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 ...
“It was old!”
Yeah, so it magically becomes something else other than mustard gas due to age?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10172232/Lethal-relics-from-WW1-are-still-emerging.html
RE: Maybe you can go read the news and see Iraq today?
Yes, I read the news and Iraq was relatively stable for 3 years after the surge.
It destabilized after our present commander in chief decided to abandon the place against the advise of his generals, the CIA and defense secretary.
I’m saying that stuff was long ago known about.. it was no surprise because the inspectors long ago made sure it was documented and secured underground
It's called "Defend Trump at all costs!".
This activist forum stood against Code Pink at Walter Reed countless times and it is now used by emotional voters to defend Code Pink and Trump. It is appalling.
Again, you are saying it didn’t exist because we knew about it.
Try this: it existed because we had to move it.
At the time I defended it on the premise at some point it was likely Iran would make serious inroads toward Iraq. It was a calculated risk to establish a democracy, which would, if successful had long lasting implications.
Well, that sure as hell did not happen.
The Iraqi givernment always was a house of cards just waiting to fall
There never was going to be peace in our time unless Iraq remained under western occupation, perhaps for generations, and even that would be a suspect “ peace”
More like long periods of not being attacked at home because thousands of our military were willing to pull 4+ tours in that hellhole and if lucky only due a few hundred per year
The culture we needed to conquer is barbarism with nice poetry and art
Everyone is too pc to even say it much less do it
And there was no way the U.S. could remain indefinitely anyway.
Furthermore, the idea that Iraq could remain a non-sharia state without a secular thug holding the islamists under control is now know to be false.
This is exactly how socialist dictators get elected.
Freedom you say... look at all the nations around this world we have spilled our blood and treasury and you tell me how grateful they are to US. Freedom is NEVER free. Funny thing, what will US government take from you if you do not abide by their rules/laws...
Yes. Pure emotion. We saw it with Obama.
Well you go tell Cruz to state that then.
We didn’t find the boatload of WMDs, we lost thousands of Americans, spent huge amounts of money, ended up with the chaos of ISIS and Iran running gal of the place today.
But we had 3 years of relative quiet after spending more money and lives on top of the original war....so we cool?
“Bush doctrine paved the road to Obama destruction”
Amazing.
Obama abandons the place KNOWING it will fail but its Bush’s fault? Just so you can defend Trumps decision to blame Bush.
What a topsy turvy world we live in.
Bush should have closed the borders and did some small nuking in the Hindu Kush. We would have our troops alive today! How can you to war and leave our borders open.
So the sarin ied, a binary mix in flight shell that Iraq was not known to possess prior to 1995, was nonexistent?
See post 5.
Try to keep in mind the fact that “WMD” does not rely on age or quantity.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/first-world-war-bombs-still-3862370
Yeah, real harmless those old phosgene and mustard rounds from WWI.
Obama is scum.
That said, I think he knew what he was doing (i.e. he's a jihadi).
It was a blunder, WMDs or no WMDs. Has anyone who does not think it was a mistake yet turned out any positives from that invasion?
It was a blunder to go in, and a disaster for Obama to pull us out.
As one poster on this site noted, what is happening now would have happened at any point in the future when the U.S. pulled out.
And that does not make me a democrat for believing that.
Nope, we should have left all the zoo keepers in place. The entire middle east is a cesspool of filth, debauchery, and criminality. The animals need to be ruled by a strong man. They are incapable of any kind of democratic rule. They merely see democracy as yet another way to oppress the minority.
Bush and his administration chose to remain closed mouth about what was actually found and to where the rest had been moved, at least until the stuff still in Iraq could be removed. But the information did trickle out, some of it from Russian operatives who did the actual transporting from Iraq to Syria and the Syrian controlled Bekaa Valley. Why the list was never waved like a bloody flag in the faces of the Democrats and media critics is a mystery to me and why I’ll never support another Schumer hugging Republican. Their silence on WMD’s and Soros’ sabotage of the ‘08 economy gave us Obama.
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