The same plan was presented to Obama and he decided not to move forward. He wanted to wait for more intel and a moonless night. Trump gets in and approves the plan and signs off on the go order. Trump gets the blame. Sorry. That’s how it works. Maybe some intel guy fucked up. Maybe the plan was faulty. Maybe it was just bad luck. The guy that has ultimate say also gets the ultimate blame.
If everything had gone right, Trump would damn well take full credit.
As one of Trump’s predecessors said, “The buck stops here.”
As Commander in Chief, the responsibility for all military actions, good and bad, is in his hands. That’s one of the duties you assume as President. It’s been true for all Presidents. This won’t get Benghazi attention because a US base wasn’t attacked. Americans don’t give a shit about random brown foreigners dying in underdeveloped middle eastern countries.
I totally agree with this. When it comes to the public, blaming the President makes sense. But this is more about anonymous Pentagon leakers who are suggesting it’s his fault. To them I would disagree. It’s their job to bring a workable plan to the President. Things don’t always work out, but for the military themselves to suggest that the President made the decision without enough intelligence is wrong, IMO.
Though I would also suggest that every decision Trump makes is without enough intelligence. /rimshot
If only there were some kind of meeting or briefing the President could take on a daily basis for going over intelligence reports.
And if only there were some kind of committee about national security that met regularly that was attended by high-ranking military officials instead of deranged political hacks.
We don’t know what they actually told him. They might have spelled out the risks in detail (or tried to) and been told to stop being pussies and charge ahead. Or maybe they carefully covered up the risks and told him it’s a sure thing.
Incorrect, sorry. This was a military action. The President is the Commander in Chief. The buck indeed stops there. He has the yea or nay on actions such as this, and therefore must take the blame. I understand the predicament you are proposing, but as a former military member, no, I’m a stickler for the rules.
He can certainly place blame within his organization for the failures, but it is his lead.
trump (I refuse to capitalize his name anymore) has been clamoring to use force since he thought he might have a shot at the White House. Remember his comments and nuke codes? He already threatened to send trooops to Mexico and is wielding the U.S. Military like a schoolyard bully… all within his first week of office! Bannon said we’ll be at war with China and a major middle eastern conflict within a decade and trump also threatened Iran.
trump is all about machoism and you can bet he was telling the commanders to not be pussies and send those troops in.
trump is also the kind of person who has such a huge ego problem that he would do anything to hang onto power including create a smaller 9/11 type event for a false flag operation. He is exceptionally dangerous. The moment anything happens here he will use it to vastly increase his power base.
Really, jpinard is on the right track. This is more theater. Deadly theater, but theater nonetheless. There are no real policy goals as far as I can tell, beyond perhaps sowing enough chaos to justify the sort of jackbooted domestic imperium some of the Trump camp seem to want. Like the immigration action, this was simply showing “decision” and “action,” vice the supposed wimpy inaction and indecision of Obama. Never mind the inaccuracies of the view, it’s what plays in Peoria.
For years the right has been clamoring for more military action, despite not having usually the vaguest idea of what that action would or could accomplish. They’ve been pitching an image of American military power that simultaneously exaggerates its capability to actually change facts on the ground, and downplays the difficulties of conducting even modestly effective actions. And unlike the Bush cabinet, which though I hated most of those folks at least could boast of some awareness and competence in these things, Trump’s circle has pretty much no one who understands the geopolitical situation or the real constraints on military power, much less the details of intelligence or combat operations. Instead, we have people who genuinely believe–or disingenuously and criminally pretend to believe-- that simply because we are the USA we are the ultimate military power and if only the politicians would take the gloves off we can do anything, to anyone, and be totally successful. It doesn’t help, either, that they certainly revel in the myth of redemptive violence, in spaces.
Obama’s policies in terms of drones and other actions were not ideal, but at least that administration understood the limitation to a large degree; a lot of the problematic stuff stemmed I think from trying to do something while not screwing things up too badly. In an ideal world, military action would only be authorized with clear and attainable goals, and after careful cost-benefit analysis. I admit, sometimes your hand is forced, but all I see from the Trump administration is posturing and a desire to show how tough we are, backed by the incredibly dangerous and naive belief that the USA is unbeatable. Hell, we may not be assailable at the strategic nuclear level (not without suicidal consequences for an attacker) but there are many, many situations below that level where we simply are not positioned, equipped, or informed enough to reliably prevail all the time.
But then, this administration doesn’t care, really. They have no policy or goals that I can see, beyond a vague sense of American superiority over, well, everyone.
JFK took the fall for Bay of Pigs. Of course he fired some CIA guys too.
Not true! Trump is probably secretly happy that civilians were killed because that will further fan the flames of tensions between the West and the Muslim world. (Well, that and he explicitly said he wants to kill the families of suspected terrorists.) Which is not to say that I think he ordered the death of civilians or new it was a risk ahead of time. Just that I’m sure he’s not losing any sleep over it and has no desire to minimize civilians deaths in the future.
Here’s the lowdown on how the raid was decided upon, as understood by a member of Obama’s NSC.
Seems like there is a lot of spin and facts in dispute all around.
Watching Trump go to Dover, I was really dreading what might happen based on his feud with the Khan family.
Now I imagine most of the time the grieving widow and family, are respectful if the President attends a ceremony honor their dead child.
But sometimes grief gets the better of them and they scream at the top official present, you SOB you killed my kid.
The only proper thing for the top guy to do is to stand there stoically and try and comfort the grieving parent or spouse.
But of course, Trump isn’t capable of doing this. It scares the hell out of me the thought of the commander in chief getting in an argument with another gold star family.
President of the United States is not a simple job, when you give the job to a idiot like Trump, lives will be lost, here on elsewhere. You can only hope the damage is limited.
Fuck terrorist.
Absolutely true, and back to the point @Menzo was saying, though Trump takes the responsibility, he can certainly direct blame to anyone who screwed up as part of the action, and adjust things accordingly. A good read is the story of Lincoln’s revolving door of generals. The President has the ability to change leadership toward reducing those losses, as well as increasing the intel and aptitude of those in charge.
Even for Trump, I’m empathetic to that duty. It has to be tough to know you caused the loss of life, regardless of which side it was on.
It has to be tough for people who can think of others than themselves. I have yet to be convinced that Donald Trump has ever had a thought about anything or anyone besides himself…
I can assure you that he has had plenty of thoughts about his daughter.
