This is the opening of a post that I’m still working on, but hope to complete soon.

I will post a link to it here at The Secular Outpost when it is published (on my blog site).

Trump Is an IDIOT – Part 2: Foreign Policy Stupidity

WARNING: This is a long blog post.

I have put an outline of my key points at the beginning, so that readers can see my main points quickly and then decide if they think it is worthwhile to take the time to read the entire post.

OUTLINE

1. The evidence in Part 1 was sufficient to show that Trump is an IDIOT.

2. Only a handful of examples are needed to show that Trump is an IDIOT when it comes to foreign policy.

3. Trump and Osama bin Laden: A Representative Example of Trump’s IDIOCY.

a. Trump claimed that in his book The America We Deserve, he had predicted that Osama bin Laden was a serious threat to US national security and advocated that the US should try to kill bin Laden.

b. There is no statement in The America We Deserve that indicates that Osama bin Laden was a serious threat to US national security.

c. There is no statement in The America We Deserve that advocates that the US try to kill Osama bin Laden.

4. Donald Trump has expressed some strong criticisms of Clinton’s foreign policy decisions and judgments.

a. Trump made some general criticisms of some major foreign policy decisions and judgments of Clinton and Obama, especially concerning Iraq, Libya, Egypt, and Syria.

b. Trump strongly criticizes Clinton’s support for the attack on Libya and the killing of Gadhafi, and claims that he would have “stayed out of Libya”.

c. But in 2011 Trump strongly advocated that the US attack Libya and kill Gadhafi.

d. Trump strongly criticizes Clinton and Obama about making “such a sudden withdrawl” of US forces from Iraq, thus implying that during the war Trump was opposed to a “sudden withdrawl” of US forces from Iraq.

e. But during the war Trump strongly advocated the immediate withdrawl of US forces from Iraq.

f. Trump strongly criticizes the way that the US withdrew from Iraq because Obama “broadcast to the enemy” his plan that US forces were going “to leave Iraq on a certain date.”

g. But the withdrawl of US forces by the end of 2011 was NOT Obama’s plan. It was the Republican president George W. Bush’s plan, and it was no secret, because the US governent had negotiated an agreement with the new government of Iraq in which the US agreed to withdraw all US forces from Iraq by the last day in 2011, and the Republican president George W Bush signed that agreement. So, the date was a matter of public knowledge (for people who, unlike Trump, are aware of the basic facts about the Iraq war).

h. Trump strongly criticizes the way that the US withdrew from Iraq because Obama completely withdrew US forces by the end of 2011, instead of leaving 10,000 troops in Iraq to help maintain order there.

i. But Trump fails to mention some key facts: (1) leaving 10,000 troops in Iraq beyond 2011 would violate the agreement the US had made with the new government of Iraq, (2) leaving 10,000 troops in Iraq would mean that Obama was breaking his campaign promises to get us out of Iraq, and (3) based on Trump’s own assertion that Iraq would be a mess no matter how long US forces stayed there, the only real alternative to a complete withdrawl of all US forces would be to establish a permanent presence of US forces inside of Iraq, and a complete withdrawl was thus the lesser of two evils.

j. Trump strongly criticizes Clinton’s support for going to war against Iraq, and Trump claims that he strongly opposed and fought against the US going to war against Iraq.

k. But in reality Trump initially supported going to war against Iraq, and Trump did NOT publically oppose the war against Iraq until after the war was in progress.

l. As proof that he strongly opposed and fought against the US going to war against Iraq, Trump points to an interview that took place on Jan. 28, 2003. Trump appeared on Fox Business’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” on the same night as President Bush’s State of the Union address.

m. In the Jan. 28, 2003 interview by Neil Cavuto, Trump urged Bush to quickly decide what to do about Iraq. “Either you attack or you don’t attack,” he said. But Trump did NOT express opposition to going to war against Iraq in that interview.

n. As proof that he opposed the US attack on Iraq, Trump points to an interview he did which was published in Esquire magazine.

o. The interview of Trump in Esquire magazine was published in August of 2004, long after the Iraq War started.

p.  Trump claims that he opposed the US going to war in Iraq  and that “from the beginning” he had warned that this would “destabilize the Middle East.”

q.  But Trump did NOT publically oppose the US going to war in Iraq until AFTER the war was in progress (see point ‘k’ above), and when he finally did start raising objections to the war his concern was primarily about the costs of the war NOT that the war would destabilize the Middle East.

5. There are Many Other Examples of Trump Foreign Policy Falsehoods.

a. Factcheck.org named Trump “King of Whoppers” at the end of 2015, because so much of what Trump asserts is false or misleading, including many of Trump’s foreign policy claims.  

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