question, will President Trump actually deliver? Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing short of historic to hear a living president utter the term, “military industrial complex.” It’s something I’ve been waiting to hear my entire adult life. (If you don’t know the origins of that phrase, go take a quick listen to President Eisenhower’s famous final speech warning of the pervasive power of the post-World War II arms industry.)
Some observations.
Did President Obama ever say anything even close to this? No. And imagine if he would have. The so-called progressive sites like BuzzFeed and HuffPost would have heralded his statements and the neo-con right would have lost their minds. Right now, we have crickets from the left and, hilariously, InfoWars getting most of the clicks from this story!
Who has the president’s ear? Where did President Trump pick up this phrase and how did it come to flow so easily from his lips?
I’m aware that he ran against no-win wars during the 2016 primary, but to use a phrase like, “military industrial complex,” is more of an academic phrase. It’s not a term that the average FOX viewer knows. Is this a sign that he is listening to Senator Rand Paul? Let’s hope so.
For Democrats: What a mistake if they run another establishment warmonger like Joe Biden against President Trump again for 2020. At this point, they would be better off with Tulsi Gabbard or even Elizabeth Warren who at least are on record as opposing a war or two.
I don’t envy President Trump’s political dilemma. If he were to move beyond rhetoric and actually deescalate (even more) in the Middle East, he would have the neocons and Mitt Romney-types turning on him and joining the chorus for impeachment.
However, if he doesn’t deliver and bring our troops home, he’ll lose my vote and be rightfully judged a hypocrite and a coward…Not to mention many more Americans will needlessly die in these no-win wars.
It’s time for the president to make a major speech on this topic and lead the way.