@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
Post #4018335
2026-07-22 20:04 UTC
I think about this incident with Italy a lot, especially when I encounter takes by well-meaning and optimistic but profoundly naive Americans like this: “the US decline is entirely and solely attributable to Trump, and as soon as he’s gone, everything will go back to normal.”
https://bsky.app/profile/bythepeople1863.bsky.social/post/3mq6kxzmn2c2g
Replies (1)
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@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social 2026-07-22 20:11
The failure by the US military to properly request permission to land in Italy was almost certainly the responsibility of some mid-level officer or senior enlisted person deep in the bowels of the US military bureaucracy, as well as all of the institutions around that person who should have known better. Donald Trump did not tell that person to ignore bilateral treaties with Italy. This isn’t an issue of some responsible general getting purged in one of Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI moves. You cannot pin this screw-up on a single person. This is the fault of a giant bureaucracy that had figured out and routinized this sort of basic task, just…choosing not to do it.