The headline would be more accurate if it read: “Ousting Saddam Hussein and Ghaddafi Made the World Less Safe.” This may seem pedantic, and it is, but it’s a more arguable point if the world was safer before those two dictators came to power. From Jake Anderson at Antimedia via theburningplatform.com:
In perhaps an accidental moment of lucid foreign policy insight over the weekend, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump stated the Middle East would be better off today if Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. The statement came during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press and was reiterated during a rally in Franklin, Tennessee, where 1,500 people listened to Trump sound off on the United States’ strategy of arming rebels in Libya prior to the overthrow of its dictator in 2011.
Trump likened the scenario to what is currently happening in Syria, where he says the terror group ISIS emerged from a power vacuum left after Saddam Hussein was deposed in Iraq. This is a refrain from his statements during the second GOP debate, during which he said the world would be safer if the long-time dictator had remained in power.
Trump thinks the same of President Bashar Assad of Syria. Though he is “probably a bad guy,” the Middle East is safer with him, Trump apparently believes.
“You can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there — it’s a mess — if you look at Saddam Hussein with Iraq, look what we did there — it’s a mess — it’s [Syria] going to be same thing,” he said.
During the Franklin rally, Trump pointed out the relative lack of terrorist activity in Iraq during Hussein’s reign.
“You know what he used to do to terrorists?” Trump asked the crowd. “A one day trial and shoot him…and the one day trial usually lasted five minutes, right? There was no terrorism then.”
While there is no disputing the terrible and widespread violence these dictators perpetrated on their own people, are Trump’s statements accurate?
To continue reading: Trump: Hussein and Gaddafi Made the World Safery
