George W. Bush: “I truly am not that concerned about him.”
… we are finally leaving after 20 years
All of the naysayers who are condemning President Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan must have short memories.
Many of those Republicans forget that George W. Bush, who got us into the longest war in American history, failed to catch bin Laden, and that only a Democratic president finally captured and killed the al Queda terorrist who orchestrated 9/11.
In fact, nary one Republican condemned Donald Trump when the 45th president last year negotiated with the Taliban instead of the Afghan government. That set the stage for the takeover that is transpiring right now.
However, remember what George W. Bush said after he failed to capture bin Laden. He was not concerned about capturing him.
Bush lost the Afghan war in 2007 according to former New Yorker writer George Packer who wrote about it after the death of former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
In fact, the U.S. lost the war when Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and the Neo-conservatives turned their attention to Saddam Hussein and forgot about Iraq.
Now, those history revisionists are wringing their hands over the situation as the Taliban take over the country.
Hagel: Trump set this up
On Sunday, former Republican senator and defense secretary Chuck Hagel blamed Trump for the situation that exists today as did Rep. Liz Cheney, also a Republican,
Barack Obama's former defense secretary revealed the "huge mistake" Donald Trump made to ensure Afghanistan's swift collapse.
Chuck Hagel, who led the Department of Defense from 2013 to 2015, said the collapse was set in motion early last year by former president Trump, and he said that mistake was entirely avoidable.
"That process started early last year when President Trump decided that we were coming out, and he said to the nation, we're going to be out by May of this year, and he started the peace process without including the Afghan government," Hagel said.
"That was a huge mistake, in my opinion -- same thing we did in Vietnam. Well, once we did that, that sent a very, very clear signal not only to the Taliban but also to the Afghan forces and the Afghan government that we were leaving them behind. We were coming out no matter what, and the Taliban understood that."
"In fact, I mentioned in the last two years they've gained ground," he added. "Any measurement of where the Taliban has been and was going over the last two years was that they were controlling more than half, maybe 60 percent of Afghanistan, so if anybody was just paying attention to this a little bit, you'd understand where this was going. But when President Trump said, we're coming out, we did the Doha peace agreement with the Taliban, and then we went back to the Afghan government and said, now, you'll live with this. You're going to release 5,000 prisoners and one, two, three, four, five -- well, it was pretty clear."
Raw Story, “ ‘Huge mistake’: Obama’s defense secretary reveals Trump’s
tragic blunder in Afghanistan,” Raw Story, August 15, 2021
Biden had the intestinal fortitude to get out of there after 20 years, and if the Taliban take over the country, who really cares. We spent trillions of dollars for nothing because we went after the wrong guy — the one in Iraq — back in 2003.
Comments