Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) had a few words to offer after Jeb Bush and Donald Trump bickered back and forth about who was responsible for 9/11 at the Republican presidential debate on Saturday.
“I gotta tell you. This is just crazy, huh? This is just nuts,” Kasich said. “Okay. Geez, oh, man. I’m sorry, John.”
CBS moderator John Dickerson asked him to expand on that, saying “Why is it nuts?”
Kasich then got his verbal bearings and said the U.S. intervention in the Middle East was justified after 9/11.
“Oh, listen, I think being in Iraq, look, we thought there were weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell, who is one of the most distinguished generals in modern times, said there were weapons there,” Kasich said. “But, but, the fact is we got ourselves in the middle of a civil war. The Sunni, the Shi’a and the Kurds never gotten along.”
Kasich added that Middle Eastern borders were drawn by “westerners who didn’t understand” those feuding groups.
“The tragedy of that is that we’re still embroiled. And, frankly, if there weren’t weapons of mass destruction we should never have gone,” Kasich added. “I don’t believe the U.S. should involve itself in civil wars. Civil wars are not in our direct are interest.”
In 2003 he’d have been called a traitor, or maybe even a god damned liberal.
Wow. That’s actually a more-or-less sane answer. Kasich does realize that he is running for the Republican nomination, and that he is in South Carolina, a state which makes Texas seem like a bastion of sanity, right?
Way to throw Powel under the bus.