What Everybody Hears About

 

What actually happens:

Since January, religious leaders from local pastors to Pope Leo have rallied against the Trump administration's detention and deportation of thousands of immigrants. Clergy are filing lawsuits, accompanying migrants to court hearings and leading protests at ICE facilities across the country. Altogether, this activity adds up to one of the largest surges of faith-based organizing in recent history, and it's growing.

No wonder Trump claimed he was saving Christians in Nigeria with indiscriminate bombing.

Trump announced on Truth Social on Thursday that U.S. forces had launched a strike against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria at the request of Nigeria's government. He said the group had been targeting Christians in the region.

Local media reported loud explosions in the village of Jabo on the evening of Christmas Day. Reuters has not been able to confirm whether there were casualties.

Trump said on Friday that a U.S. military strike targeting Islamic state militants in Nigeria was originally supposed to take place on Wednesday, but he ordered it delayed by a day.

"They were going to do it earlier," Trump told Politico in an interview. "And I said, ‘nope, let’s give a Christmas present.’ … They didn’t think that was coming, but we hit them hard. Every camp got decimated."

This specific strike was carried out by the United States, the official said, in part because the location was too remote for Nigerian forces to reach.

"It's partially symbolic," the official said, adding that the aim was also deterrence and to send a message that the Trump administration was prepared to use the military.

Cameron Hudson, a former U.S. official who worked on Africa-related issues, said the strike was unlikely to have a big impact in the near term.

"It's not realistic to think that a few cruise missiles are going to change much in the short term," Hudson said. "The Trump administration will have to demonstrate its own long-term commitment to ending this militancy if it hopes to have any effect."

Nigeria's population of over 230 million people is roughly evenly divided among Christians, who predominate in the south, and Muslims, who predominate in the north.

Last month, Trump threatened to order his forces to take military action in Nigeria unless the authorities there acted to stop what he described as the persecution of Christian.

While Nigeria has had persistent security challenges, including violence and kidnappings by Islamist insurgents in the north, it strongly denies that Christians are subjected to systematic persecution.

Its government responded to Trump's threat by saying it intended to work with Washington against militants, while rejecting U.S. language that suggested Christians were in particular peril.

"After Trump threatened to come guns-blazing in Nigeria, we saw a Nigerian delegation visit the U.S.," said Kabir Adamu, managing director of Abuja-based Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited.

"The attorney general was involved, and agreements were signed. Then we learned of U.S. surveillance missions mapping terrorist locations."

Participating in the strike could raise a risk that the government could be perceived as endorsing Trump's language on wider sectarian strife, a sensitive issue throughout Nigeria's history.

"Trump is pandering to domestic evangelical Christian objectives with his 'Christian genocide' narrative," Adamu said.

Fuck Nigeria. It’s a “third world country,” says Miller. And they didn’t vote for Trump. And only half the country is Christian, so….

And how many missiles does the Pope have?