Showing he’s as clueless no as he was then when the U.S. was attacked Sept. 11, 2011 by Osama bin Laden, toppling the World Trade Center and damaging the Pentagon, 75-year-old former President George W. Bush opined about 78-year-old President Joe Biden withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Bush once said the purpose of the U.S. military was to “fight and win wars, not nation-building,” but Bush said today it’s a grave mistake for Biden to withdraw U.S. troops from their 20-year deployment in Afghanistan. “I’m afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm,” Bush told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle from his home in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush doesn’t recall that Oct. 7, 2001 Operation Enduring Freedom was not about reversing the Taliban’s Sharia law but about capturing and neurtalizing the world’s most dangerous terrorist, Osama bin Laden.
When Bin Laden’s programmed assassins flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11, 2001, Bush and U.S. intel agencies were blindsided, thrown for a loop. It took the Bush White House weeks to identify Bin Laden, when it was obvious to just about everyone paying attention to Islamic terrorism. Bush forgets that his White House tried to convince the late Taliban leader in Kabul Mullah Mohammed Omar to turn over Bin Laden or, at the very least, give the Pentagon his whereabouts. When Omar stalled, that’s when Bush ordered Operation Enduring Freedom. It took only five weeks to topple the Taliban, sending the Islamic religious fanatics into exile to fight a 20-year guerrilla war to return to Kabul. Bush fears that withdrawing U.S. troops in Afghanistan opens the door to the Taliba once again taking back Kabul. Bush said it was a “mistake” to pull U.S. troops out.
Bush accomplished toppling the Taliban in record time, only five weeks, showing the Taliban had little in the way of a real military. “I think it is [a mistake], yeah, because I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad, and I’m sad,” Bush told Deutsche Welle. Bush knows that the U.S. has spent trillions of dollars rearming the U.S.-friendly government of 72-year-old Ashraf Ghani and others that preceded him. Former President Donald Trump, 75, negotiated a time line for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with his 70-year-old emissary Zalmay Khalilizad, tentatively set for May 31. Biden pushed back the final withdrawal by only three months, actually completing the withdrawal in record time. Bush thinks it’s a mistake because he forgets why he went to Afghanistan in the first place. Telling Deutsche Welle he’s concerned about “women and girls” shows he has a short memory.
Biden agreed with Trump’s assessment that the time was long overdue for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan after 20-years. If there’s a threat of international terrorism brewing in Afghanistan it’s not with what’s left of Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror group or with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], also decimated by the Kurds and U.S. military. But Bush said he’s “sad,” because “women and girls” will have their rights compromised if the Taliban returns to power. Bush’s Operation Enduring Freedom was not a bout protecting human rights in Afghanistan, it was about tracking down Biden Laden and preventing another 9/11-like attack on U.S. soil. Bush left office before his 59-year-old successor former President Barack Obama was able to kill Bid Laden May 2, 2011, eluding Bush’s CIA and Pentagon. Biden has no misgivings about leaving Afghanistan for various reasons.
Like Trump, Biden thinks the U.S. has spent too much blood-and-treasure in Afghanistan and a withdrawal is long overdue. “It’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country,” Biden said, agreeing with Trump that enough-is-enough. Biden’s point about the U.S. training and supplying the Afghan armed services, including the army and air force with all the equipment needed to beat back a Taliban insurgency. If the Afghan government can’t defend its interests with all the U.S. has done to prepare its military for the Taliban, then there’s little else the U.S. can do. “I think about all the interpreters and people that helped not only U.S. troops, but NATO troops and they’re just, it seems like they’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people, and it breaks my hear,” said Bush.
Bush’s heart should be broken for the 2,420 U.S. soldiers killed and 9,950 wounded, both physically and mentally in Afghanistan. Reserving his sadness for “interpreters” or Afghan “women and girls,” shows no sensitivity to the loses and suffering of U.S. families is outrageous. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney once said that if U.S. soldiers didn’t want to go into combat, they shouldn’t have signed up in the voluntary military. Bush and Cheney, especially for the Iraq War, where 4,825 U.S. soldiers killed, 32,292 wounded, have little compassion about the trillions of dollars wasted and carnage to the U.S. military. No, Bush reserves his sympathy to “interpreters” or Afghan “women and girls.” Bush should be ashamed of himself speaking at his advanced age to any news organization before his statements are carefully vetted. Whatever happens in Afghanistan, is not the U.S. problem.
