Posted on 02/18/2016 6:37:53 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Surely, to all but Donald Trump's ardent supporters – which, sadly, probably is all of them – there can be no doubt, after Saturday's Republican debate, that except on the sole issue of immigration, Trump is a Democrat. Space and the need to stay on point preclude listing all of the Democratic talking points Trump parroted in South Carolina, so this essay focuses on the most egregious one – the "Bush lied, people died" libel – and on Trump's view, unfortunately shared by many Republicans, that, the Iraq war was, in Trump's words, a "big mistake" and that "we got nothing out of it."
First, as Powerline's Paul Mirengoff writes, there is no evidence that Trump opposed the Iraq pre-invasion (emphases added):
Last night, Donald Trump repeated his claim that "I'm the only one on the stage that said we should not go into Iraq." As I've pointed out before, however, there is no credible evidence that Trump said any such thing.
Trump voiced public opposition to the war for the first time… in the summer of 2004… [by which time] he was following a fairly large pack.
[O]pposing our actions in Iraq once they went pear-shaped is just Monday morning quarterbacking — a Trump specialty.
Second, the Democrats' (and Trump's, but the writer repeats himself) accusation that Bush ordered the Iraq invasion knowing that there were no WMD is flat-out false. In fact, Bush was skeptical until then-CIA director George Tenet assured Bush that, based on CIA intelligence, Saddam's possession of WMD was "a slam dunk."
As to Trump's criticism that Bush "failed to prevent 9/11" (and was therefore responsible for 9/11?), here is Tenet again (emphasis added):
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Uhm, ok.
I don’t think that was the original point you were trying to make, but ok.
Maybe the Saudis knew that if the coalition were to go after Saddam directly, that the coalition would fracture?
Not arguing about the Bush Saudi connection, but tribal loyalties are a hell of a lot stronger and influential than the ME regimes.
Well then screw them, we had no business getting involved in an inter-Tribal Arab dispute.
There was an article that detailed the failures and successes of Iraq's reconstruction. It claimed that Bush had to choose who was in charge, the Department of State or the Department of Defense. Bush the moderate, chose Colin Powell at State.
On three elements: Baathists in government, payola to Sunni Chiefs, something I can't recall, State made superficially reasonable decisions that were wrong. When these 3 policies were reversed (in line with DoD's more pragmatic recommendations), our fortunes in Iraq were reversed.
I seem to recall that Bush accepted Sharia law in the Iraqi Constitution. If so, that was a major mistake. Gold medals go to those who recognized it as a mistake at the time. Silver medals will be awarded to anyone who recognizes today that that was a bad policy.
The two legitimate choices on the afternoon of 9/11/01 were:
1) Punitive expedition, target Afghanistan. Duration 90 days maximum. Wreck the place, kill women and children more or less randomly, leave with a stern warning of worse to come if any more trouble came out of Kandahar.
2) Raise an expeditionary force of 80-100 divisions and, in alliance with India and Saddam conquer Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan, eradicate Wahabism and Deobandism, split the oil with Saddam and send American governors to Karachi, Aden, and Riyadh (destroying Islamabad would have been necessary), and staying there until the grandchildren born to children born after 2001 reached majority.
Door #3 - refight the Vietnam War in South Asia - was exceedingly bad. And let me define "refight the Vietnam War" - a) blow up sh*t, b) take casualties to prove we're serious, but c) don't conquer the enemy, to prove we're not mean.
BFD.
It was never of any importance to the USA whether Saddam had them, or didn't.
What was important was, could we use Saddam and his army to conquer Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
You mean in this dimension?
YES.
First off the Iraq insurgency: It was formed by Saddam’s Baathists Sunni officers. They led the insurgency and recruited into it.
The insurgency began at the end of Ashura, Easter Sunday, March, 2004 -two years before Iraq’s sovereignty.
The “old Baathists” were the Sunni insurgents’ leadership. There was no linkup. And you think the former Sunni military officers should have been allowed in the new Army? Hah! You don’t think that was tried by starry-eyed commanders in the field? They were branded as traitors by the Sunnis who were awaiting Saddam’s return. They were usually killed and their families too. They were Sunnis living in Sunni neighborhoods. Get a frickin clue! They had to move many IA commanders and their families onto Camp Victory in 2005 to protect them.
The only ‘mistake’ with the former Baathist IA was to stop paying them even though they didn’t show up for duty. At least that way they’d have something to lose if they were implicated in attacks. And it also gave them an income so as not to seek IED payments which is how insurgents made their money. Iran and others’ paid them per attack. Why do you think they videoed their attacks?
The region, starting with Iraq, was destabilized beginning with the Democrats’ budgetary-mandated withdrawal from Iraq in 2009. Once the Sunni insurgents had cross-border havens their 2011 assault on Syria and 2012 assault on Iraq was made possible. Obama and the Dems then encouraged similar destabilization and collapse in other Arab nations. They ruined Iraq and the region to “give revolution a chance”. Bunch of evil Fs.
Whether they vote, ululate, or cower under the boot of a dictator until the trumpet sounds is of ZERO concern to me or to my people.
The article, “George W. Bush’s Decision to Invade Iraq Was Correct; Donald Trump, take note”, is trying to say that GWB was justified in invading Iraq. Whether or not Trump said this in 2016 or 2004 is not relevant. When the Iraq war started, I was all for it and thought it was the right thing to do. After seeing the results, I now say it was a mistake. Trump said the same thing. However, the author of this article says that we are wrong.
What the f*** were "our pilots" doing there?
Obama pissed it away.
Or didn’t you get that?
As I understand it Trump is saying he was always against the war.
Ok, so now we’ve gone from “it was a failure” to “screw ‘em”.
Again, I’m not arguing that point, nor am I defending President Bush.
Was DS/DS a war for oil? Yes, Iraq was stealing it from Kuwait. Was it our business to engage? As as happened before, any disruption of oil shipments in the Gulf creates a ripple effect on the world economy. So, based on the situation at the time, I’m not quite sure. My opinion on the matter has become a bit opaque as a result of subsequent events.
Should we have been exploiting our own oil reserves and not be dependent on ME oil? You bet.
That being said, what got me engaged to begin with is a poster calling Iraq a military blunder when in truth, it was a political blunder. The military performed spectacularly.
What’s done is done, but I still place the blame for the loss of Iraq squarely at the feet of the RATS.
Have a good one.
How many coffins would that have required?
“BFD.”
So the outright lie that we didn’t find any is okay with you?
No, it is the entire point.
WMD doesn’t cease being WMD based off “belief” and time.
Sarin may “degrade”, but is still exceedingly dangerous.
I’m sorry you don’t like those facts.
An excellent reson to do the opposite.
Our longer term strategic goal was to create a modern reformed western democracy that would serve as a model to other islamic majority states ruled by diktat and breeding ignorance poverty and resentment of the West that imposed those borders and supported those leaders be they kings or generals
Could you even CONCEIVE of anything stupider than that?
Kuwait was side-drilling into Iraqi oil fields, they got caught red-handed.
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