The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier with a crew of approximately 5,000, has been continuously at sea for eight and a half months in support of the President’s War-of-Choice with Iran–you know, the “excursion” that’ll be over any minute now.
According to reports, living conditions on the ship have deteriorated during the long deployment, with the crew experiencing plumbing problems, intermittent shortages of food and basic hygiene supplies, problems and delays with incoming mail, and unsafe deck conditions, among other things. These deteriorating conditions, together with the pressures of the continual deployment during the war (I mean, “excursion”) have resulted in a variety of mental health issues, including, according to the Navy Times, several attempts by sailors to jump overboard.
In a letter to Pete Hegseth and Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao (I’ll refrain from the testosterone joke here, but wait), Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) described the problems: “There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months.” Not surprisingly, according to Stars and Stripes, families of some of the sailors aboard the Abraham Lincoln have expressed concerns about the lengthy deployment and the conditions on the ship.
Old Bone Spurs Trump has weighed in on the reports. In considering his response, you may want to recall that Trump allegedly characterized soldiers who lost their lives in war as “suckers” and “losers.” Fairness compels me to report that he has denied having said that. Anyway, here’s what Trump said in response to the reports.
First, Trump dismissed the notion that families of Abraham Lincoln personnel are concerned about the conditions on the ship. “No they’re not,” said Trump, despite the fact that . . . well, yes they are. This is the kind of gaslighting that would make us question our sanity, except that we know Trump has absolutely no contact with reality at this point. Reality and Trump haven’t been on speaking terms for a long time now.
And second, Trump said that the Abraham Lincoln hasn’t been deployed long enough. I’ll just quote The Hill here: “When asked if the ship’s deployment has gone on for too long, the president said, ‘No. Not nearly long enough.'” I guess if you still believe that the Iran War is a brief excursion, this makes sense. For the rest of us, a deployment of more than 260 days (that’s time at sea with no or virtually no stops at ports) is plenty long enough.
But if Mr. Trump doesn’t agree, he is welcome to go to sea for 260 days. We’ll even check on the White House, water the plants, and pick up your mail while you’re gone, tough guy.
Secretary of War! (the exclamation point is intentional) Pete Hegseth also has weighed in with the usual blah, blah, blah. Again, fairness (a very unmanly virtue) compels me to report that he has denied reports about the conditions on the Abraham Lincoln (without responding to the specific allegations) and he said, “Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment.” (By the way, a little tip for you: Don’t trust anything that anyone says in a sentence beginning “Listen.”)
Hegseth’s statement is interesting because he talks about captains having “everything we can provide them.” According to reports, such as one in the New York Times, resupply of the ship has been disrupted by an Iranian attack early in the war–I mean, “excursion”–on a major logistics hub in Bahrain. According to the Times, “[t]he Iranian attack, retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli assault on Tehran, destroyed much of the base. And as it went up in smoke, so did a major logistics hub that the Navy has relied on for decades.” So maybe Pete is actually speaking the truth–or half of it: The USS Abraham Lincoln has “everything we can provide them,” although that actually isn’t very much, because those nasty Iranians actually had the gall to fight back.
I’m sure that Trump would say, “Nobody knew that the Iranians might counterattack. Nobody could have predicted that.” But Trump probably never said that because Hegseth probably didn’t have the cajones to tell him about the actual results of the Iranian attack on the base in Bahrain.
Speaking of cajones, I note, with some surprise, that Hegseth did not say that the men and women of the USS Abraham Lincoln just need some more testosterone. I thought that was Pete’s solution for everything. And I am both surprised and relieved that he hasn’t suggested that the solution to the Abraham Lincoln’s problems is to rename it the “Robert E. Lee.” I guess they’ll wait until the Abraham Lincoln gets back to its home port and they dishonorably discharge its sailors for embarrassing the Administration.