On spiking the football

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground in Iraq were following a convoy carrying Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani when it was struck by an American drone last week, killing Soleimani and nine others, Fox News has learned.

The soldiers following Soleimani's convoy as it left Baghdad International Airport were about a half-mile behind when it was hit by a missile fired from a Reaper drone. They were on the scene within a minute or two and performed a so-called "bomb damage assessment," taking pictures of the scene and confirming that the drone had picked out the right car -- and that Soleimani was no more.

Fox News has obtained photos of the aftermath of the Jan. 3 drone strike from a U.S. government source. Some of the images -- which Fox News will not show -- include graphic, close-up views of Soleimani's body, which is grossly disfigured and missing limbs. Another photo shows Soleimani's body burning next to the car in which he was riding.

You can click through to the ones Fox does show if you'd like. But return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when the official approach to killing an International Terrorist was ... how's that again, Fair 'n' Balanced Network?

President Obama has made a "categorical" decision not to release any photos of Usama bin Laden's  body, according to the White House, citing concern that doing so could inflame sentiment against Americans. 

... The president first revealed his decision during an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes." Reading an excerpt from the interview, Carney said the president cautioned that such images could be used to incite violence or as a propaganda tool.

"We don't trot out this stuff as trophies. ... We don't need to spike the football," Obama said, according to Carney.

There is, of course, precedent for not prancing around with images of enemy war dead. One, it's tended to go badly since roughly the Iliad or so. Two, more or less what Clement Attlee said in 1946, when asked in Parliament about whether he favored releasing photos of the Nazis executed at Nuremberg: No, but thanks for asking. Indeed, the Allied Control Commission refused to release the Nuremberg photos in London, citing British public opinion. (They were released to the press of other Allied nations in Berlin; the World's Greatest Newspaper ran them as a backpage spread.) Here's some of what FM 6-27, "The commander's handbook on the law of land warfare," has to say on the topic:

But the football-spiking thing was not the sort of idea that Fox would just let go of, especially when those hard-hitting Internet ads started to show up in Obama's reelection year:

JOHN ROBERTS, ANCHOR: We're back with our panel. We want to talk campaign 2012. In this web video that is creating an awful lot of buzz, it's from Veterans for a Strong America accusing President Obama of spiking the football over Usama bin Laden. Let's take a look.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I can report I directed Leon Panetta...I was briefed...I met repeatedly...I determined at my direction. I called President Zardari...I as commander in chief.

And, lest you need reminding about what an intellectual sleaze Charles Krauthammer was:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: This is a very strong ad. And unlike the one against John Kerry, it's not about one story or what happened against another story. This ad simply shows the words Obama has used himself. So the facts are not in dispute. And it hits at several levels. It isn't just that Obama has managed to turn a positive, something he did well, into a negative by attacking, using it as a partisan weapon which diminishes him also but diminishes the solemnity of the event that was national event and he appropriated it for himself. It's the narcissism. And that is the deeper issue here, how they quote Obama again and again using the first person pronoun in his announcement of the event. It's all about me, "I commander in chief", "I ordered", "I did this." What about the guys out there who did it and who risked their lives?

I suppose it's time to see how a Real President comports himself. Here, he's discussing the imminent threat thing with Laura Ingraham on Fox:

Ingraham: Don't the American people have the right to know what specifically was targeted without revealing methods and sources?

Trump: Well, I don't think so, but we will tell you that probably it was going to be the embassy in Baghdad. You saw that happening. You saw with all of the men, very few women, circling it and circling it very strongly and very viciously, knocking out windows and trying to get and they were close to getting in, and I called out the military. They said we'll have it there tomorrow. I said, nope, you'll have it there today. We're not going to have another Benghazi on our hands. And we did a really amazing job. I get no credit for it, but we never get credit for anything, and that's OK. In the meantime, we have the greatest economy we've ever had, a lot of other things.

... Ingraham: Did they have large scale attacks planned for other embassies? And if those were planned, why can't we reveal that to the American people. Wouldn't that help your case?

Trump: I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies. And I think that probably Baghdad already started. They were really amazed that we came in with that kind of a force. We came in with very powerful force and drove them out. That ended almost immediately. But Baghdad certainly would've been the lead. But I think it would've been four embassies that had been military bases -- could've been a lot of other things too, but it was imminent. And then all of a sudden he was gone.

... Ingraham: Are you worried that the Democrats can't be trusted with classified information? Because that's kind of what it sounded like when Pence gave that interview and talked about sources and methods the other day.

Trump: I am worried about it, certainly. I am worried about it. Can you imagine? Here we are, split-second timing, executed -- like nobody's seen in many, many years -- on Soleimani? Can you imagine they want us to call out and speak to crooked corrupt politician Adam Schiff? Oh, Adam, we have somebody that we've been trying to get for a long time. We have a shot at him right now. Could we meet so that we can get your approval, Adam Schiff? And he'd say, well, let's do it in a couple of days. Oh, OK, let's wait a couple -- it doesn't work that way, number one. Number two, they leak. Anything we give will be leaked immediately. You'll see breaking news, we're about to attack in 25 minutes or do something. And by the way, I'm not somebody that wants to attack. I probably could've attacked 5 times, 10 times having to do with Iran. I've been very guarded because I don't want to do that. But we may have to do something. We have to be in a position where we can do it even from the negotiating standpoint. But hopefully it won't be necessary.

This one, though, may take the self-aggrandizement prize: 

Trump: And from our standpoint, let somebody else pay for it. Why are we always paying? We pay for everything. One thing, I moved my troops out of Syria -- on the border between Turkey and Syria. That turned out to be such a successful move, Laura. Look what happened. Now they protect their own -- they've been fighting over that border for 1,000 years. Why should we do it? And then they say he left troops in Syria. You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They're protecting the oil. I took over ...
Even Laura Ingraham has had enough at this point:

Ingraham: They're protecting the facility.

Trump: I don't know. Maybe we should take it, but we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil. So they say he left troops in Syria. No. I got rid of all of them other than we're protecting the oil. We have the oil.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the media follow up.