Disgraceful: NY Times Attempts To Blame Trump For Yemen Raid Deaths

During the Obama regime’s eight years, there have been numerous occasions where US military personnel lost their lives, and foreign civilians were killed. There were more military deaths in Afghanistan under Obama than under Bush, after Obama did his surge. For the most part, the major news media outlets were silent on this all. There was no condemnation. No blaming. The closest they came to it was when Anwar al-Awlaki was whacked by drone strike, and the minor chiding was due to him being an American citizen. Did any caterwaul that a follow up strike killed his 16 year old son? Did you even know that occurred? It wasn’t broadcast breathlessly like had Bush been president.

For the most part, Conservatives understand that military and civilian causalities will occur during operations, and most will have approved of Obama’s attacks on extremist Islamists and the Islamist groups. Liberals were mostly silent. They certainly weren’t going to Blame Obama. Suddenly, though, a Republican is in the White House, so we get this disgraceful, utterly partisan shlock

Raid in Yemen: Risky From the Start and Costly in the End

Just five days after taking office, over dinner with his newly installed secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Trump was presented with the first of what will be many life-or-death decisions: whether to approve a commando raid that risked the lives of American Special Operations forces and foreign civilians alike.

President Barack Obama’s national security aides had reviewed the plans for a risky attack on a small, heavily guarded brick home of a senior Qaeda collaborator in a mountainous village in a remote part of central Yemen. But Mr. Obama did not act because the Pentagon wanted to launch the attack on a moonless night and the next one would come after his term had ended.

So, an Obama planned raid. That’s not to assign blame, just to note that it started at that point, as the NY Times attempts to assign blame to Trump

As it turned out, almost everything that could go wrong did. And on Wednesday, Mr. Trump flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be present as the body of the American commando killed in the raid was returned home, the first military death on the new commander in chief’s watch.

The death of Chief Petty Officer William Owens came after a chain of mishaps and misjudgments that plunged the elite commandos into a ferocious 50-minute firefight that also left three others wounded and a $75 million aircraft deliberately destroyed. There are allegations — which the Pentagon acknowledged on Wednesday night are most likely correct — that the mission also killed several civilians, including some children. The dead include, by the account of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Qaeda leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011.

Suddenly, civilian deaths are important again

But the mission’s casualties raise doubts about the months of detailed planning that went into the operation during the Obama administration and whether the right questions were raised before its approval. Typically, the president’s advisers lay out the risks, but Pentagon officials declined to characterize any discussions with Mr. Trump.

In other words, the NY Times is wondering if Trump approved the operation too soon and without asking questions.

We further read about the operation being “jinxed from the start”, that the mission had been compromised, that surprise was lost. That an Osprey called in for support was damaged, and the $75 million aircraft had to be destroyed (suddenly, money matters in Liberal Land). Yemeni government officials are “seething”, Yemeni human rights groups (an oxymoron) are mad, and suddenly, photos of the strike were being obtained and published by the news media after 8 years of minimizing Obama attacks.

You can feel the tone, and that’s “Let’s Blame Trump.” And the news media wonders why it has lost credibility when it comes out with partisan trash like this.

Crossed at Right Wing News.