Under the tenure of Donald J. Trump, there is an humanitarian crisis aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the legal framework leaving service members without recourse. The carrier has operated in the Gulf of Oman for nine months without a port stop, leading to failures in basic living standards.
Imagine that your child goes into service and must live amongst 5000 other servicemen in conditions that were actually illegal in a domestic prison.
Besides the fact that this carrier hasn’t been to shore in at least nine months, the following is what the soldiers abord that ship have to face every day.
SERVICE FAILURES
- Shortages of food and water.
- Broken toilets.
- Lack of laundry services.
- Lack of mail services.
Mental Health
- Moral has collapsed, with reports of sailors jumping overboard.
Even with all of this happening onboard an American aircraft carrier, the Naval crew of this ship do not have any constitutional rights to sue over living conditions, a right afforded to incarcerated persons under sanitation and medical care standards.
Is this how we treat our American soldiers who fight to protect us. And to protect us from what? Trump will tell you that these soldiers are fighting to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Trump claimed that after the first week, the Iranians were annihilated. He said that they could no longer make a nuclear weapon. So then why are we still there? Why are our soldiers, our own flesh and blood still there, fighting a war that to this point seems to be never-ending. It was not a war that America wanted, and not one that our representatives in Washington wanted us in. But here we are. Our servicemen are suffering and some have mental conditions now that clearly require that they be brought home.
The present and ongoing U.S. Abraham Lincoln tour has set the record books. Never in modern history has any crew been stranded on a boat for nine months without any rest, without taking any shore leave. Many of the soldiers aboard had their tours with the service extended, against their will because they just happened to be on the Abraham Lincoln.
This is very unfortunate. Donald J. Trump, a disgusting human being who dodged the draft himself, is forcing American servicemen to be in harms way, all because he personally started a war that was not approved by our own Congress.
The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the exclusive power to declare war, requiring a majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate followed by the president’s signature. However, the president serves as Commander in Chief and retains authority to deploy military forces without a formal declaration in response to emergencies, attacks, or under statutory authorizations.
The last part of that last sentence just stated says that the President has the right to deploy military forces without a formal declaration. But in response to what? It’s supposed to be for emergencies, attacks or under statutory authorizations.
None of that exists, except Trump claimed that he had to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon. If Trump thought that Iran was creating a nuclear weapon, why didn’t he share his intelligence with the U.S. Congress so that they could vote on it and give him the authorization that he needed to carry on with his attack?
The reason is because Trump knew he would never get approval from Congress to attack Iran. That’s the reason why he didn’t go to Congress. He circumvented Congress for his selfish reasons, taking the war into his own hands with no ones blessing, and now look what we have to show for it.
Yes, it’s an endless war, created by Trump, which caused service members to be killed. It’s the reason why the Abraham Lincoln is in the Gulf of Oman fighting a war while putting our troops in harms way, when we didn’t need to be there in the first place.
Everyone that has enabled Trump needs to go. If they had anything to do with his actions regarding this war, they also need to be prosecuted.
Trump needs to be in the confines of a jail cell, so he himself can feel like the troops aboard the Abraham Lincoln, a ship that has become their own jail cell. They cannot escape until the boat docks once again. No doubt that many of them will leave service the first chance they get, because they never want to experience these conditions ever again.