Trump Goes On a Self-Celebration Parade After The Assassination of ISIS Leader Baghdadi [EDITORIAL]

With the way Trump announced the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one would think he pulled the final trigger, with the way he boasted and hyped up the assassination of the terrorist.

May of 2011 was when President Barack Obama announced to the world the assassination of Osama bin Laden, master mind behind the September 11th 2001 attacks. After President Obama’s announcement of the assassination, Donald Trump was quick to discredit Obama’s involvement in the assassination saying that all Obama did was give the greenlight on the assassination. Eight years later, current President, Donald Trump is taking victory laps and giving himself full credit over the death of ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Regardless of how Trump announced the death of Baghdadi and his comments years previously on discrediting President Obama, which was both a spectacle and a cringe show, he does deserve some credit for the death of the ISIS leader.

While the views of Trump are vastly different from those this editorial board, we will not disregard the hard work that goes into spearheading this kind of operation. The public, regardless of how they feel about the current President, trusts that they will make the right call in any situation. Trump may have taken the same steps as President Obama did back in his presidency to ensure the assassination happened, but Trump’s execution in announcing the death made the whole operation feel, a bit off.

For a brief moment the public’s like, “Oh hey, Trump did something grea- oh, the way he’s going about this doesn’t feel right anymore.” That trust and security he’s supposed to instill in the American public is quickly lost.
While both former President Obama and Trump should get partial credit, they should not get as much credit as the soldiers who were there with the terrorists in their final moments, the informers, or the generals and colonels who played more pivotal roles in these assassinations.

Again, should Trump be discredited over the assassination of Baghdadi? While his announcement of the death screams out, “DISCREDIT HIM,” he deserves some credit.

At the end of the day he made the right call in ordering the assassination. However, there will be those who argue that it’s the government’s own fault in training members of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, which our argument is that the US government, who made ISIS members, who were then known as Sunni fighters, feel disenfranchised when they were helping us during war resulting in them turning on us and creating ISIS. Likewise, with Al-Qaeda, we armed them to fight Soviets in Afghanistan and they later created the infamous terrorist group.

At the end of the day, both Presidents made the right call and gave the greenlight on the assassinations of both Baghdadi and Bin Laden. The fact that Baghdadi committed suicide should not indicate Trump getting discredited, as the soldiers that were there would have captured or killed him regardless of the suicide or not.

Some solutions to these kinds of situations in which we’re stuck on giving someone we like or dislike credit or not, would be to have an open mind. Many of us wish Trump was as open minded as many of us are and didn’t say some of the hateful and bizarre things he says. Well, maybe we, as the public, should take time to reflect on when he opens his mouth and the situation, we, the American public, are in, and decide whether we can credit him or discredit him accordingly.

This editorial was based on a discussion by a JAMS 504 editorial board.