Here’s my succinct message to the suffering citizens of Beirut:
Welcome to our world.
A mentally functioning American president would prudently measure his words before commenting on the titanic explosion that has rocked Beirut and caused thousands of casualties. We’re talking here about the Middle East, a perpetual tinderbox, where it’s unwise for a western leader to inflame passions. All we know right now is that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, carelessly stockpiled at the city’s port, suddenly exploded. According to Lebanese officials, there is zero evidence of a terrorist bomb attack.
But Trump doesn’t wait patiently for facts. He prefers to trust the bumblebees that buzz in his head.
In the latest episode of his Five O’Clock Follies, he said: “Looks like a terrible attack…It would seem like it, based on the explosion. I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was not a – some kind of manufacturing explosion type of event. This was a – seems to be according to them, they would know better than I would, but they seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.”
But Trump’s Pentagon will not confirm that “great generals” have told Trump any such thing. Reportedly, “defense officials, who declined to be identified so they could speak freely, said they didn’t know what the President was talking about.” And according to the State Department, Lebanese officials have already complained to U.S. diplomats about Trump’s use of the word “attack.” And according to Defense secretary Mark Esper, “Most believe that it was an accident, as reported.”
Seriously, is there no calamity on this planet that Trump doesn’t make worse?
Granted, most Americans won’t move Beirut to the top of their worry list, especially at a time when Trump is determined to throw our kids and grandkids onto the pandemic pyre. Riffing today about the coronavirus, the sack of rocks told the doormats at Fox & Friends that “children are almost, I would say almost definitely, but almost immune from this disease…They are virtually immune from this problem,” and besides, “some doctors” say they’re “totally immune” – another burst of Trump tripe that clashes with factual reality. ‘This thing will go away, it will go away like things go away.”
Yes, his home-front failures deserve to be foremost in our minds. But his reckless impulse to jump the gun in Beirut, to potentially ratchet up tensions without a shred of empirical evidence, should also remind us how imperative it is to yank this global menace from his Putin-enabled perch. The western world has been recoiling in horror long enough.
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If you can’t bear to watch Trump’s entire catastrophic interview with Axios journalist Jonathan Swan, kick back with a short segment that’s scored with the closing credit music from HBO’s Veep. Or perhaps you prefer Curb Your Enthusiasm.