"We need answers" Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg comments on the deadly strike by US forces that killed Iran's top military leader.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg said that Soleimani was “not a good guy” who has led “countless operations against American interests, American allies, and American citizens.” He’s said that “bad guy” bit in particualr several times over the last few days, in order to then say basically “but even so bad Trump do bad.” That just because he was bad doesn’t mean Trump’s move was good.
On Sunday on CNN he made the same basic arguments, but under questions from Jake Tapper rather than just pontificating from a town hall podium, and so he put some extra meaning into it. As you’ll see in the two clips below.
He told Tapper, for example, that Soleimani “was a bad figure. He has American blood on his hands. None of us should shed a tear for his death. But just because he deserved it, doesn’t mean it was the right strategic move.”
The ex-mayor was answering Tapper’s question about whether Trump should get credit for killing Soleimani, considering the blood and operations and terror and what have you. “No,” Pete of course said. “Not until we know this was a good decision.”
“This is about consequences,” said Pete. He said we have to know “whether the President has thought through the consequences in particular for American lives, not just the troops who are on planes going to the middle east right now, but U.S. citizens around the world whose lives may be at risk because of the fallout from this action.” He called the decision “questionable to say the least.”
Tapper told Buttigieg that Trump was told by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley that there was “compelling intelligence of a significant campaign of violence” against Americans that Soleimani was orchestrating. Actually, as Mark Levin tweeted about this morning, even though CNN won’t bring it up, Milley said that Soleimani was behind recent attacks, too, including the embassy one. So he wasn’t just “starting” some campaign but in the midst of one.
Tapper asked Pete if he, as president, would have acted based on that kind of briefing from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. So naturally Buttigieg questioned the honesty and intelligence of Gen. Milley himself.
“The question is, was it necessary, and was it better than the alternative,” said Buttigieg. Both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary Of Defense Mark T. Esper have said that yes, it was necessary and yes better than the alternative. They’ve said this a lot, in briefings, to reporters at gaggles, on air on Fox News, and more. But Pete wasn’t having it.
“It is not hard to believe that Gen. Soleimani was in the middle of a campaign of violence, he was a walking campaign of violence,” said Pete. “But when you’re dealing with the Middle East you need to think about the next and the next, and the next move. This is not checkers.”
That right there was him implying the Chairman and the Secretary, along with the President, haven’t thought clearly about the consequences of their actions. At least not as clearly as the small town mayor who did a brief tour in Naval intelligence. The I guess he decided implication wasn’t hot enough so he just directly said it.
“I’m not sure any of us really believe that this president and the people around him,” Pete said making sure to get the knife into everyone, “is really going through all of the consequences of what could happen next.”
“This president and the people around him.” That means Milley, who was the person that was specifically cited by Tapper, among others, is on the list of people that Buttigieg says don’t know about the Middle East and are playing checkers.
“We really haven’t seen the indication that it even served to prevent whatever attack they’re talking about,” Petey said.
Here’s what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told a small group of reporters on Friday that within the last 90 days Kata’ib Hezbollah, aka KH, an Iranian-backed militia, organized a sophisticated campaign against U.S. and coalition forces that increased in intensity, culminating with the Dec. 27 attack on the Iraqi base near Kirkuk that killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded several U.S. and Iraqi forces.It was “designed and intended to kill, and [Soleimani] approved it,” Milley said. “I know that 100 percent.”
“I KNOW THAT 100 PERCENT.”
So let me get this straight, Mayor. Err, ex-Mayor. It’s not hard to believe that Soleimani was doing terror, and you say he was a walking campaign of violence against Americans, but still “none of us really believe” that Secretary Esper, Gen. Milley, President Trump, or anyone else in the entire defense structure know that the Middle East isn’t checkers or care about the consequences for American lives?? Yeah that’s super logical.
Well Pete? You just called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs a piece of crap who doesn’t understand the Middle East. Good luck in that 2020 election pal.