“From the beginning of this campaign, you have said you will follow the judgment of military commanders in the Pentagon. So here’s the commander saying we need a lot more troops on the ground. Will you follow that advice and inject Americans again into what is in essence is metastasizing Sunni-Shia civil war?”
To begin with, Hewitt is a bigger liar than Cruz: Gen. Austin said no such thing. Here is what he did say:
"’Clearly there are things that we will want to do to increase the capability a bit, to be able to increase the pace of operations, and that will require some additional capability. We have gone through and done some analysis … to see what types of things we need to provide. And we have made those recommendations.’
“While Austin declined to share the recommendations in the hearing, he said additional US military personnel could help develop better intelligence on the ground, potential provide more advise-and-assist teams and help with some logistics. ‘We could increase some elements of the Special Operations footprint,’ he explained.”
Lying Ted claimed that we’re fighting with one hand tied behind our back, and said we aren’t arming the Kurds (we are). He never challenged Hewitt’s assertion that Gen. Austin is recommending “a lot more” troops on the ground, although he probably knows it’s incorrect. Instead, he reversed his previous reluctance to commit to grounds troops in Syria and went along with Hewitt’s fictional account of what “the generals” supposedly want.
Worst of all was Trump, who fell right into Hewitt’s ambush:
“HEWITT: Mr. Trump, more troops?
“TRUMP: We really have no choice. We have to knock out ISIS. We have to knock the hell out of them. We have to get rid of it. And then come back and rebuild our country, which is falling apart. We have no choice.
“HEWITT: How many…
“TRUMP: I would listen to the generals, but I’m hearing numbers of 20,000 to 30,000. We have to knock them out fast. Look, we’re not allowed to fight. We can’t fight. We’re not knocking out the oil because they don’t want to create environmental pollution up in the air. I mean, these are things that nobody even believes. They think we’re kidding. They didn’t want to knock out the oil because of what it’s going to do to the carbon footprint. We don’t fight like we used to fight. We used to fight to win. Now we fight for no reason whatsoever. We don’t even know what we’re doing.
“So, the answer is we have to knock them out. We have to knock them out fast. And we have to get back home. And we have to rebuild our country which is falling apart.”
Of course Trump has no idea what Gen. Austin actually said at that congressional hearing, and Hewitt knows he doesn’t. And Trump’s answer to the question – really a complete reversal of his previous position that we should let the Russians take care of ISIS – underscores both the weaknesses and the strengths of “isolationism,” American style.
Connect With Us