Five things about the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, a U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, as part of an operation code-named Neptune Spear, entered a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and executed Osama bin Laden, the head of the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda. In a televised announcement later that day, a sober Barack Obama informed the American people that the man responsible for having planned and funded the September 11, 2001 attacks against our nation had finally been brought to justice.

At the time, as you may recall, not everyone rallied together around the President of the United States, thanking him for making the apprehension of Osama bin Laden a military priority. Among those who refused to acknowledge Obama’s role in the operation was Donald Trump, who said the following in an interview with CNN at the time.

"What was he supposed to do, say 'Don't get him'?"pic.twitter.com/u59rYgGTa8

— Mark Maynard (@MarkAMaynard) October 27, 2019

Donald Trump was adamant that the President of the United States should not get “credit” for either having prioritized the apprehension of Al-Qaeda’s leader, or having ordered the mission against the terrorist who, by that time, had eluded capture for almost a decade.

Now, though, it would appear as though Donald Trump has had a change of heart. Having just listened to his bewildering speech about the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by U.S. forces last night, it seems as though he now believes the President of the United States deserves quite a bit of credit in instances like this… a sentiment that’s shared by his Vice President, who said today that “All the credit goes here to the decisiveness of this commander in chief and the courage and professionalism (of the of special operations forces who carried out his commands).”

Oh, and, for what it’s worth, our incredibly petty President also apparently thinks that the killing of al-Baghdadi is more significant than the killing of bin Laden. “Osama was a big thing,” he told reporters today, “but this is the biggest there is.”

Trump pathetically still tries to measure up to Obama he claims the killing of Baghdadi is bigger than Bin Laden. pic.twitter.com/D5fV3CT8pj

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 27, 2019

I know it’s doesn’t do any good to complain here about the hypocrisy of Donald Trump. It’s not as though any of his followers, who stuck with him through all the other scandals, are going to walk away from him now, because yet another blogger points out that, eight years ago, when Obama was in the White House, he had a different take on such things. But, I felt as though I should at least mention it for the record, before getting into the substance of what happened here with regard to the al-Baghdadi mission.

One more thing before we move on, though. William McRaven, the Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the operation to take out Osama bin Laden, penned an op-ed earlier this month warning the American people that Donald Trump is a threat to our nation.

Now would be a good time to remember that Navy SEAL commander William McRaven, the man credited with taking out Osama bin Laden, says that the US “under attack” from Donald Trump – https://t.co/IKgyExDUqa

— Mark Maynard (@MarkAMaynard) October 27, 2019

OK, so now let’s get to al-Baghdadi. As time is limited, I’m going to limit myself to just the five things that I think are the most important, interesting, etc. So, if you’re looking for speculation as to whether or not the photo of Trump in the situation room yesterday was staged, you’re going to have to look elsewhere, because that didn’t make my cut.

1. It would appear as though we’ve known were al-Baghdadi for some time now, thanks to our Kurdish allies in Syria. Apparently, we had know the ISIS leader’s location in Idlib for the past “three and a half months. For multiple reasons, however, we’d decided not to act on the information until yesterday. The calculus apparently changed when Trump announced earlier this month that we’d be pulling our troops from northern Syria, meaning that our ability to control the situation going forward would be greatly diminished. [I’ve read that they were hoping to kill him in transit, so that there would be less collateral damage, but I imagine, had they waited, he may have also led them to additional high-level ISIS leaders.] The following background comes by way of the New York Times.

The surprising information about the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s general location — in a village deep inside a part of northwestern Syria controlled by rival Qaeda groups — came following the arrest and interrogation of one of Mr. al-Baghdadi’s wives and a courier this past summer, two American officials said.

Armed with that initial tip, the C.I.A. worked closely with Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence officials in Iraq and Syria to identify Mr. al-Baghdadi’s more precise whereabouts and to put spies in place to monitor his periodic movements, allowing American commandos to stage an assault Saturday in which President Trump said Mr. al-Baghdadi died.

But Mr. Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw American forces from northern Syria disrupted the meticulous planning and forced Pentagon officials to press ahead with a risky, night raid before their ability to control troops and spies and reconnaissance aircraft disappeared, according to military, intelligence and counterterrorism officials. Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death, they said, occurred largely in spite of Mr. Trump’s actions.

The officials praised the Kurds, who continued to provide information to the C.I.A. on Mr. al-Baghdadi even after Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw the American troops left the Syrian Kurds to confront a Turkish offensive alone. The Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, one official said, provided more intelligence for the raid than any single country…

And you read that right. We got al-Baghdadi because of the Kurds, our allies that Donald Trump recently gave the word to abandon.

Also, this sentence bears repeating… “Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death, they said, occurred largely in spite of Mr. Trump’s actions,” not because of them.

2. Donald Trump told members of the press today that he watched the entire mission go down, and that al-Baghdadi, right before taking his own life, “was screaming, crying, and whimpering.” According to intelligence officials, however, there was no live audio or body cam video. What Trump was watching, it would appear, was surveillance footage from above the compound. So, when he said, “I got to watch much of it… Mr. al-Baghdadi died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way,” he was lying.

3. Donald Trump, in his public statement today, made reference to the fact that Russia had been briefed on the mission prior to its execution. It would appear, however, that no one in the administration thought to brief Speaker Pelosi or members of the House Intelligence Committee… Speaking of Russia, Trump also thanked them before even thanking the members of Delta Force who executed this mission, or the Kurds who make it possible. He also, of course, downplayed the role of the Kurds… Oh, and the Russians say they’d already killed al-Baghdadi in May, but who the hell knows.

4. Donald Trump told members of the press today that, prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on our country, he had called for the death of Osama bin Laden in a book that he’d written. “About a year — you’ll have to check it, a year, year and a half — before the World Trade Center came down, the book came out,” he said. “I was talking about Osama bin Laden. I said, ‘You have to kill him. You have to take him out.’ Nobody listened to me.” This never happened.

5. If we’re going to give Donald Trump “credit” for killing al-Baghdadi — which I don’t have a problem with doing — then we should also give him credit for the five ISIS prisoners who escaped from Qamishli on October 11, and the 800 who escaped from Ain Issa on October 13, when U.S. troops, on his command, pulled back. These were ISIS prisoners who were being held by our Kurdish allies before they were forced to flee.

One last thing. Even after all of this — this great news about the leader of ISIS having been killed — Donald Trump was still booed at tonight’s World Series game. People know what’s going on. We are not alone.