Skip to main content

Died Like a Dog

By



It seems we are all supposed to sing Hosanna in the Highest now that Trump has killed the notorious Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  He gave a 48-minute speech honoring his great achievement, an achievement like the United States has never known, least not since the killing of Osama bin Laden.  In his declaration, he provided gruesome details of the infamous ISIS leader's death, claiming he "died like a dog."

The White House desperately needed something to counter all the bad press it has received following Trump's withdrawal from Northern Syria, which created a power vacuum that Turkey and Russia soon filled.  One wouldn't be surprised if Turkish forces tipped the US military on the whereabouts of Baghdadi, giving Trump a chance to save face.

The radical imam has been floating about for well over a decade.  He was detained at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca back in 2004 but apparently wasn't considered enough of a threat to hold indefinitely.  However, he quickly rose to power in the vacuum created by the death of bin Laden in 2011.

It's really hard to say how much control these clerics have over the hydra-headed organization that is ISIS or Daesh or al Qaeda or whatever you want to call it, but Baghdadi had long been sought after and Trump is now proudly boasting of having got his man.  Mind you, Trump was telling us that ISIS has been dead for months so this really comes as a footnote to a long sordid chapter in American Foreign Policy that may not be over yet.  Presumably 100s, if not 1000s, of ISIS detainees broke free from detention camps in the chaos that followed the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria.  Who knows who the next major villain in the neverending "war on terror" will be?

Nate Silver is telling us we should give credit where credit is due, bemoaning "Libs" who won't cut the president any slack.  The verdict is still out on this kill, as Trump greatly exaggerated the events surrounding the death of Baghdadi, and we have no idea yet how much of this was staged.  Even the photo op appears staged, with reports that Trump was golfing at the time of the raid.  It strikes me as too much of a coincidence this raid came so soon after the pullout from Northern Syria, where Baghdadi was found in Idlib, close to the Turkish border.

You can take what you will of this raid, as I'm sure conservatives will do.  However, it doesn't change the dynamic in Northern Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East.  All it appears to do is give Trump a long sought after "kill," although he appears to have upstaged himself with a dog.

Comments

  1. TripplerOctober 31, 2019 at 3:44 PM

    Obama orders the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and gives all the credit to the military for the successful campaign. By contrast, arrogant Trump credits himself for the death of Baghdadi.

    No surprise.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

By
It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
12 comments
Read more

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Colonel

By
Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!
240 comments
Read more