Attacked for saying President Barack Obama and Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were “founders” of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the media continues its relentless attack on 70-year-old GOP nominee Donald Trump. Despite knowing he meant it figuratively, the media insists Trump makes things up, finding any way to give Hillary the edge. Calling Obama and Hillary founders of ISIS, Trump wanted to highlight the fact that Obama pulled the plug on Iraq prematurely Dec. 15, 2011, giving rise to the ISIS. Trump-bashers, like former Wall Street Journal columnist Max Boot, insists ISIS was created by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004, shortly after the U.S. invasion. While there’s no direct link to al-Zarqawi, killed by a U.S. drone attack June 7, 2006, ISIS was distinctively different than al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda link in Iraq.
Trump’s hyperbole, calling Obama and Hillary founders of ISIS, was meant to underscore the fact that Obama withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq Dec. 15, 2011, the same year as the so-called Arab Spring where revolutionary Arabs groups tossed out Mideast dictators like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Bin Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi, and, most recently,attempting to toss Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Trump’s been crucified in the media for saying Saddam dealt harshly with terrorists before the March 20, 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. No one other than Trump calls the media “dishonest” thinking Trump’s literal when he calls Obama and Hillary the founders of ISIS. He’s simply making the point that ISIS captured 30% of Iraq and Syria on Obama’s watch, letting the dilapidated Iraqi army fall to ISIS.
No one in the media wants to admit that ISIS grew to its current menace because of a lack of U.S. intervention for nearly five years. There’s nothing outrageous or irresponsible about Trump suggesting that Obama and Clinton’s foreign policy invited ISIS to seize some 30% of Iraq and Syria in 2014. When CBC Nightly News anchor and Managing Director Dan Rather was caught broadcasting forgeries of former President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, he was forced to resign because of collusion with the campaign of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004. Today’s media has far eclipsed Rather’s ties to the Kerry campaign, colluding daily with the Hillary campaign. Daily reports condemning Trump stem from practically every news outlet taking news feeds from the Hillary campaign, something so egregious it screams out for a Justice Department investigation.
As Rather found out in 2004, no news organization, upholding the First Amendment, can take orders from any political organization. Today’s anti-Trump media campaign is coordinated to parrot Hillary campaign talking points, sabotaging his campaign. Insisting that Trump said Obama and Hillary founded ISIS is a perfect example of collusion. During the Democratic National Convention, the Hillary campaign made a big deal of Trump’s minimal comment about Democratic operative Khizr Kahan, whose son died in Iraq in 2004. Trump asked why his Khizr’s wife, Ghazala, said nothing. From that, the Hillary campaign managed to condemn Trump for disrespecting as “Gold Star” family. Trump’s Democratic and GOP rivals found another excuse to attack his campaign. Extreme media bias, far worse that Rather in 2004, sabotages Trump’s campaign.
Focused on so-called Trump gaffes, the real issue involves the media colluding with the Hillary campaign, using the campaign’s talking points to condemn Trump in the nightly news. Trump has a legitimate claim with the Federal Communication Commission to investigate widespread corruption inside cable and network news. When you consider the pressing issues in the 2016 campaign, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and the stagnated U.S. economy, the media focuses on Trump’s comments about an Ohio judge of Mexican descent, fearing he won’t get a fair trial in his Trump University case. No, the media wants no part of Hillary’s email scandal, or, more recently, FBI investigations into widespread corruption at the Clinton Foundation, where Hillary and Bill routinely embezzle millions from foreign governments, especially Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Showing a disgraceful media bias, and possible collusion with the Hillary campaign, the media has decided that Trump’s so-called gaffes are more important than egregious corruption by Hillary and Bill Clinton in their 20-year-old Clinton Foundation. Overlooking possible treason by taking cash from foreign governments in exchange for changes to U.S. foreign policy, the press overlooks any venal or criminal act by Hillary to focus on inconsequential statements by Trump. If the media were held to the same standard as Rather, every current news director and anchor in cable, network and print news, with the exception of Fox News, should resign in disgrace. Rather paid a heavy price for colluding with the Kerry campaign. Now it’s time for the current crop of anchors and news directors to pay the same price. No free press can tolerate anything less.
