Friday, October 15, 2021

Ted Rall: Democrats Share the Blame for Afghanistan

 President Joe Biden is taking heat from Democrats, not for his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan -- that's popular -- but for his haphazard pullout that, self-serving Rumsfeldian "stuff happens," "wars end messily" platitudes aside, could have been executed more efficiently. They blame George W. Bush for starting America's longest war, arguing that what he began inexorably led to our most shocking military defeat and its humiliating aftermath.

I am sympathetic to any and all criticism of our intervention in Afghanistan. I was an early critic of the war and got beaten up for my stance by media allies of the Bush administration. But the very same liberals who now pretend they're against the Afghan disaster stood by when it mattered and did nothing to defend war critics because Democrats -- political leaders and voters alike -- went far beyond tacit consent. They were actively complicit with the Republicans' war at the time of the invasion and throughout the decades-long occupation of Afghanistan. 

Now, the deadbeat dads of defeat are trying to stick the GOP with sole paternity. This is a ridiculous attempt to rewrite history -- one that damages Democratic credibility among the party's progressive base, which includes many anti-war voters, and risks the possibility that they will make the same mistake again in the future.

Twenty years later, it is difficult for some to believe that the United States responded to 9/11 by cultivating closer ties to the two countries with the greatest responsibility for the attacks, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and attacking a country that had nothing to do with it, Iraq, and another one that had tenuous links, Afghanistan. Yet that's what happened. And Democrats participated enthusiastically in the insanity. 

The sweeping congressional authorization to use military force against Afghanistan and any other target chosen by the president  was introduced in the Senate three days after the attacks by Tom Daschle, the then-Democratic majority leader. Every Democratic senator supported destroying Afghanistan. So did every Democratic member of the House of Representatives, except for Barbara Lee, who was roundly ridiculed as weak and naive, received death threats and was denied leadership posts by her own party to punish her for refusing to play ball. The legal justification to attack the Taliban was a bipartisan affair.

Democratic support for Bush's war reflected popular sentiment: Voters of both parties signed off on the Afghan war by wide margins. Even after weeks of bombing that featured numerous news stories about innocent Afghan civilians being killed willy-nilly, 88% of voters told Gallup that they still approved of the military action. Approval for the war peaked at 93% in 2002 and started to decline. Nevertheless, popular support still hovered around 70% throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, a number that included so many Democrats that then-Sen. Barack Obama ran much of his successful primary and general election campaign on his now obviously moronic message that "we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan" when Bush invaded Iraq. "Our real focus," Obama continued to say after winning the presidency, "has to be on Afghanistan." 

Nine months into his first term, Obama felt so confident that Democratic voters supported the war that he ordered his surge of tens of thousands of additional soldiers above the highest troop level in Afghanistan under the Bush administration. Fifty-five percent of Democrats approved of the surge. Domestic support for the war only went underwater after the 2010 assassination of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops in Pakistan seemed to render the project moot.

There was a strong anti-war movement based on the left throughout the Bush and Obama years against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched against the Iraq war. Opposition was sustained over the years. Far fewer people turned out for far fewer protests against the Afghanistan war. It's impossible to avoid the obvious conclusion: Even on the left, people were angry about Iraq but OK with Afghanistan.

There is nothing wrong with criticizing the Republican Party and Bush for the decision to invade Afghanistan. The war was their idea. But they never could have started their disaster, much less extended and expanded it under Obama, without full-throated support from their Democratic partners and successors. 

This story has few heroes.

Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, "The Stringer." Order one today. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I encourage everyone to watch Turning Point on Netflix.

Anonymous said...

Everyone was initially fine with going after Bin Laden.
Those of us old enough to remember 'Nam and to read The Pentagon Papers of either party or no party wanted a incursion, not another long foreign war. And, our trust turned to cynicism after the big lie of WMDs and later nausea the T Medal of Freedom put around Tenet's neck.

Yeah, there's blame to go around and you seem to limit it to President's and party and forget mercenary hired guns, the military industrial complex and every other money making war opportunist.

Worse, you completely ignore Pompeo and Trump's roll in the worst written treaty ever that had more to do with a political campaign than with coherent foreign policy.

It's too bad acutual governing and doing it well is complex and decided by often incompetent, inexperienced, arrogant humans with no record of success.

Anonymous said...

None of this matters. Now that Trump is off Twitter, the birds are singing, the sun is shining, and all the world lives in harmony.

Anonymous said...

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Anonymous said...

I remember when the republicans cancelled the Dixie chicks over their opposition to the war.

Anonymous said...

11:08 with the obfuscation of the week. It wasn't "republicans" against the Dixie Chicks. They insulted their target audience and were then surprised when the target audience didn't bend over and take it gladly.

Hubris doesn't always win.

Kasey Casum said...

"I remember when the republicans cancelled the Dixie chicks over their opposition to the war."

No you don't, that's bullshit. The Chicks lost favor for criticizing Bush, the younger. They also lost favor because they were a typical three part harmony white chick ensemble who often got way off key and based their value on ONE Ipana smile.

Now that they've reinvented themselves as 'The Chicks', they're still almost as irrelevant as The Judds. Or, the Mandrelles.

Anonymous said...

I think its really false to blame all the wingnut outrage against the Dixie Chicks on those anti Bush comments in London. Besides, any idiot can see how well invading Iraq turned out. They have Chik-fil-A and Popeyes and Cracker Barrel in Baghdad now.


What it all really was all about with the Dixie Chicks was a lot of overweight underdressed wife beater wearing beer drinkers who had been waiting for a chance to get revenge for GoodBye Earl.

Also everyone knows wimmens can't really rock the Bars and Stars and make bank on the old confederacy because that's a man thing baby!

The next face added to Mt. Rushmore will probably be Dubya's.


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