Holly Bailey, national correspondent for Yahoo News, wrote an article criticizing Donald Trump "for being for the Iraq War before he was against it."
Apparently, Yahoo cranked their computers up and found a statement Trump made on the Howard Stern show in September 2002, which was 6 months before the disastrous war was launched, in which Trump gave a tepid, reluctant endorsement to the idea of invading Iraq. In recent days, Trump has called the decision to invade Iraq "the worst decision in U.S. history." Holly doesn't like it. She considers it a flip-flop.
But, George W. Bush, at the time, was saying that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, that he was importing yellow cake from Niger to make nuclear weapons, which turned out to be a lie, a farce, fabrication. It turned out that Saddam had no WMDs at all, that he was not pursuing nuclear weapons, that he had told the UN the truth in his 12,000 page report that he had destroyed all his WMDs. Also, it turned out that Saddam had no ties to Al Qaeda. It means that the whole basis which Bush used to justify invading Iraq proved to be false.
But, Trump didn't know that in September 2002. He could only learn it later. So, if he changed his mind about the Iraq War, so what? What is so terrible about it?
Also, they tried to pin Trump down about whether Bush "lied". After all, if Trump's attitude before the war was influenced by false information, then why couldn't Bush's? Well, the difference is- as Trump pointed out- is that he wasn't a politician at the time, and more specifically: he wasn't the President. Bush was. The responsibility was his to make sure the information was accurate.
And, in a situation like that, if you're not sure, you err on the side of not invading, of not starting a war. That's because war means deaths; lots of deaths; and this war was no exception. Unless you're God, you're not entitled to decide to start killing people. I won't even grant that God has the right to do that.
"Yes, it would be worth it to kill x number of people in Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam because, after all, he is a bad guy."
What I would have told Bush is:
"Let's assume that we can get rid of Saddam, and all we have to kill in order to do it is one person. But, let's assume that that one person is your wife, Laura. Would it be worth it to you?"
But, it wasn't his wife Laura who had to die. It was other men's wives, and other women's husbands. And these were people that George W. Bush didn't know.
There is a lot of controversy about how many people died in the Iraq War, but the most recent study published in PLOS Medicine, which tabulated deaths from the 2003 invasion up to 2011, found that approximately half a million people were killed as a direct result of the violence and from other resultant consequences of the war.
I wonder how many loved ones Holly Bailey lost in the Iraq War. It was probably the same number that George W.Bush lost, which was zero.
The question is: what is wrong with America that we don't hold George W. Bush accountable for what he did? The fact is that there was no justification for launching that genocidal war- none whatsoever.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had to approve every bombing run in Iraq in which 50 or more civilians were expected to be killed. Do you know what percent of those he approved? 100%.
And Holly doesn't like it that Trump changed his mind about the Iraq War? That's what troubles her?
You're a major disappointment, Holly.
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