Worst "POTUS" Ever

There's no intro for this. I can't. I Just fucking can't.

Insider:

Trump had the chance to kill Al Qaeda's leader but didn't because he didn't recognize the name, report says

President Donald Trump had the chance to kill the leader of Al Qaeda but didn't because he didn't recognize the terrorist leader's name, NBC News reported in 2020.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday, President Joe Biden announced Monday.

His death, which has been praised by many world leaders, is the biggest blow to Al Qaeda since its founder, Osama bin Laden, was killed by US Navy SEALs in 2011.

But plans for al-Zawahiri's execution could have been carried out far earlier, according to an NBC News report published in February 2020.

Intelligence officials briefed Trump many times about senior terrorist figures the CIA wanted to track down and kill, mentioning al-Zawahiri, NBC News reported.

Two people familiar with the briefings told NBC News that Trump chose not to pursue al-Zawahiri because he didn't recognize his name and instead suggested targeting bin Laden's son, Hamza bin Laden.

"He would say, 'I've never heard of any of these people. What about Hamza bin Laden?'" one unnamed former official told NBC News.

A Pentagon official also told the news outlet: "That was the only name he knew."

The Department of Defense and a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Even though bin Laden's son was widely seen as an emerging figure in the terrorist group, he was not believed to be planning any attacks at the time, NBC News reported.
'The president's preference for a "celebrity" targeted killing'

Trump confirmed in 2019 that the younger bin Laden had been killed in a US counterterrorism operation earlier on in his presidency.

"Despite intelligence assessments showing the greater dangers posed by Zawahiri, as well as his Iran-based lieutenants al-Masri and Saif al-Adil, and the unlikelihood Hamza was in the immediate line of succession, the president thought differently," the former CIA official Douglas London wrote in Just Security in 2020.

He added that Trump's "obsession" with bin Laden's son "is one example of the president's preference for a 'celebrity' targeted killing versus prioritizing options that could prove better for US security."

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

Maybe it means Biden understands the art of the deal better than other people.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was a bad guy - no redeeming qualities at all. That doesn't mean we should suspend the prohibition on celebrating the destruction of a fellow human being - but it doesn't mean we can't keep a private smile in our hearts today either.

Starting at about 10:30, this is a quick look at how Al-Zawarihi got his start in Egypt, taking his cue from a guy named Sayyd Qutb.

BYW - Jahiliyya. A state of barbarous ignorance - a kind of False Consciousness. And in the politics of behavior manipulation, the idea that if some people don't believe in the same gods &/or the same philosophy that you believe in, then they must be addle-brained - in need of a Red Pill.

And then it gets really weird because the wingnuts are convinced you and I are delusional because of our understanding (and acceptance) of reality, while they're convinced their delusion is "the true reality" and that we need to be broken in order to force us into compliance with their delusion.

Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.

The problem With Jon Stewart

A clip from one of the segments. with Stewart leading a good discussion that points out some very big elephants in a very small room.

To reiterate that one point - there are no good wars. We can justify the project on certain ridiculously rare occasions, but we have to stay cognizant that there's just never a time when going to war isn't a matter of choice.

Mullens's assertion that we didn't have a debate before we went into Iraq seems to imply that we could've talked about it but chose not to.

If that's what he meant, that's bullshit

There was plenty of pushback from "the left", but this whole country got steam-rollered. We stood up and screamed our fool heads off, and we were immediately shouted down as a buncha hippie has-beens and leftie terrorist-loving blockheads. And the "liberal media" led the way on that one.

We were right about all of it. ALL OF IT. As usual.

6 trillion dollars disappeared during a 20-year splurge that made billionaires out of millionaires, and millionaires out of shiftless no-account grifters.

The real cost of it is always born by the people up front doing the fighting and the bleeding and the dying - and then "when it's over", the guys who spent their time at the broken end of the bottle get to deal with the continuing residual miseries of PTSD and SUD and the multitude of diseases caused directly by their service - all by themselves - ignored and dismissed by the assholes who turn a profit on human suffering.

