Interesting photo of the WH situation room. Supposedly the pic is of Commander-in-Chief Bone-Spurs and his team watching the takedown of al-Baghdadi during real time via some type of classified VTC or other video system. I have a few comments:
1] Was it staged afterwards? Trump was reported to be at a golf course at 3:30 when the raid happened. Pete Souza, photographer for both Reagan and Obama, claims: "<i>The photo, as shown in the camera IPTC data, was taken at '17:05:24'.</i>"
2] They all seem to have the exact expression. As if the photgrapher said <i>"Look solemn."</i> instead of <i>"Say cheese."</i>
3] All except Robert O'Brien, Trumpy's latest National Security Adviser, who has the gift of looking both solemn and whimsical simultaneously. O'Brien is the guy who recently said he would never stifle Trump’s military ‘genius’.
4] General Milley does look a bit disgusted at being in this dog and pony show. And check out the huge saddlebags under his eyes. Poor bastard hasn't had a good night's sleep since he took over as CJCS.
5] If they are watching the action the photographer is in the way blocking their view.
6] Trump's IT team needs a smack in the the head. Did these guys use to work building bird's nests? My 18-year-old grandson does a better job of dressing up cable clutter, and he has two desktops, four laptops, a big screen TV, several modems, and a dial-up telephone all interconnected in his basement.
Couple of worthwhile discussions of this: Fred Kaplan at Slate (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/trump-baghdadi-isis-killed-syria.html) who notes that given the franchise-model that the IS adopted the loss of one guy isn't really that huge, and that because it was largely the personal animus between the two leaders - Baghdadi for IS and Zawahiri of AQ - that prevented their cooperation that in all likelihood this will actually help the two Sunni nutjob outfits cuddle up.
ReplyDeleteRe: our man Ael's insistence that Trumpy was "betrayed" by the Deep State, Kaplan's previous column (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/trump-syria-oil-kurds-graham.html) points out the ACTUAL betrayal - not just of Trump but of all Americans - by his Turd-polisher-in-Chief Lindsay Graham and Jack Keane who conned the simple fucker into "taking all the (Syrian) oil". Or, at least, thinking he was while giving the warhawks the excuse they needed to keep ground force in Syria. Which, as Kaplan (and Nancy LeTourneau at Washington Monthly - https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/10/28/trump-is-openly-talking-about-committing-a-war-crime/) points out, is not just a mistake, it's an actual crime under international law and the laws of war. If Trump makes the mistake of ever landing in Amsterdam he risks getting dragged off to The Hague to meet with the ICC.
In short? What a bunch of idiots.
I actually think that the "take the oil" strategy may have started as an practical joke. Sort of "You won't believe what that fucker Erdogan talked Trump into doing! ... oh yeah, hold my beer".
DeleteI'd like to think so; I'd love to think that Keane and Graham were sitting around drinking and Keane was bullshitting about how stupid Trump is and Graham dared him to pull this shit on him and bet him that Trumpy wouldn't bite...but he did.
DeleteUnfortunately I think it was actually worse. I think they KNOW just how fucking stupid this goofball is. They know he's obsessed with cashing in on government, and how he thinks that armies and fleets are supposed to be like the Joker's or the Penguin's minions - they're there to do help them do crimes and steal. They want to keep guys in Syria to keep the U.S.'s hand in. They know Trump - regardless of how stupidly he does it - wants out. So they conned him using the only thing they knew would work - pure greed and stupidity. And it did.
What irks the shit out of me about this is that I was completely against the idea that the State and DoD people who tried to slow-walk Trump's obsession with throwing the Syrian Kurds under the bus as "betrayal". But this? THIS is betrayal; this is using lies and bullshit to fake this dope into doing what they want because they know that using actual geopolitical reasoning and talking sense won't work.
ICC? Poetic justice IMHO. But he's only an imbecile used by Graham, Keane, Erdogan, Netanyahu, MbS, and MbZ. I would really like to see a few of those perps on the ICC docket for war crimes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kaplan that the loss of one guy isn't really that huge. They reportedly already have elevated a replacement Kalifah. I've always been a fan of the old Irish proverb "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." Will the new guy be worse? Should have left him in a cave and intercepted his couriers' comms to disrupt future plans.
ReplyDeletePlus they have how many caliphates or vilayets overseas in Africa, the Philippines, Central Asia, etc?
Supposedly the Allies considered assassinating Hitler. By 1943 they concluded that they were better off leaving him in place to continue to make critical geopolitical down to tactical errors.
DeleteAFAIK this Baghdadi schmuck was more-or-less just the official talking head for the IS.
FDChief:
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Ael never said anything about "deep state". Those are your words, not his.
They are.
DeleteThe implication of tagging the pushback against Trump's idiotic Syria tweet-o-policy as "betrayal" is on the same level of reality as the notion that the whacky libtards of the CIA and FBI are "betraying" Trump.
Might as well just go ahead and call it "deep state", and dispense with the persiflage.
I rather thought of it as a matter personal honour. If you take a job, then you have to do it the best you can. If the job requirements and your value system conflict, then you leave the job.
DeleteThat's for sergeant and lieutenants. And maybe generals (tho the U.S. military is conspicuously absent in that respect lately...)
DeleteBut for Presidents, because of their weird geopolitical position, honor be damned; you have to do your damndest to prevent their ignorance and vanity from porking the pooch for as long as possible, because their military stupidity can have huge, irreversible geopolitical consequences.
And, in fact, the DoD/State team WAS doing their best to move the GIs out...only by trying to arrange something to keep the Turks from going all ethnic cleansing on Rojava.
"Honor" would have meant honoring our relationship with the men and women who fought and died for our objectives. To cavalierly run away from them because some fatheaded real-estate grifter tweeted it?
THAT is dishonorable.
Honour? I'm hoping the now famous but unnamed Malinois turns down Trump's invitation to the White House. But if he' forced to accept, maybe he'll show his teeth and chase down the big shitheel? In any case he/she would make a better CINC than Dufus Donny.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1188909031403900928
So far the best observation I've read re: the dog thing is from Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station (https://www.facebook.com/Stonekettle/posts/2515645311804190) in the form of his imagined reply to the invitation:
Delete"Dear Mr. President,
Regretfully, (classified) must decline your invitation. Military Working Dogs are on a strict, healthy diet and Filet-O-Fish gives him the shits.
Also, he's been trained to attack traitors, so probably not a good idea.
Sincerely,
The Military"
Now THAT's how you throw shade...
Looks like most of those cables, like most of the brains in the picture, aren't plugged into anything.
ReplyDeleteJoan -
DeleteAbsolutely! Not plugged into anything except their own egos and their yes-men. Unfortunately for us CinC Bone-Spurs is plugged into his own version of a Cheat Engine. And his sidekick is plugged into the rapture.
What can we do to get this tyrant banished to do bad real estate deals in foreign lands? Locking him up would be great, but I'd be happy if we could just get him deported to a golf course in the Bahamas. Or Sochi or the tourist beaches of the Turkish coast.