If you had it to do over again...

The question posed by Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in her interview with Jeb Bush resulted in a flurry of discussion and criticism by the mainstream media. She asked if he would have authorized the invasion of Iraq in 2003 “knowing what we know now.”

He said that he would have and quickly added, “So would’ve Hillary Clinton.” It was obvious that Bush misinterpreted the question and was referring to what we knew then instead of what we know now. This is obvious because he further elaborated, “In retrospect the intelligence that everybody saw, that the world saw, not just the United States, was faulty.”

Nevertheless, I thought it was an excellent question and it would be worth asking other similar questions of both Secretary Clinton and President Obama. For example, would Hillary and Obama, knowing what they know now, have advocated the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime in Libya?

According to a recent Washington Times article, the facts that had been gathered by career intelligence staff did not support Clinton’s warnings that Gadhafi was planning a Rwanda-like slaughter of civilians.  

At the time, the Arab Spring was spilling over into Libya and Gadhafi was battling Islamic backed rebels who wanted to overthrow the dictator. However, the Times reported that defense officials recently revealed that Secretary Clinton’s strong advocacy for intervention in Libya was based more on speculation rather than the facts “reported from the ground.” What we have witnessed is that Clinton and Obama’s intervention in Libya has left this country in chaos so much so that now ISIS has recently established a foothold there.

Before we leave Libya, I would be remiss in not asking Secretary Clinton if she knew what she knows now would she have left Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi without adequate security? This is especially important because she should have known of the danger when the International Red Cross withdrew from the city. As the BBC reported, “Red Cross pulls out of Benghazi fearing attack.” In addition, Britain made the decision to pull all staff from Benghazi two months before the attack on our mission.

If the British intelligence (MI-6) was fully aware of the dangers present in the country, and pulled their personnel out, why were our people left there to perish? It’s even more troublesome when we know that MI-6 and the CIA work closely together, and the CIA should have known what the situation was like there on the ground, too.

It is now clear that Secretary Clinton did know within days that the Benghazi attack was a coordinated attack planned and executed by Ansar al-Shariah, an al-Qaida-backed terror group. This is substantiated by a recently discovered email from a longtime confidant of the Clintons, Sidney Blumenthal, who was in Libya on business at the time.

Yet Secretary Clinton asks, “What difference does it make?” It does make a difference, especially if you haven’t told the truth.

Even though President Obama’s staff would not approve Hillary including Blumenthal on her staff, we now know that Blumenthal was paid $10,000 a month by the Clinton Foundation and, at the same time, was providing intelligence on Libya.

There are a number of “if you knew then what you know now” questions that could be directed at both Secretary Clinton and President Obama.

For example, if they knew then what they know now, would they have:

1) Advocated the overthrow of Egyptian President Mubarak in favor of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

2) Pulled out of Iraq, against the advice of military advisors, and allowed al-Qaida, which had been defeated, to morph into ISIS.  

3) Not fought so hard against placing Boko Haram on the official foreign terrorist organizations list before they kidnapped an undetermined number of Nigerian schoolgirls.

4) Should Obama, knowing what he knows now, still insist that Yemen is a successful model for his counterterrorism strategy even if President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has been forced into hiding by thought-to-be Iran backed rebels. Really, is this the model now to be employed in Syria, Iraq and Iran?

5) Would President Obama have drawn the line in the sand with Syria knowing what he knows now?

And 6), would President Obama, knowing what he knows now, still have proclaimed: “We will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor — period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan — period. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

President Obama’s promise that you would be able to keep your health-care plan earned him liar of the year by PolitiFacts and four pinocchios by the Washington Post.

Still is a resident of Kalispell.