"no one would know it was us." --- yes it was worse than we could imagine. [View all]

[underpants]

short read. I can’t do this justice with only 4 paragraphs


Trump Proposed Launching Missiles Into Mexico to ‘Destroy the Drug Labs,’ Esper Says
It is one of the moments in his upcoming memoir that the former defense secretary described as leaving him all but speechless.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/politics/mark-esper-book-trump.html

Mr. Esper, the last Senate-confirmed defense secretary under Mr. Trump, also had concerns about speculation that the president might misuse the military around Election Day by, for instance, having soldiers seize ballot boxes. He warned subordinates to be on alert for unusual calls from the White House in the lead-up to the election.


When Mr. Esper raised various objections, Mr. Trump said that “we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” adding that “no one would know it was us.” Mr. Trump said he would just say that the United States had not conducted the strike, Mr. Esper recounts, writing that he would have thought it was a joke had he not been staring Mr. Trump in the face.

Among Mr. Trump’s desires was to put 10,000 active-duty troops on the streets of Washington on June 1, 2020, after large protests against police brutality erupted following the police killing of George Floyd. Mr. Trump asked Mr. Esper about the demonstrators, “Can’t you just shoot them?”

In October 2019, after members of the national security team assembled in the Situation Room to watch a feed of the raid that killed the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Mr. (Stephen) Miller proposed securing Mr. al-Baghdadi’s head, dipping it in pig’s blood and parading it around to warn other terrorists, Mr. Esper writes. That would be a “war crime,” Mr. Esper shot back.