Column By John Young
I shouldn’t read the news before bed.
Because of such an error one night, I was pondering the idiotic political theater of sending troops to “war”-torn Portland when I fell into uneasy sleep.
I found myself at Denver’s Coors Field. The game had barely begun when glares exchanged between the Colorado Rockies and visiting San Francisco Giants turned ugly. Words were thrown. Benches were cleared.
Never fear. Adults on the scene (umpires) quelled the scuffle without bloodshed.
Then suddenly:
Gates on the left- and right-field lines swung open.
National Guard troops, just in from Pierre, S.D., piled onto the field and up into the stands, knocking over vendors like bowling pins. Cotton candy flew.
Hut, hut, hut, hut.
Then a realization: The troops had arrived for no apparent reason.
Sent by our president on an urgent report of “rampant blue-state violence,” they had been hung up on the interstate and late for the ballpark fight.
Ah, but they still had deployment to do. In olive-drab, a coterie spread along the outfield grass – a chance to scratch, sniff, and spit like major leaguers. Occasionally, they sidestepped a pop fly or dodged a line drive.
Commanding officers stood behind the pitcher’s mound. Intermittently, they discussed the weather or dining options in the Greater Denver area. Other times, they argued balls and strikes.
The game went on.
So, too, goes our president’s games with his army toys — the farce that the chest-plated Caesar in the White House has made of our military.
Troops in Los Angeles who remain to fidget on street corners are “bored and demoralized,” The New York Times reports.
What a return on the $120 million invested in sending them to do what L.A. police were more than able to do: Let people protest ICE and send them home.
The Guard was sent to D.C. as well on a bogus, completely political claim: “Crime OUT OF CONTROL.”
It’s as big an affront as the president’s squeaking armored birthday parade.
Claims about out-of-control crime in D.C. are demonstrably false. Check the FBI’s own statistics. If any blip in crime, know that the Jan. 6 rioters only recently got their street clothes back.
Fox News Pete Hegseth, in his new role as Secretary of Defense, cannot stop pronouncing “lethality” as the military’s new focus.
Kicking a can and whiling away dollars on an urban street corner doesn’t sound like that. Maybe for patrolling Coachella. Or the Rose Parade.
But, hey, this is the new Department of War. Take that, evil-doers.
To show the world that our one-time Defense Department will be all about offense, and not just games with military toys, the administration had a boat leaving Venezuela blown up, killing 11. This was done on what? A suspicion? An inkling? An intimation that it was carrying drugs to our shores?
If we could trust even one word from this president, we might rest easy. We cannot.
This looks mostly like “vengeance is mine”: our brave leader showing the leftist president of Venezuela who has the best playthings.
It’s how our president shows that indiscriminate savagery isn’t the sole province of out-of-control tough guys like Putin and Netanyahu.
Asked about the legality of blowing up a ship on mere pretenses in the open seas, Vice President Vance said: “I don’t give a shit,” calling it the “highest and best use of the military.”
A highly critical Republican, Sen. Rand Paul, said the logical extension of Vance’s reasoning would be artillery batteries on our coasts blasting away at any vessel we choose.
By the way, experts in drug interdiction tell The New York Times that it is false to assert that Venezuela is heavily involved in the U.S. drug trade. Try Mexico and Colombia. “Venezuela did it” is an easy lie to sell, however.
This president and his red-nosed “war” secretary have not made the U.S. military more lethal and fearsome, just their use of it a big joke.
Speaking of blue-state violence: Some of the most intense conflicts I’ve seen take place on Little League fields, and we’re not talking Pee Wee players. We’re talking parents.
I’ll tell you that a well-placed flash-bang grenade or tear gas would get those riotous parents’ attention. Think about it, Secretary Hegseth.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
