I've never felt so bad to be right...

[Starfox]

Of course, I'm referring to the clownish show held by Trump and Hegseth (and yes I listened to the whole show with increasing disgust and repulsion -- probably the same as all the US generals in the room considering the faces they were making). But before I offer some of my own comments, I will let the military professional with decades of experience speak. And after that I will discuss what he didn't.

Let's start (I didn't discuss this when it happened because I have my own problems to deal with) with the renaming by Trump of the Department of Defense into Department of War (quite the irony coming from a draft dodger). Maybe he considered even calling it War Department but it probably was too "WW2" for him. The "War Department", as it was known then was renamed to Department of Defense in 1949, the same year NATO was created. There was a reason for that. The US wanted to clearly signal that NATO was not created with the purpose to wage war on anyone but to defend against any aggression. So they suppressed the word "war". That was followed by pretty much every allies (in France the previous Ministère de la Guerre -- ministry of war -- was renamed "Ministère des armées" -- Ministry of the Armies).

You cannot even begin to comprehend the psychological impact seeing "War" reappear had on US allies. Everyone is like "What? The US wants to go to war? Against who? Greenland? Canada? Mexico?" Be assured that there was no psychological impact whatsoever on US foes though, because war is something they have always expected from the US so for them, it's just business as usual.

But coming back to the clown show, Lieutenant General Hertling has a lot of pretty valid points he exposed in his interview regarding what happened and the consequences that could be if ever the US Military bent down to Trump/Hegseth will. By the way, I don't think they will. Like all military in any democracy, The US military swore an oath to a constitution, the US constitution in this case, not to a man, not to the President of The USA. Trump can pretend to be Commander in Chief all he wants, he's only that as long as he defends and uphold the articles of the constitution that he, himself, swore to uphold and defend when he took the presidency.

In fact the US military has the duty not only to protect the constitution and American citizens but also to disobey any order that would be illegal, coming into direct infringement of the US Constitution or international rules of war. And they will abide by their own training and education in that. Going to "sanitize" blue states just because POTUS is perceiving them as enemies of the current administration (while they are simply using their constitutional right to free speech and to criticize their government) is not something the US military will do because that would be unconstitutional -- a word (and a notion) that Trump is really struggling to learn apparently.

The whole blue against red thing made me laugh bitterly. Those officers that were in the room listening to the pack of bullshit that was served to them, they've all be trained in NATO procedures and amusingly in NATO the color codification for objects/troops affiliation is pretty specific:

Yellow: Unknown affiliation
Green: Neutral
Blue: Ally
Red: Enemy

So I think Trump inadvertently put himself on the wrong side there; like he often does.

Worst of all, like Hertling said, the whole thing was watched by US allies and adversaries alike. I watched it (I can guarantee you every General in Europe watched it). Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping (not to mention every terrorist organization across the world) certainly watched it too and boy, they must have had such a good laugh. "Now they are doing our work for us? Amazing!". Allies of the US though where certainly more along the lines of "What the fuck is wrong with the US government!?" Not that we didn't already know what is wrong with the Trump administration but this was quite the ugly confirmation. I certainly didn't expect them to come out in such a brilliant display of pure idiocy.

And now I'm going to play the devil's advocate, stating things that everyone thinks about but is unwilling to say so enormous it seems.

Any way you look at it now, the cat is out of the bag. Because there's not one idea coming from the mouths of Trump and Hegseth during that little show that couldn't have come from the mouth of Hitler or any of his minions more than 80 years ago. "Fuck the rules of engagement!", "We are going to show those blue states!" down to the chilling "if only they wore a uniform we could shoot them faster" (which NAZI kind of worked out by forcing Jews to wear a Yellow star of David). This is such typical fascist rhetoric.

But here's where the danger lies in my mind, because Hitler was confronted to the exact same problem in his days that Trump is discovering just now. Hitler couldn't trust the Wehrmacht, nor could he trust the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, especially not their officers because their old school education wouldn't allow them to do what Hitler wanted them to do. Sure there were fascists in all military branches but their number was always small.

