Donald Trump is obsessed with a lot of people, such as former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and apparently, killing big, famous, foreign targets for the “immediate gratification” of garnering media headlines while ignoring “important threats.”
Former senior CIA official Douglas London penned an article to explain Trump’s obsession with killing and whatnot that paints a not so cheery look into our “president’s” addled brain. London, by the way, served in the Trump administration.
“When it comes to intelligence, like with so much else, President Donald Trump likes big names. It’s this focus on celebrity, headlines, and immediate gratification — versus substance, impact, and consequences — that so often motivates him,” London wrote on the legal website Just Security. “Partly because of this, as a senior CIA counterterrorist manager, my team and I often struggled in persuading the president to recognize the most important threats.”
“Now, with the killing of Qassem Soleimani, I worry that while Trump got a big name and lots of headlines, the long-term impact on U.S. strategic interests was not fully considered,” he continued.
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“Even with these dangers, Soleimani’s very public removal was too great a headline to pass up for Trump,” London added.
“At CIA, I saw this play out more than once,” London wrote. “Trump’s obsession in focusing resources against Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza is one example of the president’s preference for a “celebrity” targeted killing versus prioritizing options that could prove better for U.S. security.”
London wrote that Trump showed the same obsession in gaining notoriety after the strike that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying that the “president” lost interest in pursuing lower-level operational ISIS leaders. Even when others posed a greater threat, Trump went after the bigger names because it’s “more about Trump, and the potential for headlines, rather than the intelligence.”
Maybe, just maybe, this is tied into Trump’s obsession with Obama. On May 1, 2011, Obama announced in a televised address, nearly ten years after the September 11 attacks, that Osama bin Laden, the leader of terror group Al-Qaeda, had been killed during a special operation in Pakistan. The difference here is that Obama had Congressional authorization to target Al-Qaeda leaders whereas Trump did not with the assassination of Iran’s top military leader. Members of Mar-a-Lago knew more about Trump’s unauthorized decision than Congress did.
And even though 15 of the 19 attackers on 9/11 were Saudis, all we’ve witnessed from Trump is our “president” sucking up to the Kingdom. It’s all about feeding Trump’s massive ego. What a sad spectacle of a man.
Featured image via screen capture
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