Posted on 10/20/2015 6:32:34 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Tuesday that although he believes the Iraq war was a mistake, he does not believe the war in Afghanistan falls into that same category -- apparently reversing his position on the war even as he continues to fault the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy.
"How can you say you were safe under his brother when we just had the worst attack in the history of our country?" Trump said on CNN Tuesday morning, echoing his controversial criticism of the Bush administration's national security record with regards to the 9/11 attacks.
"You can say, 'Yes, we did well after.' But we also made mistakes there we went into Iraq, which was a disaster decision, just a disastrous decision," Trump said. "Not Afghanistan, because that's probably where we should have gone in the first place."
The business mogul has sparked a national conversation about the Bush administration's legacy on national security and whether they successfully mitigated the war on terror. Although he has frequently criticized the former president for invading Iraq, his recent comments holding him accountable for 9/11 represent an escalation of recriminations against the former president.
Trump has notably gone on the record criticizing the war in Afghanistan, frequently talking about the two wars with similar disdain. When pressed on CNN about his previous denunciation of the decision to invade Afghanistan, Trump denied making such statements.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Trump doesn’t seem to know what he says from one day to the next.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3350668/posts
Trump wrote about the terror threat before 9/11
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/trump-wrote-about-terror-threat-before-9-11-547770435536
MSNBC talking about his prediction.
The Washington Post claims a “reversal” yet cites no quotes, links, interviews, or anything to support it. Why not AT LEAST put one quote in the article to back up the assertion that there was a reversal?
Also, IMO, the Afghanistan war wasn’t a very good decision because we don’t seem to care about winning anything. We have a hard time projecting force to a population that only understands and respects force.
Here’s a quote:
“We made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place.”
Probably a misspeak conflating both countries. In the mid 2004 he was dead against going into Iraq. I do not recall him uttering the same thing about Afghanistan earlier. He was absolutely on target about OBL and terrorism before 2000.
They can drag up this stuff everyday and I am not going to be persuaded to vote for the Jebster, Rubster, or any other that the GOPe brings up. I am neutral on Carson and Cruz is my back up.
And besides, didn’t Bush actually go into Afghanistan before Iraq?
Going into Afghanistan to get BinLaden and his buddies was fine. Regime change is not fine. It would’ve made more sense to keep the maniacs locked in their dark-ages country than try to change them and exploit them. for pipeline locations or whatever.
This "Afghanistan, good, Iraq, bad" has been the staple of 99% of the criticism of the Bush foreign policy. I disagree with it, but you can hardly say it's an unpopular position. Quite the contrary, I think today you'd probably get 80% of the public saying Iraq was a mistake.
W didn't have that luxury of taking a chance that Saddam had WMDs. I still think he did the right thing. But no one will ever, ever win an election saying so. Trump, however, has been on record for a long time saying Iraq was a mistake. I think he's wrong, but he has been consistent.
Paying back for Sept 11th was right. This nation building crap has got to stop. IMHO.
Flim Flam man.
When will people start to see through this guy as nothing but a panderer? What is his underlying goal? You really think he cares for the Republic? It’s all just about Donald, really.
His message is no different than 0bama’s Hope and Change schtick back before his first election.
“Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!”
Here is an article with the full context (and a video of the interview itself):
http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/06/trump-on-afghanistan-we-made-a-terrible-mistake-getting-involved-there-in-the-first-place-video/
Not sure why the journalist here didn't provide the same link and quote supporting his argument.
At this point, incompetent 'journalism' is the rule, not the exception.
If you watch the video (I linked to it earlier in the thread), you'll see that there was no way that he was misspeaking or conflating both countries. In the very same interview response, Trump talked about how we need to stay in Afghanistan because "that thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave, just as I said that Iraq was going to collapse after we leave." So, he clearly knew which countries he was talking about, and clearly drew a distinction between when he was talking about Iraq and when he was talking about Afghanistan.
So, you are another anti-Trumpster who just reads the biased headlines and believes them. You must be a liberal/Democrat in cognito here - you believe the lies from the media.
Of course Saddam had WMDs.
He proved he had them by using them.
His problem was that he was apparently trying to follow Sun Tzu’s advice that “When strong, feign weakness; when weak feign strength”.
He was simultaneously trying to appear strong to the Iranians to keep them at bay while at the same time trying to appear weak to the US to get us to leave him alone.
I know he had them after 2000 (he didn’t use them after 2000)-—they are in Syria. But the “evidence” that the world accepts is that he did not. The trace elements that I have summarized in my “48 Liberal Lies” says he had them as late as 2003, but there simply is no way that argument is a political winner now.
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