Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who must have been dropped on his head as a baby, appeared on Fox News Sunday to assert that President Biden is not doing enough to free American hostages being held somewhere, who knows where, in Gaza and that the President should consider inserting U.S. Special Forces into that hellscape, and, as if it is not enough that Israel has reduced to rubble three quarters of Gaza in their efforts to improve the situation, that perhaps our Aircraft Carriers in the region could also lob in a few missiles.
“Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Sunday suggested U.S. troops could be deployed into Gaza during Israel’s war with Hamas.
During an interview on Fox News, host Shannon Bream asked Cotton about the possibility of using U.S. special forces to extract hostages.
“Well, we should certainly be open to that,” Cotton insisted. “I mean, we have elite special operations forces who are specifically trained in hostage rescue. I do think we have to be deferential to Israelis to the Israeli government and Israeli defense forces about the tactical situation on the ground.”
I don’t know what rock the Senator from Arkansas has been living under for apparently the entirety of his life, but one would think that as a former Army Ranger and current U.S. Senator, Colton would be aware that the Israeli Army has some of the most highly trained counter-terror and hostage negotiation teams in the world, and that if there were any chance that attempts to “rescue” hostages from Hamas would engender better results than the hostages being immediately slaughtered by their captors they would have already staged such operations as he ignorantly proposes.
There is a reason, Cotton, that despite the Armageddon levels of destruction of the infrastructure of Gaza, Hamas was able this weekend to produce apparently healthy and unscathed hostages – they are being held deep underground in Hamas’ Warren of concrete tunnels where explosives cannot harm them and where any attempts to free them by any king of “special” force short of sorcery would undoubtedly result in their execution.
But Cotton has apparently gamed out a response in the eventuality of a ground assault failure – in that case we should unleash the aircraft carriers!
“But if American military forces are called upon and provide a viable solution to get out American citizens and the citizens of Israel or other nations, and we have to be open to that,” he said. “But again, it’s not just those small special operations units that we have trained. We also have aircraft carriers in the region.”
What exactly the Sixth Fleet, which is in the area to discourage Iran from engaging in offensive operations against Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, could do other than bounce the rubble with more explosions Cotton does not make clear. Probably because he knows that that is precisely all that they could do.
But Cotton is not appearing on Fox News to offer solutions… but to take cheap shots at Biden and to perpetuate the myth that our enemies are contemptuous of Democratic Presidents and “scared” of Republican ones.
Near the end of the interview he states that Iran was so terrified of Ronald Reagan that it released the hostages they had taken from the U.S. embassy near the end of the Carter administration “on the day of his inauguration”.
Funny, he doesn’t mention that Iran’s allies in Lebanon were soon to raze a Marine barracks in Beirut, killing nearly three hundred troops under the watch of the terrifying Reagan, or the fact that Reagan would later get caught providing weapons to the same regime, almost as if there were a quid-pro-quo in place.
Guess that was not in his talking points:
Here are his comments if you can stomach them:
Republicans will never pass on the opportunity to exploit any occurrence in our conflict plagued world, no matter how heart wrenching and tragic, to attack a Democratic President while claiming that their party could manage our national security better.
The Marine barracks in Lebanon and the attacks on 9-11-2001 serve as stark reminders that they cannot.
I loathe these kind of people. I lived in Iran from 1975 to 1978 and I knew one of the hostages, the president of the Tehran-American School, one of my clients. Not only did Raygun pull that stunt but he ended up making them hostages for longer by sabotaging President Carter’s efforts. That bastard.
Yup. Reagan went out of his way to.make Carter look weak.
Cotton mouth is a poisonous snake.
I almost never listen to these kinds of clips because they just p*ss me off so much. First, Cotton has the dead eyes of a psycho/sociopath. There are too many of them in our government. Second, he has a lot of nerve talking about Iran being ‘so afraid’ of Reagan and what he would do. What he did was buy their cooperation to hold onto the hostages till after the election when their release had been imminent due to Carter’s negotiations with Iran. Reagan illegally undermined our government while he was running for president and if there’d been any justice, he would have been held accountable, preferably in a prison. That he and all his scumbag co-conspirators in Iran-Contra got away with it is just one more case of Repugs not being held accountable for their criminal behavior. This is a bad habit that America needs get over. Lock ’em up!
The long list of republican stupidity, treachery and treason exists and yet they still exist.
Why is this?
People forget and the well paid billionaire owned illiberal media helps them to.
Cotton damn well knows he’s spouting bullshit. As a former Army Officer if he’d acted/led his troops like he’s talking he’d have gotten them and himself killed! It’s just political cheap shots he’s taking. Oh, and as for the Iran hostages Carter was the one who got them out. He not only froze Iran’s assets in U.S. financial institutions but convinced a host of other countries to do the same. Iran’s new govt. didn’t have a choice, they needed access to their money and because of that agreed to release the hostages and did so well before Reagan took office. However, they were pissed at being out-maneuvered by Carter and wanted to get in a dig at him by holding off release as long as possible. So they delayed a deal that was invevitable until after the election to help ensure Carter’s defeat, and then slow walked the actual release in the hopes they could drag it out and preven Carter from being able to welcome them to freedom while still President.
During all this Reagan was working behind the scenes with Iran to delay a final deal, and then to get the hostages released. And at the luncheon after his swearing in took ALL the credit and the supposedly “liberal” media let him get away with it! It was vile, and for the hostages cruel to have to endure what they did for extra months all because for Reagan they were nothing but a tool to humiliate Carter and cause him to lose re-election. And then that asshole Reagan, not content to have done such a shameful thing rubbed Carter’s nose in it by taking all the credit.
The man’s a genius. In Bizarro World
Cotton apparently is not, strictly speaking, an Army Ranger. He attended the ranger school but not for the purpose of actually putting himself in that kind of danger.
I do believe he was not only dropped on his head when young, but that head was also kicked on down the street often.
Cotton is an idiot. He is conveniently ignoring the fact that Dispute Donnie was laughed at in the U.N. and damaged our relationships with European democracies. Joe spent his first 18 months repairing that damage.
And let is not forget that Donnie Donuts *praised* his BFF Glad for I fading a sovereign nation, Ukraine, as smart and genius. I suspect he’d speak.of Hitler’s invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Poland and France in similar glowing terms, had he been an adult back them.