Adam House is a medically retired U.S. Army combat veteran who served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Afghanistan.
What’s your take on Trump as commander in chief?
I’m very disappointed in the American people for re-electing Trump as president after January 6th, 2021 — the Capitol insurrection — and Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. I thought he should have been disqualified from ever being allowed to run for any office again, according to the Constitution. And I think that it’s a sad comment that the American people were still comfortable voting for him after he has shown himself to be a literal terrorist, because his actions did get Americans killed. He lied and people died — literally. I think that as a commander in chief, he is incompetent and dangerous.
Do you think there was a legitimate threat that justified military action against Iran?
I don’t think that I know enough about what threat there may or may not have been to warrant some kind of military action against Iran. But regardless, I do think that it’s been handled in a chaotic, incoherent, and incompetent manner.
How does it compare to how we’ve gone to war before?
When I think back to the initiation of the global war on terror under the Bush administration — regardless of how that played out, or how any of us may feel about how it played out — Bush at least put together what at the time we called a “coalition of the willing.” So he did look for support from allies and friends around the world and tried to explain to the American people what we needed to do and why we needed to do it, and tried to go into the situation with as much popular support as possible, both from the American people as well as the global community. What I see Trump’s actions doing is not only lacking in both of those things, but he seems to be disregarding the wishes of the American people and actively alienating our friends and allies around the world.
You’ve spent a lot of time overseas — stationed, deployed, and then later as a Muay Thai coach in Thailand. What are you hearing from people you know in other countries?
As a U.S. Army veteran who has been stationed overseas and deployed overseas and spent time in many different countries — and as a Muay Thai coach who has spent several years in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, and has met many fighters, many athletes from dozens of countries all around the world — I have many friends in many different places. I know people on practically every continent on Earth, and I keep track of what some of them are doing and thinking, I keep in contact. So I know a lot of people around the globe, and just from my anecdotal experience, I can speak to the fact that what the Trump regime is doing is unpopular, especially as it relates to the war in Iran, and people around the globe are suffering. And the consequences of this are only just now beginning to be felt.
How bad do you think it’s going to get?
I think the consequences of Trump’s chaotic and incompetent actions will continue to be felt for many years — possibly many decades, maybe even many generations to come. I think the Trump regime’s actions are squandering a lot of good will that the American people — and that our country — has built with people, our friends and allies all around the world, at least since World War II. And the people of the world — the international community — just average people, everyday people, common people that live in all these other countries around the world right now — their opinions about America and Americans, it’s changing right now. So I think we’re just beginning to feel the negative consequences of that. A lot of people who used to have respect for America may never forgive us for what we’re doing right now. And this is going to hurt. And, you know, like I say, we’re only just beginning to feel the consequences. They’re going to be much more severe and much more numerous over time.
What about our enemies — how are they looking at this?
Our enemies are laughing at us. And our friends around the globe right now are crying because of what they see us doing to ourselves. Our allies are horrified and scrambling to see how to pick up the slack that’s left by the vacuum of leadership where America is no longer showing itself to be a true leader. But America’s enemies right now are laughing at us. And I believe many of them are actually exploring their options to see how they can take advantage of this current environment.
I’m kind of two minds about that. On one hand, if you’re America’s enemies right now, maybe you don’t want to launch any kind of strikes or terrorist actions or military actions against us, because it’s very obvious that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot right now. And why attack somebody when they’re self-destructing? On the other hand, I think America probably has other enemies that are looking at this situation and actively trying to figure out how they can take advantage of our current lack of leadership and how they can hurt America.
You’re thinking about Russia specifically?
We know for a fact that Russia and some of our other enemies around the globe, like China, for years — even decades now — have continued to launch constant online, digital attacks against the United States. And we know that foreign adversaries are trying to use American political polarization to their advantage. Things like on Twitter — we know that there are Russian bots, and they don’t even care whether you’re radicalizing to the left or radicalizing to the right. Their whole focus is to just create further polarization. So they just want Americans to radicalize against one another. So they’re kind of inserting themselves into the American body politic to take advantage of our own divisions here and just put gasoline on the fire of those divisions. So that’s just one hint at how foreign governments are looking at American division and polarization right now, and our lack of leadership and the inept leadership that we have.
