Associated Press & VoteVets & Common Defense & The Huffington Post – 2018-02-08 10:47:03
http://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/wireStory/pentagon-trump-ordered-washington-military-parade-52889234
ACTION ALERT:
Stop Trump’s Militarism Parade Before It Starts
RootsAction.org
Trump wants a military parade with major war weaponry rolling down the streets of Washington, DC. Let’s stop this bad idea before it happens.
We will deliver this petition to the US House Majority Leader, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and the Senate Minority Leader:
We demand that the United States hold no militarism-glorifying parade displaying weaponry of war. Should such a thing be staged, we will visibly support peace on that day.
Pentagon Says Trump
Ordered Washington Military Parade
Robert Burns / Associated Press
WASHINGTON (February 6, 2018) — President Donald Trump has asked the Pentagon to plan a grand parade of the US armed forces in Washington this year to celebrate military strength, officials said Tuesday. The Washington Post, which was first to report the plan, said Trump wants an elaborate parade this year with soldiers marching and tanks rolling, but no date has been selected.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the request Tuesday evening. She said Trump wants the Pentagon to “explore a celebration” that will allow Americans to show appreciation for the military. A Pentagon spokesman, Charlie Summers, said Pentagon officials are aware of the request and are “looking at options.”
Muscular military parades of the kind that are common in authoritarian countries like China and North Korea are not quintessentially American. The US traditionally has not embraced showy displays of raw military power, such as North Korea’s parading of ballistic missiles as a claim of international prestige and influence.
US military members commonly participate in parades on the Fourth of July and other holidays to mark appreciation and remembrance of military veterans, but these typically do not include gaudy displays of military hardware. In her brief comment on Trump’s order to the Pentagon, Sanders did not elaborate on what sort of event he envisions.
Although Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has not commented publicly on the idea of a Washington military parade, the idea is not an obvious fit with his emphasis on focusing strictly, if not exclusively, on military activities that either improve the lethality of the armed forces or enhance their preparation for combat, or both.
The Post report said a Jan. 18 meeting between Trump, Mattis and top generals at the Pentagon marked a tipping point in Trump’s push for a parade. It quoted an unidentified military official as saying, “The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France.” It was thus interpreted as a presidential order, the Post said, adding that the cost of shipping tanks and other military hardware to Washington could run in the millions of dollars.
The Post also reported that the Pentagon would prefer to hold such a parade on Veteran’s Day in November, in part because it would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the victorious end of World War I. It would thus be less directly associated with the president and politics, the Post said.
John Kirby, a retired Navy rear admiral and former spokesman for the State Department and the Pentagon, reposted on Twitter Tuesday night an article he wrote for CNN’s website last summer after Trump mentioned he had been dazzled by the Paris parade. Kirby said a big military parade in Washington is a bad idea.
“First of all, the United States doesn’t need a parade down Pennsylvania or any other avenue to show our military strength,” he wrote. “We do that every day in virtually every clime all over the world.”
It has long been conventional wisdom that the US does not need to boast of its military strength because it already is recognized as the leader of the NATO alliance and a model of military professionalism that countries across the global seek to emulate.
Last September, at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump announced his idea of staging a grand parade of the armed forces in Washington on July 4.
Trump reminisced about watching France’s Bastille Day military parade when he visited Paris in July. He said the two-hour parade was a “tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France,” and said he wanted one on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington that would be grander than the one he saw in Paris.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
ACTION ALERT: Vets Oppose Trumps Weapons Parade
Tell the DoD: A military parade for Trump is a terrible mistake
Major General (ret.) Paul Eaton / VoteVets
(February 7, 2018) — Last night, news broke that Donald Trump has given orders to the Department of Defense to prepare for a military parade and that it is being “worked at the highest levels of the military.”
Here’s the truth: our military is made up of the very best men and women this country has to offer. They should not be used and abused in this way simply to prop up Donald Trump’s fragile self-image.
Any Commander-in-Chief who respected the traditions of the military and the people who serve would understand that. But, it is increasingly clear that the United States does not have a Commander in Chief as much as we have a wannabe banana republic strongman.
This parade would not be a national celebration — it would an international disgrace. And it’s important that all of us — especially veterans, military families, and those who support them make our voices heard. Our troops have no choice in this matter; we are their voice.
This is a president who has continually shown himself to have authoritarian tendencies and this is just another worrying example.
Thanks for making your voice heard.
ACTION: Tell the Department of the Defense the American people believe a military parade would be a huge mistake, and that the military is not there to be used and abused to prop up the president’s fragile self-image. Sign the VoteVets petition.
Major General (ret.) Paul Eaton
VoteVets
Trump Dreams of Tanks Rolling Through DC
Alexander McCoy / Common Defense
(February 7, 2018) — Donald Trump is ordering the Pentagon to spend millions of dollars to stage a massive military parade in DC — soldiers, tanks, jets, all of it.
It’s clear to me that Trump doesn’t actually honor the troops, he wants to force the troops to honor him.
Trump’s terrible plan to hold a military parade — wasting millions of dollars to force troops to march down the streets of DC — is a massive slap in the face to everyone who is serving.
Countless veterans and servicemembers have stood in danger’s way and just want to do their jobs, not feed the ego of this insecure man who wants to feel like a dictator.
