People say that Trump is loud. But I don’t think he’s been loud enough.
Last night, he finally screamed an anti war stance to the boos of Bush’s and Rubio’s and Kasich’s one percent donors. It’s only half of what needed to be said, but it was a measure of reality that’s desperately needed.
Trump: “You fight ISIS first. Right now you have Russia, you have Iran, you have them with Assad and you have them with Syria. You have to knock out ISIS. … You can’t fight two wars at one time.” But of course, to some of the US establishment, two wars is slacking, they want more than two wars. Trump continued: “We shoulda never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none. … The World Trade Center came down (BOOING) during the reign. He [G. W. Bush] kept us safe?”
Husseini notes how it might go in the general election were Donald Trump to get the GOP presidential nomination and Hillary to get the Democratic one.
The GOP candidate would be arguing against the war while the Democratic one would be justifying it -- at best calling it a "mistake."
Pointing out that the Iraq War is a criminal enterprise, not a "mistake," Ben Tanosborn (MWC NEWS) observes, "Yes; Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State constantly invokes her extensive experience in affairs of state as strongly qualifying her for the White House; yet her vast experience follows for the most part decisions with bad judgment… bad experience which in my book is counterproductive to that required from a prospective good and effective leader."
It's doubtful the Republican Party officials will have the brains to speak out against the war, to disown it. They supported it at the start.
In England, it was the Labour Party that supported it at the start.
The refusal of Labour to strongly break with Tony Blair has harmed one high ranking politician after another.
You'd think Republicans would grasp this and run from Bully Boy Bush, work hard to distance themselves from him.
Apparently not.
But they're War Criminals and there's a reason for the saying "thick as thieves."
The war continues with the US Defense Dept proclaiming/bragging/insisting today:
Strikes in Iraq
Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted [today’s number] strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
-- Near Albu Hayat, one strike
struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL improvised explosive
device cache and six ISIL rocket rails.
-- Near Habbaniyah, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed two ISIL rocket positions.
-- Near Mosul, 12 strikes struck
two separate ISIL tactical units, an ISIL headquarters, two ISIL
financial storage centers and two ISIL financial distribution centers,
destroying 12 ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL vehicle-borne IED.
-- Near Ramadi, six strikes struck
five separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed three ISIL staging
areas, three ISIL fighting positions and two ISIL assembly areas.
-- Near Sinjar, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Fallujah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area.
Task force officials define a
strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same
geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect.
Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single
weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple
aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and
weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect
of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use.
Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of
aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each
strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a
target.
At some point, people need to ask why the money is wasted on these bombings when the Iraqi government has had the same 18 months to become inclusive but has refused to do so?
The core issues that resulted in the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq have never been addressed.
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4497 (plus 10 in Operation Inherent Resolve which includes at least 1 Iraq War fatality).
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