The world doesn’t hear a lot from George W. Bush these days. The former president of the United States has spent his post-presidential life in a cozy, somewhat secluded existence on his Texas ranch in Crawford, about a two-hour drive south of Dallas. Other than issuing the occasional statement and urging Americans to get vaccinated, Bush largely spends his time painting or hanging out with his wife, former First Lady Laura Bush.
Apparently, though, the nearly-complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan is too much for the ex-president to bear. Speaking to German television broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Bush all but excoriated president Joe Biden for pulling the troops out and ending the longest war in US history.
The consequences of the withdrawal, Bush said, ‘are going to be unbelievably bad’. Expanding on his thoughts, Bush lamented how all of the social progress that Afghanistan has made is now at risk of falling apart:
It’s unbelievable how that society changed from the brutality of the Taliban, and all of a sudden — sadly — I’m afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm.
Whatever problems Afghanistan now confronts is in large part a byproduct of the crucial decision made in Washington nearly 20 years earlier.
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