title:  Trump Just Told The Military To Do What It Wants In The Middle East
text: Is there some specific reason we have someone in the White House who s willing to let the military do what it wants in terms of strikes? On Friday, it was discovered that Trump literally granted our military commanders permission to order attacks in countries that don t have much of an American military presence very shortly after he took over the White House. This means that they can carry out strikes without first having to get approval from the White House, which supposedly has military strategists who know what s going on.The first units to carry out attacks without approval from the White House were, of course, in Yemen. Yemen is where we botched a raid that yielded absolutely nothing and resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL. While that raid didn t fall under this new authority, subsequent operations could result in similar disasters. The new authority, according to The Hill, is intended to accelerate the fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (a.k.a. AQAP).Navy Captain Jeff Davis says he doesn t want to telegraph future operations in explaining how this works, but, in short,  this is part of a plan to go after a very real threat, to ensure they are defeated and denied the opportunity to plot and carry out terrorist attacks from ungoverned spaces. Like Yemen? Is Trump allowing them to just do what they want or do they still have to have solid intelligence before they strike? The reason the Yemen raid was such a disaster is because the White House didn t have solid intelligence and they didn t have a solid plan. While it sounds good to turn that authority over to military commanders in the regions we supposedly want to control, the question is, do they have the knowledge they need to succeed in any attacks they decide to carry out?The kicker here is that Trump has given this overarching authority to military commanders in areas where we don t have much of a presence, and therefore, probably don t have much in the way of the intelligence we need to make successful strikes. That means we have to be more careful. Trump doesn t want to be careful. He wants to abdicate a responsibility so he can what play golf and not think about it?It s not that our military commanders are incompetent. Far from it. The problem is letting them act on, well, pretty much anything, despite limited information. It could get us in a ton of trouble with the rest of the world.Featured image by Olivier Douliery via Getty Images