The 30-round magazine stenciled with an image of Hillary Clinton behind bars was just more “lock-her-up” nonsense.
But what was deeply offensive on multiple levels about Donald Trump Jr.’s recent Instagram post was the Knights Templar Long Cross painted on his assault rifle.
“...adding a little extra awesome to my AR,” he wrote.
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That particular cross is the emblem of the long-ago Crusades to vanquish the Muslims from the Holy Land. Present-day Muslim terrorists seek to justify their attacks with the fiction that they are doing battle with present-day crusaders. Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa was titled “Jews and Crusaders.”
For the son and namesake of our president to post a smiling picture of himself holding a weapon of war bearing that symbol adds credence to the crusader fiction of our enemies. He does this even as thousands of young Americans are heading into harm’s way, answering a call to duty that nobody in the Trump family seems ever to have heard.
Donald Jr. was 23 years old back on 9/11, prime military age. But the attack on his city and country did not send him to a recruiting station as it did thousands of his generation.
As the nation went to war in Afghanistan and then Iraq, he instead followed family tradition, working in real estate while shunning military service, making big bucks while others gave their very lives. His sister Ivanka and brother Eric did the same when they became old enough not to serve.
Donald Jr. did pick up a rifle in 2004, but not to head into either of the conflicts where other young Americans were being killed or wounded. He set off for the 61st annual One-Shot Antelope Hunt in Wyoming, where there was no danger of anybody shooting back.
The event began with a Shoshone Chief in buckskins and a ceremonial headdress blessing the lone bullet allotted to each hunter. Donald Jr. was among the 13 out of 24 participants who managed to kill an animal with a single pull off the trigger.
“It was a real good, fun time,” One Shot Club President Scott Harnsberger was quoted saying afterwards.
Two Americans, aged 22 and 25, were killed that same day by an IED in Iraq. Three more, aged 35, 31, and 21, were killed in Afghanistan two days later, one by an IED, the other two by small arms fire. One of these was by a single shot.
Donald Jr. went on to shoot a number of more exotic creatures on other continents, most recently an endangered argal sheep in eastern Mongolia. He is said to have used not his awesome AR, but a hunting rifle equipped with a laser sight. He reportedly obtained a permit only after the kill.
In the meantime, Donald Jr. put out a book titled Triggered, in which he recounts visiting Arlington National Cemetery with his father on the day before the inauguration.
“I rarely get emotional, if ever,” he says. “Yet, as we drove past the rows of white grave markers, in the gravity of the moment, I had a deep sense of the importance of the presidency and a love of our country. I was never prouder of my father than when I watched as he stood before the tomb, his hand over his heart, while the Army bugler played, ‘Taps.’”
His father having thrice dodged the draft. His father also having disparaged a Gold Star mother and father who dared to criticize him during the campaign for violating the spirit of the U.S. Constitution. The parents are Muslim. Their son’s tombstone—marked not with a cross, but a crescent and a star—was a short walk from where the bugler played:
“KHAN, HUMAYUN SAQIB MUAZZAM
CPT US ARMY
SEPT 9 1976 JUNE 8 2004
BSM PURPLE HEART
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.”
BSM standing for Bronze Star Medal, which Khan received in recognition of his bravery in placing the safety of his soldiers before his own in the moments before he was killed by a suicide bomber.
Donald Jr.’s thoughts as recounted in his book prove he is exactly his father’s son.
“In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we’d already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we’d have to make to help my father succeed—voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were ‘profiting off the office,’” Trump Jr. actually says.
Khan was a Muslim who had gone to war, proving that we are not Crusaders at war with Islam. He sacrificed more than the entire Trump clan dynasty has in four generations. Many young Americans of all faiths are now being sent on into the Middle East, ready to do the same.
That is on the orders of our president. And here is his eldest son on Instagram, brandishing a weapon such as has been used in mass shooting after mass shooting here at home, stenciled with a symbol that plays to the lies of our enemies.
At least Donald Jr. did not opt for another 39-shot magazine produced by the same company that makes the one showing Hillary behind bars. That one also has a cross, but such as a lifeguard might wear.
“WATERBOARDING INSTRUCTOR,” it says.
