Not guns for butter

America is a militaristic country. It is a warlike country. Its armed forces are feted by the general population as heroes, true Americans, and this is fair enough. Armed forces personnel risk their lives when called on and deserve their country’s gratitude and admiration.

Senator John McCain fought in the Vietnam war and was captured and imprisoned in terrible circumstances. To this day he cannot raise his arms above his head as a result of torture he received.

He had an opportunity to be exchanged for Vietnamese prisoners but knowing it was offered to him because of his family’s political contacts (his father was in Washington) he refused.

John McCain did so because he believed that to accept would be a betrayal of his fellow prisoners who were not so lucky to have friends in high places, and he chose to stay with them in that hellhole of a place until repatriated at the end of the war. He was decorated on his return and went on to become the Republican senator he is today.

The ‘great patriot’ Donald Trump avoided conscription on six separate occasions by going the ‘millionaire kid’s’ route of having selected private doctors write him exemption notes – the reasons for exemption getting more and more spurious each time.

The ‘great patriot’s’ contribution to his country’s war effort was getting a degree in business studies and playing golf.

His objection to fighting wasn’t based on pacifism, or a belief that this particular conflict was immoral – he was all for it. Donald Trump didn’t fight himself, because he was, and still is, a coward.

To this day he talks like John Wayne, threatening other counties worldwide, but when given the chance to fight for America turned tail and ran.

He has of late fallen out with John McCain who is very old and dying of cancer. Trump has tried to belittle him and suggested that he was not the hero he is because he got caught, and Trump’s heroes are ‘the guys who don’t get caught’.

Now the right wing of the great American public, who, as I started this off by saying, idolise their armed forces and support the coward Trump over the decorated war hero John McCain.

The armed forces themselves support the coward Trump over the dignified, often inspiring John McCain.

I say this as a true despiser of the Republican Party.

Ordinary soldiers and seamen cheer at the mention of the coward Trump’s name, they throw their caps in the air, they say he’s ‘their kinda guy’.

What gives here?! Can anyone hazard even the wildest of guesses as to a rational, emotional or intellectual basis for this ‘Bizzaro World Topsy Turvy’ scenario?

A coward being hailed as the good guy by the very people he refused to join and defend his country with, while a genuine 100 per cent hero is portrayed as a sulking troublemaker?

Trump recently told a grieving war widow that her husband ‘knew what he was signing up for’. Trump certainly knew, and the coward didn’t sign up. This tiny-handed, preening Cockatoo is a disgrace to the American armed forces, over which, incredibly, as president he is Commander-in-Chief.

The hierarchy of the army, navy and air force are disgraced even more by their sycophantic support for him.

It demonstrates a total lack of respect or love of country. Shame on them in the the name of the tens of thousands of Americans who have fought and died in its name.

Regarding McCain – since Trump is such an immediate and palpable danger to the world I suppose I am going down the ‘my enemies enemy is my friend‘ line.

Vietnam was an abomination. Please don’t think I am in any way endorsing any of John McCain or America’s unspeakable deeds in the past. The possibility of this misinterpretation has been pointed out to me by several Facebook friends, and I appreciate it.