Originally Posted by Chicks
Heather Cox Richardson
41 mins ·
Sunday, October 27, 2019
The big news today was the story of the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of the Islamic State, known as ISIS, in northern Syria. The way this whole event played out is astonishingly vague to me, but that very vagueness has provided a weird snapshot of the current state of the Trump presidency.
In history books, the apparent killing of al-Baghdadi will likely be a footnote in the larger story of the US withdrawal from northern Syria, where we abandoned our allies the Kurds and left control of the region to Turkey and Russia. News reports suggest that our hasty withdrawal put the long-planned mission at risk, and that it was possible only thanks to information provided by the Kurds. Yet, in his account of the mission, Trump thanked the Russians and relegated the Kurds to a minor position. The loss of al-Baghdadi is a major blow to ISIS, but it does not change the direction of movement in the region away from American influence in favor of Russia.
Trump also told reporters that he did not share news of the raid with Congress, claiming he saw congresspeople as a security risk because he was afraid of leaks. This is odd. He is required by law to inform the so-called "Gang of Eight" about any covert action. The Gang of Eight is not simply Democrats, as he suggested; it includes the leaders of the House and Senate from each party, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the intelligence committees from both houses. They are sworn to secrecy, and they keep it. He is required to tell them.
Trump is suggesting that he can overrule the law saying he has to inform them... but there was no reason to do that. It makes me wonder if information about the raid was kept from the president himself. In any case, the fact he is trying to use this moment as a way to deny any obligation to keep Congress informed of vital American security suggests his ongoing strategy to say he is supreme. (Much has been said about his informing Putin of the raid, but my guess is that someone had to do that to make sure there were not attacks on the US forces.)
The other way in which this moment provides an odd snapshot is literally a snapshot. The White House released a photo it claimed was Trump, Vice President Pence, and four other leaders in the Situation Room monitoring the raid. (The Situation Room, also called the "Sit. Room" for short, is a secure basement room in the White House used in emergency situations.) But observers immediately noted that the photo was staged. The photographer for the Obama White House pointed out that the time stamp on the photo did not match the time of the raid. And there are weird wires running down the table. They normally would be covered, and in this shot the cables don't connect to anything. It is as if it is a photo intended to convey seriousness and activity, staged by someone who has no idea at all of what an actual working room looks like.
It is this aspect of the domestic importance of the raid that apparently killed al-Baghdadi that speaks most strongly to me. It is pure propaganda, attempting to sell to the American people something that is openly fake.
Lots of people don't care. They like the strength that the image projects, and that it is not real does not matter to them. But here's why it bothers me:
America was founded on the belief that human government must be based in reality. After centuries in which Europeans divided themselves according to religion, ethnicity, or kinship and killed each other over their beliefs and superstitions, thinkers began to see that there was a better way to order society. If people agreed to operate according to fact and reality, rather than according to image and belief, Enlightenment thinkers argued, they could build stable governments that could avoid the horrific wars of ethnicity and religion that had so scarred Europe.
America was born of that moment. Our Founders rejected superstition and religion as a basis for government and instead based it on real observations about the way the world worked. They often got it wrong-- as imperfect humans have done ever since-- but the belief that the government must be based on reality, rather than on a superstition or fantasy, was central to our nation.
Politicians always spin things, but until now presidents have honored the Enlightenment ideal at the heart of who we are. For the White House deliberately to produce a staged piece of propaganda to advance a fictional narrative strikes at our very foundation.
There is no doubt that Trump and his people hoped the news of al-Baghdadi's death would overtake attention being paid to the Ukraine scandal, but that appears not to be the case. When the president arrived at Game 5 of the World Series tonight in Washington, spectators booed him and chanted "Lock Him Up!"
And so we begin another tense week in Washington, D.C., at the seat of the government that George Washington called "The Great Experiment."
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10-28-2019, 01:27 PM
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