1: Attack a bunch of Middle Easterners.
2: Pick through the bodies to find who was most prominent among those killed.
3: Declare that that person, whoever it was, was the “leader of ISIS” so he can brag about it.
That’s why Trump never talked about al-Bagdadi before. And that’s why he didn’t tell anyone about the raid beforehand, either: Because he didn’t know who the target was going to end up being. And never mind that Trump had already personally defeated every last member of ISIS, and that’s why he told Turkey to attack the Kurds.
This was my first thought. It might be the polite or nice thing to do, but President Trump and Pelosi seem to be well beyond niceties, so the next question is: Is he required to brief them? I don’t know for certain, but I don’t think so. This happened in Syria where we’ve been conducting military operations for years. Pakistan was a rather different beast.
Not that your one example here counterbalances it all, but this - along with a lot of comments I’ve seen on CNN’s Facebook yesterday - illustrate that many liberals are perfectly willing to believe something outlandish if it fits a narrative.
He’s pointing out there is no reason to believe Trump because of his belief in conspiracy theories and his outright lying. Liberals are not willing to believe the outlandish stories from Trump and his Republican stooges so it’s necessary to consider the most likely explanation for an event instead of their lies.
Did I miss the meeting where this part of the Constitution was eliminated? I get that the whole declaring war thing is passe, but there was always supposed to be a check and balance there, with Congress having the power to rein in the CinC. Kind of hard to do that when he’s keeping you in the dark.
Do you believe that the 2001 AUMF, which authorizes war against those who carried out the 9/11 attacks, and that those who “planned,” “aided” or “harbored” them (note past tense), should apply to terrorist groups that did not exist at the time of the attacks?
I’m interested in the answer because you seem to be very precise in interpreting words used in gun control laws.
The U.S. policy of going after and killing terrorists has been discussed and approved by Congress. Since the general policy has been approved there is no reason to discuss each specific instance where it happens.
With the AUMF, Congress gave authorization to the President to take military actions against Terrorists.
The President now claims that he can’t trust Congress with knowing when military actions are taken?
It is Congress who gave him this authorization in the first place, and Congress still retains responsibility for raising and providing for an Army and Navy, and making rules to govern the use of them.
Again, it’s spite, not reality driving this choice.
I recall reading somewhere that it’s an intelligence axiom that the likelihood of a secret being leaked is the *square *of the number of people in on the secret.
The benefits of briefing Congress are low (what, exactly, are the benefits?) but the possible drawbacks are extreme (the scuttling of the entire mission, should it go public)
No, I don’t believe it should, but presidents of both parties, prior to President Trump, have cited that AUMF as justification for military operations in more than a dozen countries, including Obama using it to fight ISIS in Syria, so it’s pretty clear that my belief on the matter doesn’t hold much sway. To flip things around now and say “but we didn’t authorize that” when pretty much everyone from both parties has looked the other way for the last 18 years would be transparently hypocritical (which is about what I expect from the dems). Furthermore, to make this argument (that “we didn’t authorize that”) while at the same time they’re trying to excoriate President Trump for pulling back from military deployments in Syria is ham-fisted in the extreme.
When someone raises point “A,” why do you raise the counter-argument to point “A” that you don’t actually agree with?
This is puzzling behavior. What do you think you are achieving by concealing your own views while raising these points? To put a finer point on it, are you just sticking it to the libs even in cases where you personally agree with the libs?
Not all terrorists. You have to admit, it didn’t cover bombing the KKK. And if you look at the text of the AUMF, it’s an extremely thin case that it covers a terrorist group created more than a decade after 9/11.