So what did Hitler do? He created his own military force with each of its members swearing an oath to him, personally, not to a constitution, not to Germany but to him: the Waffen-SS, responsible for so many war crimes before and during the war (committed on both non Germans and Germans) that it's a wonder any of them survived the Nuremberg trial. The express purpose of the Waffen-SS was to be a counterweight to the Wehrmacht, to keep the "classical" officers in check and do in their stead what they were unwilling to do -- mostly rounding up civilians and executing them -- and, oh yeah: "Fuck the rules of Engagement!". Hegseth would have been ecstatic in that time period and uniform (if reincarnation is true, maybe he was).

This is the danger the US has to be on the lookout for right now. Trump already has his ICE (affectionately nicknamed "Gestapo" in other Western countries) and he will try to create his own personal military force -- he probably already started. I don't know what form it will take (for all I know it could simply be ICE, extended and heavily recruiting, given more weapons and powers) or what name it will have, but it's certainly part of his next planned moves. And you already know, better than me, that he wouldn't have any trouble finding hundreds of thousands of "people" (I have another word in mind but let's stay civil) to do his bidding, especially if he pays them well and grants them "privileges". And he will find a way to pay them well, Congress be damned... Do you really think all those tariffs are for the betterment of the US population?

By having this little show, Trump laid out his plans for the mid-terms (that he doesn't intend to have his supporters lose because he would lose as well) and they consist in using military forces to "muzzle" the blue states (at least the biggest ones). Whether he will be successful or not depends on several factors. Again, I don't think he can rely on the US military because that would be going against their oath to the constitution and would constitute an illegal order. Which is the reason why he needs an "independent" force willing to obey all of his commands, even the most absurd, illegal and dangerous.

And who can oppose him in this effort, really? Democrats? They're pretty much out. I don't see any of them really putting the pressure on him right now. Republicans? Don't make me laugh... they're the ones who kiss Trump's ass any chance they get. Neutralizing the "blue" threat is probably the cherry on top for them. Unless Trump having his own little military is the drop in the bucket that finally wakes everyone up.

Right now, when it come to safeguarding the US constitution, the US military is the first and last line of defense and this is why Hegseth and Trump tried to break them (more precisely, Hegseth tried to break them saying they were bad and needed to get better, Trump tried to put them in his pocket, the classical bad cop/good cop scheme -- yep their references are only movies because it's all they truly know, like the setup for the whole show... replaying the movie "Patton" was the idea I guess: the whole thing would have been purely hilarious if the rhetoric wasn't so dangerous).

I wish I could say that Trump and Hegseth are just what they seem and sound like, morons, and that nothing will come from all that blabber. Only... this is an error that many people did with Hitler. Misreading and misunderstanding the threat, until it was too late. Fortunately, the US Generals present in the room didn't misread the threat. Seeing their faces during those speeches was quite telling. More than everything else it was embarrassment for their own leadership (Hegseth and Trump) while both of them were regurgitating all that BS.

The thing going against Trump is that we're not in Germany 1933. We're in the age of information, of the internet, of instant news, an age where everyone can -- if they wish -- discern the facts from the bullshit. Not that it isn't challenging these days because, with a war in Europe, propaganda is everywhere (coming from all sides) so people have to be extra careful about what they pick as "facts". Because of the circumstances of his time (only one voice, his own), Hitler was able to bring down the German democracy in a little more than a month while, because of the current circumstances, Trump hasn't been able to bring down the American democracy in half a year. That doesn't mean he will stop trying. Now, can he succeed before the mid-terms? That's the question no one can answer right now. He already has done a lot in a short time and there's about one year still to go. And with no one really opposing him, it makes things easier.

But I'm not American so why would I care if some US states get under martial law? Because what happens in the US affects every single US ally? Because I have friends in the US and I care about them? Take your pick. I probably won't be there to see the end of that show anyway but quitting the stage, leaving it in that state is heartbreaking. On the other hand, the idea is also liberating because I don't want to see more of this bullshit (not only in the US but also worldwide). Sometimes I find myself thinking that my mother and my brother had the right idea departing when they did.

One thing's for sure: both Washington and Lafayette must be rolling around inside their graves. What the country they have both fought to create has come down to... There is a deep divide in the US, that much is clear to anyone with eyes and ears living on planet Earth, especially US foes who are delighted to see that. People like Hegseth and Trump are only making it worse. I will even go as far as saying that as long as such people are in power, America won't have a single chance to heal because they will prevent it, for their own benefit. Those guys -- pretty much like the NAZI -- thrive in chaos, not in peace. It is telling enough that their word for "defense" is "war".