23:07

At NBC News’ commander-in-chief forum, Trump ordered off his familiar campaign menu of word salads. He lied about opposing the Iraq war, criticized Obama’s 2011 withdrawal and repeated his advocacy of stealing Iraq’s oil – a measure he evidently believes would require a minimal force presence, despite the certainty that the well-armed locals might have a problem with their principal source of wealth being plundered by a foreign power.

Speaking before an audience of veterans, Trump unexpectedly attacked the current generation of generals and flag officers. While previously Trump had said he knew better than the generals about fighting Islamic State, this time he intimated that he’d get “different generals” – a habit more typical of caudillos than American presidents.

He followed up by saying his ultimate plan to defeat Isis would be some parts of his still-unspecified plan, and some parts of his unspecified generals’ unspecified plan. He waved away his lack of specifics for a war in which 5,000 US troops are currently serving as not wishing to “broadcast” his plans to the enemy.

He interrupted a veteran’s question about veterans’ suicide rates after she gave the correct number, 20 per day, so he could give an incorrect one, 22. Trump fumbled through a question about redressing sexual assault against female service members – something he once tweeted was the inevitable result of mixed service, a point he defended on Wednesday – by arguing the military needed to set up internal courts, as if the military does not already have its own well-established justice system.



Trump’s reversion to his typical ignorance and certitude obscured a poor showing from his opponent. Hillary Clinton spent her preceding half-hour grilling defending herself on her lax handling of classified information, a situation that a former Navy lieutenant in the audience correctly observed would spell doom for a low-ranking service member.

She acknowledged her vote for the Iraq war was a “mistake” and gestured in the direction of the same for her advocacy of the 2011 Libya war, but waved it away by pointing out Trump’s support for the same disastrous interventions, a baffling decision for a candidate whose central pitch is that Trump is uniquely unqualified to be president.

To reassure a progressive veteran in the audience Clinton offered that she would treat the use of force as a “last resort”.

“We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again,” Clinton said, as if there were not this minute thousands of them there.