https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...me-trump-for-the-failed-raid-in-yemen/515496/ Don't Politicize the Failed Yemen Raid America cannot punish its elected officials for allowing its military, diplomatic corps, and intelligence services to take risks necessary to pursue its interests.
So take a deep breath, because I’m about to tell many of you something you do not want to hear: Blaming Trump for what happened is both inappropriate and counterproductive. There are some good reasons to disapprove of this president: He is a man of demonstrated low character whose first few weeks in office have weakened both the international alliances and American values that have preserved our preeminent place in the world for over a century. Keep your powder dry for those things—but not this. This raid, according to The New York Times, was approved by and recommended to the president by his secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For the recommendation to have gone forward to the president, the senior leadership of the Department of Defense would have signed off on this operation. And for that to have happened, special operations and regional U.S. commanders would have had to have blessed the planning that went into the operation itself. The left cannot on the one hand claim Donald Trump is ignorant of military and security affairs, and then on the other hand expect him to second-guess the professional recommendations of his uniformed and civilian military leadership.
I am inclined to disagree. My experience as a senior Department of Defense official in the last two years of the Obama administration leads me to the conclusion that the way we did things—with the military required to provide a “CONOPS,” or concept of operations, to be picked over by deputy cabinet secretaries and usually the secretaries themselves prior to being forwarded to the president for approval—was slow and ponderous in a way that created real opportunity costs and denied subordinate commanders the flexibility to exploit opportunities they saw on the battlefield. Yes, it eliminated a lot of physical and political risk, but in doing so it negated one of the primary advantages the U.S. military enjoys, which is a highly trained and capable officer corps in the field that can exercise independent judgment. At one point toward the end of the Obama administration, cabinet secretaries—cabinet secretaries!—were literally debating whether or not it made sense to move three helicopters within Iraq and Syria. That decision should have been left to the very capable, very experienced commander on the ground, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Steve Townsend.
I am sort of hoping Nate is experiencing a momentary bout of insanity. If not, then he is extremely ill informed. Perhaps some levity went whistling by me?
It's pretty simple. He tried talking shit about my military service. So I returned the favor. You sailors seem to get really butt hurt. Pun intended.
Oh, I see. The REMF comment. Well, that doesn't seem like a good reason to knock Sailors. Unless of course...
All of this sounds quite sensible. Of course, it's also totally consistent with pointing out the MASSIVE hypocrisy of (for one example) the people who demonized Hillary Clinton for Benghazi who do not demonize Trump for this.
Really? Cause I don't know a single Marine that wouldn't destroy some navy bitch for trying to talk shit about his deployments. I didn't even care about what he said, until I found out he was in the navy. But like I said, he probably saw some real intense combat off the coast of California. Dicks everywhere. I'm sure he has ptsd.
The only people in the navy I ever had to interact with, were my corpsmen, and the doctors that did my surgeries. Most of them seem like fat bitches. Some of them, I assume are good people.
I do agree that we don't have enough information to blame this on Trump, and I am not in a position to know if this risk was worth taking so being that the generals recommended this action, I tend to give a bit of leniency here. However I do think it was disgusting and beneath the office of the President to have his first tweets after this operation be attack-tweets towards the NYT. I also (although I don't know if it matters in the long run) do think the President should care enough about the first military members he sends into harms way to be in the situation room with all his advisors around, just in case there are decisions that need to be made. A precaution and a respectful gesture.
I get embarrassed singin’ bout my love It's like a steel fist hiding in a velvet glove I don't want the world to turn it to A grade B movie barfo
