I’ve been thinking about Rachael Maddow’s detailing the successes U.S. backed Iraqi forces have had against ISIS. She did a terrific job explaining how humiliating the losses of several strongholds (including the latest — Raqqa) gives the orange, human-shaped piece of dung aka Donald Trump the chance to “take a victory lap.” And at first glance it is rather curious but when you consider it in the context of the meme I included not so much. There are three key driving forces for this P.O.S. we have for President:
1) The adulation that comes with the pomp & circumstance given even our worst Presidents. For a pathological narcissist like Trump it’s easy to convince himself that only HE has ever rated all the cool goodies that come with the job.
2) Propping up his financial empire which has for a couple of decades now has been being propped up by foreign (mostly Russian) backers who have used him to launder money. He’d like to get out from under all that and as we see all the time he’s taking great delight in wiping his butt with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (well, the whole document actually but I’ll bet he has gold toilet paper with that clause printed on each sheet) as he exploits the Office he holds to pour money into his bank account.
3) Erasing the legacy of his predecessor Barack Obama. I recently looked up a clip of Obama skewering Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Dinner and while everyone else in the room laughed & enjoyed the jokes Trump, who didn’t suddenly become a man-baby when he became President sat there doing a slow burn. Many have suggested it was his cold fury at being the butt of those jokes that got him seriously thinking about a Presidential run. Even if he didn’t win (he didn’t even expect to get the nomination) it would both raise his profile (and make him money — see #2) and just as importantly give him a megaphone with which to attack his tormentor on the national political stage.
Many articles have been written and there’s no telling how many books will be written about Trump’s need for revenge and how he’s focused so much of his (what passes for) agenda on undoing every bit of Obama’s legacy. Anyone who reads stuff on Kos can think of examples without me wasting time & space detailing any of them. I would however note that some of what’s led to Trump’s tantrums is that he’s had trouble undoing some of what Obama put in place.
And that I believe is the answer to Maddow’s question.
Think back to a year ago, when then candidate Trump was touting his “secret plan to defeat ISIS” because Obama was doing such a “horrible job” and said our President was incapable of managing the fight and getting the job done. He even ridiculed what was publicly known about our plans and how letting people, especially in Raqqa know we were coming was sooooo stupid that all the ISIS folks would leave. However, as Maddow noted leaving Raqqa wasn’t such a simple thing for ISIS for their own political/image reasons, since it was their Capitol. IOW, they didn’t all run away but given the already huge scope of the humanitarian crisis (and remember how refugees became an issue?) and it turned out to be one helluva fight.
Urban warfare is like that. Trump’s buddy Putin could have (and maybe did — while warning Trump not to go using WMDs or certain tapes would be released….) told him. Remember, before Putin was in the KGB he was Spetnaz (Soviet Special Forces) and had had to learn all about Stalingrad. Anyway, Trump touted his secret plan which like so many other things he’d put into place on “day one” of his Presidency. Of course, it turns out he had no freaking plan. After a while when questioned on it he wound up giving “his” Generals 30 days to come up with one. That led to one of those tantrums I mentioned because in the end they said they’d be doing what they’d been planning all along. As I said, urban/city fighting is brutal and slow at best. In a region where houses are usually made out of cement instead of the materials used here and in Europe it’s even more so. It’s nasty, house-by-house stuff and takes a long time — and a lot of casualties to root out an opposing force. It’s not only slow, but it’s not “cool” looking either and the devastation left behind isn’t the kind of thing even a heartless & clueless idiot like Trump can celebrate. Well, in his case maybe so but that’s not the point.
The point is that talking up the success in Raqqa, and the other successes the Iraqi forces have had against ISIS (with OUR help) would lead to analysis of how it was done — and the fact that these plans were developed under Obama & Trump had little or no input/impact on how events played out. THAT is something our Narcissist-In-Chief (NIC?) simply cannot abide. Sure, he could try to spin it but having professionals telling him that word would spread that the results were due to carrying out long held strategies (IOW pre-Trump) and so he had tantrums. I have no sympathy for Sean Spicer and others in the White House Communications Office who swallowed their pride and self-respect to serve in the Trump administration but I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall when he/they had to explain to Trump how things would play out if he (Trump) tried to claim all the credit. Hell, even the Generals probably told Trump that it would be impossible to spin the operation(s) as having been developed once Trump came into Office. And they would speak up both because they aren’t afraid of a blowhard, Chickenhawk but also because it would take attention away from the troops.
So Trump find himself in what for him is an appalling situation of having to share credit with Iraqi forces (again, who were built up into an effective fighting force on Obama’s watch) and that alone would be bad enough. But to have people noting that the strategies used were the result of Obama’s leadership was/is unthinkable!
So the Iraqi forces and their U.S. troops aiding in the fight have won a tremendously difficult victory and deserve their moment in the spotlight. Just as importantly ISIS’ latest humiliation needs to be in the spotlight as it would help tamp down recruiting. But Trump would rather say nothing because he can’t grab all the glory for himself.
I love you Rachel, but how could you not realize that?