"TRUMP: In my opinion, we’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems; our airports and all of the other problems we’ve had, we would’ve been a lot better off. I can tell you that right now.
We have done a tremendous disservice, not only to Middle East, we’ve done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have wiped away, and for what? It’s not like we had victory.
It’s a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized. A total and complete mess. I wish we had the $4 trillion or $5 trillion. I wish it were spent right here in the United States, on our schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and everything else that are all falling apart."
He then got chastised by Fiorna for sounding like Obama, and Trump responded with
"TRUMP: Well, there’s nothing to respond to. Well, people feel differently. I mean, the fact is Benghazi was a disaster because of Libya, everything just fell into place. It could not have been worse.
What do we have now? We have nothing. We’ve spent $3 trillion and probably much more – I have no idea what we’ve spent. Thousands and thousands of lives, we have nothing. Wounded warriors all over the place who I love, we have nothing for it."
Now of course, the ongoing story line is that the problem is Obama, and that if we just change his war hawk advisors with other war hawk advisors, this regime change strategy will work. Regardless of whatever else Trump said last night, his statements here, which BTW were totally in line with what Paul was saying, state the obvious reality today. Because Republican voters hate Obama the way a lot of Democrats hated Bush, I think they will find a way to skirt what Trump said and will continue to say that a stupid policy only looks stupid because Obama is bad at implementing it. Still, I think Trump openly attacked what has been a mainstay Republican policy for years.
I tend to think this post will likely open a discussion on every fault of Obama, which is too bad, because this really isn't about Obama, who is leaving office. Trump, and (finally) Paul got to have the bullhorn to call bullshit on our warring and "nation building" and they labeled it the complete failure that it is. It's not a failure of leadership, it's a failure in thinking to believe we can control the middle east with an iron fist and be safe at home because of it.
Trump is right. Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were evil men no doubt. Bashar Assad is evil. But they kept a thumb on the different sects in their countries. Bad as they were/are they are better then what we have in the middle east now. Had we concentrated our early efforts on the problem Al Qaeda the world would probably be better off today. Most of the problem today originated with Al Qaeda. It should have been focus #1 instead of Saddam Hussein.
ReplyDeleteThis is part of the Trump mystery. He can support far left wing ideas and his far right wing following just increases. Meanwhile the Republican big wigs stew and plot to no effect.
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