This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive more briefings and a guide to the section daily in your inbox.
As I listened to President Trump outline his new strategy in Afghanistan, I could not help wondering what his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, was thinking. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, lost his son in Afghanistan in 2010.
Shortly afterward, Kelly gave a eulogy for two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, who were killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq. The speech, published in 2013 by Business Insider, makes powerful reading, not least because the quality of unflinching valor evoked by Kelly sits at such a distance from Trump, a man whose fascination with the military is equaled only by his failure to come close to the “selflessness, courage and resolve” of America’s troops.
Yale and Haerter, faced by an explosives-laden truck barreling down on them, did not flinch. As Kelly put it, “With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live. The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.” He concluded: “Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty...into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight — for you.”Yale and Haerter were 22 and 20, respectively. Kelly’s son, First Lieutenant Robert Kelly, was 29. Such sacrifice demands more and better than a commander in chief who attempts (via Twitter!) to ban transgender people from the military and who, as a candidate, insulted the Muslim parents of a fallen American officer in Iraq. Trump’s Afghan strategy is full of holes. Militarizing American foreign policy while relegating diplomacy will bring no victories. But the deeper issue with Trump is his moral unfitness, his shifting neediness. How do those who serve him coax this troubling fact from their minds?In my column today, I look at the dangers of an Afghan strategy that lacks a diplomatic component.
On the news, curated by Ian Prasad Philbrick, an editorial assistant at The Times. Trump didn’t just attack media coverage of his equivocating response to Charlottesville at a rally in Phoenix last night; he accused journalists of fomenting division in American society, argues The Washington Post’s Amber Phillips. “About the only time he mentioned the racial tensions and violence stirred up last week was in the context of defending himself,” she writes.
Trump’s deepening feud with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in part over issues related to Russia, only bolsters Robert Mueller’s investigation, warns Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor. “Another mistake—Trump’s words can be used against him,” Mariotti wrote on Twitter.
In The Times. For years, Exxon Mobil publicly downplayed the risks of climate change that its own scientists and corporate leaders privately acknowledged, argue Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, two researchers at Harvard University. “Exxon Mobil contributed quietly to climate science and loudly to raising doubts about it,” write the social scientists, who analyze four decades of documents from the oil and gas company — including advertisements published in The Times — in a newly released study.
David Leonhardt, the regular author of this newsletter, will return Aug. 28.
<
ROGER COHEN>
댓글 안에 당신의 성숙함도 담아 주세요.
'오늘의 한마디'는 기사에 대하여 자신의 생각을 말하고 남의 생각을 들으며 서로 다양한 의견을 나누는 공간입니다. 그러나 간혹 불건전한 내용을 올리시는 분들이 계셔서 건전한 인터넷문화 정착을 위해 아래와 같은 운영원칙을 적용합니다.
자체 모니터링을 통해 아래에 해당하는 내용이 포함된 댓글이 발견되면 예고없이 삭제 조치를 하겠습니다.
불건전한 댓글을 올리거나, 이름에 비속어 및 상대방의 불쾌감을 주는 단어를 사용, 유명인 또는 특정 일반인을 사칭하는 경우 이용에 대한 차단 제재를 받을 수 있습니다. 차단될 경우, 일주일간 댓글을 달수 없게 됩니다.
명예훼손, 개인정보 유출, 욕설 등 법률에 위반되는 댓글은 관계 법령에 의거 민형사상 처벌을 받을 수 있으니 이용에 주의를 부탁드립니다.
Close
x