Bless my heart, I watched Saturday night’s Republican Debate. I admit it: My name is Keith and I’m a political junkie.

This one was a bit more interesting than the usual debates where you know who’s going to say what before they even start talking.

The best part, which has been all over the news, was when Jeb and Trump went after one other. It was fun. Too bad they kept it verbal.

A good raslin match would have been perfect. Trump would have lost the ‘raslin’ match, but he whooped Jeb pretty soundly in the verbal battle.

Donald Trump, who I fully support to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016, actually spoke the truth. This is very rare for any Republican in any year, but during a debate it is almost unheard of.

It so rarely happens when a Republican candidate with an audience doesn’t repeat disproven talking points, you’d be hard pressed to find any instances since President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex when he left office on Jan. 17, 1961 (back when the upper tax rate on rich folks was about 91 percent – even higher than Bernie wants it to be).

When a Republican candidate for the presidency speaks the truth, old Honest Abe does joyous cartwheels from beyond the grave. To hear the truth coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth was astounding. I didn’t think such a thing was possible. Wow.

Trump actually remembers and said that 9/11 happened when W was president. To hear Republicans tell it for the last seven years, it was Obama’s fault. Now they blame it all on Bill Clinton.

I’m not suggesting that it was W’s fault, it wasn’t, it just happened under his watch. I blame the intelligence community we have, which has been dysfunctional and inept for decades.

Trump also reminded the American people that W invaded Iraq, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, for bogus, illegitimate reasons.

Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with the 9/11 attack and did not support al Qaeda. He didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. And while he had been a brutal, murderous dictator, he was old, tired, and defeated.

Saddam was a toothless old tiger who was just roaring loudly to keep the young tigers at bay. He had not only been defeated by Bush 41 in Desert Storm for invading Kuwait, he had been totally crushed.

His military was a shadow of its former self. The No Fly Zone, UN inspectors, and economic sanctions started by Bush 41 and maintained by Bill Clinton had ruined his dreams and ambitions for a glorious caliphate.

When the weapons inspectors started getting close to the truth that he had no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam had to kick them out (roaring his defiance) to keep his neighboring countries from discovering he was defenseless.

In his war of aggression against Iran in the 1980s, he had used warplanes, scud missiles, and chemical weapons to murder tens of thousands of innocent Iranians. Needless to say, the Iranians hated Saddam. They wanted him destroyed, but the threat of his mighty military and the ruthless tactics he employed in warfare kept the Iranians from invading.

If the UN inspectors discovered he was virtually powerless and announced it to the world, Saddam knew the Iranians would delay invasion only long enough to fuel their engines of war.

W took Saddam’s actions as arrogance rather than what it actually was, abject fear. W and his boys made up all the reasons we had to invade Iraq. So we went and destabilized the entire Middle East. Trump is right.

 

Keith Hoggard is a Staff Writer with Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be contacted at keith.hoggard@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.