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Why Donald Trump's vicious attack on George W. Bush was so brutally effective — and brilliant
The Week ^ | February 14, 2016 Th | James Poulos

Posted on 02/15/2016 9:57:09 AM PST by entropy12

The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush, Trump growled. He kept us safe? That is not safe. Technically true, but, as is so often the case with Trump, the details came second to theme, and the theme went far beyond 9/11 or the gasps and boos Trumps comments brought. Trump slapped W on Iraq, too. The war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. They lied, he said of Dubyas administration. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none found.

Trump is saying that, under George W. Bush, the Republican Party allowed its understanding of politics to be corrupted. For whatever reason, under Bush, the GOP became a party that let self-aware rhetorical posturing dictate the way policy was formulated. The result was failure across the board. Worst of all was the ensuing failure of memory as Republicans forgot the winning arts and sciences. In so doing, they enabled America to lose its way in the hall of mirrors — and lose its greatness.

This is a dagger to the heart of the Bush legacy.

(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...


TOPICS: Campaign News; Issues
KEYWORDS: bush; bush43; trump; wmd
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I confess, I supported Iraq invasion by GWB.

With 20-20 hindsight, it is abundantly clear, it has completely destabilized the middle-east. ISIS would be impossible under Saddam regime. Saddam was quickly and brutally killing the Jihadists. He was able to keep Iraq's 3 factions under control.

Most important, none of the 911 terrorists were Iraqi. The chemical weapons WMD was a ruse Saddam was effectively using to keep a more powerful enemy, Iran, at bay, and guessing.

1 posted on 02/15/2016 9:57:09 AM PST by entropy12
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To: entropy12

I’m not the type of person who will say “I told you so!” ... but I never supported the invasion of Iraq at all. I also considered it a major betrayal of the conservative movement by the Bush administration, too. That was the moment the whole bunch of them was exposed as nothing more than a bunch of big-government globalists.


2 posted on 02/15/2016 10:00:22 AM PST by Alberta's Child (My mama said: "To get things done, you'd better not mess with Major Tom.")
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To: entropy12

Code Pink praises Donald Trump after debate
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/269472-code-pink-praises-donald-trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is being praised by Code Pink, a group that has protested the Iraq War.

Trump garnered support from Code Pink dduring the GOP debate Saturday night when he called the Iraq War a mistake and accused the George W. Bush administration of lying before the invasion.

.........................................................

Code Pink also wants Israel wiped out.

Code played a part in setting up the Obama/muslim brotherhood attempt to take over Egypt.

Code Pink is a big HAMAS supporter and was part of the ‘flotilla” that tried to undermine Israel.


3 posted on 02/15/2016 10:00:23 AM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: entropy12
.....the US Iraq invasion has completely destabilized the middle-east. ISIS would be impossible under Saddam regime. Saddam was quickly and brutally killing the Jihadists. He was able to keep Iraq's 3 factions under control.

My thought precisely.

4 posted on 02/15/2016 10:00:31 AM PST by Liz (SAFE PLACE? A liberal's mind. Nothing's there. Nothing can penetrate it.)
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To: entropy12

The other part that GWB has to answer for:

Putting the war on the national credit card.

No matter HOW badly it had to be fought (or not) the administration should have been upfront about the costs.


5 posted on 02/15/2016 10:01:35 AM PST by RedStateRocker (Better questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.)
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To: Alberta's Child

Yep, you were the voice in the wilderness, and you were proven right.

I gave W the “benefit of the doubt”, sometimes you have to learn the hard way.


6 posted on 02/15/2016 10:02:00 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: entropy12

Iraq had no intention and no ability to attack America. And Iraq also had ZERO to do with 9/11. So, why did we attack?


7 posted on 02/15/2016 10:02:23 AM PST by heights
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To: entropy12

Yes I stupidly supported the Iraq invasion by GWB too...Most of us here did. It probably could have been a success if Bush didn’t tie the military hands behind their back and announce Islam as a religion of peace......that should have been red flags but we were all wrapped up in the marketing. Oh well can’t turn back time, but for goodness sake we can at least not vote for Jeb.

Trump 2016.


8 posted on 02/15/2016 10:02:28 AM PST by napscoordinator
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To: entropy12

Effective and brilliant perhaps, but disingenuous, cynical and exploitive.

Here is Trump in a saner moment making the case Rubio mentioned in the debate.

Trump on if he were told by intelligence agencies of Saddam WMDs

I would have been a lot more certain that he had those weapons of mass destruction. He [Saddam] obviously overplayed his hand. All he had to do was say was, “Come in and take a look,” and he would still be running that country.

http://humanevents.com/2011/03/14/trump-unplugged/


9 posted on 02/15/2016 10:02:44 AM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: MarvinStinson

Ted Cruz praised liberal Larry Tribe in his endorsement of John Roberts. Does that make Cruz a liberal? Does that mean POTUS Cruz would appoint a liberal to SCOTUS? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, FRiend.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214989/right-stuff-ted-cruz


10 posted on 02/15/2016 10:02:57 AM PST by lodi90 (TRUMP Force 1 lifting off)
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To: Alberta's Child

God Bless You.....smart individual. Should have been more of you.


11 posted on 02/15/2016 10:03:04 AM PST by napscoordinator
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To: entropy12

I wonder if Trump will go after Hillary’s vote for approval of the Iraq invasion? Or Kerry’s, or any of the other Democrats who overwhelmingly approved? Or will he go after Bill Clinton’s lack of action to get OBL while he was Commander In Chief. I know trump thinks everything in the Federal government is the Conservatives’ fault. So that’s why I ask.