For Trump it isn’t about the people who serve in uniform. Let’s look at Trump’s record: he lied about donating to veteran charities until we called him out. He tried to purge transgender troops and immigrants from the military. And he turned the arrival of a fallen soldier’s remains in Dover, and the ceremony awarding a wounded soldier his Purple Heart, into gross and exploitative photo ops. He even smeared a Gold Star family!
I’m a Marine, and I still feel an intense sense of pride when I see the Marine Corps commercials where the Silent Drill Team marches in their dress blues. But we’re not props for anyone’s ego and authoritarian agenda. And we’re going to fight tooth and nail until the whole country realizes that.
As veterans, we know we can’t stay on the sidelines as Trump continues to turn our comrades into political props, and intimidates our communities with an authoritarian display. That’s why, if Trump proceeds with his plan, we need to be ready to mobilize veterans and military family members in opposition.
If Trump wants to see us marching in the streets of DC, we’ll go.
In protest.
In solidarity,
Alexander McCoy, US Marine corps veteran
Common Defense
On Armistice Day, November 11, Trump Wants to
Preside over a Massive, Soviet-style Military Parade in DC
Gar Smith
Armistice Day — aka Veterans Day —
Marks 100 Years Since the End of WWI
It was the “War to end all wars”
After 100 years of using war to end all peace
We need a peace to end all war
If Trump gets his parade,
Let’s be there — en masse
Picture this:
A “Tiananmen Square” moment on Pennsylvania Avenue as hundreds of peaceful Americans walk into the street to confront the first M1 Abrams tank that lumbers down the road. As the tank looms ahead, the protesters quietly sit down on the pavement or simply “stand their ground.”
Perhaps the first group to march to the frontlines of this battle between Trump’s War-lobby Fascism and grassroots American democracy would be a group of combat veterans — in uniform.
Would Washington’s police dare club peacefully protesting veterans?
And here’s how the rest of the event might continue to play out:
After the first line of resistance is detained and arrested, every 100 yards further down the parade route, a new contingent of protesters stands ready to step forth to confront the War Machine:
Women against war,
Students against war,
Mothers against war (strollers optional);
Homeless against war,
Homeless vets against war,
Immigrants against war,
Dreamers against war,
Poor people against war,
Environmentalists against war,
Divestors against war,
The Black Alliance for Peace,
Atomic Scientists against war,
Socially Responsible Physicians against war,
Public Citizens against war….
the potential list is endless.
And, if the NSA has been busy doing its job of covertly intercepting the emails of pacifist, anti-war, feminist, environmental list-serves, this fast-growing discussion of possible strategic responses to Trump’s War Parade is sure to give the White House second thoughts about ever staging such an event.
‘Dear Leader’ Trump Gets Brutally Mocked
On Twitter Over Military Parade Plan
Ed Mazza / The Huffington Post
“If he wanted to take part in a military parade, maybe he shouldn’t have dodged the draft.”
(February 7, 2018) — President Donald Trump reportedly wants a big military parade in Washington.
“The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” a military official told The Washington Post. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”
On social media, some are comparing Trump’s plans to tout the nation’s arsenal not to the Bastille Day celebration the president saw in Paris last year but rather the massive displays of weaponry seen in North Korea and Moscow, among other places.
Here is some of that reaction:
Patton Oswalt ✔@pattonoswalt
Everyone in the armed forces should claim they have bone spurs and do the parade riding golf carts.
RealDonalDrumpf
I have asked the Pentagon to work something up for me based on this concept board I put together
Reagan Battalion ✔@ReaganBattalion
We love the military, and there should absolutely NOT be a military parade in Washington DC.
Daugherty ✔@RotoPat
Praise be to Dear Leader.
JohnFugelsang
The Pentagon plans to scare that nepotistic gluttonous ignorant racist juvenile cult leader Kim Jong-Un with something he’s never seen before: A peer.
Joy Ann Reid ✔@JoyAnnReid
Oh my god… he wants to be Kim Jong Un…
Adam Jentleson
Since people didn’t show up for his inauguration, Trump wants to re-stage it with people who he can order to show up.
Richard W. Painter@RWPUSA
Cool. Just like in North Korea and Russia. But what do we do about those traitors who don’t clap during our Dear Leader’s speech?
Nate Jewell@natespuewell
If Dear Leader Trump gets his military parade, it has to be met with marches and protests ten times as impressive in every major city in the United States. #Pentagon #ImpeachTrump
@lib_crusher
it’s actually really funny that top pentagon officials are being ordered to throw a parade for a reality tv dipshit
@_NotFakeNews_
Trump ordered the pentagon to grow him a military parade. Congrats folks, we’ve arrived at fascism.
@pixelatedboat
Trump: I want a big military parade. With a Garfield balloon, like in the Macy’s parade. And a balloon of me, bigger than the Garfield balloon, to show my dominance over Garfield . . .
“And I want Arby’s dropped in on little parachutes”
✔@JackiSchechner
An ego stroking military parade commissioned by a 5-time draft dodger? How is the Pentagon not incredibly insulted?
Dave Rinehart@daverinehart
Can the Mayor of Washington, DC deny him a parade permit? Would be a nice civics lesson to wannabe Dear Leader.#KimJTrump