There's something very wrong with the way we're doing things.

The people who make the decisions about going to war are the ones who profit from it, while everybody else pays the price.

Shit's gotta change.

"Conservative" "Thinking"

Hugh Hewitt never disappoints - we can always count on him to pimp some of our favorite "conservative" lies.

Like this:

For 20 years, the sacrifices made in Afghanistan were part of keeping the homeland safe.

Allow me to suggest an edit:

"For 20 years we've heard the lie that tries to link safety at home with funneling trillions of tax dollars to defense contractors for overseas military adventures - which fosters the various layers of corruption (foreign and domestic) wherever large piles of cash are made readily available, which in turn makes it nearly impossible to accomplish the stated objective."

Yes, we should stay appropriately engaged in the world, but engaging in "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan - "fighting them over there" - has led us to neglect the rising threat of terrorism posed by our very own brand of homegrown terrorism right here in USAmerica Inc.

The GOP has been in the process of attempting a coup not unlike what the Taliban has been attempting in Afghanistan. This little screed wouldn't have anything to do with stuffing Jan6 down the memory hole would it, Hugh?

That, and a little projection, intended to shift the criticism from Trump - who set all this shit in motion - to Biden, who's now trying to keep America's promises and make it work.

Hugh Hewitt, WaPo: (pay Wall)

America has lost a war, and the consequences will be terrible. Yes, this happened in 1975 with the fall of Saigon, but it is not easy to find a precedent in our history for a calamity such as that unfolding in Afghanistan, where thousands of Americans — the exact number is uncertain — are suddenly stranded far from home with no simple avenue for escape.

Events have left many Americans in a state of collective shock. The video of an infant being passed from family members over concertina wire to U.S. troops at Kabul’s airport illustrated the profound desperation that is sweeping Afghanistan, and elicited an awareness that we have betrayed much and many in the past week.

We can be proud of our warriors and still be deeply ashamed of our country.

The Pentagon suggested Thursday that if Americans in Afghanistan — mostly contractors and nongovernmental aid workers now — could get to the airport in Kabul, their safe passage home was likely. The Pentagon did not explain how Americans were to get safely to the airport. The president tried again Friday to give similar reassurance and guidance to the trapped — and failed again. He told the world they would get home. He gave no guidance on how they could get to the airport.

This is unacceptable. Is there really no alternative to simply hoping for the best? “Trust me and the Taliban?” Really?

Then there are sensitive questions about President Biden’s capacity to deal with fast-moving events. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) commented early in the week that the president appeared “shellshocked.” On Friday, Biden played his favorite loop in the East Room, promising to bring Americans and our loyal Afghan allies home — but not really explaining how. He is stubbornly attached to his inner narrative and won’t budge from it.

Questions about Donald Trump’s temperament and capacity dogged his entire presidency. To age, as candid older men and women will freely confess, is to slow down from previous capacity, to grow fixed in opinions and habits. Biden is our president, and we only get one at a time, but we can ask that everyone around him make doubly sure he is getting everything older Americans routinely need as they age — particularly unpleasant advice when they don’t want to hear it.

Maybe especially when they don’t want to hear it.

The broad unease about the president’s ability to adjust to quick changes in facts on the ground is genuine, and the fact that he finally allowed four reporters to ask questions on Friday about his decision-making did not allay that unease.

The families of every American abandoned to the tender mercies of the Taliban deserve a president who is accessible and commanding, not one who seems uncertain or half-withdrawn. CNN’s Clarissa Ward, reporting with incredible courage from Kabul, should not be Americans’ best source of information on conditions at the Kabul airport. It should be the president, but his answers on Friday did not help him much or set many minds at ease.

This is very much a disaster of choice, not inevitability. The questions are many: What did the president not know about the political landscape in Afghanistan — and for how long has he not known it? What options did he solicit? Which did he decline? What advice did he reject?

