Former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash took aim at Donald Trump Jr. on Friday evening for touting his father’s foreign policy accomplishments.
“Donald Trump is the first president in modern history did not start a new war,” Trump Jr. tweeted .
In response, Amash underlined the less impressive aspects of the former president’s career.
“He just massively escalated existing ones, while working to conceal troop numbers, drone strikes, and civilian casualties from the public. What a guy!”
Amash continued to highlight various reports on the former commander in chief’s foreign policy record. Notably, Forbes pointed to U.S. Air Forces Central Command data that found that 2019 was a record year for the number of bombs the United States dropped on Afghanistan. Notably, both manned and unmanned coalition aircraft munitions and sorties that were flown by strike aircraft increased from 2018 to 2019.
“Towards the end of Obama’s presidency, the number of bombs dropped continued to fall, reaching 947 by 2015. After Trump assumed office, he announced the deployment of more troops to Afghanistan, along with a new strategy,” the report read.
Elsewhere, the former congressman linked to a TIME article that cited U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its finding that Trump’s administration hit Somalia with more airstrikes in the first seven months of 2020 than were conducted by Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s administrations combined.
Amash also pointed to reporting that suggested the former head of state might have also dropped more bombs on Yemen than his predecessors’ combined numbers.
Still, like Trump Jr., others have highlighted the former U.S. leader’s achievement of not starting any new wars. In a piece for The Nation , history professor Samuel Moyn explored the focus on Trump’s purported fascist tendencies. Although Moyn called the former head of state’s national security record “mixed,” he noted the lack of new foreign invasions under his watch.
“Under Trump, America killed fewer foreigners overall than it did when his two predecessors were in office,” he wrote.
While Moyn contended that Trump “extended” some of his predecessors’ “worst choices,” he argued that the real estate mogul’s presidency bore “no resemblance to the hyperimperialism of historical fascism” and suggested that the American system prevented the former head of state from realizing his worst instincts.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald previously argued that the moral evils of Bush and Obama’s administrations were far greater than Trump’s and pointed in particular to the new wars they started and torture programs implemented under the Bush government.
As The Inquisitr reported, the former president might have been convinced to halt plans to attack Iran after being persuaded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
