Donald Trump Will End Terrorism By Building A Wall around Teleprompters

Donald Trump gave his big speech on how he'd end terrorism Monday, and it was a huge success, if by success you mean he read from the teleprompter, didn't get into any fights with parents of an American soldier, and didn't issue any ambiguous calls for someone to maybe shoot Hillary Clinton.

Rudy Giuliani started things off by proudly pointing out HE'S NOT AFRAID to say the magic words "Radical Islamic Terrorism," which actually kills a terrorist every time they are spoken by a Republican on teevee. He accused the Obama administration of practicing a policy which consisted of simply waiting for the next terrorist attack, which ought to be a surprise to all the pilots who've been bombing ISIS for two years, not to mention the special forces who have been assisting Kurdish troops in driving ISIS out of Iraqi cities. Giuliani went on to explain that OBVIOUSLY Hillary Clinton is guilty of violating RICO laws through the Clinton Foundation, because why else would she have deleted those emails the FBI didn't find anything criminal in? So probably we need to prosecute the FBI, too. Finally, he explained that there had never been a jihadi attack in America until Bill Clinton was president, with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which may be true, depending on whether you count the 1985 killing of Doc Brown by Libyan terrorists, which was later erased when Marty McFly fixed history.

Speaking of fixing history, here is video of Mr. Giuliani explaining that after 9/11, "Under those 8 yrs before Obama came along we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the US." Yes, and other than THAT, Mr. Bush, did you enjoy your national security briefing?

Video of Rudy saying we didn't "have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the U.S." before Obama:  pic.twitter.com/3tC1InfZj0 

— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 15, 2016 

To be clear, Giuliani did talk about being at Ground Zero and all that, but somehow, the period between 9/11/01 and Obama's inauguration grew to a full eight years.

Eventually Trump took the podium and listed all of the terrorism that's happened in the USA since Obama took office, and when he got to Orlando, he once again stumbled over the letters "LGBTQ" as if reading an item from a foreign menu. He also listed attacks in Europe. Somehow, when he finally mentioned the actual Middle East, Trump focused only on the oppression of Christians and other minorities, without a single mention of all the Muslims murdered by ISIS, because really who cares about them? Trump suggested that Barack Obama had somehow never even condemned the terror, either, since of course while Obama has condemned terrorist attacks, he never used the Magic Words.

Trump then took us back to the good old days of 2008, when the Middle East was calm, Hosni Mubarak, Muamar Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad were all happy dictators, and Iraq was in terrific shape, even if that wasn't really the case, but has has become a Republican article of faith as surely as the fact that global warming isn't real.

Trump gave a very selective history of the Middle East since Barack Obama became president, beginning with the "Pants On Fire" claim that the president went on a worldwide "apology tour" and detouring into claiming that Hillary Clinton got rich off being Secretary of State. He repeated his bullshit claim that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, offering an interview from August 2004 as proof that he'd spoken out against it right after the invasion. Which took place in March 2003, more than a year before. He repeated his weird insistence that the U.S. should have "kept the oil" when we left Iraq, as if we could have simply packed it up and taken it with us. In this telling, we'd have stayed there forever and seized all the oilfields to keep, since in the good old days, when you won a war, "to the victor belong the spoils" -- remember when we took everything in Europe and Japan and kept it after WW II? He misquoted Barack Obama on the Libyan intervention (which Trump also supported ), claiming Obama had called attacking Libya a mistake -- in mere reality, Obama said it had been a mistake to not follow up more effectively in building a stable government.

After claiming Hillary Clinton "lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS" -- hi, stupidest conspiracy theory of the month! -- Trump got to the "plan" part of his plan, which is that all foreign policy must be arranged around the goal of destroying radical Islamic terrorism. He'll host an international conference on fighting terrorism -- just like Barack Obama already has done. He'll also partner with Russia to fight ISIS, because wouldn't it be great if we cooperated on something for a change? Like bombing children's hospitals and anti-Assad rebels instead of ISIS?

As for his actual plan to fight ISIS? Trump called for exactly what Barack Obama is doing right now: an international coalition to fight ISIS and cut off their funding. You know, one thing that might help with the latter would be if the goddamned U.S. Senate would do its goddamned job and confirm Barack Obama's nominee for the job of fighting terrorist funding.

Trump would also fight the ideology of radical Islam, although the details on that were a bit unclear. We'll be a friend to moderate Islamic states, if any actually remain on speaking terms with us. He would fight the "terrible, terrible breeding ground" of Islamic terrorism by reforming immigration laws, apparently through screening out all immigrants whose children or grandchildren might become radicalized. Needless to say, he invoked the danger of immigrants all being rapists.

Promising "We will be tough, we will even be extreme," Trump called for a new ideological screening test, "Extreme vetting," to ensure that only people who love America come here, including those who believe Sharia Law should supplant US law. It might also require chugging Mountain Dew and doing extreme (but not "radical") skateboard tricks.Update: So when you really should have napped instead of goofing around in Photoshop, this happens:

Trump will establish a commission on radical Islam, which will hopefully include moderate Muslims, of whom there are none according to Trump's most vociferous supporters. Its goal will be to identify everything that causes radicalization, and teach everyone to be on the lookout for it. He'll keep Gitmo open, try terrorism suspects before military commissions, and aggressively pursue prosecution of anyone supporting terror, "viciously if necessary," which probably got a lot of dicks hard in the room. Strangely, he didn't mention his favorite anti-terror tool, torture, torture, torture. 

And of course, we have to teach all immigrants to love America or else. We'll encourage -- viciously if necessary -- assimilation. Somewhere, Ann Coulter cried a single tear.

As far as we could tell, we'll mostly defeat Radical Islamic Terrorism by pursuing Barack Obama's "failed" policies with a new name, and saying the magic words "Radical Islamic Terrorism" and "American exceptionalism" a whole lot.