It is also necessary to ask: What signal does this send to an increasingly aggressive China and Russia, and will they act on that signal? What does this mean for the perilous situations in Taiwan and Ukraine? And how did the United States get blindsided again?

For 20 years, the sacrifices made in Afghanistan were part of keeping the homeland safe. That shield has dropped. The president again insisted on Friday that we have over-the-horizon abilities. But, as one reporter asked Biden, if we didn’t see the collapse coming, how can we be confident that we will see the next attack on the homeland coming?

Finally, given the president’s argumentative and defensive speech Monday, refusal to take questions after a threadbare deflection speech Wednesday, the confused and confusing sit down with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and his halting do-over performance Friday, the Biden-friendly legacy media must press to learn what is happening behind the scenes. ABC News’s refusal to release the entire unedited tape of Stephanopoulos’s midweek interview with the president is unacceptable. The same degree of scrutiny that fell on every Trump move must follow this president.

At moments of national calamity, we all need to be respectful of our common citizenship, but difficult discussions must be had in public, and the president especially must be available and accountable to the people he has so long wanted to lead. This is not, as the president and his team may imagine, another sort of campaign crisis to be endured and overcome in a few news cycles. The oldest president ever must keep his circle expanding and information flowing in, with truth-speakers close at hand. And he must meet with the press again and again as the crisis unfolds.

BTW #1: The idea's been floated that Biden tried to convince Obama to get us out of Afghanistan pretty much the whole 8 years he spent as VP. That story will emerge at some point as people start to dig into the history of the first two decades of "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire".

BTW #2: In case you've missed it, "conservatives" have also been pimping the bullshit that Tom Cotton is their best bet for the 2024 GOP nomination. Look for more of this as we go, and especially be on the lookout for the Press Poodles to say things like "Well, that Tom Cotton guy has some common sense stuff goin' on yada yada yada".

Ya heard it here first, kids.

It'll Happen

Like a big earthquake or a bad hurricane, a terrorist attack inside USAmerica Inc is a matter of when not if.

When it happens, it's likely we'll see a big push towards the Daddy State - a massive transference of power to the Executive.

And keep in mind these few tidbits from Andrew Restuccia at Politico:

Top ranks at the State Department remain largely unfilled, as are some key ambassadorships. Trump has not named anyone to lead the Transportation Security Administration, which screens people at airports, or to run the Homeland Security office charged with protecting the country's physical and cyber infrastructure. His choice to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency is awaiting Senate confirmation, but Trump has not named a deputy.

At the Justice Department, Trump has not nominated an assistant attorney general for the national security division. And he has not nominated a deputy at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or a director of the office's National Counterterrorism Center.

And, perhaps most crucially, Trump has not yet named a permanent leader of the FBI, which plays a central role in combating domestic terrorism. The president has continued to interview candidates for the job nearly a month after he fired James Comey.

It's possible the Press Poodles are right, and working for 45* has become such a Career-Killer that it's a simple matter of nobody worth hiring is willing to work for the guy.

It's just as possible he's using that as an excuse for not filling the positions necessary for us to have a better chance to prevent the attack or at least minimize the damage.

And hey - I may be paranoid, but that don't mean the guy ain't out to fuck us over.

Still Waiting

45* said he'd order up a plan for "Defeating ISIS" within 30 days. We're 2 days past that now.  Not 2 days past the deadline for getting a plan - 2 days past when 45* said he'd order the plan.  Nice plan.

And the silence is deafening - again.

We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men

Predicting disaster
Expecting disaster
Wanting disaster
Facilitating disaster
Causing disaster

When we stop believing people in positions of leadership can deliver on promises of hope and progress, we get this weird protection racket thing going - where we're told evermore frightening tales of how the bad guys are trying get us - and eventually, that means the people who get the most attention are the ones who have the darkest imaginations, driven by their own paranoia &/or ambition for power.

We put 'em in charge, and sometimes they start to think "keeping their promises" means they at least have to give us a taste of the misery and destruction that they warned us about, and that they alone can save us from.

