Tyler Durden
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Via Zerohedge…
In a wide ranging interview with The Hill on Tuesday conducted in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked to give his take on the biggest mistake in American history.
Considering just how open-ended a question that is, it’s perhaps surprising that he merely went back less than a couple decades into the Bush presidency, though Trump’s base will certainly welcome it as it hearkens back to his “America First” foreign policy vision of the campaign trail.
“The worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country: going into the Middle East, by President Bush,” the president during his interview with Hill.TV.
“Obama may have gotten them (U.S. soldiers) out wrong, but going in is to me the biggest single mistake made in the history of our country,” he said.
Trump explained the reasoning behind this choice, and why it wasn’t something like the civil war or another defining and devastating event reaching far into American History.
“Because we spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. Now if you wanna fix a window some place they say, ‘oh gee, let’s not do it. Seven trillion, and millions of lives — you know, ‘cause I like to count both sides. Millions of lives,” the president explained.
Some scholars and humanitarian groups estimate that over one million Iraqis were killed in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq starting in 2003. A 2008 Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll, for example, found that approximately 1.03 million people had died as a result of the war.
“To me it’s the worst single mistake made in the history of our country. Civil war you can understand. Civil war, civil war. That’s different. For us to have gone into the Middle East, and that was just, that was a bad day for this country, I will tell you.”
Various estimates on the Iraq war’s cost have put the total taxpayer bill as low as near $2 trillion, but none dispute that it is in the multiple trillions, and estimates will vary widely depending on if veteran care is factored into it.
The comments echo things Trump said on the campaign trail in 2016. For example during one of his first major foreign policy speeches then candidate Trump said, “I will never send our finest into battle unless necessary, and I mean absolutely necessary, and will only do so if we have a plan for victory with a capital V.” And referencing the famous quote of John Quincy Adams, he said during the same speech, “The world must know that we do not go abroad in search of enemies.”
He had previously shocked pundits for being the first Republican nominee for president to trash George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq, and has more recently likened it to “throwing a big fat brick into a hornet’s nest”.
All of this is a hopeful sign considering the extremely heightened and dangerous tensions over Syria this week, and given Trump seems to have vacillated between “bringing the troops home” and getting more involved. On Monday Trump hinted that a decision on the U.S. role in Syria is coming soon.
Commenting on the over 2,000 troops now in Syria ostensibly as part of the “anti-ISIL” coalition campaign, Trump indicated this mission could end soon: “We’re very close to being finished with that job,” he said. He followed with: “And then we’re going to make a determination as to what we’re going to do.”
We consider it a hopeful and a good sign that Trump is possibly revisiting his “America First” foreign policy pledges by identifying the Iraq War as the worst mistake in US history.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
And yet he continues the policy of meddling in Syria.
Yes in the ME for now, but also remember Afghanistan + various Countries on the African Continent + elsewhere in the World.
L’Arte della Guerra – La nuova cortina di ferro (IT/PT/FR/SP/DE/RU)
You try turning on a dime sometime, Ian.
He must have been threatened by the Deep State boys. He said he wanted to get out and then wham a “chemical weapons” attack happened that they immediately blamed on Assad without letting the inspectors look at the evidence…just like Bush.
“President Trump was asked to give his take on the biggest mistake in American history”.
That would be the American Revolution, which created the world’s biggest bully, thief and committer of serial genocide.
As opposed to England?
It was Great Britain actually and we still maintain a commonwealth of over 50 nations, will the US ?.
PS The Commonwealth comprises 53 countries, across all continents. The members have a combined population of 2.3 billion people, almost a third of the world population, of which 1.26 billion live in India and 94% live in Asia and Africa combined.
Kinda makes my point. I wouldn’t say Ireland, Scotland and Wales had a say on the Americas and the wanten explotation of it. In truth Irish, Scotts and Welsh were treated with as much contempt as the Africans and Indians by the English, to the point of enforced servitude (Africans being treated with the greatest contempt).
As for the US they are de facto rulers of the western world, if not in sovereignty, but in complicity and weak will and hubris of the old countries.
