Donald, the Cowardly Lion Roars; DC Crowd Chants “Lock Him Up”
A nighttime raid by U.S. Special Forces in a remote hamlet of northwestern Syria led to the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Although the ‘world’s most wanted’ terrorist had been reported dead on four previous occasions, this time around his demise was confirmed with an onsite DNA test.
Operation Kayla Mueller, named after an Arizona aid worker enslaved by Baghdadi and who later died in Raqqa, took shape over the last two weeks. Syrian Defense Force leader Mazloum publicly claimed the Kurds were involved in intelligence gathering over a five month period leading up to the attack.
Iraqi intelligence sources told Reuters that the February, 2018 capture of one of the Islamic State leader’s top aides provided key insights into the operational security of ISIL leadership, allowing the CIA to narrow its search to the western badlands of Syria.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the formerly Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, also claimed a role in locating ai-Baghdadi, saying they’d recently captured Abu Suleiman al-Khalidi, one of three men seen in a recent video message.
The point here is that an operation of this sort targeting a terrorist leader with expertise in masking his whereabouts was possible because of cooperation with a number of forces.
From the New York Times:
“Something very big just happened!” Mr. Trump teased on Twitter Saturday night around 9:30 p.m., just hours after American forces had landed in the region.
An hour or so later, after convincing Mr. Trump that waiting until the morning to elaborate on his cryptic Twitter message was a better way to steer the news that would dominate the Sunday talk shows, the president’s aides announced a rare Sunday morning presidential address from the White House.
At 9am in Washington DC, the President broadcast news of the operation, saying “I got to watch much of it. al-Baghdadi died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”
Given that the Special Forces troops involved were not wearing body cams, it’s likely Trump was exaggerating.
From the New York Times:
The president, along with Mr. Esper, Vice President Mike Pence and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, watched video of the raid piped into the White House Situation Room from surveillance aircraft orbiting over the battlefield.
After announcing the successful completion of the raid, the President rambled on….
From Politico:
President Donald Trump’s announcement of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi revealed a slew of sensitive details about the secret military operation that could imperil future raids, special operations and intelligence, veterans fear.
Trump, who spoke for a full 48 minutes and took a series of questions at the White House, went into unusual detail about the mission inside hostile territory in Syria that he said he watched in real time “as though you were watching a movie."
https://twitter.com/JaxAlemany/status/1188448944487063554?s=20
Things took a Trumpian turn shortly thereafter, as the President claimed the Russians had advance notice of the raid, but not Congressional leaders, saying he feared a leak would endanger the lives of military personnel.
From the Washington Post:
Trump did not cite evidence for his accusation that Pelosi would have leaked details of the raid. Pelosi served on the House Intelligence Committee for more than 20 years and has not been known to reveal sensitive information. Last weekend, she led a high-level congressional delegation to Afghanistan and did not publicly disclose the trip until the group had returned.
In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said Trump did not contact Pelosi, Schiff or any of the other congressional leaders with whom the White House typically shares information on national security and intelligence matters.
“In terms of notifying the Gang of Eight, that wasn’t done,” Schiff said, referring to the House speaker and minority leader, the Senate majority and minority leaders, and the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
The Russians were bewildered by the President’s claims of cooperation, as Julia Davis pointed out at the Daily Beast:
At the White House Sunday morning, President Trump profusely thanked Russia for its alleged involvement in the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Trump said: "[The Russians] were very cooperative, they really were good... Russia treated us great. They opened up, we had to fly over certain Russia areas, Russia-held areas. Russia was great."
Russia didn’t seem to see it the same way.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, refuted President Trump’s statement, stating in part: “The Russian Defense Ministry has no reliable information about U.S. servicemen conducting an operation for ‘yet another’ elimination of the former Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the Turkish-controlled part of the Idlib de-escalation zone.”
Later on in the day, the New York Times revealed that President Trump’s abrupt decision earlier this month to pull forces from northern Syria forced the Pentagon to press ahead with what they felt was a riskier night operation.
For months, intelligence officials had kept Mr. Trump apprised of what he had set as a top priority, the hunt for Mr. al-Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted terrorist.
But Mr. Trump’s abrupt withdrawal order three weeks ago disrupted the meticulous planning underway and forced Pentagon officials to speed up the plan for the risky night raid before their ability to control troops, spies and reconnaissance aircraft disappeared with the pullout, the officials said.
Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death in the raid on Saturday, they said, occurred largely in spite of, and not because of, Mr. Trump’s actions.
****
Later on Sunday, the President and a coterie including Melania Trump, Reps. Kevin Brady, John Ratcliffe, Matt Gaetz , Kevin McCarthy, Mac Thornberry, Kay Granger, Steve Scalise, Mark Meadows, Liz Cheney, and Andy Biggs, along with Senators David Perdue, and Lindsey Graham, attended the fifth game of the World Series.
The opening pitch was thrown by Chef Jose Andres, whose humanitarian efforts at disasters world wide gained him a Nobel prize nomination.
https://twitter.com/Nikluk/status/1188640447578738688?s=20
At the close of the third inning, following a salute to the armed forces, the jumbotron showed a close up of the President’s group. What followed wasn’t included in the Fox Sports coverage of the event.
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/1188633804602302474?s=20
https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1188630940249198599?s=20
The morning after the game the inevitable cries for civility came from people whose lives and livelihoods aren’t endangered by the actions of this administration.
Here’s Laura Clawson at Daily Kos:
Very Serious People are furrowing their brows and offering moral lessons in the wake of Donald Trump being booed at the World Series. The boos and “lock him up” chants were “un-American” and “sickening,” according to the hosts of Morning Joe. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware showed his seriousness by fretting that “the office of the president deserves respect, even when the actions of our president at times don't,” because Coons apparently can’t tell the difference between a crowd booing the office of the president and a crowd booing a single individual.
https://twitter.com/JoeSudbay/status/1188809859615080448?s=20
If the President had any hopes of gaining an advantage by way of the operation to take down al-Baghdadi, they certainly weren’t validated by the crowd at the World Series.
The Houston Astros lead the series 3-2.
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