Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:07 pm
Donald Trump’s “solution” to ISIL sounds a lot like the Bush Cheney solution, but on steroids. His idea is to bomb “the hell” out of the oil fields in Iraq. “If I win, I would attack those oil sites that are controlled and owned — they are controlled by ISIS,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t send many troops because you won’t need ’em by the time I’m done.”
Trump Idea #1: Just bomb them all!!!! Sure ISIL doesn’t run most of them but whatev, just BOMB IT ALL.
Trump Idea #2: It won’t take a lot of troops to BOMB IT ALL, so it’s a real win in Trump’s book.
Then, Trump Idea #3: Trump will give contracts to Big Oil to clean up our mess after BOMBING THEM ALL. You know how good the oil companies are about cleaning up our messes.
Only retired Lt. Col. Rick Francona and Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, both CNN military analysts, were not very impressed.
You see, we have spent the last seven plus years training Iraqis to secure their country, shaping their security forces. They didn’t want us there in more than an advise and assist capacity. We agreed to that in a Status of Forces Agreement at the end of George W. Bush’s term in 2008.
Part of the reason ISIL got a foothold was due to the power vacuums we created after we invaded Iraq. These things seem hard for Republicans to grasp as they beat the drums of war incessantly, perhaps because they can’t fit on a bumper sticker and are not as easy as BOMB THEM ALL! To be fair, most of the war hawks have a lot more going on behind their beliefs than just BOMB THEM ALL. But in the end, it does come down to this belief in might making right.
Even though we can already see, and history should have taught us, that this is not true.
Trump’s self-identified solution to the complex problems of our time was called “troubling” by Hertling. You see, Iraqis believe they have a country so no, we can’t just drop some BOMBS and clean it up later.
Hertling told CNN that he has “remained apolitical throughout his military career but said Trump’s comments are “just troubling… You have to understand the issues a little bit better than just bombing things. This is very complex and there are hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who believe they do have a country.”
The two analysts were also not impressed with Trump’s idea to destroy infrastructure and then just send in an oil company to fix it all. “We’ve made some huge mistakes in terms of just bombing things we think can just bring a nation to its knees,” Hertling told CNN. “It’s not the people you’re going against and yet those are the ones you’re going against the most when you’re talking about indiscriminate carpet-bombing.”
Yes, see, we did that already and it didn’t turn out so well. We killed a lot of innocent people. We are trying to come up with actual solutions to the Bush created mess we made in Iraq, rather than looking to double down on the same mistakes.
CNN concluded:
While the Iraqi government is seriously reliant on the United States and other countries in its fight against ISIS and as it strives to keep its country together, Iraq’s top leaders would do more than just object to U.S. bombing of oil fields in its country — a central part of the country’s economy and infrastructure.
Gee, ya think? If someone came in to the U.S. and started bombing our oil fields and the people and infrastructure around them because the Koch brothers are killing people, which they are, we would be pretty miffed.
This is a good example of what is at the core of the Republican Party’s current foreign policy “platform”. It’s pure, unadulterated ignorance, dressed up with a good heap of hubris. It’s George W Bush on steroids.
If Donald Trump is good for one thing, it’s letting America know exactly how dangerous the modern day GOP really is. If that were his goal, we could tip our “Mission Accomplished” hats to him.
But the man really thinks he belongs in the White House, and not even the GOP can shut him up.
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