12 posted on 02/15/2016 10:03:10 AM PST by Durbin
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To: entropy12

Trump’s tactics may be everything good these folks think it was but it cost him my vote and was so far away from acting Presidential as to be more akin to a kindergarten student than a mature man running for high office. I will vote for Cruz.


13 posted on 02/15/2016 10:03:36 AM PST by armydawg505
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To: entropy12

The Iraq invasion was the right thing to do. They should never have mad the WMDs the reason. They did not need to. ut intel at the time said that there was a nuclear program.

We know that there were actually WMDs. GAs, nerve agents, bio agents. Saddam had used them before. It is not accurate to say that there were none. But they never found the nuclear program they expected.

Just the same. Bush defeated Saddam. He then had to retool to defeat the insurgency...and that was hard and expensive. But he and Petraus did that too. By 2007 the insurgency was defeated, Iraq had held elections and adopted a constitution and was on its way to becoming a secular republic. which is what we wanted.

And, it allowed the US to be perched right next door to Iran with a sizable contingency force to allow Iraq to continue to develop.

As I say...that all worked and was a success.

It was Obama pulling out and dismantling that precipitously and releasing many insurgents from the US held jails that led to ISIS and the failures we now see.

THAT WS NOT NUSH’s fault. Trump is using those words and the false narrative established by Obama and the MSM to try and score points against his GOP opponents. it is all pure politics.

Now, I support Cruz in the campaign. I believe that, despite these politics, that Trump would be FAR netter for the nation than Sanders or Hillary and that he will actually do what he has promised.

But lets make no mistake. What Trump is doing is pure hard hitting, under the table politics. Iraq was not a mistake.


14 posted on 02/15/2016 10:04:22 AM PST by Jeff Head (Semper Fidelis - Molon Labe - Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: entropy12

Agree completely.


15 posted on 02/15/2016 10:04:29 AM PST by Jim Noble (I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone, and I won't question what or when or why when I'm gon)
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To: entropy12

It was SO effective, as was screaming about loving Planned Parenthood, that it got him plenty of uncomfortable blowback.

And, of course, in Trump sore loser style, he’s whining about running to a third party again.


16 posted on 02/15/2016 10:05:54 AM PST by agrarianlady
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To: entropy12
Colin Powell asserts in his new book: "there would have been no Iraq war" had then-Pres GWB and his councilors understood that Hussein did not possess any functioning unconventional weapons. Powell lauded the fact that under Bush "we got rid of the horrific Hussein" government and toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.....

Oh please, Colin......the US hasn/t figured out the fervid Mideast mindset to this day? Its thousand-year-old sectarian internecine warfare was kept in check by strongmen like Saddam and Khadafi. Now these savages are marauding all over Europe.....and are coming here to kill us for what we did in Iraq.

POINTS TO PONDER

<><> Powell never mentions that the conniving Mideast types calculated the advantage of having a superpower in their midst....and they cashed in bigtime.

<><> The US gamely decided to train the indigenous population....it cost us billions and we managed to train 4-5 over five years.

<><> In the US we take them off the farm, send them to boot camp, and in 3 weeks we got soldiers.

<><> The Bank of Kabul where the CIA and DOD deposited billions to finance the war was a withdrawal-only goldmine for insiders.

<><> For public consumption, the US said we went into Iraq to show them the advantages of democracy and to get all warm and cuddly as they embraced it.

(waiting for hysterical laughter to die down)

Remember this Colin? The war profiteering was outrageous. Neocon godfather Richard Perle relaxing in Paris (above the fray---nowhere near his cohorts plotting in the WH Office of Special Ops) got so rich w/ insider info, he was reported to be starting his own oil company.

<><> One last thing, Colin.....GWB estimated the Iraq strike would cost $50-60 billion.......then an angry Bush fired advisor Larry Lindsey because Lindsay dared to say the war might cost more like $100 billion.

That was in 2007 dollars.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY Iraq and Afghanistan today have cost the US some $3 TRILLION....and rivers of young blood. We/re still pouring US tax dollars into those decrepit Mideast countries, and..... as Donald says....we got NOTHING in return.

17 posted on 02/15/2016 10:06:11 AM PST by Liz (SAFE PLACE? A liberal's mind. Nothing's there. Nothing can penetrate it.)
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To: entropy12
A couple of things. First, this would give W way too much credit for seeking to lead a massive revolution in thinking in the GOP. Bush was smart, but he wasn't Machiavellian smart.

Second, while it is true Trump attacks the foolishness in DC, that is a code term for elites, because they don't have "commonsense" not to, for example, "take the oil." "Taking the oil" isn't a policy presecription: its a corporate manual that says, "If you're going to do something expensive and deadly, you better have a positive payoff at the end." Trump's whole campaign is anti-elite---against the party, against the media, against the "established" way of doing things.

18 posted on 02/15/2016 10:06:19 AM PST by LS ("Castles Made of Sand, Fall in the Sea . . . Eventually" (Hendrix))
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To: entropy12

I opposed the Bush1 war in Iraq, and the Bush2 war.

Neither one of them had anything to do with American interests, but were what the neo-cons wanted.


19 posted on 02/15/2016 10:06:20 AM PST by euram
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To: Liz

Same thing with Libya. Shoulda left the Colonel alone.


20 posted on 02/15/2016 10:06:45 AM PST by Aria (2016: The gravy train v Donald Trump)
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