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US President hid in catering cart for secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

theguardian.com

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Re: US President hid in catering cart for secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero downsides except looking weak and like a doofus. The US is already looking super weak having given up the Strait to Iran for zero gain, and now begging them to just open the Strait up and publicly signaling that the nuclear demands could be dropped. Crawling around in catering trucks or carts to avoid Iran's threats is at best demeaning to the entire nation. As for "highly effective" well..... Would have been fa…

> Crawling around in catering trucks or carts to avoid Iran's threats is at best demeaning to the entire nation. The article actually says "secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane via an airport catering truck ". The picture shows the size of the truck. No crawling was involved; The Guardian just crafted the headline to make Trump look "weak and like a doofus" and you bought into it.

Yes, and why would they leak it like this when exactly this sort of headline would be the result?

You see, it's very weak! That's why you don't let it out! That's my complaint!

Re: US President hid in catering cart for secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did reality matter in Trumps campaign? Did it matter his facts were check to be consistently incorrect? I don't mean what matters to you or me, I mean what has proven to matter to the general population.

Oh, if you mean campaign strategy, Democrats and the media spent most of 2016 (and all the years since) mocking Trump. How well did that work out?

It's very important to realize that the rest of the world does not exist in the US's media sphere, and evaluates evidence in a very different way. Talking about how things went for Democrats has ~0 impact on the actual security implications of this, because the rest of the world is far more connected to reality than partisan politics in the US.

The rest of the world views Trump as weak authoritarian, with a tenuous hold on the country, that will trash the long term interests of the US for any short term personal gain he can achieve. Hearing that he's so scared of Iran that he's doing things like this significantly lowers the rest of the world's opinion of the strength of the US. That makes attacks and war far more likely.

Re: US President hid in catering cart for secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

#53

Why would they admit all this?

Probably because they used a secret third method and don't want anyone to know.

Yeah it's an elevator in the landing gear, it goes down the manhole on the tarmac.

Re: US President hid in catering cart for secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA says Clinton did something similar. I'm sure it happens more than we're told. The Secret Service is paid to be paranoid. Decoy flights and vehicles are out of the standard playbook.

The embarrassing thing isn't using an unmarked flight like Clinton did. That's totally normal, and not something I'd find unusual in the least. It's that shuttling around in a catering cart... Why would anybody ever admit it, even if true? Just baffling bad idea to leak that part of a detail.

Hiding in a catering cart is certainly unusual, I'll give you that. I'm having trouble deciding whether it's ridiculous or quite clever. And then reappearing on the original aircraft at the destination. I wonder if they got consulting from Penn and Teller.

Re: US President hid in catering cart for secret flight in Turkey amid Iran threat

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re joking, right? This was a preemptive security move, and the president is still alive. Crazy people have tried to kill Trump multiple times already. Every minute of every day must be guarded, especially as the president travels. The Secret Service is rising to the biggest challenge it’s ever had, and thus far it is succeeding.

Making "preemptive security move" to protect against supposed Iranian infiltration is what makes us look weak, when the extent of it is walking into a catering cart and moving to a different plane. "The biggest challenge its ever had" are you serious? Crazy people tried to kill every president, remember Reagan? The only thing with "crazy people trying to kill the president" that's different is that people are pretend…

I remember a gunman that shot Reagan, yes. One gunman.

Trump has had the kid that shot up the rally ( and yielded the iconic photo ), the golf course gunman, the guy that shot up the annual press dinner and now the Iranians.

Do you remember it being as bad for other presidents? Provide reasons why, by my count Trump seems to draw the assassins out.

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