Dan ‘Razin’ Caine Spoke Truth to Power, and Power Didn’t Like It
Power and truth.
Photographer: Nicole Combeau/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Last year I expressed cautious hope that Dan “Razin” Caine, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and highest-ranking military officer in the United States, would be the one in this administration to assume the duty and burden of speaking “truth to power,” the power being President Donald Trump. Now, as the US has massed its armed forces for an attack on Iran, Caine appears to have done just that. How will power deal with truth?
The truth, as Caine has allegedly presented it in meetings about a potential war, is that this next strike — unlike, say, the American bombing of Iran in June or the extraction of the Venezuelan dictator in January — could turn into a mess. And not just any old mess, but the kind of “forever war” for which Trump used to blame his predecessors.