Government by Twitter
So another feature of Trump world is that he tweets shit that’s wrong, and that he would know was wrong if he took the security briefings he’s supposed to take. But it’s no biggy, because it’s only China.
Donald Trump launched his Twitter campaign against China’s seizure of a U.S. Navy research submersible last week to great fanfare ― and, as it turns out, hours after the crisis had already been defused.
It’s unclear whether the president-elect or his aides knew that fact ― it would have been included in the intelligence briefing available to him each morning ― before he sent out his misspelled missive of outrage at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
“China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters ― rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act,” Trump wrote. He deleted that version and replaced it with “unprecedented” spelled correctly at 8:57 a.m.
But even his first version came four hours after U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus was informed that the Chinese navy had agreed to return the “underwater unmanned vehicle.”
To be fair – the fact that China agreed to give it back didn’t alter the fact that China had taken it.
But all the same – do we want a president who tweets smack about other countries right after he rolls out of bed in the morning and without talking to anyone? Like, the State Department or intelligence officials? No, we don’t.
Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller was quick to take credit for his boss when news broke that China had agreed to return the device. At 11:54 a.m., he tweeted: “@realdonaldtrump gets it done,” and attached a link to an article in The Hill about the resolution of the incident. At 6:52 p.m., Miller tweeted a link to another story in The Hill, this one about his earlier tweet taking credit for Trump’s initial tweet.
Seriously? They claimed Trump had anything to do with it?
The encounter’s resolution, though, resulted not from Trump’s 140-character snippets of anger, but days of traditional diplomacy. The Chinese vessel had taken the submersible on Thursday just as the USNS Bowditch was preparing to retrieve it about 60 miles northwest of the Philippines’ Subic Bay in the South China Sea.
Baucus, a former Democratic senator from Montana, lodged his first protest that day, as did U.S. military representatives to their Chinese counterparts. Late Saturday afternoon Beijing time ― pre-dawn 3:30 a.m. in Washington ― Baucus relayed word that China had agreed to return the device, according to the State Department. That handover took place Tuesday, near the same location as the original incident.
I wonder how many wars we’ll be involved in by, say, mid-February.
Government by tweet? Interesting times.
Now all Trump has to do to “make America great again” is make America great again.
Shouldn’t be too hard…..
(You definitely could not make this stuff up).
Trump had nothing to do with the resolution, but it’s even odds that his shenanigans with Taiwan had something to do with the incident’s occurrence in the first place.
As for the Chinese taking the drone in the first place–of course they did. After all, it was a military spy vessel trying to map out underseas corridors that would be used by Chinese submarines. (This is all alluded to in the mission parameters, which talk about measuring the salinity of underseas current. The reason for this is that sonar imaging requires knowing the density of the water–which is affected by the salinity.)
And honestly, this whole incident wouldn’t bother me without the Trump factor. We spy on them, they capture our spy drone, everyone makes appropriate remarks protesting innocence, everyone goes home. It’s bog-standard diplomatic shit, and even letting the drone get captured was likely part of it–let the Chinese know that we’re watching them, so they don’t get too aggressive with their growing sub fleet, etc etc. It’s how the game is played.
(I had a similar reaction to last year’s shock-story that we were spying on Brazil. Of course we spy on Brazil. If the U.S. isn’t spying on your country, then you should be worried, because it means we figure there’s nothing noteworthy about you, or at best that you’re too stupid to keep secrets.)
But Trump doesn’t understand the game, he doesn’t even know what the game is. He’s wandering onto a cricket field with a football and wondering why he can’t tackle anyone.
^1 That’s another of Trump’s misspellings. Actually, he’s upset about the state of American cuisine, and just wants to “Make America Grate Again”. Because seriously, a little parmesan, or orange zest, or garlic, as a condiment, makes any dish taste better, and everyone will go to bed happier.
And it only took them an hour and 27 minutes to catch the spelling mistake. These kids are just super.
I prefer my Trumps unpresidented rather than unprecedented.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1384999874851803/?type=3&theater