You guys get real…the world keeps evolving and the villains with it…and if you are a bible thumper it started way back with Cain and Abel. Same old, same old, power and control….or one of the other sides…Giglamesh??? the beserkers..etc., etc.,
The Pilgrim Society.
Some of the 9/11 planners; Issa Harel Head of Shein Beit Israhell; Why would this Jewish man be telling an american pro Zionist Michael Evans in 1979. ” USA will experience an attack on their tallest building in NY and, it will be done by the Arabs””That was 1979; When did it happen> 2001; Other planners might have included Ohed Olmert/ Shimon Peres/ Shaul Mofaz/Phillip Morris Klutznick Polish born mover and shaker who predicted in 1992 that, ” USA will have it’s first Black President soon”
This is the most important of all 9/11 documentaries. It names every Mossad member who was involved with planning and executing 9/11, along with SA and Cheney. This planning began with the Godfather of Mossad, Menachem Begin during Reagan’s regime. These are the names to remember along with this video documentary. Bookmark it:
That’s a very good video and i’d like to have the books. I think it goes back to when Bill was set up for the honey trap by Patraeus and Hillary, with the Jewess Monica. They knew exactly what the horndog would do when locked in the oval office together for extended periods time and time again. You think that was by chance? First they got Bill to bomb and under cover of the impeachment from outing him, made a coup and put “a plan to attack 7 countries in 5 years” into the top of the Pentagone. Remember the… Read more »
Oden Yinon plan (google it)….creating chaos in ME (on US dime and blood) to grow Israel population (mostly settlements).
Talk is cheap, mister president – so walk the walk or STFU already!
You ‘walk the walk,’ Lena….from behind your keyboard.
Hypocrite! You’re using the keyboard too mudderfrucker lol! But I expect a hypocrite to defend another hypocrite!
Such is typical of ‘chump trump.’ From Day 1, of his presidency, he has babbled rhetoric, and taken completely opposite courses of action. This issue typifies another lame attempt, at appeasing the ‘trumpeteers,’ who maintain: ‘Well, Trump would have; wanted to; but he couldn’t–not his fault.’ That’s a complete farce. As U.S. president his constitutional ‘check’ has been available to him on numerous issues and problems; he hasn’t invoked it; and has stood back and let the legislative branch of government, or other domestic interest groups, have their way regarding ultimate domestic and foreign policy making.
Trump is right !!. But it is the neocon cabal that calls all the shots regarding American Foreign and military policies. So don’t blame Bush. He did what he was told to do.
Watch his face when told the 9.11 attacks were started. He knew and he let them do it. Watch his face in the videos….a man contemplating his legacy.
POTUS Trump should read the Oded Yinon plan for growing Israel. He seems to have a blind spot understanding that HE is a goy. He better wise up…they did 9.11 so don’t give a dam about you Trump. Our two bestest friends in the whole world, Israel Zionists and Saudi royals. Saudi’s put in Sharia law in their enemy country and Israel welcomes Jewish (only) refugees….a win-win for them (7 countries in 5 years) with the debt on the US citizen and with US blood. How about our good friends Israel and Saudi pay the US the $7 trillion (and… Read more »
He already knows all this. Do you think he’s been dealing with )ews for the majority of his life and doesn’t know how they operate and their game plan? Do you think a plan that was implemented several hundred years ago can be undone in 18 months? The Council on Foreign Relations gives the “Deep State” (the unelected bureaucracies) their marching orders. The CFR and the Trilateral Commission (along with their sister organizations in the U.K., the Royal Institute for International Affairs and Rhodes Foundation) run the show.
Getting them out is easier said than done. The CIA is calling the shots here…have been from the “get go”…He can say…but obviously he no can do….and the longer they can keep him vacillating the more difficult it becomes to “disengage”…
The Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission
It wasn’t Bush but the gang of Ziocons in the White House, the likes of Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Harry Rhodes.
Swamp-Chump tried to carry on with Bush’s and Obama’s depraved anti-democratic dirty-work and has willingly done so with disgustingly traitorous false-flags, Zio-media lies, cowardly attacks on anti-terrorist Syrian and Iranian forces, sneakily abetting more sicko terrorists etc etc etc > but has failed > hence this last-ditch loser spiel now.