You seem to project a lot, often. The question asked was a good one, and trump's own social media reporting of the thinking process sparked the question... why did the question of possible casualties only come up *after* the attack approved and after the action was underway? Clearly it was not carefully thought out and I would have much preferred that the question and answer came up in the initial discussions he had with military and intelligence.
My entire argument is based on at least three facts: 1) The President is above the CIA. 2) The CIA are professional liars. 3) It didn't matter what the CIA said: we were pulling out of the nuclear deal. You're missing the forest for the trees. It's not just the issue of Iran. We have a lot of "left" "liberals" now saying "Screw the office of the President. Don't you want the CIA running things?" "Don't you want the 'intelligence community' to do hostile acts to Russia without asking the stupid president?" No, I don't want the spy agencies doing hostile acts to anyone without telling the President. Are you planning to favor the CIA over the President for your whole life, or just while Trump is in office?
LOL... interesting to see someone so focused on the CIA being liars at a time when the president and his admin has pretty much continually since taking office. But humoring your question... I don't think its a "CIA or trump" absolute. I think its important that a president listen to input from his entire intelligence community (including CIA). And listen to his military leadership and cabinet members. And key members of congress. Heck, even experts outside government. Unfortunately, this president doesn't seem to do that all the time. Heck, he argued against the combined intelligence community with respect to russian interference in the 2016 election. Of course, we know why (even Hicks recent testimony showed trump selfishly feared that acknowledging that would weaken the legitimacy of his presidency).
Oh, Russia. Yeah, America is badly damaged from that. jk If Trump wins again, it'll be coz Russia. Right? I'm not afraid of Russia at all, actually. What makes you think Trump didn't listen to input? It seems your own posted tweets show that Trump was getting input from various sources, hence his supposed vacillation. So if Trump's a liar, then the CIA liars are OK? I'm gonna go with the liars who do not do hostile acts to foreign countries.
What vacillation? trump continued to claim there was no interference. He stated that putin said they didn't interfere. And he claimed intelligence people were wrong. Mueller even reported on trump's denials of russian interference. Here's a timeline on trump statements on russian interference: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/02/words-trump-russian-meddling/
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-IC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community
The vacillation I was referring to is when Trump decided not to kill anyone in Iran, but in a stupid loser fashion instead of the correct way, supposedly.
Linking to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. . . . Thank you for confirming that "IC" is a government-invented term. I already said that. In what sense is it a community, to you? In your own thoughts.
The guy projects an emotional putz who doesn't know what the hell he is doing. Knowing how much the guy loves tv ratings and drama, I wouldn't be surprised that he never intended to go ahead with the attack - was just putting on a show for constituents to project his fake macho image. The problem with that, is that military doesn't respect fake macho guys and we run a risk that his orders might be ignored at some point (hope it is not after he orders a nuclear strike with intention to cancel it at the last point)
If that is true, our military is bullshit. Now it's the military and the "IC" who would be justified in ignoring the President? Sounds like a coup in the making. Who cares who the military respects. Do your job, or quit taking thousands of dollars of my tax money every year (yes, thousands for the defense budget alone). It's the freaking Trump haters who are pushing toward a coup d'etat!
I knew you were going to go full defensive emotional response on me. I'm presenting you with a real life problem of people interacting with people. Not executive branch interacting with Military branch. People have impulses and not always think in terms of oath to office. This is not about Libs versus GOP. Whatever. If you want to be a conspiracy mongering lap dog of an emotional putz, you are welcome to it.
There is no "military branch" of the government. The military is in the Executive Branch, under the "Commander in Chief." Perhaps you've heard the term. It means that a civilian runs the military. Agreed: I totally do not care about "Libs versus GOP."
I assume withholding the strike was the plan when they scrambled the planes. They just wanted to rattle the saber a bit.
