President Donald Trump stands in front of the media while talking about
the situation at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, from his Mar-a-Lago property,
Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Day before yesterday, a lot of the media and nearly all of NeverTrump seemed to be actively cheering for the Iranian-owned militia that had invaded the US embassy compound in Baghdad to kill or take hostage the staff there. Here are RedState posts on that subject:
Sorry, American Left, Baghdad Is Not and Will Not Be Another Benghazi
Some of the commentary made was shameful and disgusting even by the very low bar of behavior set by the left:
That’s right, a “veterans” group cheering about the possible death of Americans because #OrangeManBad.
Unlike the Obama Administration, President Trump did not dither and wait for the situation to spin out of control. A week prior to the event, the Administration ordered the evacuation of all nonessential personnel from Iraq. At the time this was portrayed as a result of the deteriorating security situation for US personnel but, in retrospect, it seems like there must have been intelligence that the Iranian-directed militias were considering targeting the US embassy. Just hours after the rent-a-mob appeared, President Trump ordered a quick reaction force of about 100 Marines and a pair of AH-64 Apache gunships to Baghdad. The Marines reinforced the existing embassy guard force, the Apaches sent a message to the crowd:
December 31, 2019–
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸 (@Scavino45) January 1, 2020
U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys drop off Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/RgBTMVAKCg
Yesterday morning, the militias decided to pack it in:
Supporters of the Kataib Hezbollah militia who had spent the night camped outside the embassy began dismantling their tents and leaving the area, saying they had won a victory and would now seek the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq through the nation’s parliament.Their retreat signaled a potential end to a crisis that had seen thousands of angry militia supporters attempt to storm the embassy on Monday, prompting the United States to send additional troop reinforcements to Iraq.
This is how things are done and it is a clear sign that professionals, not the Ben Rhodes story hour crew in the Obama National Security Council, are in charge. A major incident was prevented through prior planning, the US demonstrated that it will not hesitate to kill Iranian-hired militias when they kill Americans, the deployment of additional US forces to the US embassy was timely and the measured response told the militias that it was time to wind their street theater down, and we avoided the public affairs disasters of either a US embassy being sacked and Americans killed and taken hostage or US troops stacking up dead, unarmed demonstrators inside the embassy compound.
The next time people make snide remarks about wanting adults to be in charge, you can remind them that they are.