By Milt Hankins:
Colin Kahl, a former National Security adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden, said recently on MSNBC's "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell that the decision to conduct the raid in Yemen was apparently made by President Trump and his closest National Security Council leaders at an evening dinner. Kahl said, "It apparently didn't go as they planned."
A Feb. 2, 2017, report by Alice Fordham and released to NPR was headlined "Trump's First Military Raid Continues to Raise Questions." I am quoting directly from Fordham's reporting of the raid because I believe this incident may well erupt into the new - the first - Trump Benghazi. Here's what Ms. Fordham reported:
"The fighting claimed the life of a Navy SEAL, Chief Special Warfare Operator William Owens. Other U.S. troops were injured when their aircraft crash-landed as part of the operation. On Wednesday, President Trump flew to Dover Air Force Base to take part in the transfer of Owens' body from the military to his family. [We do not have a transcript of what the president told the Owens' family.]
"The casualties were the military's first under Trump, who approved the special operations raid after planning began in November under his predecessor, Barack Obama.
"The battle and its aftermath, described to NPR by U.S. national security officials as well as the local witnesses, are the subject of a new investigation by the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.
"Although the Americans are continuing to look into what happened, CENTCOM Wednesday acknowledged 'regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed.'"
It's rather clear from what has leaked out about this attack in Yemen in the first two weeks of the Trump administration that Trump and his National Security advisers would like to lay the blame for the incident and the death of Navy SEAL William Owens on the Obama NSC team.
It's reminiscent of the way the John F. Kennedy administration made every effort to lay the Bay of Pigs disaster at the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Early "disasters" in a presidential administration can always be laid at the previous administration. But the truth is that these incidences are always the result of final decisions made by the incumbent president.
The Yemen raid was authorized by President Donald Trump. He must own it. It cost us a valuable member of the SEAL team. It apparently resulted in the deaths of a number of civilians. It was an unnecessary, unwise, and unsuccessful military action that had grave results because it was hastily approved.
When we look back on the Benghazi incident, we can, with good authority show that it was a quick, impulsive attack by an enemy - an enemy who did not give the Benghazi site time to receive military assistance. It has been clearly shown that no military assistance was close enough to Benghazi to be of any help to the four agents who were killed.
The death of SEAL William Owens was, clearly, the result of poor planning and execution of a raid ordered by President Donald J. Trump.
Source: The Herald Dispatch
