It’s amazing. Donald Trump has said the magic words “radical Islamic terrorism,” and yet it doesn’t seem to have caused all opposition to dry up and blow away. In fact, Trump’s Muslim ban has proven to be a gift to enemies.
The beneficiaries of this policy have been extremists, who can now say across the Muslim world: "The US will never help you."
And in his first military action — approved over dinner with Bannon and Kushner — Trump has created a costly catastrophe that has had drawn mockery from the terrorists it was mean to target and made the fight that much harder.
Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the first commando raid authorized by President Trump, Yemen has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terrorist groups in the country, according to American officials.
Also not helping the situation: A delusional White House that thinks it can define reality.
While the White House continues to insist that the attack was a “success” — a characterization it repeated on Tuesday — the suspension of commando operations is a setback for Mr. Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.
Breitbart readers may be willing to accept the Trump regime’s declaration of victory. The people looking at the dead bodies of children are much less impressed.
Grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation.
Rather than taking out militant commanders in Yemen, Trump has helped to assure that extremists have more safe spaces. He’s making sanctuaries for terrorists by the simple method of proving that it’s too dangerous to be his friend.
The raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was an early test of Mr. Trump’s national security decision-making — and his willingness to rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even though the decision was made over a dinner, it had been fully vetted, and had the requisite legal approvals.
Wait. So the aides also said all the magic words, and it still didn’t work? That is vexing.