Trump's ignorance has created an international crisis
by Joe Scarborough
During the early morning hours of Sept. 15, 1950, Gen. Douglas MacArthur would lead U.S. troops on the most audacious amphibious landing in U.S. history. The assault at Inchon in South Korea was viewed beforehand as being so reckless that the Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed the proposal out of hand. “We drew up a list of every conceivable and natural handicap,” one naval officer remembered later, “and Inchon had them all.”
To succeed, U.S. troops would have to navigate their way through a tortuous, heavily fortified channel before facing some of the most deadly tides in Asia. With U.S. soldiers pinned down on the southeastern tip of the Korean Peninsula, failure at Inchon could have led to total defeat in Korea.
MacArthur’s arrogant belief in his own infallibility allowed him to see opportunity where others saw only peril. But the legendary general brought more than a bloated ego to battle; he also carried with him a mastery of military history and, with it, the knowledge of Japan’s successful 1904 landing at the same treacherous port. That insight served MacArthur well and reversed, almost overnight, the grim trajectory of America’s so-called Forgotten War.
President Trump’s decision last week to assassinate the most powerful military figure in the Middle East was, likewise, audacious. But unlike MacArthur at Inchon, Trump likely did not grasp the gravity of his decision. How could he? The former reality-TV star has long been ignorant of world history and current events. During a 2015 interview, then-candidate Trump did not even know who Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani was. After prompting, Trump mistakenly identified the Iranian general as a Kurdish commander. Once Trump’s ignorance was revealed, the frustrated candidate weakly attacked the interviewer for “throwing around names of people and where they live."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/opinions-trump-s-ignorance-has-created-an-international-crisis/ar-BBYGezL?ocid=msn360
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