When you talk to other veterans, is there any consensus on what Trump is actually trying to do here?
Ultimately, what I think Americans need to understand is that those of us who have served in uniform — all the way down to lower enlisted people like me, who — well, I’m a combat veteran. I was never a senior NCO or an officer of any kind. As far as I can tell, everybody sees the same thing. As far as serious policy analysts, longtime professional military brass, academics in the field who spend their careers actively studying the issues that are relevant to the current U.S. actions in Iran and military affairs and global affairs generally — all the way down to people like me, who are just lower enlisted guys who served in combat years ago — many other veterans that I know across the board — thinking people, serious people, and a lot of people who just care about these kinds of issues — we all seem to be confused as to what the Trump regime is trying to do, and nobody can really make heads or tails of what they’re doing. The Trump regime’s actions are incoherent to everyone, even his own administration and allies.
So what does that tell you?
It just tells me that the Trump regime is chaotic, incompetent, maybe even senile, and negligent, and just basically screwing the pooch at such a level that it’s putting the American people and our constitutional republic in danger. Right now, the Trump regime is a clear and present danger to our Constitution, to our republic, to the liberty and justice that we enjoy in the United States. The greatest threat to America right now — the greatest emergency that we face — is the occupant of the Oval Office. The Trump regime is our greatest threat, and Americans need to know that, and we need to act accordingly. It’s like we’re standing on the brink of potential World War III, and it’s amateur hour in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government.
The only thing I might add further on this general subject, coming from anecdotal experience again and from my perspective as someone who served in Afghanistan, is the way that the Trump regime — and the American government in general — has treated our Afghan allies after the end of the war in Afghanistan. I know firsthand, for a fact, that there are American soldiers — veterans — who are home living out our lives today because of the sacrifices that were made by our Afghan allies on the ground in Afghanistan. Individual Afghan interpreters and other supporters there literally put their lives on the line, put their families in danger, and some of them were even wounded and suffered a lot of negative consequences standing against their own fellow countrymen with the American military while we were there.
What do you think we owe them?
As far as I’m concerned, we owe a debt of honor to those people. I don’t care how many of them there are — any of them that want to escape the Taliban regime that’s currently in power, I think it’s a debt of honor on our heads to help them do that. Even if it means bringing all of them — any of them that want to — to the United States and giving them a leg up to start a new life here in the U.S., or wherever they might want to go. I think it’s our business and our responsibility to help them. One of the latest developments has been the way that the Trump administration has stopped some of these people from being able to come to the United States, and then seriously put some of them who were already here in danger — deporting them back to Afghanistan or other countries that maybe they’ve never even been to before, maybe don’t speak the language. In general, the way we’re treating immigrants in our country right now is also not winning us any friends around the globe.
How does that affect what’s happening now in Iran — or anywhere else we might need people on the ground to trust us?
When I think about the impacts of this kind of reputation on the current situation — if American military forces are going into Iran or anywhere else in the region, expecting anyone on the ground to join forces or ally themselves with us in any way — why and how could we possibly expect them to do that when they know the way we’ve thrown our Afghan allies under the bus, the way we’ve forsaken the people who made these kinds of sacrifices for us before? So I think it puts us in danger. I think it puts our boots on the ground — people who volunteer to serve to defend this country and keep us safe — in danger. If we continue to have American pilots shot down, why would the residents of enemy territory take the risk to help our warriors? And it puts our ability to carry out military actions in other parts of the world at risk, because our friends and allies — and anybody else who might be inclined to help us — understand that there’s a good possibility we will not keep up our end of the bargain. We won’t keep our promises, and we very well might throw them under the bus and hang them out to dry later on.
If you’ve served and have concerns about the Trump administration (the war in Iran, the assault on democratic institutions, the erosion of the constitutional guardrails) visit the contributions page to add your voice.
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