Donald Trump is in the verbal hit list of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's campaign team after he raised some praise for Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, who had been caught by the U.S. forces in 2003 and executed by the Iraqis in 2006. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, at a Tuesday rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, said that Hussein's anti-terror acts were praiseworthy.
Strangely, he had supported the Iraq War in the beginning but later said that the U.S. "shouldn't have destabilized" Iraq. And now, he is showering praises on Hussein.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights, they didn't talk. They were a terrorist - it was over," Trump said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared taken aback by Trump's words. "He was one of the 20th century's most evil people," Ryan said of the former Iraqi strongman.
Still, Hussein seems to be Trump's hero. The Republican candidate was scornful of Obama's "weakness" in fighting "Islamic terrorism." He made a telling quote: "Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism. You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq. It's like Harvard."
Trump appears to idolise Saddam, who committed excesses against his people during his 24 years as dictator.
Last October, Trump was asked if the world would be better if Hussein and the earlier Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had been ruling. He answered, "100 percent."
"I mean, look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists," he said to CNN. "If you look at Iraq from years ago, I'm not saying he [Hussein] was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy, but it was a lot better than it is right now. Right now, Iraq is a training ground for terrorists. Right now Libya, nobody even knows Libya, frankly, there is no Iraq and there is no Libya. It's all broken up. They have no control. Nobody knows what's going on."
His statement was slammed by everyone. Clinton's senior campaign adviser Jake Sullivan exclaimed that "Trump's praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds."
"In reality, Hussein's regime was a sponsor of terrorism - one that paid families of suicide bombers who attacked Israelis, among other crimes," Sullivan said. "Trump's cavalier compliments for brutal dictators, and the twisted lessons he seems to have learned from their history, again demonstrate how dangerous he would be as commander-in-chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks."
He also noted that Trump has praised North Korea's Kim Jong Un and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
