Defense Department Once Again Roasts Itself With Yet Another Highly Visible Public Gaffe

This is a picture of a magnet that was being sold at Strand's Book Store in New York City a few years ago. No, I did not buy it, but I liked it and took a picture, which I am sharing here now. 

There have been so many gaffes and blunders and self-owns done by members of this Trump administration, that you might think that someone inside was deliberately sabotaging them and their credibility. At the very least, you might think that they would be so careful after such humiliations as to make sure that something that casts them in such a compromised, negative light would never, ever happen again.

Yet, these things just keep happening. It really is amazing.

The latest came just yesterday. Once again, it was more symbolic of the attempted tough, brash image which this administration always and forever tries to convey. Also once again, this attempt completely backfired.

Someone noticed fairly quickly and it was taken down just as quickly. But not before someone caught it and took a screenshot. Which, of course, meant that it went viral.

Which, of course, made this administration look just as incompetent and ridiculous as they always seem to manage to do.

There is a semi-blurred image of American troops in desert fatigue. They are running from a cargo plane where a bunch of other soldiers are running out of. Everyone has their guns out.

Behind them is a single word: 

WINNING.

The "Department of War" (which I still think is legally known as the Department of Defense) has the caption: "It's not an option."

People are already comparing it to other disastrous moments, when a presidential administration does something so ill-advised and cringeworthy that you just know it will endure as a symbol of their failure. I saw comparisons to George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" fiasco. But at least the Bush administration was on message, even if that was obviously premature and came back to bite them. They at least were clear in their message of declaring huge success.

This one casts doubt right away, and in an obvious manner. Even a young elementary school child could likely have caught the problem here.

Yet somehow, the higher-ups of this particular administration could not.

Of course, the obvious problem is that it seems like a contradictory message. Like they are claiming that winning is simply not an option.

Given how this ill-advised and highly illegal and immoral war with Iran is going, that pretty much seems to sum everything up.

Pretty much sums up this entire administration too, for that matter.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating:

Elect a clown, expect a circus.

Defense Department Roasted After Posting And Then Deleting Tweet About 'Winning' Trump's Iran War That's A Self-Own For The Ages by Alan Herrera Aug 03, 2026:

The official X account for the Under Secretary of War posted a tweet about the U.S. military "winning" the Iran war with a caption that totally undermined the sentiment before later deleting it—but not before the internet pounced. 

https://www.comicsands.com/pentagon-winning-not-option?utm_source=Bluesky&utm_medium=infeed&utm_campaign=linkprogram#Echobox=1785776606

Defense Dept. Roasted Over 'Winning,' 'It's Not An Option' Tweet: PHOTO - Comic Sands