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Robin Abcarian is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
Former President Donald Trump did something breathtakingly cynical, certainly immoral and probably illegal the other day. Trump used an appearance on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, a resting place for many who honorably served their country, to make a campaign video.
Trump was ostensibly at Arlington to commemorate the third anniversary of the killing of 13 American service members by a suicide bomber during the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said the soldiers’ family members, some of whom disparaged President Joe Biden at the Republican National Convention, invited him.
I have no doubt that’s true. But even the grieving families of fallen soldiers do not have a right to trash Arlington‘s protocols.
The Army, which oversees the cemetery, forbids any sort of political activities on the grounds. It is, as the Trump campaign was informed, against federal law and Defense Department policy. The Washington Post reported that Pentagon officials were “deeply concerned” that Trump would turn the visit into a campaign stop but also wanted to accommodate him.
During the visit, a cemetery official tried to enforce the rules against outside cameras in Section 60, the area devoted chiefly to soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Trump staffers physically pushed her out of the way, according to news reports.
The official declined to press charges because she feared retaliation from Trump supporters, according to an Army statement. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung promptly slimed her as “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”
Trump had smiled broadly and given a jarring thumbs-up as he stood at the grave of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, one of those killed in the bombing. He wasn’t there just to pay his respects; he was there to exploit the tragedy that occurred at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate in 2021 by blaming it on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has soared in recent polls.
The frenzied withdrawal and terrible loss of life occurred on Biden’s watch — as did the abandonment of at least 78,000 Afghans who worked for the U.S. government and continue to live there precariously.
Nonetheless, Trump crassly ignores his own role in the debacle. A deal he himself struck with the Taliban locked the United States into a withdrawal timeline. Military intelligence was profoundly mistaken about the Afghan government’s ability to defend Kabul, which fell to the Taliban with lightning speed. There is enough blame to go around.
I called a dear friend whose parents are buried at Arlington. Her father was a Marine colonel and a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. At his funeral, he was given a 21-gun salute, and his procession included a riderless horse, empty boots in the stirrups facing backward to symbolize a final look back at his troops and his loved ones.
“My father was a conservative guy, but he would have thought Trump was a pig,” my friend told me. “He believed in honor, and if you are buried at Arlington, it is an honor. It is not something that should be … [messed] with.”
Trump has a history of demeaning military sacrifices and messing with honorable traditions. As president, he turned the White House into his personal political prop, using it as a backdrop for the launch of his failed 2020 reelection campaign.
Poor Ohio Sen. JD Vance has once again been put in the sorry position of trying to mop up after his running mate. At a campaign rally in Wisconsin last Wednesday, an indignant Vance excoriated the media.
“You’re acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a grave site,” said Vance, a Marine veteran. “He was there providing emotional support to a lot of brave Americans who lost loved ones they never should have lost, and there happened to be a camera there, and someone gave them permission to have that camera there.”
As they say on social media, who’s gonna tell him?
That very day, the Trump campaign released a video showing the former president at Arlington, laying flowers at a grave and posing for photos with the Gold Star families.
In a voice-over, Trump says, “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months,” a self-regarding and entirely bogus claim he’s been making for the last few years. As Reuters reported in May 2022, if Trump was referring to the time period in which he negotiated the withdrawal agreement, 15 American troops suffered what the Defense Department called “hostile deaths” in Afghanistan. If he was referring to the last 18 months of his presidency, 12 members of the military died in Afghanistan.
None of this is likely to dissuade Trump’s passionate supporters. But let’s hope his creepy stunt will persuade the last undecided voters that he is truly, deeply unfit to be this country’s commander in chief.
