Viewpoint: Biden ends Bush’s failed Afghan war

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Viewpoint: Biden ends Bush’s failed Afghan war
Karen Rubin, Columnist

The end of America’s longest war in Afghanistan coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the heinous Sep. 11, 2001 terror attack that triggered it should have brought dancing in the streets. Instead, it brought new condemnation – as if there was a hunger for more dead Americans, who could then be used to demean and attack and ultimately remove this president, the first with the courage to end the war.

For what purpose? Because blood lust for revenge has never been extinguished and never will be.

On this, the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, it is time for some truth telling.

Here’s the nexus between our war in Afghanistan and the most tragic debacle in Iraq and the biggest bungle in American history, Sept. 11, 2001.

The attacks marked the biggest failure of any administration, but the Bush administration saw a way to deflect attention by turning 9/11 into this noble, clarion call to patriots to unleash a War on Terror to fight Islamic terrorists and take revenge.

Instead of anyone questioning why intelligence warning about the Sept. 11 terror attack that arrived Sept. 10 (on top of other warnings, including foiling a similar attack against the G-7) was not read until after Sept. 12 (gay translators had been fired), or how four commercial airplanes could be hijacked and flown around for two hours without being challenged by the U.S. military, though passengers had time to make frantic calls to their relatives, our nation’s attention and anger was focused on Afghanistan.  And  too soon the focus was on Iraq (based on lies that Saddam Hussein had some involvement with 9/11 and had WMDs).

Sept. 11 victims – the 3,000, including 344 from Nassau County – have been lionized, canonized each year, with a ritualized reading of the names. No one asks why Rudy Giuliani, the New York City mayor at the time who became “America’s Mayor” and a millionaire because of 9/11, had placed emergency operations in the World Trade Center, even though it had already been a terror target (in 1993), or why emergency responders had different radios and radios that didn’t function to call them back down from the towers.

George W. Bush was not chastised for these gross failures that resulted in 3,000 dead – as Biden is now being attacked for the first few days of chaos in the Afghanistan evacuation with calls (get this) from Trump, who negotiated to abject retreat, for Biden to resign. Trump had no plan for evacuation and, in fact, shut down the visa process for Afghan allies to escape. And instead of Bush being seen as inept, he was able to turn himself into a macho war president with a bullhorn and war powers (Patriot Act, torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, FBI sting ops to ensnare “terrorists” for headlines) to win re-election.

Sept. 11 provided Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and the neo-conservative Project for the New American Century (dedicated to “promoting American global leadership”) with the Pearl Harbor debacle they needed to galvanize Americans who would not or could not question government actions for fear of going afoul of patriotic fervor.

But now, as Biden has finally put an end to this “forever war,” The New York Times reported that the Taliban wanted to surrender as early as November 2001, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to “negotiate surrender.”

I recall a front-page New York Times article that said Saddam Hussein was working with back channels to inform Bush he was willing to let U.S. inspectors in to see that he did not have the weapons of mass destruction to stop the the United States from attacking. Bush ignored this so he could launch his “shock and awe” campaign in March 2003 that killed 200,000 Iraqis. Why? Bush told us why: the battle in Afghanistan was not conducive to dramatic TV news as a battle against an actual Iraq army would be.

Also, Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, said that Bush had to invade Iraq (but not in August, when no one was paying attention), so not to be seen as a “paper tiger.” The reality was “Wag the Dog.”

Instead of being a celebration of the end of a futile war, people wonder, “what were the 2400 dead, the 20,000 injured, the $2 trillion spent all for” as if more American dead are needed to provide that justification.

Did we invade Afghanistan to win rights for Afghanistan’s women and girls? Laughable, especially when the same war mongers are stripping women of rights here in the United States.

Surely it was not to bring democracy and voting rights to Afghans when we are losing both here in the USA.

We invaded Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from harboring Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda (which was, in fact, being harbored by Pakistan), and now there is the same concern that Afghanistan will become ground zero for new terrorists. But as Biden demonstrated, former President Obama brought justice to bin Laden 10 years ago, and we can still monitor and attack terrorists.  Frankly, the terror threat has metastasized, but we don’t have boots on the ground in all those places.

But while 2,400 American soldiers have been killed in the course of this war, 66,000 Afghan soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed, thousands by American bombs. Remember when 40 guests at a wedding were killed by a U.S. drone strike? How is killing Afghan civilians because of Sept. 11 even remotely justified? The terror Afghans lived under was from the hum of a drone above.

Instead of bequeathing Afghanistan a functioning democracy, we gave them horrendous corruption and a nonfunctioning government that fled.

So, yes, we do have an obligation for the tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the United States, NATO and our allies, or who tried to rebuild the nation along our Western model, and who now are marked for death by the Taliban.

