To the editor: The latest letters criticizing the safety protocols and operations used throughout President Trump’s departure from Turkey show a troubling quantity of Monday morning quarterbacking that’s indicative of a basic challenge that continues to stall progress in our nation (“Letters to the Editor: Trump’s plane ruse reveals how much he cares about anyone other than himself,” Aug. 13).
Operational safety in high-threat environments is decided by seasoned army, intelligence and Secret Service professionals who should assess and prioritize credible, real-time dangers to the president, high administration officers and others within the presidential entourage. We are going to seemingly by no means know the small print of the way it was decided that the chance to Air Drive One was finally deemed to be acceptable on the time. When unqualified commentators casually dismiss these assessments or twist professional security precautions into a personality assault, it highlights simply how reflexively partisan our public discourse has turn out to be, finally resulting in, amongst different issues, a seamless lack of legislative progress on all kinds of crucial points.
This knee-jerk impulse to show each severe nationwide safety choice into fodder for bashing political opponents solely accelerates the poisonous polarization eroding our civic life. The security of a commander in chief is just not a partisan challenge, neither is it a recreation. When credible threats come up, the precedence should all the time be defending the workplace of the president and guaranteeing the steadiness of the USA authorities — no matter who occurs to occupy the Oval Workplace.
We might do properly to keep in mind that respecting the safety equipment tasked with defending our management is prime to the nation’s safety, regardless of the place one stands on the political spectrum.
Robert Baizer, Newport Seashore
