Lying About Recent History

by Deacon Blues

In all the flurry of revisionist history from the GOP presidential candidates of late, its actually refreshing to see one of them speak the truth: ISIS is a creation of the Bush/Cheney administration and not Barack Obama’s loadstone.

There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before Bush toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. And without an Al Qaeda in Iraq and a toppled Baath military leadership, there would be no ISIS today. Plain and simple, end of story. Republicans can whine all they want about Obama leaving Iraq prematurely and creating a vacuum that begot ISIS, but such criticisms intentionally ignore the fact that:
1. George W. Bush created and enacted the Iraq exit strategy before Obama took office;
2. Iraq refused a Status of Forces Agreement to protect remaining Americans;
3. Nouri al-Maliki's punitive use of the Iraqi armed forces against Sunni tribes fomented ISIS's rise.

Any GOP candidate who tells you that Obama and Hillary created ISIS is a bald-faced liar. However, Obama and to a lesser extent Hillary ARE responsible for the disasters that happened on their watch.

Which is why it's so enjoyable to watch Rand Paul tell the truth about all of this and then see the flame throwing aftermath. The Defense Industrial Complex DID arm the Iraqi Army as Paul says, the same army that just left behind all its American paid-for weapons so that ISIS can use them against us. This is exactly the reason why Obama to his credit didn't want to arm Syrian opposition groups back in 2011-2012; the problem is that Obama didn't want to do anything in the region, when doing nothing wasn't really an option given what al-Maliki and Assad were doing.

Hillary's defense in all of this is quite simple: yes, mistakes and bad choices were made by people like her who have now learned from them. But do you really want to turn foreign policy back over to people who not only haven't learned from our mistakes, but now want to lie about the past and repeat those mistakes all over again?