Does Trump Deserve Credit for The Death of ISIS Leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? [EDITORIAL]

President Donald Trump takes victory laps after announcing the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Was Trump responsible for this death? Does he deserve partial credit?

 During the Special Operations Forces raid in their war against the Islamic State, officials cornered al-Baghdadi, leading him to commit suicide. Some people are having a difficult time grasping Trump’s aftermath speech about the death of al-Baghdadi being a genuine “triumph” because of Trump’s remarks about himself throughout.  We all know that President Trump always takes time to speak about himself, no matter what the situation is so we really should not be that surprised. But President Trump seemed promising as he began his announcement strong, praising the Special Operations and being grateful for the result, but he quickly turned tables as he felt that he deserves full credit for this death and wanted people to know that.

Would Osama bin Laden be alive if it wasn’t for Obama’s order to kill him? Would al-Baghdadi be alive if it was not for Trump’s order? The answer is no to both, ultimately, they both deserve some credit for setting up the operations and putting the ultimate plan in motion. But Trump does not see it this way.

We think the concept of being genuine and deserving of credit is especially difficult after Trump expressed that previous President, Barack Obama, did not deserve credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden back in 2011. Osama bin Laden, similar to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, was known as the world’s most wanted terrorist hiding out in Pakistan. Bin Laden’s death happened after Obama ordered a raid that resulted in the shooting and killing of bin Laden.

Bin Laden’s death was a key in history as bin Laden was the leader or the U.S terrorist attack known as 9/11. For a lot of America, this was a triumph and even though Obama did not pull the trigger, he ordered the raid which deserves some credit. President Trump would disagree with that statement as he declared that “President Obama did not deserve congratulations for the feat because it was “Navy SEALS [who] killed bin Laden” and not Obama himself”.  

Failing to give credit to Obama for this death does not make sense as Trump now sits here, wanting praise and credit for a similar death which resulted in a conducted raid by a US President. We do think that Trump deserves partial credit, as well as Obama, does. But Trump only deserves it if he is willing to admit Obama does as well. Trump downplays the killing of Osama bin Laden, stating that “This [killing of al-Baghdadi] is the biggest there is. This is the worst ever. Osama bin Laden was big, but only because of the World Trade Center. [al-Baghdadi] built a whole country.”

At the end of the day, both Trump and Obama ordered a raid to kill a wanted militant so they both do deserve partial credit. For Trump to say that Obama does not deserve credit because he was not the one behind the trigger seems very hypocritical and seems like a lot of emotion speaking rather than logic. Ultimately, we understand that both Trump and Obama had big parts in these killings, as they were both leaders of our country that order these killing to take place. But in order for Trump to receive or deserve credit for this, we think he needs to take a step back and agree that Obama deserves credit for bin Laden’s death.

This editorial was written based on the deliberations of a JAMS 504 editorial board.