October 28, 2019

"'It was on brand in the sense that Trump allowed his inner showman to make this a spectacle rather than a solemn moment of acknowledgment and a reflection — the way President Obama did'..."

"... said Ned Price, a CIA officer at the time of bin Laden’s death who later served as a spokesman for the National Security Council under Obama.... Obama spoke of the anguish of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, emphasized the nation’s resolve in recovering, and praised the skill of the intelligence experts who tracked bin Laden down and the courage of the Special Forces who killed him. He also took a measure of credit. 'I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,' said a president who was routinely assailed by Republicans as weak and feckless on foreign affairs. He took no questions from reporters. By contrast, the Trump show on Baghdadi started with a tweet. 'Something very big has just happened!' the president posted on social media Saturday evening, and the White House media office quickly announced that Trump would make a 'major announcement' — 11 hours later at 9 a.m. Sunday. Critics speculated that the president was eager to upstage the Sunday morning political talk shows in a bid to drown out coverage of the House Democrats’ impeachment effort against him...."

From "In creating spectacle around Baghdadi’s death, Trump departs from Obama’s more measured tone on bin Laden" (WaPo).

In so many ways, Trump is not like Obama. But I presume that each man — on the success of a raid that killed a feared terrorist enemy — made a public display that he believed would advance American military interests and his own political interests. Obama chose to be circumspect and conventionally presidential. After hearing Trump, who was vividly emotional, I relistened to Obama's announcement, and I was struck by the restraint — the blandness. There was nothing about how bin Laden looked or acted as he faced his death. Obama seemed to want to inspire confidence that everything was done with precise correctness. Trump seemed to want us to experience the righteous anger and the vengeance and contempt. These are radically different choices from 2 very different men.

Remember that the Obama administration made a point of communicating with the world about the respectful treatment of bin Laden's corpse:
"Traditional procedures for Islamic burial was followed... The deceased's body was washed (ablution) then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased's body slid into the sea.''
And remember that Trump has openly talked about treating the enemy's bodies with outrageous disrespect:
"Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!," he tweeted. That was after "The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help. Be tough & strong, we love you!"...

"They were having terrorism problems [in the Philippines], just like we do," Trump said, according to a February 2016 account in the Washington Post. "And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem."
That's quoted in a blog post of mine in August 2017. I commented:
[Trump] thinks its a good idea to let radical Muslim terrorists know we might mess with their dead bodies in a way that he (presumably) thinks they think will wreck their afterlife. He might think that threat will influence the terrorists, but not necessarily. He might just think that he had a cheeky tweet to entertain his fans and confound his MSM antagonists. 

203 comments:

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Largo said...

"Trump is ruled by his little mushroom cap in the shadow cast by Barack " Long Don't Silver" Obama."

Oh Howard, you are so cute! :)

Nichevo said...


Freder Frederson said...
It is shocking that advocating war crimes (desecrating bodies, stealing oil), is excused as just Trump being Trump. Our nation should be better than that.
...

If you really believe this you are a despicable human being.


No wonder the Irish are so good at losing wars.

10/28/19, 7:54 AM

Nichevo said...

Drago said...
Hagar: "Huh?
Totally irrelevant. I would say that terror bombing, especially when you have total control of the air, indeed is meant to show the enemy that you have the means and the will to kill him in horrible ways."

Dresden.

Field Marshall Freder: blabbity blah about how the US was only pretending 2 not Target civilians

Reality: the US Army Air Corps employed precision bombing techniques, with the state-of-the-art Norden bomb sight and daylight bombing tactics which were far more dangerous to US Airmen.

Because Freder is subhuman scum, he disregards the enormous sacrifice made by the United States to employ this far more dangerous method of strategic bombing, because it doesn't suit his book, it weakens his arguments.

Of course, in the tradition of Eamon de Valera, who infamously sent condolences on the occasion of the death of Adolf Hitler, he's not anti-war, he's just on the other side.

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