Iraq veteran shreds draft-dodger Trump’s claims that US soldiers stole war recovery money

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has offended just about every demographic in the United States at one point or another, and on Tuesday evening he managed to say something offensive about a group whose support he's consistently courted: U.S. veterans.

During a rally on Tuesday, Trump talked about the disastrous effort to rebuild Iraq after the American invasion in 2003 and raised some eyebrows when he talked about the role American soldiers played in the debacle.

"Iraq, crooked as hell. How about bringing baskets of money — millions and millions of dollars — and handing it out?" Trump said at an evening rally. "I want to know who were the soldiers that had that job, because I think they’re living very well right now, whoever they may be."

The Trump campaign clarified that he was referred to Iraqi soldiers who stole money, although this claim makes no sense since it was American troops who were charged with dispersing funds to rebuild the country, as a series of tweets posted by Iraq War veteran Corbin Reiff makes clear.

Let's start at the beginning and work our way down:

In Trump's defense, there were some soldiers who were convicted of swiping money intended for Iraqi reconstruction, as this Washington Post report makes clear. All the same, the soldiers who actually skimmed reconstruction resources were a tiny minority of all the American troops who were charged with distributing funds.

Similarly, the number of Muslims who support ISIS is also a tiny minority of the Muslim population as a whole, but this doesn't stop Trump from tarring "the Muslims" as being collectively complicit in all terrorist activities.

It's not hard to see why someone who thinks like this ends up offending a lot of people, is it?