My dad - a staunch Trumpist - got an email today with a few graphics, and forwarded it to me so I’m not sure where it came from.
One of the graphics said:
Obama ordered 542 drone strikes without approval from congress, that had killed 3,797 people, including 324 civilians.
This graphic was contrasted with that of Trump, who “ordered the kill of Soleimani” without approval from Congress.
The last line of the graphic was “And the Left is freaking out about Trump.”
And of course my dad believes this, which is why he forwarded it to me.
I did some research.
Drone warfare has been happening since Bush.
Obama definitely ordered all those drone strikes, which did kill all those people including civilians.
He also made an executive order saying that the number of civilians killed during drone strikes had to be reported.
Trump rescinded that executive order - so that no data would be collected about how many civilians were killed, presumably.
Trump has not just ordered one drone strike during his presidency - he has ratcheted up drone strikes - doubling them in Yemen and tripling them in Somalia.
Soleimani’s killing triggered the Iranians - bringing together people and government - because " As Reuters reported, “Major General Qassem Soleimani was the second most powerful man in Iran. He answered only to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.” His killing, per Reuters, “struck at the heart” of leadership in Tehran."
There’s no doubt that killing such a highly placed target would have brought repercussions, and indeed it did.
Today, the news is saying that both sides (meaning the US and Iran) are moving toward negotiations…
But if someone from Iran had assassinated VP Pence, would be in the US just launch a few missiles and then negotiate? Iran may be “negotiating”…while they continue their nuclear program and start planning a few assassinations of their own.
And one wonders how Canada will react to the shooting down of that airliner…and if Iraq is still pissed off about it.
Trump hasn’t cooled tensions, he’s exacerbated them.