And suddenly, we have to figure out how to protect ourselves from our protectors.

Here's the thing: I refuse to cower behind the Daddy State while Lobbyists and their Coin-Operated Politicians continue lining their pockets with my tax dollars.

And also too, Best of the Left podcast:

Wondering

One of these guys will kill you eventually.

The other one is a kid who's wondering what it'll take just to get some people to act like human fucking beings.

A Question

Are we creating terrorists faster than we're killing them?

The key question after a mission like last week in Yemen: Are we creating terrorists faster than we're killing them? https://t.co/PcndhFLC7f

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) February 3, 2017

Here's another question: What kinda fucked up world we got here when that's a valid Policy Question?

You kill your way into problems, not out of them.

It Gets Worse

The EO banning Muslim immigration is being used by the bad guys to boost their efforts to radicalize and recruit more bad guys.  Of course, 45* has said "the world is an angry place" anyway, so it doesn't matter.

So let's go kick the hornet's nest.

NBC News: 

Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham University's Center on National Security, said the girl's death will be a boon to al Qaeda propagandists.

"The perception will be that it's not enough to kill al-Awlaki — that the U.S. had to kill the entire family," she said.

What was it 45* said during the Scampaign® ? 

"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families," Trump said. 

You kill your way into problems, Don - not out of 'em.

Today's Tweet

Trump seems even more terrifyingly uninformed when you read his words as text. Here is the ONLY thing he’s ever said about the war in Yemen: pic.twitter.com/qyP7xyXDjV

— Jonathan Riley (@JonRiley7) January 6, 2017

Somethin' wrong with that guy.

John Oliver

"...we got a lotta cowards in this country." --Larry Wilkerson

Today's Keith

We're back! Vol.5 of #TheCloserGQ: @realDonaldTrump A) Withholds Plan To Beat Isis, Thousands Die; or B) Has No Plan pic.twitter.com/egZKNSrFFv

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 20, 2016

Dude - Chill

First - somebody needs to be a little more careful about keepin' that guy away from the coffee. Jesus - it's like grandma's Chihuahua got into the Aderall.

And I'd dearly love it if the Zombie Lie of "the surge worked" could be laid to rest.

Three things about "the surge worked" that even I know:

1. The sheiks started to get pretty reasonable about not fighting us when we started to pay them to stop fighting us, because...
2. The sheiks realized we were telling them we'd fuck off and leave 'em alone if they cooled it long enough to let us pretend we'd won the thing
3. The propaganda of "The Surge Worked" is what worked.

This guy is doing the classic Deflecting Denialism thing - "our policy didn't fail; we failed to carry through on the policy..."

And it ends up being: "Iraqis are still fighting back and killing Americans, so obviously, we haven't killed enough Iraqis - let's go kill some more Iraqis".

And so, secondly - how many times do we need to learn the same lesson?  You don't kill your way to a solution for political problems.

People have been trying this same shit forever.  It's partly the lesson of The Greater Fool - "I will prevail where others have failed" - and that's all well and good, Skeezix, but ya gotta remember that better people than you have been trying to conquer the world for a solid 40,000 years at last count, and guess what - the world remains undefeated.

So knock that shit off.

Just One Question

On the near-total, and at least borderline dangerous silliness of our GOP-Branded (and ConservaDem) "leaders" who're constantly flogging the Fear-Bishop, may I just ask, "Please, can you let us be a little less stoopid on this whole immigration/terrorism thing?"

I really do understand that an awful lot of Federal Spending is going into the pockets of an awful lot of "Security" contractors, who then turn around and graciously donate big piles of  campaign dollars to your SuperPACs (purely out of the generosity of their souls and their deep abiding sense of patriotism and civic duty, of course) and completely unrelated to the fact that you're pimping the paranoia every fucking day - but c'mon, guys, maybe leadership is about not treating us like we're all stoopid so we can have a better chance to stop acting like were all stoopid. 

