The Patriot Post® · The Trouble With the Leftmedia's Yemen Raid Narrative
The Yemen raid Donald Trump authorized a few days after his inauguration has been widely panned by the Leftmedia as being a failure bordering on scandal due primarily to the fact that Navy SEAL Ryan Owens was killed during the operation. Never mind the fact that the raid was planned during Barack Obama’s time in office. Or that the operation is one in an ongoing war on terrorism. Or the fact that the cache of laptops, cellphones, video and audio tapes that were seized take time to analyze before determining the intel’s overall value. No, the Leftmedia appear bound and determined to turn this event into Trump’s Benghazi.
Trump’s impressive and well received speech to the joint session of Congress effectively pushed back against the Leftmedia narrative as he recognized Owens’ widow in one of the most emotionally powerful moments we’ve seen in such a speech. Trump also relayed the message from Defense Secretary James Mattis that “Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies.”
Yet the mainstream media won’t let their “failed raid” narrative die. NBC News pushed back against Trump’s speech reporting that an un-named intelligence official said that there was still no “actionable intel,” while at the same time reporting that another official said that “hundreds of contact details from a variety of communication apps” were recovered. The NBC story also added, “Questions continue to swirl around an operation in which the Navy SEALs lost the element of surprise and quickly found themselves in a major fight.”
The Leftmedia are going out of their way to make this “failed raid” narrative stick to Trump as they continue to question his ability to lead. The media acknowledges that the raid was planned during Obama’s time in office but imply that Obama was wise enough not to give the go ahead on a suspect plan, while Trump eagerly pressed go. That’s the only logical reason for the continued negative press. They can’t let the raid be viewed as successful or it would invalidate the whole premise of their argument against Trump.
David French of National Review sums it up well when he writes, “January’s Yemen raid was one battle in a very long conflict, a conflict that it will be increasingly difficult to fight if every engagement must end with absolute, cost-free success. We will never consistently have perfect knowledge, achieve perfect surprise, or obtain perfect results. That was not the standard of success during the Bush or Obama administrations. And it must not be the standard of success for Trump.”