Ben Rhodes: Obama Would Have Been ‘Absolutely Appalled’ by Conditions U.S. Troops Have Faced

RUSH EXCERPT:

RHODES: “Well, I think he and I want to say anybody else who’s been in that office during my lifetime, at least, would have been absolutely appalled. But it also wouldn’t have happened, because this is a symptom of so many things about Trump. The reason that they are there for such a long deployment is because he didn’t know what he was doing when he launched this war. So you had no strategy when you when you set out to do something militarily, you think 2 or 3 steps ahead, particularly when it involves things like force protection and supply chains, and how are the troops going to be positioned? And he just, you know, started this war without much forethought, without much planning, clearly, by the Department of Defense, because it was done on such a whim. And since then, he’s been moving so episodically between winding down the war and escalating the war, that clearly they’ve done no planning. That’s the first thing. And the second thing is they’ve lied to us or not told the truth about the damage done to U.S. facilities in the region. I think one of the reasons they can’t resupply that carrier du port calls is because of the damage done to our naval facilities in the Middle East, and particularly in bahrain, which has come out in some of the reporting to something that people like me have been hearing from people in the region for some time, that they’re not telling us the truth about how much damage has been done. But then the last part, Jen, I just highlight is just the callousness."