Posted on 07/08/2016 12:30:34 PM PDT by MaxistheBest
Occasionally Donald Trump says something that is politically incorrect but which also happens to be true.
On Tuesday at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump defended the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's record on terrorism, saying, "He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so well. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism."
Defending the brutal Iraqi dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people isn't exactly fashionable. But if you consider the 13 years of war that have wracked the country -- in which a quarter of a million have died -- and add that Saddam brutally repressed all dissent, including groups such as al Qaeda, and also add to this that ISIS is itself a fruit of the Iraq War, it's a far more defensible position.
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Trump is likely not a student of the English political philosopher Hobbes, who wrote his masterwork "Leviathan" in the shadow of the English Civil War. But he seems to have grasped Hobbes' main point: that an absolute "sovereign" (i.e. dictator) was preferable to "the war of all against all" that characterized the civil war in mid-17th century England as well as much of the civil war that continues to wrack early-21st century Iraq.
And Trump's claim that following the fall of Saddam, Iraq has emerged as the "Harvard" of terrorism is correct because Zarqawi in 2004 merged his terrorist group with al Qaeda to create "Al Qaeda in Iraq," which is the parent organization of today's ISIS.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
What he really did was open up with both barrels on George W and the GOPe.
burn all bridges, cut all ties - where we’re going we won’t need roads.
In the Arab World, guys like Saddam are ‘par for the course.’
Hillary is much closer politically to W, then Trump would ever be.
In retrospect, based on the disaster Iraq has become, Trump is correct. This point of view underpins his contention that GWB made a mistake in going into Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. All is consistent, and this differentiates him from HRC.
The good news -- and this is very telling -- is that Hillary Clinton is on the same side as Bush and the GOPe on this one, so Trump will be able to hang it around her neck like an anchor.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians lived in Iraq under Saddam. Now there a few left, the Islamists have killed the ones that didn’t flee.
He did it, because his Dad went after Saddam, and left him alive, so that Saddam could try to kill him.
No, actually most of what he says is politically incorrect and happens to be true....
Hillary Clinton is running for the fourth Bush term, when you think about it. That’s why so many big-government globalists who masqueraded as conservatives 15 years ago are supporting her.
Actually the Fifth-Term of the Bush-Clinton Dynasty.
Trump for President.
Oops, that should be the Sixth Term.
I have been saying this for years.
All those “innocents” Sadam was supposedly killing? Just a bunch of terrorists, and his methods were the only thing keeping them in check!
Iran is the much bigger threat in the long-run, and removing Saddam was the best thing we could have ever done for Iran.
Trump has often expressed his opinion that Saddam Hussein, even though a bad guy, performed a useful service, and it has been commented upon from time to time by the dishonest media. The only reason it has made a much bigger splash this time, is the medias effort to distract from the Clinton email scandal.
My husband and I were in Saudi Arabia when the butcher of Baghdad was in power. He finally got caught in a little HIDY-HOLE while his grandsons SHOT IT OUT.
From Google: Saddam Hussein's 14-year-old grandson, Mustafa, may have been the last to die in Tuesday's four-hour siege on a house in Mosul, and kept shooting even after Qusay and Uday Hussein, his father and uncle, had been killed, US military officials said yesterday.
I do trust that Trump will know this history of the ALWAYS turbulent middle east.
The CALMEST place over there is the KSA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, because this country, with the help of the huge American petroleum companies, found UNTOLD WEALTH in that once-poorest nation of the planet.
They are also amazingly hard-nosed with the native plethora of STINKING RICH, wealthy spoiled brats whose wealthy powerful families have given up on them and allowed the KSA to drive those a-holes away.
They first went to Pakistan and Afghanistan because those places are unremittingly Muslim. With money from dissident wealthy Muslims, they were able to bribe their way into the camps of those rugged mountain tribes.
Since only 25% of all Muslims are Arabs, the other 75% can do what they want with terrorism in their own poverty-stricken countries. Indonesia, a HUGE Oriental Asian country, is almost 100% Muslim. They provide for any ilk terrorism. But, their media are controlled rigorously so NO ONE on the outside, that would be the West, gets to ANY truth.
Their media make ours look practically honest.
Sorry if I bored or annoyed...hard to get over that five-year long experience, even after all these years.
'Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
The irony of history is that he disregared that pov when he became the VP.
Right. Like the several thousand Kurds he wiped out with chemical weapons....
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