Approximately the last third of my life has been lived out in the shadow of September 11th 2001. What I thought I knew and what I believed about this country seems like a different world from today. And the biggest change is how I feel about George W. Bush and the people he led. I thought he was one of us or at least I thought he was on our side. Looking back, I see that believing that was the biggest mistake of my life as an American citizen. Bush was the one we trusted and he used that trust to destroy us. He handed us over to our enemies and they cut our throats. Bush then Obama.
Afghanistan is the exemplar to point out the betrayal. America was reeling from the 9-11 attacks and Bush said he would revenge us. We gave him whatever he asked for and we supported him in everything he did. And after all the dead and wounded Americans and the waste of trillions of dollars what was the plan that they executed? Bush was trying to make Afghanistan into a country safe for transgender Muslims.
The bitterness of this pill is hard to exaggerate. Creating a global progressive nirvana on the corpse of our nation was their plan. He sent our sons and brothers to die in those hellholes while his policies sent our jobs and industries to China. And his judicial appointments set the stage for gay marriage and transgender rights and every other betrayal imaginable. And the cost of the wars hollowed out our economy and set the stage for the financial crash in 2008. And all of this misery ensured that Obama would happen. And he finished what was left to do.
What Afghanistan is to me is a reminder and an object lesson. The lesson is that the establishment Republicans cannot be trusted at all. They despise us and they only use us to provide them with the privileges that their positions provide. Labels like conservative and Christian don’t mean anything. Words don’t mean anything. The only thing that means anything is results. We need our country back and that means there is an enormous amount of work to do.
If we find a man who can get things done and plays straight with us, we should follow him. But no blind faith. Trust but verify. Don’t follow the flag. Don’t listen to the pretty speeches. No bipartisan nonsense, no reaching across the aisle. No talk of the conservative case for gay marriage or transgender special forces or gun control. No excuses, no extenuating circumstances, no nonsense. Produce results and we’ll let you collect your fee. Do a good enough job and we’ll name a bridge or a highway after you. Fail us and we’ll drop you like yesterday’s garbage.
And if your name is Bush and you want someone to fight a war go fight it yourself. You’ve killed off enough Americans to last your family until the end of time.
And we have just witnessed the president of the united states begging the Taliban to let the Americans leave.
Smart power!
And the speaker of the US house of representatives telling the Taliban that they had better set up a government that is inclusive to women, gays and trans people.
Is this woman as addled as Joe is?
Street theater to placate their constituencies who will pretend to themselves that the Taliban are on “the wrong side of history” and will presently realize their mistake and turn Afghanistan into Berkley California. I suspect there are a lot of young Afghanis who bought into the NGO’s narrative over the last twenty years who will be in serious trouble with the religious police there. Expect a spike in honor killings and stonings.
Powerful. Your thoughts reflect my own, photog (as they often do). We let Bush sucker us in with his “compassionate conservatism” and Christianity. I think back to how much I supported him and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s like looking at an unrecognizable version of myself. Granted, I was in high school when those conflicts started, and my political understanding was essentially “Republicans = Good Guys, Democrats = Bad Guys”—not exactly subtle. Still, we let ourselves get duped by an affable boob, and it cost us everything.
But there’s never a better time than the present to stop losing. As long as we don’t fall for the next one we can start fixing things. No more, “We need Liz Cheney as an ally.” No more, “Marco Rubio and the conservative case for unlimited amnesty.” If we stop backing our enemies we at least stand a chance.
Amen.