Category Archives: Iraq

Trump Called Bush A Liar & Won South Carolina (Nevada, Too)

Bush, Donald Trump, Iraq, Neoconservatism

“Trump Called Bush A Liar & He Won South Carolina (Nevada, too)” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

Donald Trump has buried George W. Bush, for good. Or so we hope.

This might not be “Morning in America,” but it is a moral victory for values in America. Somewhere in those Judeo-Christian values touted by “values voters” is an injunction against mass murder.

Before the February 20 South Carolina primary, it looked as though G. Bush might just make a comeback.

After the South Carolina primary, where Donald Trump won with 32.2 percent of the Republican vote, it seems certain that nothing will resuscitate the legacy of “one of the nation’s worst presidents.”

Notwithstanding his war crimes and unprecedented intervention in the financial system and the private economy, “W” also happened to preside over the largest domestic spending since Lyndon Johnson. As chronicled in Ivan Eland’s “Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty,” “[Bush] advocated bad policies and demonstrated horrendous operational incompetence.”

The disastrous and expensive (in casualties and money) nation-building project in Iraq and Afghanistan were only exceeded in catastrophic results by Bush’s expansion of executive power and theft of the civil liberties that make the United States unique. Bush had almost no accomplishments to offset such foibles.

Trump addressed the war: “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”

The chattering class, Left and Right, was—still is—gobsmacked. A political Samson was bringing down the pillars of their world.

Desperate to restore equilibrium before the crucial SC vote was CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “You would not say again that George W. Bush lied?”

Trump obliged. He backpedaled before the primary, going with non-committal: “I don’t know. I can’t tell you. I mean, I’d have to look at documents.”

So America has some unfinished business. Because we do know. We can say for sure. And we have all the documents.

George W. Bush lied America into war.

Bush began his ballyhooed presidency by lying during his campaign. He promised America a humble foreign policy, but came into office with the express purpose of using his plenary powers to unseat Saddam Hussein. …

… “Trump Called Bush A Liar & He Won South Carolina (Nevada, too)” is the current column, now on WND.

UPDATE II: Making America Great Means Exposing ‘W’ (Readers Get IT)

Bush, Donald Trump, Federal Reserve Bank, Iraq, Neoconservatism, Politics, War

“Making America Great Means Exposing ‘W’” is the current column, now on WND (please Like, Tweet, and generally Share column on social media). An excerpt:.

Making America great again, the theme of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, depends on dispelling the myths and myth-making that made America bad.

Beginning with George W. Bush.

Said Saint Augustine: “The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.”

The Republican Party under Bush did the devil’s work. Bar the sainted Ron Paul, not a dog of a Republican lifted his leg in protest of the unjust war on Iraq.

To embark on the good, the GOP must come clean about the bad. To that end, Donald Trump has begun a vital process of expiation.

The 43rd president is categorized as “bad” and ranked 37th by Ivan Eland, author of “Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty.” Having undermined the republic at home and peace abroad, “Bush’s presidency,” avers Eland, “was one of the worst of all time.”

Coming to terms with the Bush legacy, moreover, ought to prevent the rise of another Bush. For the bogus Bush Doctrine is alive and well-exploited in the words and promises of each of the Republican candidates, other than Donald Trump.

The Bush dictum of fighting them over there so they don’t come here —as if Islamic State can’t, won’t and hasn’t attacked there and here—is alive and well-exploited by almost every fork-tongued politician in the Republican and Democratic races.

Other than Trump and Bernie Sanders, there’s a potatoes vs. spuds quality to the foreign policy articulated by both sides.

Each time the interchangeable John Kasich or Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush are asked about death by Muslim in the United States; they whip out that dumb “W” Doctrine, tethering attacks like San Bernardino in the US to wars the US should be waging over in the Middle East, and will be waging if these candidates have their way.

If you liked Bush’s willful and criminal war on Iraq; if you enjoyed watching aw-shucks “W” “Shock and Awe” Iraq to kingdom come with BLU-82s—boy, do you have a treat in store.

