August
20, 2021
I’ve got to stay here, but there's no reason
why you folks shouldn't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over.
Groucho
Marx, Horse Feathers (1932)
The horrific blunder that the Bush team
perpetrated in Afghanistan in response to 9/11 is finally coming to something
vaguely resembling a conclusion. Current, actually-elected President Joe Biden
is the third subsequent president to be saddled with Bush’s Blunder since the
Idiot-in-Chief left office, and left this country and in many respects the
entire world, much worse off than when he found it. And I do mean found it,
since Bush was unaware of anything outside the eliminative end of his digestive
tract, where he kept his head for so many years.
As it turned out, Bush II, inarguably near
the top of the list of the worst presidents in American history, had his
record-breaking ineptitude eclipsed just eight years after relinquishing the
post he never earned, never really wanted – other than as a way to work through
his daddy issues – and certainly never used to promote niceness instead of
evil. The dismal nature of the Bush years, as many of you will unfortunately and
unsettlingly recall, was absolutely obliterated by the Orange Gas Cloud, whose
single term in office we have recently and just barely survived…more or less.
Bush invaded, then quickly abandoned his 9/11
revenge foray into Afghanistan (should have been Saudi Arabia) after allowing
Osama bin Laden escape into Pakistan, in favor of instigating an illegal war in
Iraq. All of which caused major upheaval in the region and by extension, the
world. Bush’s clean-up crew – the Obama administration – floundered in its
attempts to extricate us from Bush’s quagmire, but succeeded in finally
tracking down and killing bin Laden.
The next administration succeeded in
elevating the selectively-Medieval, radical-fundamentalist Taliban by
negotiating the release of some 5000 of their brethren (getting nothing in return),
including the man who now leads the country formerly known as Afghanistan – now
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and many of whom are now directly involved
in the take-over of that country. Turmp also offered up a May 2021 withdrawal
of American forces from Afghanistan, with – as was the consistent modus
operandi of his presidency – no plan whatsoever.
Just six weeks ago, speaking at one of his
patently pathetic, pandering pep-rallies, Turmp boasted, “I started the process
all the troops are coming back home they couldn’t stop the process. Twenty-one
years is enough don’t we think? Twenty-one years. They couldn’t stop the
process.” Now Turmp, who also claims that the COVID pandemic was over when he
left office, is blaming Biden for pulling out all the troops. Donald, go fuck
yourself…I mean, go figure.
Enter Joe Biden, who wanted to end the
20-year nightmare regardless. Biden did well to call it quits, though he
clearly could have planned the departure and the safe evacuation of Americans
and our thousands of Afghan allies while military support remained in country
and viable. Each of those Afghans who provided assistance to the Americans has
a price on his or her head, not to mention any woman who served in the Afghan
government, or any young girl who dared pursue a modern education. USA, USA,
USA.
For his two-bit part, Bush II issued a
statement, which read in part, “Laura and I have been watching the tragic
events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness. Our hearts are heavy for
both the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO
allies who have sacrificed so much.” Too fucking little and way too fucking
late.
Unfortunately, just days before the
lightning-fast Taliban take-over of the Afghan capital Kabul, Biden insisted, “The
Taliban is not the south – the North Vietnamese army. They're not – they're not
remotely comparable in terms of capability. There's going to be no circumstance
where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the – of the
United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
Biden deserves some level of heat for the unmitigated,
inexcusable sloppiness of the long overdue departure, but let us be clear who
deserves the lion’s share of the responsibility/blame. The guy who waltzed us
into Afghanistan with his fake cowboy boots, his shit-eating smirk and his
murderous cabinet. Forgive? Maybe. Probably not. Forget? No fucking way in
hell.
As badly, as it
appears to the untrained eye, as Biden screwed up the withdrawal of our troops
from Afghanistan, can you imagine how it would have gone if the last guy had
somehow managed to attempt following through on his alleged plan to do the
same? Can you imagine Turmp even trying to extract even one Afghan who spent
the past 20 years assisting and saving the lives of American troops in their
country? No, you cannot imagine. And you do not want to try.
We already out-worsted George W. Bush, but if
America ever manages to find someone worse than Donald Turmp to hold the
highest office in the land, it will be the last throes of what Benjamin
Franklin described as “A republic, if you can keep it.”
I. Mangrey remembering.
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