Alright, replace ‘taken over’ with something more appropriate. The point is that it’s an enormous area to track multiple disparate groups across without the benefit of specialized equipment. Leaving them free to move around, killing anyone they dislike and stealing from everyone else isn’t a good outcome, particularly if there are also mysterious benefactors offering massive cash incentives for high-profile attacks.
Notice that while the Intercept frames it as the US operating drones and carrying out extrajudicial killings with impunity across the entire continent, almost all of the examples they offer are in Somalia and Yemen. I won’t argue with anyone who uses those as examples of why the US should stop meddling and keep to itself, but Chad and Niger tell a very different story.
My newsfeed is chock full of “hooray for Gen. Kelly for being so mature!” stories for his decision to support the President’s version of events.
I’m not sure how a former General feels about being forced into a position to accuse a Gold Star family of lying, but It doesn’t seem very honorable to me.
What’s sadder is that Kelly also had to bring the loss of his own son in service into this excuse-making mess. That’s truly soul-destroying stuff, especially considering the mediocre nature of the demon who’s being served.
You’re getting so much push-back because your argument is a version of the she was asking for it rationalization deployed like clockwork whenever a woman is on the receiving end of any form of harassment. You may not have consciously intended to do that, but that’s what you wound up doing.
For a four star general, he’s certainly not hesitating to join the crowd of WH staffers who delight in just making easily-verifiable stuff up and insisting it’s truth, despite all evidence. Must come with the job requirements.
And in passing he admitted that they weren’t lying, and that Trump had used the words in question. His complaint was more that he (and all the other people in the room when Trump rang the family) didn’t think that the family should have let anyone hear it at their end, because of the sacred and ceremonial nature of the call.
Frankly, I’m amazed that anyone is willing to talk to 45 at all without recording devices constantly rolling at this point; when someone pathologically lies as much as he does, about everything, nothing they say can ever be taken at ‘face value.’
A version of the “leakers” defense. “Let’s not discuss the contents of the disclosure; let’s focus instead on the bad character and nefarious purposes of whoever disclosed it.”
Does anyone really believe the White House claim that no recording of his call exists?
It’s almost as if he enjoys lying about simple, easily-disproved points, because then he gets to watch his followers and staff debase themselves by scurrying around defending the lie, and he knows that he is not the world’s most contemptible smear of scum after all.
I meant on the receiving end; if I personally had to deal with that douche in any capacity, I’d always be recording.
Now to be fair, a freshly grieving window likely wouldn’t think to do that… but in general, anyone who has to engage him would be wise to stayed ‘wired’ if only to maintain their own grasp on sanity.
(That’s not sarcasm, I honestly thing if he had integrity he would have, I don’t think he wants the job anyway [though he might be doing it because he thinks he’s preventing a nuclear war, which may even be true, so I guess he might be in a tough spot])
Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo notes that it is a decades long story with Trump, that he poisons everyone he works with. The man sucks the dignity out of you and spits you out when you no longer serve his toxic cause.
