You may recall General Jack D. Ripper saying in Dr. Strangelove, “War is too important for the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.” I wonder what General Ripper would have said about the reality TV actor who wound up in the Oval Office? I seriously doubt the good general would have wanted to confide the combination to his gym locker to Donald Trump, much less anything of national importance. And he’s apparently not alone in that assessment.
You are now aware of the “domain awareness gap” which is a term of art which I think means that there has to be some explanation made for the fact that the Trump Pentagon did not report the sightings of the Chinese spy balloons to the Trump White House — which stuns me like I haven’t felt stunned since I had my reins out too far while riding my horse and I soon found myself sailing through the air and crashing into the scrub brush.
Read the longer piece to get the back story but this is what I feel we need to zone in on. Raw Story:
CNN reported Monday evening that new documents from the U.S. intelligence agencies detail previous China spy balloons under Donald Trump’s presidency, which he has denied on his social media account.
According to statements over the weekend, the Trump Pentagon never informed the president or other White House officials about the spy balloons.
Say whut?
On Sunday, former Trump officials lambasted claims from the Pentagon that three China balloons floated over the U.S. during Trump’s administration, saying that they had never heard of such a thing. It was then clarified by the Pentagon that they either weren’t told or didn’t know about it at the time.
In a briefing Monday, Pentagon officials called it the military’s “domain awareness gap.” That’s what led to the previous balloons being undetected.
Domain awareness gap translates roughly as the left hand didn’t know what the right one was doing? Or, the left hand decided to keep the right hand in the dark deliberately, because the right hand was known to be orange and volatile, and was too busy saluting Korean generals, anyway?
I can’t say this surprises me in the least. But it certainly makes you wonder.
I have never been a big believer in shadow governments and the deep state, obviously. That is the stuff of conspiracy theory. But here we have a concrete example of the Trump Pentagon not telling the Trump White House about the spy balloons.
It makes perfect sense, you have to admit. Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, John Kelly, the list goes on, all thought that Trump was a moron and came out and said as much.
Let’s see if the likes of John Bolton and Mark Esper actually attend a briefing. This story is just getting rolling, is my instinct.
Maybe they noticed that he ignored or didn’t understand the things they did tell him, and so decided not to bother?
Two possible scenarios here:
1:- Xi told Trump he was sending them obver and made a hefty financial contribution to the family (remember Iwanna’s ‘patents’?)
2: The militrary didn’t tell him because he would probably have demanded they nuked it (over US territory and never mind the fallout)
I’ll go with Door number 2, Monty. It had occurred to me that it might have been in the daily security briefs (assuming there was room after ithey were reduced to a page of cartoons), whch he never read anyway. But given his temper, and his propensity for nukes – would you have told him? I wouldn’t. I’d decide NOT telling him was honoring my oath to protect the Constitution.
If you are stuck riding in the back seat going down a curvy mountain road in the dark with no guardrails and a drunk at the wheel, would you remind him where the gas pedal is? It wouldn’t be prudent.
They might not have told him because what was the point? We’re talking about a moron who could not even pay attention to the daily briefing if it was more than 2 or 3 paragraphs (maybe 2 or 3 sentences ) and it helped immensely if his name was included F.F.S. I wonder just how much shit actually was excluded not only from the daily briefing but from just about everything that the executive of the U.S. ought to know.
…evertything that a functioning executive of the United States ought to know. FIFY.