Traitor Trump?

By Donald Kirk – The Korea Times

Donald Trump should be thankful the Republican convention in Cleveland that nominated him for the presidency was held the week before Hillary Clinton’s shining moments at the Democratic conflab in Philadelphia. Just think what the fallout would have been if the Muslim parents of an army captain who was killed in Iraq had talked at the Democratic convention before the Republican convention.

How would the Trumpster’s Republican advocates have responded on the convention floor knowing that he’d openly disparaged the mother and father of a fallen army officer? Would all those who were committed to him have really wanted to see him nominated?

Maybe they couldn’t haven backed out of their commitment, but I’m betting Indiana Governor Mike Pence, father of a marine, would have had second thoughts about accepting the vice presidential nomination. Yo, guv’nor, it’s not too late. You can stop your campaign right now. Have your name withdrawn. Let the Trumpster find another patsy to take second place on the ticket.

Of course, that’s not gonna happen. While the ruckus was reverberating in the media, Pence was busy putting out a statement to the effect that he and Donald “believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero.” Moreover, he added, in a comment meant to mollify Khan’s mother, whom Trump had chastised for not talking before the convention like his father, “his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American.”

Whatever Trump says, though, he’s going to have a hard time living down the fact that he besmirched the memory of an American killed in combat decades after he himself had assiduously dodged the draft at the height of the Vietnam War. He may appear warlike in talks before veterans, he may vow to annihilate the Islamic State (IS) and all the other bad guys, but there’s no getting around that he’s never visited an active battlefield, never seen bodies mown down by bullets and bombs, never walked among refugees who’ve fled their homes and livelihoods, never visited a mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) filled with the wounded and dying such as those set up at or near the frontlines during the Korean War.

You have to see war close up to begin to get a sense of what it’s like. Millions of Americans ― aging veterans of World War II and Korea, much younger ones from the Middle East, have experienced the horrors of combat. Hard for me to believe, but aging Vietnam veterans are now retiring from their civilian jobs, proud to have served in a useless war that Trump believed was a waste and avoided.

I was in Vietnam as a reporter for the old Washington (DC) Star during the 1968 Tet offensive when Trump was getting out of college, finding a doctor to say he had a foot problem. I ran into a lot of soldiers and marines all over South Vietnam. Many never came back. Many more were greeted with derision by protesters at home ― but now, years later, talk proudly if sadly of their time in a losing cause. Trump has said he “sacrificed” by providing jobs for thousands, but his sacrifices did not begin to compare with those of the thousands who died or the families that mourn them in ways that Trump has never known.

Trump’s uncaring, grossly unaware outlook has repercussions for Korea and Japan as well as countries in Europe and the Middle East. You have to wonder, 63 years after the Korean War armistice was signed, if he has a clue of the suffering endured by millions of Koreans and thousands of American and allied soldiers. Certainly, he’s never talked about any of that while saying American forces might as well withdraw from Korea ― Japan too ― and suggesting he meet with Kim Jong-un to see about getting the North Korean dictator to stop investing in missile and nuclear tests.

But then again, Trump doesn’t know much about World War II either, judging from his careless view that America’s NATO allies should take care of themselves, no more American taxpayers’ money. He’s not worried about the rather large country about which NATO gets so concerned. That would be Russia, mainstay of the former Soviet Union. In fact, Trump admires the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, a strongman who ordered the takeover of the Crimea, is fostering trouble in the eastern Ukraine ― and pursues a strategy in the Middle East that’s antithetical to that of the U.S.

Trump didn’t seem too upset that the Russians were responsible for getting into the Democratic Party records, revealing party leaders undermining Bernie Sanders’ bid for the nomination against Hillary. Instead, he suggested maybe the Russians could find out the contents of her deleted emails from when she was secretary of state.

Is the Trumpster unbelievably saying fine, let’s play cyber-ball with a potential enemy power if that’s what it takes to destroy his opponent? In some countries, that kind of thing would be seen as treason ― a betrayal of the government and the nation he aspires to lead.