While Trump feasts on Thanksgiving, troops on the border eat rations and await Pancho Villa
By Dana Milbank
Columnist
November 16 at 6:48 PM
President Trump is reportedly planning to celebrate Thanksgiving once again at his members-only Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, feasting on (if previous menus repeat) a 24-dish extravaganza of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, marshmallow sweet potatoes, red snapper, leg of lamb, grilled diver scallops, stone crab, ahi tuna martinis, Maine lobster bisque, short ribs, beef tenderloin and seven desserts.
It will likely all be topped off by what the president calls “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake” — available exclusively to members ($200,000 initiation fee) and guests.
Things will be rather less sumptuous along the southern border, to which Trump, just before the midterm elections, ordered some 5,600 troops, with another 1,400 on the way, to contain the “national emergency” posed by the approaching caravan of Central American families seeking asylum.
Since the election, Trump has forgotten about the mortal peril posed by the caravan “invasion” — he has mentioned the “caravan” only once, and only when asked — but the troops he ordered to act in this political advertisement can’t forget. They will remain on the border through Thanksgiving, the New York Times reported, eating MRE rations, living in tents without electricity, receiving neither combat pay nor hostile-fire pay.
Their only task is to spend a few days stringing barbed wire. After this, their mission, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, “is somewhat to be determined.”
Operation TBD. At least that’s more honest than “Operation Faithful Patriot,” the name originally assigned to Trump’s Pentagon-financed campaign ad.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/while-trump-feasts-on-thanksgiving-troops-on-the-border-eat-rations-and-await-pancho-villa/2018/11/16/4d60d4c8-e9b8-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
