Members of the military attend a meeting convened by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. REUTERS Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump spent the Christmas holiday bombing Nigeria with overpriced and scarce long-range Tomahawk missiles — between social media attacks on Somali immigrants, rationalizing his attempted 2020 election steal and reposting calls to jail his political opponents.
But Zeteo reports Department of Defense officials were originally worried Trump’s attacks on Nigeria were going to be more of a protracted war, or worse.
“Two Department of Defense officials, one current and one former, tell Zeteo that at this point, they felt relieved that Trump’s Christmas bombing ended up being more targeted than it could have been, given how the president had previously dangled the possibility of sending US ground troops to Nigeria,” wrote Zeteo political Asawin Suebsaeng and politics Editor Andrew Perez.
“At least we haven’t invaded yet,” the current DoD official told Zeteo.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Trump announced on Truth Social.
“The bombing was conducted after he and his government spent weeks threatening military action – even possible invasion – in the African nation, claiming that the Nigerian government was failing to stop the mass murder of Christians,” Zeteo reports. “Nigerian officials and numerous others who have long monitored political violence in the country stress that the Trump administration is spreading misinformation, and that Christians actually make up a smaller percentage of the death tolls than Muslims.”
“But as the Trump administration and the MAGA movement enter an increasingly and openly Christian-nationalist phase,” reports Zeteo, “nuances and on-the-ground realities don’t necessarily matter much as Trump weighs what, where, or whom to bomb next.”
Zeteo reports Trump pitched himself as a “PEACE PRESIDENT” who would end “forever wars,” but this year alone Trump has launched airstrikes in Iran, Yemen, and Somalia, and his administration has carried out more than “two dozen illegal airstrikes against supposed drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, without providing evidence for such claims.”
Trump has also threatened to invade Venezuela in his bid to remove the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
Read the Zeteo report at this link.
