A brief glimpse of sanity from Trump
The officially worst president in US history did something good recently.Well, he at least stopped himself from doing something horrible, that he already ordered to be done.
Trump wanted retaliation for an unmanned drone that was recently shot down by Iran.
Ships were in position. Airplanes were in the air. A strike upon Iran was ordered by Trump.
It was all set to go. Then, Trump asked a question 10 minutes before the strike was to take place. "How many people will die ?"
The answer from a general was "150 sir". Of course, that answer was short-sighted. That was the INITIAL human cost of lives, IF all went well. There was no guarantee that all would go well.
Plus, it certainly would have plunged us into war with Iran and thus, MANY more lives would
eventually be lost.
But Trump had a moment of.....sanity ? remorse ? clearer thinking ?
He cancelled the order. Was it too real for him ? Did the chicken, who bought his way out of armed service with a doctor's note claiming supposed bone spurs, not have the guts to go through with it. Perhaps the dictator-wannabe had a moment of reality. Although it isn't apparent from almost everything else he has done in his life, maybe he finally found his heart.
Whatever was going on inside Trump, I'm glad he stopped what he was about to do.
Stopping himself, was perhaps the best thing he has done, since being sworn in.
Comments (7)
He more than likely has a personality disorder. He experiences life from his own perspective only. He cannot empathise with others.
He described the first drone attack he authorised brutally killing 23 civilians including 10 children under the age of 12 as a 'win'.
He will have called it off because to go through with it may have had a negative impact for himself in some way. Perhaps it was something to do with so recently launching his 2020 election campaign and not wanting to alienate a targeted group of voters.
j - I understand your skepticism. Indeed, this is Trump's explanation. When has he not lied ? Without that general's testimony, I have my doubts too. Regardless, I am glad a new war was not started.
Strikes on Iran Approved by Trump, Then Abruptly Pulled Back
By Nilo Tabrizy
June 20, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions.
As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president’s top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.
Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries.
The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.
The abrupt reversal put a halt to what would have been the president’s third military action against targets in the Middle East. Mr. Trump had struck twice at targets in Syria, in 2017 and 2018.
It was not clear whether Mr. Trump simply changed his mind on the strikes or whether the administration altered course because of logistics or strategy. It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward.
Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.
The retaliation plan was intended as a response to the shooting down of the unmanned, $130 million surveillance drone, which was struck Thursday morning by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, according to a senior administration official who was briefed on the military planning and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential plans.
The strike was set to take place just before dawn Friday in Iran to minimize risk to the Iranian military and civilians. But military officials received word a short time later that the strike was off, at least temporarily.
The possibility of a retaliatory strike hung over Washington for much of the day. Officials in both countries traded accusations about the location of the drone when it was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile launched from the Iranian coast along the Gulf of Oman.
Mr. Trump’s national security advisers split about whether to respond militarily. Senior administration officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; John R. Bolton, the national security adviser; and Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, had favored a military response. But top Pentagon officials cautioned that such an action could result in a spiraling escalation with risks for American forces in the region.
Congressional leaders were briefed by administration officials in the Situation Room.
The destruction of the drone underscored the already tense relations between the two countries after Mr. Trump’s recent accusations that Iran is to blame for explosions last week that damaged oil tankers traveling through the strait, the vital waterway for much of the world’s oil. Iran has denied that accusation.
Iran’s announcement this week that it would soon breach one of the key limits it had agreed to in a 2015 pact intended to limit its nuclear program has also fueled tensions. Mr. Trump, who pulled the United States out of the 2015 pact, has vowed that he will not allow Tehran to build a nuclear weapon.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump insisted that the United States’ unmanned surveillance aircraft was flying over international waters when it was taken down by an Iranian missile.....
“This drone was in international waters, clearly,” the president told reporters on Thursday afternoon at the White House as he began a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. “We have it all documented. It’s documented scientifically, not just words.”
Asked what would come next, Mr. Trump said, “Let’s see what happens.”
Iran’s government fiercely disputed the president’s characterization, insisting that the American drone had strayed into Iranian airspace. Iran released GPS coordinates that put the drone eight miles off the country’s coast, inside the 12 nautical miles from the shore that Iran claims as its territorial waters.
Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in a letter to the Security Council that the drone ignored repeated radio warnings before it was downed. He said that Tehran “does not seek war” but “is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea and air.”
Congressional Democrats emerged from the president’s classified briefing in the Situation Room and urged Mr. Trump to de-escalate the situation. They called on the president to seek congressional authorization before taking any military action.
“This is a dangerous situation,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “We are dealing with a country that is a bad actor in the region. We have no illusions about Iran in terms of their ballistic missile transfers, about who they support in the region and the rest.”
Iran’s destruction of the drone appeared to provide a boost for officials inside the Trump administration who have long argued for a more confrontational approach to Iran, including the possibility of military actions that could punish the regime for its support of terrorism and other destabilizing behavior in the region.
But in his public appearance, Mr. Trump initially seemed to be looking for a way to avoid a potentially serious military crisis. Instead of directly accusing the leaders of Iran, Mr. Trump said someone “loose and stupid” in Iran was responsible for shooting down the drone.
The president said he suspected it was some individual in Iran who “made a big mistake,” even as Iran had taken responsibility for the strike and asserted that the high-altitude American drone was operating over Iranian air space, which American officials denied.
Mr. Trump said the episode would have been far more serious if the aircraft had been a piloted vehicle, and not a drone. It made “a big, big difference” that an American pilot was not threatened, he told reporters.
Last year, Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear pact with Iran, over the objections of China, Russia and American allies in Europe. He has also imposed punishing economic sanctions on Iran, trying to cut off its already limited access to international trade, including oil sales.
Iran has warned of serious consequences if Europe does not find a way around those sanctions, though it has denied involvement in the attacks on tankers near the vital Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Iran said it would soon stop abiding by a central component of the nuclear deal, the limit on how much enriched uranium it is allowed to stockpile.
Both Washington and Tehran said the downing of the drone occurred at 4:05 a.m. Thursday in Iran, or 7:35 p.m. Wednesday in Washington. The drone “was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz,” the United States Central Command said in a statement. “This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace.”
Murdering a bunch of people for shooting down an unmanned drone that's violating their airspace could have negative blowback, particularly if it gets framed as the event that takes us into war with Iran.
It will only ever be self preservation with this one.
He scored the lowest of all the US presidents for 50 of the most important presidential criteria.
This is done every 4 years by the most qualified presidential historians in the country,
including the top 170 presidential historians (both conservative & liberal).
Considering your behavior and statements on here, clearly, you are unqualified to make judgements about other people. So far, all you have managed to do, is to convince people what an idiot you are.