Donald Trump’s scary incompetence
It’s a good thing that Donald Trump has the U.S. military at his back. Otherwise, his administration would be entirely incompetent.
At a recent press conference, the president correctly touted the bravery and expertise of the military for its recovery of the F-15 crew member shot down over Iran. While the pilot was quickly rescued, the plane’s weapons system officer parachuted into enemy territory and was subject to capture for a full 48 hours.
As Trump explained, “Our troops turned a potential tragedy into a resounding demonstration of American resolve and capability.”
The crew member evaded capture by scaling cliffs and hiding in crevices, the president revealed, all the while “bleeding profusely.”
“I listened to the whole [rescue] thing. It was pretty amazing,” the commander-in-chief said.
The officer’s capture by the Iranians would have had potentially devastating consequences for the administration’s chosen conflict – politically, militarily, psychologically.
Who knows how the president would have reacted. Might he have taken a step up the weapons ladder, at least rhetorically? After threatening to annihilate Iran by conventional means, only one thing was left.
At the press conference at which he lauded the rescue of the downed flyer, Trump voiced his wonder at U.S. military weapons and devices, including, presumably, the signaling device airmen carry with them in the event of emergency and the hardware deployed to find and pluck the officer from danger.
“We just realized,” President Trump said, “how good those – those weapons are.”
After more than five years as president, was Trump just finding this out? If that’s the case, it’s a little short of amazing. It points out the fact that Donald Trump is woefully ill-informed.
Before the war with Iran, which is now in abeyance, the president had already demonstrated his incapacity in a number of startling ways.
For example, during his first go at the presidency, Trump refused to make the hard choices early on that might have mitigated the Covid crisis; instead, he turned to governors, as Bob Woodward shows in his book “Rage,” to make those decisions.
Elon Musk’s misadventures in government reorganization early in Trump’s second term is yet another titanic example of malfeasance in office. If Donald Trump and company had been at all serious about streamlining government and saving tax dollars, they would have studied the matter and then acted systematically.
They turned, however, to Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, whose slashing and burning ways resulted in lawsuits and adverse court decisions that reinstated not a few fired workers. Plus, Musk’s DOGE brought about colossal inefficiencies (see Social Security and the IRS) and tragic and even fatal U.S. government shortcomings (by eliminating USAID, for instance).
Trump’s war of choice against Iran may take the cake, however.
Launched by the president without consulting Congress or U.S. allies, Trump blundered his way to $4-plus gas prices and worldwide energy and economic emergencies, not to mention embroiling the whole Middle East into yet another round of tit-for-tat war-making and political uncertainty.
Even tactically the U.S. was not prepared. As Max Boot has pointed out, the administration unwisely decommissioned Bahrain-based mine sweepers months ago – sweepers that could have been used to help clear the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping.
At U.S. bases within Iranian missile range, Boot says, the Pentagon failed to order the construction of more deep bunkers for the protection of American personnel.
President Trump evidently expected a neat and speedy conclusion to his heedless and needless Iranian “excursion.” As incompetent as he is, the president should have known better.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins gmail.com.