If you took pleasure in Bush unseating and executing law-and-order leader Saddam Hussein; you’ll love the plans Rubio, Kasich and Brother Jeb have for Bashar Assad and his family. As for Vladimir Putin, the not-so-comical three stooges have practically diarized conflagration with Russia.

I almost forgot: If you licked your chops when Bush disarmed dem little Iraqi boys by littering their playgrounds with cluster bomblets; your vampiric urges will be sated. In Bush’s Baghdad, hospitals teamed with limbless kids successfully disarmed. The Rubio-Kasich-Bush bandidos will similarly oblige their supporters. Happy times are ahead for their acolytes. …

… Read the rest. “Making America Great Means Exposing ‘W’” can be read in full on WND (please Like, Tweet, and generally Share column on social media).

UPDATE I (2/19): READERS GET IT:

Hi Ilana,

I loved your article reminding all the deaf, dumb and blind, card-carrying Republicans that their asshole (excuse my French) summa cum laude remains, GW Bush.

Jeb, to even mention W’s name let alone appear with him campaigning, shows the guy has no sense of history. W’s Presidency was a total train wreck from his Supreme Court handed Presidency to his final months in office, when the wheels came off the American economy and financial system.

The Republicans running for President are dangerous war mongers with zero understanding of what the Federal Reserve has been allowed to do to this country and the irreversible, unfixable nature of the problem. Clinton and Sanders, it goes without saying, are also clueless!

Hope this finds you well!

All the best,

Barry Downs

UPDATE II: Writes Ron S:

Please accept my heart-felt gratitude for this article. I have been struggling with my own concept of objective reality and the contradictory BS I see all around me. I have long believed that G.W. Bush was not only a horrible president, he may have been the worst in American history. When he was received warmly in SC it made me wonder if I was missing something.

A small list of faux pas by our first semi-literate president:
1. 2 unnecessary wars, fought simultaneously on different fronts
2. approximately $3 trillion thrown to the winds
3. Claims of WMDs that don’t exist
4. violations of any number of international treaties, the Geneva Accords, the Nuremberg principles, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, etc. on war crimes.
5. Lies by his administration include “America does not torture”; “The war (Iraq) will last weeks or months, certainly not years”; “The insurgency is on its last legs; “We will be greeted as liberators”; “Deficits don’t matter”; and, of course, WMD.
6. Bush plunged the economy into a near world wide crisis by allowing the banksters and market thieves to operate with virtually no oversight, then passed the bill onto the people.
7. Bush granted a huge tax break to the 1% who didn’t need it.
8. Bush doubled the national debt.
9. He refused to control our borders.

One foolish man was enough to plunge the entire Middle East into chaos and plunge the West into confusion and disarray. God deliver us from another like him. We cannot afford such a fool in the office of the President of the United States..

UPDATE III: Stick To Your Guns About George Bush, Donald Trump!

Bush, Donald Trump, Iraq, Politics

Nobody should try and turn the notion of impeaching George Bush for the crime of Iraq into a fringe, oddball idea. Those of us, members of the libertarian community, who chronicled every stage in Bush’s pathological and illogical will to war in Iraq, know the notion of impeachment to have had legal and moral merit.

As for George Bush bearing some culpability for 9/11, as Donald Trump has intimated: Damn straight he did.

We all recall Condoleezza Rice’s unblushing justifications for her dismissive treatment of the critical mass of intelligence pertaining to impending terrorist attacks. Even now, it’s essential that she and President Bush not be allowed to fob their responsibilities for September 11 on their underlings. “HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE!”, I demanded, in May 29, 2002, in a column that still holds true (most of them do), and which details the case of the Phoenix FBI agent who, in July of 2001, wrote a memorandum about the bin Ladenites who were training in U.S. flight schools. Agent Ken Williams’ report was very specific. Over and above the standard sloth the memo met in the Washington headquarters, it transpired that the FBI was also concerned to avoid “racial profiling.”