Best Guess Last Year

Americans dead because of "terrorism":         30

Americans dead because of "accident": 110,000+ (top 5 preventable causes)

If we actually have people in Congress who really are concerned with spending tax dollars appropriately, and wisely, and with the intention of doing the most with the least, we'd have somebody standing up to tell us to stop losing our shit every time some faithless chickenshit asshole (hiding behind a mask because his 'god' is so great, and his cause is so just, and he's so fucking courageous) - every time that asshole threatens to kill us all with his big scary knife - from 6200 miles away; with a fucking knife.

They preach this phony Gospel of National Security and then pass the collection plate, and it works every time. We all hafta stop doin' that.

Who'da Thunk It?

I really hope there's absolutely nobody in Washington who's surprised by this shit:

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter 5-year-old civil war.

The fighting has intensified over the past two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other as they have maneuvered through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.

"Any faction that attacks us, regardless from where it gets its support, we will fight it," said Maj. Fares Bayoush, a leader of Fursan al Haq.

This is straight outa some fucked up movie.  And it's the work of an awful lotta people who really do (mostly) know what they're doing.  

Now try to imagine just how bad it gets with Trump or Cruz in the White House, running from one disaster to the next. Thanks anyway, guys.

He Tries So Hard

I'm not wondering where Trump gets his ideas.  It seems obvious these "position statements" are the products of Policy Formulation By Lynch Mob.  You do a quick little poll or (more likely) a focus group of "regular people", and you get ideas that reflect the shallowest thinking, fueled by the darkest fears of the biggest paranoiac in the room at the time.  Whoever imagines the worst of all possible worsts holds sway, and drives the discussion.

I'm only wondering why it seems like Lil Donny of the Mega-Brain just runs with it every time.  In this latest instance, I have great difficulty believing he truly thinks Killing Your Way To Lasting Peace And Security is the way to go.  Maybe, but no - prob'ly not.

So I am not moved off of my position that he's looking for his exit.  If he can find that one thing that's just too fuckin' much - say the thing that makes enough of us turn away - then he can claim we don't deserve him and blah blah blah, and he can go back to being just another leech on the national nutsack.

In light of the San Bernardino Blood Fest, I can't help but wonder if the Trumpkins will hook anything up between that and the crap Trump always throws into the pile about "beautiful Kate - murdered by an immigrant."  It'll be interesting to watch; to see if they fold that into the mix, or if they Etch-A-Sketch it away.

(sigh) Hersh

Oh-fucking-dear - it might not be about what they told us it's about.

The Rude Pundit nails it again:

"High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy." Where Hersh goes wrong (and what everyone attacking the article follows) is pretending that his conclusion about President Obama and his administration making up a story about the bin Laden raid is earth-shattering. Christ, we just expect the president to lie to our faces. Hersh is living in a pre-Nixon era if he thinks we have that outrage gene anymore.

This is a nation that reelected the man who lied them into war. We are so apathetic that we just want to believe whatever story makes us sleep better at night. If we pull at the threads, if we start saying what the lies are in our "war on terror," there's a mighty big, comfy blanket that will fall apart. We will never allow that to happen. Truth carries a trigger-warning for Americans, so we choose to ignore it. Whether or not the real story is Hersh's, it sure as hell isn't the official one. It never is.

With all the bullshit faux-scandals and flat-out malarkey about Obama that the Repubs have been just making up, along comes a coupla items that're worth gabbing about (TPP, and now this bin Laden fantasy), and there's nothing  anybody has to say about anything?

I wonder why I'm not shocked that we are not shocked by any of this.

Questions On Sunshine

Why do we need "outsiders" to make us see these things?  

And just how fucked up is the "American Press" when they miss this to the point of it being totally unknown to practically everybody?

How have we managed to forget that allowing government to operate in secret is always the best way to encourage Official Skullduggery?  Weren't we supposed to be the exception to all that?

hat tip = truthout

Be Afraid

...cuz it's really good for certain Coin-Operated Politicians.