From the Strategy Page, [1]
After Delta Force nailed al-Baghdadi, President Trump used Twitter and television to attack al-Baghdadi’s arrogance, swagger and narrative of invincibility. Trump said: “He died after running into a dead-end tunnel. … The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread.” The ghoul detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and three of his children.
Trump targeted potential recruits the fanatic might inspire: “(I)t’s something that should be brought out so that his followers and all of these young kids that want to leave various countries … see how he died. … He didn’t die a hero. He died a coward — crying, whimpering, screaming.”
Overblown language, a “yuge” exaggeration? Perhaps, but useful, strategic information warfare. Trump’s global damning damages al-Baghdadi as a terrorist icon.
In comparison, The Washington Post’s coddling in its now-changed headline “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48” was a depraved distortion of reality that undermines anti-terror efforts.
Well, no kidding. Indeed, were we to hold ourselves up to the same standards the Democrats have been holding Trump to, it would be clear that everyone that the Washington Post and the Democrats complaining about the death of this thug, are in fact ISIS assets.
Of course, the reality is somewhat different. The truth is I find very little in the way of evidence that all but a paltry few Democrats do not possess the intelligence to understand Trump’s strategy embodied in his announcement of the other day…. That this is rhetorical warfare as much as anything else, and in that realm, Trump’s message was a masterstroke… particularly as compared to the Obama strategy. Obama never understood that kissing backside is not a strategy, but capitulation.