On this, the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, instead of re-reading the 3,000 names of those lost, it might be more constructive to read the Executive Summary of the 9/11 Commission Report:

“The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were far more elaborate, precise, and destructive than any of these earlier assaults. But by September 2001, the executive branch of the U.S. government, the Congress, the news media, and the American public had received clear warning that Islamist terrorists meant to kill Americans in high numbers.” (https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Exec.htm)

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5 COMMENTS

  1. You left out some pertinent information.

    “The responsibility of 9/11 falls on the fact that al Qaeda was allowed to grow and prosper and the decision was not made to take out their leader when the chance existed to do so. Not once but four times according to the 9/11 report. President Clinton has acknowledged that as a regret.”
    —Rubio, remarks on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Feb. 14, 2016
    (Bill Clinton and the missed opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden – The Washington Post)

    “We had a model where we’d made clear what our red lines were,” Pompeo went on. “We’d made clear the things we were prepared to do to defend them. We could have executed a plan in a way that would have led to the orderly withdrawal.” (Mike Pompeo Outlines How Trump Admin Planned to Handle Afghanistan, Taliban (newsweek.com))

    “Am I the only one who thinks we did this completely ass-backwards? We pulled the troops out, and then tried to evacuate the civilians? I feel that was a little backwards.” (Bill Maher Mocks Joe Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal After Fatal Kabul Airport Attack; “We Did This Completely Ass-Backwards” – News-Rich Publications (newsrich.org))

  2. And you omit that when Clinton wanted to get Osama bin Laden, Republicans said, “No blood for Monica”.

    Has anyone asked Trump what his plan for evacuation was? Especially when you had Stephen Miller basically shut down the process for getting Afghan allies/refugees out? He had no plan, just as he had no plan to vaccinate Americans, even after 600,000 died.

    The evacuation in Afghanistan, after the first two days, was extraordinary. Fact there were not more US casualties is remarkable.

    And when people cavalierly say we should have left 2500 troops there and that would have shut down ISIS (didn’t Trump claim to have obliterated ISIS?), they fail to acknowledge they would have been shooting ducks. As Biden correctly said, he would have had to put in more ad more troops.

    What upsets the Republicans and Trumpers so much is that Biden was able to get all those people out by negotiating with Taliban – diplomacy. Trump was eager for an excuse to bomb yet more innocent Afghan civilians.

  3. As for your claim – Clinton wanted to get Osama bin Laden, Republicans said, “No blood for Monica”. Is your source Rachel Maddow or Joy Reid?
    “Liberal media nationalized local Oklahoma story which later turned out to be false” (MSNBC silent as Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid amplify false story on ivermectin overdoses | Fox News)
    “Historically this line of attack has worked quite well with an adoring interviewer that buys such drivel hook, line, and sinker. However, what Mr. Clinton and his ilk seem to forget regularly is a recent invention known as the Internet. It is indeed odd the former president is unaware of this, inasmuch as his vice president created it.” (Bill Clinton, Bin Laden, and Hysterical Revisions (americanthinker.com))
    “We had a model where we’d made clear what our red lines were,” Pompeo went on. “We’d made clear the things we were prepared to do to defend them. We could have executed a plan in a way that would have led to the orderly withdrawal.” (Mike Pompeo Outlines How Trump Admin Planned to Handle Afghanistan, Taliban (newsweek.com))
    “U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated from Afghanistan, a senior State Department official says” (Majority of Interpreters, Other U.S. Visa Applicants Were Left Behind in Afghanistan – WSJ)

    “Since the now-fallen Afghan government inherited top flight biometric collection systems itself, the Taliban has them, too.” (What the U.S. left behind for the Taliban is scarier than missiles (msn.com))

    The push to vaccinate Americans comes as health agencies have faced outsized pressure from President Donald Trump and his political appointees. (Trump admin unveils plan for distributing coronavirus vaccines – POLITICO)
    “Biden receives first dose of Covid-19 vaccine on live television” (Mon December 21, 2020, while Trump was President) (Biden receives first dose of Covid-19 vaccine on live television – CNNPolitics)
    A United Nations human rights official warned the Taliban on Friday to “immediately cease” using force against peaceful protesters. Demonstrators “across various provinces in Afghanistan over the past four weeks have faced an increasingly violent response by the Taliban, including the use of live ammunition, batons and whips,” the official, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a media briefing in Geneva, according to a transcript of her remarks. (Taliban fighters tighten grip in rebellious Panjshir region with killings and food control, witness says (msn.com))
    President Biden has succeeded in dishonoring those who died on September 11, 2001 at the hands of Islamic terrorists in the most perverse way possible. He has given the Taliban complete control of Afghanistan, armed them with 80 to 90 billion dollars of finest military/”assault” weapons and biometric collection systems and abandoned American citizens and our allies in Afghanistan to be used by the Taliban for extortion purposes.

  4. Correction:
    “The push to vaccinate Americans comes as health agencies have faced outsized pressure from President Donald Trump and his political appointees.” (Trump admin unveils plan for distributing coronavirus vaccines – POLITICO
    “A United Nations human rights official warned the Taliban on Friday to “immediately cease” using force against peaceful protesters. Demonstrators “across various provinces in Afghanistan over the past four weeks have faced an increasingly violent response by the Taliban, including the use of live ammunition, batons and whips,” the official, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a media briefing in Geneva, according to a transcript of her remarks.” (Taliban fighters tighten grip in rebellious Panjshir region with killings and food control, witness says (msn.com))

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