Tag Archives: Gaddafi

Election, Featured, Hot, Politics

Trump on Gaddafi in 2011: U.S. Should ‘Immediately Go into Libya, Knock This Guy Out’

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In 2011, Donald Trump posted a videoblog, seen above, in which he passionately argued in favor of U.S. intervention in Libya, calling for Muammar Gaddafi to be taken out in a series of surgical strikes.

“Gaddafi, in Libya, is killing thousands of people. Nobody knows how bad it is and we’re sitting around. We have soldiers all over the Middle East and we’re not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage. And that’s what it is, it’s a carnage,” said the Republican presidential candidate.

[RELATED: Trump Calls NATO ‘Obsolete’]

“Now we should go in. We should stop this guy which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it and save these lives. This is absolute nuts. We don’t want to get involved and you’re going to end up with something like you’ve never seen before. Now, ultimately the people will appreciate it and they’re going to end up taking over the country eventually. But the people will appreciate it and they should pay us back. But we have to go in to save these lives. These people are being slaughtered like animals,” he added.

Trump concluded, “We should, on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives.”

[RELATED: GOP Establishment Reportedly Considering Contested Convention to Counter Trump Win]

At CNN’s February 25 Republican presidential debate in Houston, rival GOP candidate and U.S. Senator from Texas Ted Cruz accused Trump, who now says that taking out Gaddafi was a mistake, of flip-flopping.

“You know, it’s interesting, Donald just said that he never came out in favor of toppling Gaddafi in Libya. … You can see and hear the exact words from Donald’s mouth. And I assume when he sees that interview, maybe he forgot about it, but I assume Donald will apologize where he sees that he said exactly that,” said Cruz, referencing the above-embedded video, according to Breitbart.

Trump said at that debate in February of this year, “But let me just tell you, Syria, he’s saying that I was in favor of Syria. He said I was in favor of Libya? I never discussed that subject. I was in favor of Libya? We would be so much better off if Gaddafi were in charge right now.”

The fact check site PolitiFact gave Trump’s claim that he had never supported intervention in Libya a “pants on fire” rating.

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Election, Featured, Foreign Policy

Ted Cruz: The Middle East was Safer Before The U.S. Toppled Hussein, Gaddafi

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GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) said on Thursday that he believes the Middle East was safer under the regimes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi than it is now after intervention from the United States.

During an interview with Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Cruz said his foreign policy is “the Reagan approach.” He said he promotes “peace through strength,” and he believes the U.S. “should be defending vital national security interests of this country.”

[pull_quote_center]We’ve seen a consistent mistake in foreign policy, we’ve seen Democrats and a lot of establishment Republicans in Washington get involved in toppling Middle Eastern governments, and it ends up benefiting the bad guys. It ends up handing them over to radical Islamic terrorists.[/pull_quote_center]

[RELATED: Truth in Media: The Origin of ISIS]

Scarborough asked whether Cruz believed the Middle East was safer when Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq and Muammar Gadhafi was in power in Libya, a question Scarborough said he has asked rival Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) along with other Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts.

“Of course it was,” Cruz answered. “That’s not even a close call.”

“Why won’t people say that?” Scarborough replied. “Because I couldn’t even get Rand to say it, but it’s important to admit, is it not, because isn’t this possibly where we’re guided in the future that maybe we don’t topple secular regimes, as offensive as they are.”

[RELATED: Reps Gabbard, Scott Introduce Bill to End U.S. Effort to ‘Overthrow Syrian Government of Assad’]

Cruz noted the cases of Egypt and Libya where the U.S. toppled dictators and as a result, Islamic terrorists were able to gain power, something he said President Obama along with rival candidates such as Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio promoted.

[pull_quote_center]Then you look at Syria. It seems Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and people like Senator Rubio have not learned the lessons of Libya and Egypt, because what are they trying to do – topple Assad. Now Assad is a bad man, he’s a monster, but if they succeed in toppling Assad, ISIS will take over Syria. It will be worse.[/pull_quote_center]

[RELATED: Reality Check: Proof The U.S. Government Wanted ISIS To Emerge In Syria]

“My view, instead of getting in the middle of a civil war in Syria, where we don’t have a dog in the fight, our focus should be on killing ISIS,” Cruz said. “Why? Because ISIS has declared war on America. They’re waging jihad. We shouldn’t keep trying to find these mythical moderate rebels, that we keep being told – like the purple unicorn – they’re going to exist, but they turn out to all be jihadists.”

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