Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, knew a few things about war – certainly more than a five-deferment draft evader and a faux macho Fox News drunk seem to know. One of Ike’s axioms was: “Battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.”
We can pair that with a truism commonly known as the 7 P’s: “Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.”
But the Sultan of Stupid, who has inexplicably failed his way to the pinnacle of power, is cognitively incapable of grasping those basic concepts – and his long track record of disrespecting the military speaks for itself.
Hence the horrific living conditions on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, where 5,000 service members have been wandering the seas without a port of call since last November. They’ve been plagued by food and water shortages, backed-up toilets spewing human waste, long periods without laundry, and disrupted mail service.
Carriers typically pull into a port every 30 or 45 days for resupply, maintenance, and crew rest. But the Lincoln hasn’t done that because there are no reachable ports. Their tour of duty was supposed to end in May. As the spouse of one sailor told Stars and Stripes, the military news outlet, “I’m just actively watching my [family member] kind of break down, like they’re losing hope and everything.”
This is all quintessential Trump. This guy couldn’t even show a profit in casinos or clean a Reflecting Pool, so why would anyone believe for a millisecond he could run a war? There are reports at least one Lincoln service member jumped overboard, and I sympathize. After 10 long years of moronic nonsense, many of us would love to jump the MAGA ship and swim to safe harbor.
Why has the Lincoln been stuck out there for nearly nine months without a port of call in the Middle East? Because when Trump and Pete Hegseth launched their stupid illegal war against Iran, Iran quickly retaliated by bombing the Navy base in Bahrain to smithereens. Bahrain had been the Navy’s key logistics hub for decades. It was the Lincoln’s intended port. The next closest port beyond the range of Iran’s missiles is 2,200 miles away – too far for the Lincoln, given its war mission.
Did Trump and Hegseth not anticipate bombing Iran might prompt Iran to target American ports in the region? Nope. And why was Bahrain so ill-defended? Because the 7 P’s truism was too heavy a lift for the inept regime that 77 million voters entrusted with decisions of life and death. As one retired Navy veteran said on social media the other day, “No safe harbor, no supplies…This is an epic failure on the part of the jackass at the helm of the Pentagon and the coward currently desecrating the people’s house.”
Worse yet is the MAGA cult’s predictable reaction to the Lincoln’s plight. Cultists have been excoriating crew members who’ve had the audacity to highlight the deteriorating conditions. Fox News host Joey Jones taunted them: “How weak are you?”
Trump cultists worship the military from afar, but as soon as service members speak up in ways that may embarrass the cult leader, suddenly the complainants are either liars or wimps who need to suck it up. No surprise there, because Trump has long given them permission to disrespect or exploit our people in uniform when the whim strikes.
It’s a blessing Eisenhower left us long before Trump’s ignominious ascent. How appalled he would be. He once said, “War is a grim, cruel business, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil,” and at least he knew which side was good. When Trump was told in 2018 about a key World War I battle, he reportedly asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?”
Eisenhower also said, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” Rest assured he would loathe a bone spurs charlatan who launches a war with no clue how to win it, who toys with service members’ lives after flunking even the most basic lesson of logistics.
We’re with you, Ike. If only you were with us today.
Copyright 2026 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at [email protected]