Why Donald Trump's vicious attack on George W. Bush was so brutally effective — and brilliant

The Week ^ | February 14, 2016 Th | James Poulos

[WilliamIII]

“With 20-20 hindsight, it is abundantly clear, it has completely destabilized the middle-east.”

With respect, it shouldn’t have taken 20-20 hindsight to see that taking out Iran’s No. 1 foe would destabilize things. And that taking out a secular dictator in Iraq would take the boot off all the jihadist crazies so they could run wild and kill Christians, among others.

Unfortunately, the US is trying to do the same thing in Syria today.

[dragonblustar]

However, my support began to die for a few reasons:

Yep. The same with me. Everything you said was spot on.

[DiogenesLamp]

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?

Nuke weapons and delivery systems targeting Israel. Had we not diffused the situation, Saddam could have eventually started World War III. We already know he would attack Israel because he had already done it with scuds.

That was a pretty good reason for us to attack.

[XEHRpa]

>>> And Bush’s naivete in thinking Arabs could handle freedom.

Concur. That and “Islam is a religion of peace.” That was where the fatal mistakes were made by GWB, and are much more relevant to me than the chem weapons, since that was only one of many justifications used for the military action.

I too supported the action at the time. One can see now that it could end up unmaking the West.

[Future Snake Eater]

Unfortunately, the US is trying to do the same thing in Syria today.

At least we're doing it completely half-assed and it will have no net effect.

[Obadiah]

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.

I appreciate your words of reason. Apparently, many FReepers, in their blind allegiance to Donald Trump, have now fully adopted the Left's narrative on Iraq. Wow.

[TXSearcher]

Yeah....Trump makes sense.....if he is running in the Democratic primary.

I wonder if Hillary and Bernie sent him flowers for his performance (and thanked him for the "talking points" they can use when they take on the final Republican nominee).

I can hear it now...."Even Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, realizes the Republicans are too stupid and evil to ever be trusted in the White House again."

Sickening..........

[dfwgator]

When Arabs have the right to vote, who do they vote for? Hardline Islamists.

At least Saddam was secular.

[WilliamIII]

“it will have no net effect.”

Only because Russia has checkmated us. Up until then, the US taxpayer-supported rebels were succeeding in creating chaos and about to bring down Assad.

[DiogenesLamp]

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.

Saddam Hussein believed we already knew the truth. He had more faith in the US intelligence agencies than they actually deserved.

Saddam conducted a lot of mock drills and communications designed to make it look like they had working nukes. The effort was designed to discourage the Iranians from messing with him. After all, the two nations had fought a war in which one million people were killed, and Iran represented a very grave threat to Iraq.

Unfortunately our intelligence agencies were incompetent and stupid. (Ran by Ivy League Liberals.) We really believed he had working nukes, or was very close to developing them.

Saddam made the mistake of believing we had accurate information.

[hinckley buzzard]

I recall those moves by Bremmer. And the pallets of cash money that we flew over there that disappeared. Yes the postwar governing strategy was a costly failure.

[dfwgator]

Iran was, and still is, a much much bigger threat that Saddam could have ever dreamt of being, and we did Iran the biggest favor possible by taking out Saddam.

[bigbob]

Me too. It really felt good to have a leader who was going after the evildoers, “dead or alive”. The biggest mistake was taking our forces into war without a plan for what came next. If you say Bush lied when he stood under that “mission accomplished”banner, I’d have a hard time arguing otherwise. The whole nation-building and policing fiasco cost more lives than the initial conquest, and that is on W.

Jeb! is a fool for bringing him into this.

[Future Snake Eater]

Saddam could have eventually started World War III.

WWIII could start now due to the repercussions of our intervention. Bush had zero strategic goals beyond "remove Saddam." No one, and I mean no one, had a clue what to do once that was accomplished. If you can't outline the ways, means, and ends for that infamous "phase 4," then you shouldn't get involved at all.

[txrefugee]

This NYT published rag never met a Democrat they don’t love, even if he’s claiming to be a temporary Republican.

[ripnbang]

And your point is? Let me guess...because Code Pink likes something Donald Trump said, therefore, Donald Trump supports everything Code Pink advocates...?

[ripnbang]

‘Zactly...

[upsdriver]

Iraq was not a mistake.

I agree for the most part. We won the Iraq war in short order. The mistake made was giving authority to the Iraqi people to run the country. We should have stayed, built permanent bases, set up a non-muslim form of government, taken control of the oil production and set up payments to pay us back and then used our bases of operations to spread out across the entire middle east, starting with Syria to end Islamic fundamentalism throughout the region. As with communists, a good muslim is a dead muslim.

[20yearsofinternet]

I didn’t not support the invasion, out of respect for our soldiers, but I also wasn’t cheerleading it. It all seemed very rushed to me. My thoughts were, none of the 9/11 guys were Iraqi, in the years since Desert Storm, there really hadn’t been much talk at all regarding Iraq being involved with Islamic terror, and also since that war, crippling sanctions had kept Saddam isolated and contained, which was a strategy I felt had been working. Afghanistan was a no-brainer, the Taliban was actively and passively giving aid and comfort to AQ.

I try not to be so cynical as to think that we were just pushed into war so that the Establishment of both the left and right could make money off the conflict, but sometimes I do have to wonder about Eisenhower’s warning. Can’t help it, it seems so eerily on point over the last 20 years.

But yeah, the whole Iraq debacle in retrospect doesn’t seem to have been the best way to spend 2 trillion dollars. Or rather, add an additional 2 trillion to the national debt.

God bless our soldiers for stepping up to put their lives on the line for our freedom and safety. I wish the political class valued their sacrifice even half as much as the average conservative.

[ripnbang]

The whole nation-building and policing fiasco cost more lives than the initial conquest, and that is on W.

And gave us Obama and arguably jeopardized the future generations and existence of our country as we know it.