Sending in the Troops as Political Theater

Maybe sin the beginning of governments there have been leaders who "sent in the troops." One can see troops are often props in the political movie. President Lyndon Johnson did it in a fictious event called the "Gulf of Tonkin." W. Bush sent troops into Afghanistan mostly for political reasons and Iraq followed. Troops in Iraq, as we all know, were to locate and destroy "weapons of mass destruction." They never existed. 

Now, President Trump thinks he is scoring political points by sending troops all over the place. The Republican Governor in the state where I now live, Iowa, sent troops to the border under the illusion more troop were needed. I read the border was already fully staffed. The troops from various Republican governors did school room visits with kids in rural Texas. 

The current political theater is sending troops into cities with Mayors who are Democrats. This has included cities in Oregon and the City of Chicago. While I believe some of these deployments have been stopped by courts, the ones where troops arrived found there was nothing important to do. Some picked up trash.

Somewhere there must be a book entitled, How to be a President. In the chapter called "When to Use the Military as a Political Prop" the text explains the steps: "Create a villain, tell the public we need to pull together to defeat the villain then send the troops. Apologize later after the votes are counted."