Well, I guess President Trump just bombed the sh*t out of ISIS:
The U.S. military dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal Thursday on a cave and tunnel complex that it said was used by Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan, a stark reminder of a U.S. war now in its 16th grinding year.
The behemoth bomb, officially called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, is 30 feet long, weighs nearly 11 tons and is nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" for its devastating explosive power and the roiling mushroom cloud it sends high in the sky.
Originally developed for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the MOAB has never been used in combat before.
President Trump praised the attack as a "very, very successful mission." He indicated that he had given the Pentagon a free hand to use the weapon as part of his vow to step up the war on Islamic State.
"We have given them total authorization and that’s what they’re doing and frankly that’s why they’ve been so successful lately,” he told reporters at the White House. “If you look at what’s happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what’s happened over the past eight years, you’ll see there’s a tremendous difference, tremendous difference.”
I feel the same way about this bombing that I do about his bombing of Syria a week ago today. (Is the Trump Administration planning to engage in military attacks every Thursday?) The Left hates it because they hate anything Trump does. But if Obama did it they wouldn't have batted an eyelash.
On the other hand, as with Syria, it isn't clear to me what Trump wants to accomplish? Is Trump showing force for the sake of showing force or is he actually trying to destroy ISIS? If it is the latter then that is an accomplishment. But I have a feeling it's more likely the former. In which case, I don't think Trump will be anymore successful in Afghanistan than either Bush or Obama.
"... Is Trump showing force for the sake of showing force or is he actually trying to destroy ISIS?"
ReplyDeletePrez Trump could be sending a message to both ISIS and North Korea that with Obama gone everything is back on the table. And by giving the military "total authorization," Trump has apparently written himself out of the military decision process -- a process he never fully understood despite his stint in a military reform school.