Donald Trump praises Saddam Hussein as… a terrorist fighter? Wait, WHAT?

First, here’s the video and transcript of Donald Trump where, while spouting off all the other anti-war movement talking points of 2004-2007, Trump casually praises Saddam Hussein’s acumen as a terrorism-fighter:

CBS News …impeached. You wouldn’t own that anymore? Well, in 2008 you said you thought he should be impeached?

Donald Trump: Well, let me tell you something. The war in Iraq has been a disaster. It started, the chain of events that leads now to the migration, maybe the destruction of Europe – he started the war in Iraq! Am I supposed to be a big fan?

Now, I’m a Republican, I’m a conservative, so many lies are made. But the truth is, we started the war in Iraq. We spent two trillion dollars on that war. We lost thousands of lives. We have wounded warriors who I love all over the place – it shouldn’t have started. We would have been so much better off if Bush and the rest of ’em went to the beach and didn’t do anything. If you had Saddam Hussein – who was a bad guy and all of that, but he made a living off killing terrorists – now, if you want to become a terrorist, you go to Iraq, that’s like the Harvard of terrorism, OK? So… look, it was not a great job.

…There are a lot of lies in that transcript, but let’s just get right to the nasty one, OK? Because we know one thing for certain: Saddam Hussein did not fight terrorists. He enabled them. From ABC News, back in the day:

After 50 minutes of fiery speeches praising Saddam and Arafat and vilifying President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 Palestinians are called to the stage one by one. Each is handed a check — a gift from Saddam Hussein.

Each recipient is the mother, father, wife or other close relative of either a suicide bomber or someone killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers or security guards at settlements in the Gaza Strip or West Bank.

Today’s donation: a total of $285,000 — a princely sum in the economically distressed Gaza Strip.

But the victims were typically Jews, so apparently that doesn’t count. Well. It counts to me. And it counts to you. And it even counted to the international community, if only because they discovered in 2004 that Hussein pulled that money from the oil-for-food program and nobody likes to be the victim of a scam.  But I guess that just means that we’re all losers.  Unlike that Saddam Hussein, who was a bad guy and all that. But he made a living off of killing terrorists!

Moe Lane

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