What We Don’t Know Is Killing Us

PARIS — Half awake, I hoped it was a jetlag nightmare, but no. Donald Trump was boasting on TV that he alone had made the world safe. And for nearly an hour he splashed kerosene on embers, which America-hating zealots are now likely to fan into flame.

I just returned to the real world after a month in a dis-United States that is today lost in a galaxy of its own. The raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi succeeded in spite of Trump, not because of him, and the worst may be yet to come.

Yes, this is yet more commentary about an over-covered episode. But step back and consider the bigger backdrop.

Too many Americans beyond Trump's hardcore take him at his word. Terrorism, he assures them, is now only Europe's problem. In fact, his ham-handed personal approach to policy swells extremist ranks and alienates essential allies.

And this reflects a cognitive disconnect that suggests Trump may well be reelected despite his flagrant impeachable offenses, abuse of power, enrichment at public expense, divisive partisanship and sociopathic narcissism.

A broad coalition defeated the Islamic State's caliphate, but terrorism is a state of mind, a borderless reaction to perceived injustice. Taunting a revered martyr goads new leaders and loners to seek payback in America, the belly of beast.

The hunt for al-Baghdadi dates back a decade, with relentless pursuit by U.S. intelligence pros who Trump disparages, helped by Kurds and Iraqis he has abandoned. He only gave the order. After playing golf, he alleges to have watched the final act from the White House.

Stumbling over a prepared text, Trump pronounced Abu as “Ah-BOO,” which suggests he has ignored briefings by aides familiar with the common Arabic prefix. Then he rambled on with alternative facts, revealing operational details that put future missions at risk.

Given Trump's near-zero credibility, it is open to question whether al-Baghdadi cowered, screamed and whimpered before “he died like a dog.” In any case, that humiliating image will enflame ISIS sympathizers from Southeast Asia to Africa and beyond.

As its caliphate began to collapse, ISIS urged freelance disciples to act in its name. An American-born Muslim, for one, killed 14 people and wounded another 22 at a San Bernardino, California, office party in 2015.

Feeding terrorism is only one result of belief in Trump's worldview. In rural America, for instance, people ready to blast a shotgun at drivers who piss them off cheer a leader who undoes democracy and hastens climate chaos that risks making their children's lives unlivable.

The hypocrisy is stunning. Trump excoriates al-Baghdadi for beheading journalists yet lionizes a Saudi prince whose goons dismembered a Washington Post columnist. For him, the Middle East is all about oil, as if Russia, Syria and Iran will clear the way for ExxonMobil.

Trump encourages authoritarians to plunder dwindling resources and stamp out human rights, heedless to the inevitable result. But as the Democrat debates make clear, few Americans dwell on confusing global events beyond their line of sight.

By now, Trump's attempted Ukraine extortion is open-and-shut grounds for impeachment, far worse than charges against Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton. The only question is whether enough Americans care enough to uphold the Constitution.

As crises worsen, unlikely voices urge Americans to think beyond jobs, health care, stock markets and the illusion that strong-arm trade tactics will bring lasting prosperity. “Fake news” is no longer an amusing idiocy from a buffoon president.

One tweet caught my attention: “The White House Trump statement telling the entire Federal Government to terminate subscriptions to the NYT and Wash Post is a watershed moment in national history. No room for HUMOROUS media coverage. This is deadly serious. This is Mussolini.”

It was from retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the only officer who detained me as a prisoner of war during half a century of reporting. That was a small-bore incident, worth a laugh in hindsight, but it foreshadowed what has since followed.

During the 1991 Gulf War, some of us reporters escaped press pools by eluding checkpoints to find field commanders who welcomed coverage. McCaffrey, I'd been told, was one of them. But when a photographer and I found his outpost near the Iraq border, MPs detained us on orders from headquarters.

We offered to leave; they said they'd shoot if we left before a colonel arrived to chew us out. When he did, I yelled at him, and he let us return to Dhahran. Upon arrival, the Saudi liaison officer told me McCaffrey wanted us thrown out of the country. “But, sir,” the Saudi told him, “what about your First Amendment?”

Since then, the Pentagon has shaped its own reality with televised briefings and strict control on reporters. In the Iraq war, we knew little of prison torture, which fed hatreds that spawned ISIS. Still, we saw U.S. troop behavior that created non-combatant sympathizers.

Barack Obama was open to the press, but he cracked down on leakers. His prosecutors tried long and hard to jail Jim Risen of the New York Times for not revealing sources of stories on CIA covert actions. And now Trump, as McCaffrey says, is Mussolini.

White House briefings are over; the press secretary is a shameless shill. Cabinet members, even the attorney general, defend the president from the legislative branch, helped by an increasingly partisan judiciary.

Threats to democracy at home are obvious, happening in plain sight. Elections can undo much of the damage. Out in the real world, where sweeping existential threats are easily ignored, what we don't know is killing us.

Taking out al-Baghdadi was a significant step that shows even a master of clandestine existence is eventually tripped up by disaffected followers, technology and sophisticated forensics. But it hardly signals an end to terrorism, a symptom of something bigger.

For now, it is a tossup. Enough voters may see Trump for who he is and dump him. If not, he will make America yet more cocky, complacent and clueless about why friends turn away — and why so many zealots are prepared to die in acts of vengeance.