Should Donald Trump get bonus points for Iraq hindsight?
Sep 9, 2016, 6:10 AM
There's a difference between insight and hindsight. Dave Ross knows it. But does Donald Trump? (AP)
(AP)
In his latest defense of his ability to be commander in chief, Donald Trump claimed once again that he was a vigorous opponent of the Iraq war. And to prove it he brought up a magazine article.
“Then in August of 2004, very early in the conflict, extremely early in the conflict, right at the beginning…” Trump said of his magazine quote.
Actually, that was 17 months after the war started.
“I made a detailed statement to Esquire Magazine,” Trump continued. “‘Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we are in. I would have never handled it that way.'”
Well, that’s not insight, that’s hindsight.
I know a little about this because I visited Baghdad in April of that year. I saw first hand, as did every other reporter who was there, that the city was not under control. There were kidnappings, mortar rounds and gunfire.
Anybody who watched the evening news could conclude Iraq was a mess. The key is to figure those things out before you decide go in. And as it turns out, on that score, he’s not much better than his opponent Hillary Clinton.
In 2011, as the US was trying to decide what to do about Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi was attacking civilians, Mr. Trump posted a video on his personal blog featuring his thoughts on that international issue.
“We should go in. We should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives,” Trump said on the video.
Which was also Hillary Clinton’s view.
And then, just as with Iraq, he became less supportive after things began to go wrong in that situation. So if Trump is going to claim points for hindsight, why shouldn’t Clinton?
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