President Donald Trump continues to define his time in office by picking fights with interests who previously could have been considered safe from presidential undercuts. He went after retired Navy Adm. William McRaven during a sit down with Chris Wallace of Fox News, asserting that the U.S. should have killed terror leader Osama bin Laden — who McRaven helped take down — sooner.
Monday morning, he re-upped the criticism, ranting on Twitter:
‘Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!’
In reality, although Trump did mention Bin Laden in a book published in 2000 concurrent to earlier presidential aspirations of his, he didn’t even directly call for the leader to be targeted. He simply bemoaned the broad haphazard state of American counterterrorism in light of issues including previous Bin Laden run-ins with American authorities.
In other words — Trump thinks that the entire American (and global, really) security and intelligence community failed because they didn’t draw unwritten conclusions from ramblings he offered in book form while a private citizen.
He’s certainly erred on this side plenty of times in the past. Defense Secretary James Mattis has been reported to have complained behind the scenes about the president’s approach to security issues. Trump questioned, for instance, why the United States has any presence on the Korean peninsula at all, refusing to take the security against North Korean threats it provides seriously. To be more specific, Mattis reportedly quipped that the president maintains the understanding of a middle schooler.
On other occasions, he’s taken that egomania to more directly similar extremes. During the campaign season — which doubles as another occasion he wrongly claimed to have predicted the danger Bin Laden poses — he went after the a family (the Khans) who’d lost their son at war on the basis of their Muslim faith because they supported the Democrats.
On plenty of other occasions, too, he’s offered up completely ludicrous assessments of situations. Just recently while touring areas damaged by California wildfires, for instance, he insisted the tragedies could have been lessened had the forests been raked.
The fires aren’t even raging in forests.
The comments fit into a broader pattern of utter lunacy from the president that he remains desperately committed to.
To that end, after his above claim to have been personally knowledgeable enough to stop 9/11, he ranted:
‘We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!’
That America First — or else doctrine has led to manifestations like the incessant sanctions the United States has slapped allies with around the world, even while the president pals around with dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
