Him The HuffPost story is titled Trump Claims He Got Iran Death Estimate With Minutes To Go. He Should’ve Had It Way Earlier, with the subtitle “Trump’s explanation for why he canceled a missile strike on Iran raises serious questions about his National Security Council decision-making process.”
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On their opening page it is the top story which is headlined as follows:
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My hunch is he either was told about the death toll way before he announced his deciding not to launch the attack and he forgot about it, or he was well aware of this early on and decided the optics were better for him because they made him look like a strong and decisive leader who cares about people. I break this down into the three somewhat distinct possibilities below. Take the poll and let us know which are the most likely.
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HuffPost tells us that “sources familiar with the National Security Council decision-making process say the number of people likely to be killed and injured in a U.S. military action is one of the first pieces of information a president receives in the planning process.”
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In interviews Trump repeat his account of how he saving 150 lives described in the well publicized tweet “On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not....”
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He is making himself out to be the hero of the day at the same time as his phraseology, using the macho, bellicose, and somewhat phallic term “cocked and loaded ( Cocked & Loaded is the second studio album by American hard rock band L.A. Guns.
I’ve never head that term. I have heard “locked and loaded” referencing the M16 and semi-auto pistols which are carried "Locked and Loaded"which means they are cocked with a round in the chamber, with the safety on—because the noise made when someone moves the mechanism which puts a bullet in the chamber where is it ready to fire with a trigger pull. This is all besides the point but I doubt cadet bone spurs knows anything about it.
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All this being said, I see only a few possiblities about why Trump made his claim.
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The most disturbing one is that Trump was told about the likely death toll of such an attack which, as noted above, would be standard procedure and he forgot about it. This is of grave concern because it would be an indication of short-term memory loss and is a strong indication of dementia.
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The second possibility is that he was told about it but he wasn’t paying attention when he was briefed as is standard procedure which is of serious though perhaps less grave concern since this was probably the most serious meeting of his administration. He may have just been bored or had something else on his mind.
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The third possibility is that he was well aware of the death toll which would result in such an attack and either planned to go ahead with it until someone, possibly Tucker Carlson (see www.businessinsider.com/... told him it would hurt him politically. In addition to Tucker Carlson it’s also possible that Ivanka and Jared, or even Melania, genuinely wanted to spare lives but knowing the president they told him launching an attack that killed so many people would make him look unfeeling and be used against him.
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It would be typical of Trump to go with the self-aggrandizeing approach which would make him look like a “the buck stops with here” president (he’d probably have the famous plaque on his desk if it wasn't Harry Truman’s), the ultimate decision maker who makes
decisions on matters of life and death, and who is also someone with compassion and a great concern for life, even the lives of Iranians.
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It would also consistent of the impulsiveTrump‘s behaviour when he doesn’t think about and/or care about the consequences of his words.
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There certainly are other possibilities I haven’t thought of. Maybe it was divine intervention. Or as a couple of people added in the comments he checked in with Putin. I wonder. Perhaps Putin has a source in the White House or a
listening device and called Trump on his secret line.
Google translate renders Make American Great Again as Сделай Америку великой снова, close enough.
Editorial Update:
We can rest assured, hmmm, well we can’t rest assured about anything that Trump does which seems to be a rational and sane act because he is so erratic that John Bolton might come to him in a hypnogogic hallucination* and told him he’d loose his manhood if he didn’t attack Iran. Or perhaps the much hated war hero John McCain appeared and sang his version of “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys, substituting “bomb, bomb, bomb” Iran like he did during a campaign appearance in Murrells Inlet, S.C. in 2007. (Watch video, or read NPR story)
* A hypnagogic hallucination is a vivid, dream-like sensation that an individual hears, sees, feels or even smells and that occurs near the onset of sleep. As the individual falls asleep, for example, he experiences intense hypnagogic hallucinations and imagines that there are other people in his room. Reference