Trump can't do anything without screwing it up -- even the Baghdadi announcement: Conservative columnist
Conservative Washington Postcolumnist Max Boot ridiculed Donald Trump in his Monday column, noting that the president couldn't even manage to kill an ISIS target and get it right.
Trump announced early Sunday morning that American military forces had cornered Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and he committed suicide before being captured. Trump turned what should have been a huge news story for him into "a ridiculous, risible spectacle," Boot wrote. Instead of sticking to his teleprompter, Trump went off about what he witnessed in the videos. "He treated the world to his usual blend of braggadocio and bluster — dishonest and distasteful in equal measure."
Not only did Trump insult Congressional leaders by claiming they would be the ones to leak, he said it when it's his White House that implemented a super-secret system to protect against leaks.
"A president who has never heard a shot fired in anger reveled in Baghdadi's last moments, even claiming 'he died like a coward … whimpering and crying and screaming all the way,'" recalled Boot. "Trump could not possibly have heard 'whimpering and crying' on the overhead imagery because there was no audio, and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointedly refused to confirm those details. The assertion that Baghdadi died as a coward was, in any case, contradicted by the fact that rather than be captured, he blew himself up."
Boot explained that all of the details Trump gave about Baghdadi's final moments were probably made up entirely.
"Just as he made up his claim that he alone called for action against Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11," Boot recalled.
"And I'm saying to people, take out Osama bin Laden, that nobody ever heard of," Trump told the press Sunday. The fact is that Trump's ghost-written book, which came out in 2000, only made one brief mention of bin Laden. He never suggested killing him.
"Trump even had the gall to brag that the death of Baghdadi was a bigger coup ('the biggest there is') than the death of bin Laden, who staged the most deadly foreign attack on our soil in U.S. history," Boot mocked.
But the most alarming part to Boot was that Trump outlined his own "road map" for taking down ISIS after he cut ties with our allies in the region. Trump's move to withdraw from Syria put the entire capture and killing of Baghdadi into jeopardy. Not only did Trump have nothing to do with it, he almost killed the mission with his foreign policy blunder.
Trump's solution, he said, is that U.S. troops should remain in Syria to "secure the oil." He went on to say he would bring in ExxonMobil to exploit the oil fields. Then he'd hand over everything to all of the other countries to manage.
"Russia is right there. Turkey is right there," Trump said Sunday. "Syria is there. They're all right there. Excuse me. Iran is right there. Iraq is right there. They all hate ISIS. So, we don't — you know, in theory, they should do something."
Boot explained that in the real world, no U.S. oil company is coming over to Syria to take their oil without being authorized by the government controlling the country. Stealing Syria's oil would only fuel ISIS propaganda against the U.S., said Boot.
"Trump showed he was completely out of touch with these essential facts," Boot closed. "Instead, he parroted the propaganda of dictators, saying, for example, that 'Turkey has lost thousands and thousands of people from that safe zone.'" The facts are far from it.
It's the Turkish president who wants the world to believe otherwise because he hates the Kurdish people. Russia, who confessed they had nothing to do with the raid, was part of the people Trump congratulated for the mission. In fact, Russia speculated whether Trump even killed Baghdadi.
"Trump's news conference should have been his shining hour. Instead, it showed yet again why he is utterly unfit to be commander in chief," Boot closed.
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