U.S. media has released preliminary reports on Mark Esper’s book as defense minister under the Trump administration
A missile strike on Mexico, the sending of 250,000 troops to the Mexican border and the cutting off and immersion in the blood of the head of a killed Isis leader.
Here are some examples of the proposals that emerged from the discussions in the White House Mark Esperin being Minister of Defense for less than a year and a half Donald Trumpin during the presidency.
Esper served as defense minister from the summer of 2019 to early November 2020, when Trump announced on Twitter that he had fired him.
Trump thought of a secret missile strike on Mexico
At one point in his book, Esper claims that Trump asked, among other things, whether it would be possible to carry out missile strikes at drug laboratories in Mexico.
Trump’s idea was that the attacks could be carried out without revealing the role of the United States. Secretary of Defense Esper believed the president was going to play, but soon realized that President Trump was serious.
One of Trump’s advisors Stephen Miller Esper, for his part, suggested that the United States could send 250,000 troops to the border with Mexico.
The idea came to light as news of a migrant caravan crossing the border spread at one point. Secretary of Defense Esper had to say the United States could not withdraw 250,000 troops to be sent to the border.
“Isis leader’s head as a warning example”
Adviser Miller was involved in the figures earlier when U.S. forces managed to kill the leader of the extremist Isis Abu Bakr al-Baghdadin In Syria in the fall of 2019. Stephen Miller suggested that al-Baghdad’s severed head be immersed in pig’s blood and presented as a warning example to other extremist Islamists. Muslims consider pigs to be an unclean animal.
– It would be a war crime, Esper says.
Miller has denied the allegations in Esper’s book, arguing that the former defense minister is an “idiot.”
“Couldn’t the protesters be shot in the leg?”
– Can’t you just shoot them? Shoot them in the legs or something? Trump asked at the White House, according to Esper.
According to Esper, Trump did not give the order to shoot, but became enraged when he was told that deliberate wounding of the protesters was not possible.
The debate was linked to an anti-racism demonstration in Washington. The background to the protest was black George Floydin death at the hands of white police.
Trump’s representatives have not commented on the allegations in Esper’s book.