Bush, moreover, is ranked one of the America’s worse presidents by Ivan Eland, author of “Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty.”

So, while Donald Trump generally had an incoherent and lazy night at the CBS News Republican debate in South Carolina, February 13 (thanks WaPo for the transcript)—he was a beacon of truth when it came to Bush and Iraq.

The exchange:

DICKERSON: … on Monday, George W. Bush will campaign in South Carolina for his brother. As you’ve said tonight, and you’ve often said, the Iraq War and your opposition to it was a sign of your good judgment.

In 2008, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, talking about President George W. Bush’s conduct of the war, you said you were surprised that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t try to impeach him.

You said, quote: “which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing.” When you were asked what you meant by that and you said: “For the war, for the war, he lied, he got us into the war with lies.” Do you still believe President Bush should have been impeached?

TRUMP: … Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. All right? Now, you can take it any way you want, and it took — it took Jeb Bush, if you remember at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced for president, it took him five days.

He went back, it was a mistake, it wasn’t a mistake. It took him five days before his people told him what to say, and he ultimately said, “It was a mistake.” The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don’t even have it. Iran has taken over Iraq with the second-largest oil reserves in the world.

Obviously, it was a mistake.

DICKERSON: So…

TRUMP: George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.

DICKERSON: But so I’m going to — so you still think he should be impeached?

BUSH: I think it’s my turn, isn’t it?

DICKERSON: [Clearly quoting Trump] You do whatever you want. You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

(BOOING)

DICKERSON: All right. OK. All right.

Governor Bush — when a member on the stage’s brother gets attacked…

BUSH: I’ve got about five or six…

DICKERSON: ... the brother gets to respond.

BUSH: Do I get to do it five or six times or just once responding to that?

TRUMP: I’m being nice.

BUSH: So here’s the deal. I’m sick ask tired of Barack Obama blaming my brother for all of the problems that he has had.

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: And, frankly, I could care less about the insults that Donald Trump gives to me. It’s blood sport for him. He enjoys it. And I’m glad he’s happy about it. But I am sick and tired…

TRUMP: He spent $22 million in…

(CROSSTALK)

BUSH: I am sick and tired of him going after my family. My dad is the greatest man alive in my mind.

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: And while Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe. And I’m proud of what he did.

(APPLAUSE)

BUSH: And he has had the gall to go after my brother.

TRUMP: The World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign, remember that.

(BOOING)

BUSH: He has had the gall to go after my mother.

Hold on. Let me finish. He has had the gall to go after my mother.

TRUMP: That’s not keeping us safe.

BUSH: Look, I won the lottery when I was born 63 years ago, looked up, and I saw my mom. My mom is the strongest woman I know.

TRUMP: She should be running.

BUSH: This is not about my family or his family. This is about the South Carolina families that need someone to be a commander-in- chief that can lead. I’m that person.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

UPDATE I(2/14):

UPDATE II (2/15):

Eric Johnson On Facebook: Have you ever gotten any response from Trump Campaign for your support?

Ilana Mercer: No. Politicians don’t care about the best voices; only the loudest and most famous. Never heard from Ron Paul either and him I REALLY supported.

UPDATE III:

Special-Needs Media Six Months Late To Recognize The Trump Revolution

Donald Trump, Elections, Iraq, Journalism, Media

Chris Hayes’s MSNBC replacements did a token mea culpa for themselves and their brethren across the malfunctioning media, for dismissing the political staying power of Donald Trump.

Whether they’re missing the Trump phenomenon or the bogus casus belli for war in Iraq (see “Iraq Liars & Deniers: We Knew Then What We Know Now”)—these stupid establishment types only recognize truth once THEY arrive at it, sometimes years later.

Just like we identified the wrongness of the Iraq War in 2002 and not in 2012; very many of us marginalized writers of America also recognized right away (6/19/2015) that Trump was “a candidate to ‘kick the crap out of all the politicians’” and that he “could send the system’s sycophants scattering” (8/14/2015)

Alas, truth is arrived at officially in American public life only once the special-needs media get it.