Did Bush Screw Up Afghanistan Worse Than Iraq?

Right now, there is a debate as to what President Obama should do in Afghanistan. As there should be. Should he send in more troops? Does it make sense to escalate the war without a viable partner in the Afghan government? Will this be his Vietnam? Woh, woh, woh ... whose Vietnam?

What is not being talked about enough is the disastrous situation George Bush left for Obama in Afghanistan (as he did in just about every aspect of government). What the hell did Bush do in Afghanistan for over seven years? Apparently, not a damn thing.

Do you know how many troops Bush had in Afghanistan in early 2008? He had an unbelievably small contingent of 26,000 troops in the whole country. At the same time, he had 160,000 troops in Iraq. I don't know if you know this, but Iraq did not attack us. The people who did attack us on 9/11 lived in ... Afghanistan.

Now, that's past tense of course. The leadership of Al Qaeda now resides in Pakistan. Why? Because that's where Bush let them escape without much effort. I've written before about how Bush let Osama bin Laden get away, it appeared without trying very much at all. But here's what you can't argue with - Bush did not try at all in Afghanistan. He didn't give a damn. 26,000 troops -- are you kidding me? Right now, we're having a debate if 65,000 troops are anywhere near enough or if we need 40,000 more troops.

Bush's gross indifference to the war in Afghanistan is being overlooked, understandably because of how badly he mangled the other war he started. But there is an excellent case to be made that Bush screwed up the Afghanistan War more than the Iraq War. It's a hell of a competition. In the one case, he tried, which is usually disastrous for him. And in the other, he didn't even bother, which can be argued is morally worse. What was the mission of our troops there for all those years? What did they die for?

Watch More Young Turks Here

UPDATE: AOL Poll -- Which war did Bush screw up worse? Iraq or Afghanistan. Vote here.

 

Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks

Comments

[argentinian]

VIETNAM VETS, it is your voices that should be raised!!! STOP OBAMA, STOP EMPIRE to invade countries!!! LET PEOPLE DECIDE WHAT TO DO AND LIVE UPON THEIR BELIEFS!!! STOP PROFITTING!!! STOP GREEEEEEEE­EEEEEEEDDD­DDDDDDDDDD­!!!! PUT AN END TO NAIVE WAYS OF LIFE IN USA !!! THE PLANET IS NOT YOURSSSSSSSS ALONE!!!! RESPECT DIFFERENCES !!!! THAT IS DEMOCRACY !!!

[peterg76]

Bear in mind the goal was to produce governments so unstable as to be unable to prevent exploitation of oil (Iraq) or oil pipeline routes (Afghanistan) by multinational corporations, all while transfering wealth from the productive sectors of the economy to defence contractors.

[TheDuckofLaw]

By getting involved in Iraq at all, Bush screwed up Afghanistan royally.

[DaveMB]

Articles like these are needed to remind people how badly Bush and the neocons screwed up. For some reason the MSM likes to treat people like Liz Cheney and Henry Kissinger like they have something wise to say. The fact that they are treated like they are wise, proves that there is a conservative bias and not a liberal bias in the media. Convincing people that the media is liberal has been one of the most succesfull con jobs perpetrated on the American people.

[SgtMac]

Absolutely yes! When Bushie attacked Iraq, mostly to assuage the Bush family's sense of wounded honor, we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan allowing the situation to develop into the mess it is now.
When I was in Iraq (2005), there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction according to the regular Army troops my National Guard Cavalry unit replaced. In fact they told us to stash our gas masks away and leave them out of sight until we returned home. Seeing troops carrying gas masks tended to scare the daylights out of the local Kurdish population, see Saddam's "Operation Anfal" following the 1st Gulf War for details.
Now the real Al Qaida presence is in Pakistan and East Africa. If the Taliban retake Kabul, it's not really our problem as long as they don't allow Al Qaida to re-establish a safe haven there. A fundamentalist coup in nuclear-armed Pakistan is the real threat. Though if this were to happen, India would probably eliminate that threat before we did.

[BartRoberts]

With the exception of completely screwing up the country, (which he did without equal), there' s very little bush did that he didn't screw up.

Best to leave to future generations to determine exactly what bush screwed up most.

[Lu-Miri]

I forgot one comment I had to say. Our last president ..George Bush was an N.G. a national guard member .

N.G. would train with the regular soldiers ...once the basic training was over ...they went home ...they were out of the war for good.

Joining the National Guard was a successful method of avoiding to be shipped over to Nam.

No Go's ..that what they were called in the Nam years.. Our prez. Bush was a No Go...he stayed home ,and watched the war on TV.

Vet 72-74

[Lu-Miri]

One of the reasons our troops have been 9 years in AfganisNam is the draft system and the volunteer army.

When I was in the Army 1972 ..there was a draft . I was a volunteer , but many of my fellow soldiers were draftees .

They left wives, girlfriends ,their family behind and sent against their will to serve the country.

Thats why the war protester were more successful..Their kids were over in Nam getting killed and wounded.

Now in a volunteer Armed forces ...almost all Americans don't have skin in the game. Their kids are not in danger ...no its the Armed forces families ..volunteer families ...
that are seening their sons, husbands, boyfriends being slaughtered every day.

The draft got everybody interested in the war...because their Johnny was over there.

In the Nam ..the service was one year ..thats it. Only if you wanted to go back ...you could.

It makes me mad as Hell that these volunteer armed forces boys and men are sent over and over and over again..for years at a time..causing their families to fall apart for years of neglect.

Bring back the draft ...and wars will end sooner or never start when everybody has their son's and daughters in the forces.

Vet 1972-74

[BartRoberts]

That's the modus operandi of the neo-cons: Send other people's children to fight and die in America's wars of imperial expansion.

If it were Krauthammer's, Hannity's, Levin's, Kristol's or Cheney's spawn being sent to the wars, they might reconsider their willingness to use the military where diplomacy had once been used.

[sagebrush5]

Yep. I have been thinking about this a long time. ...the rich let the poor and middle class fight their front line battles for them. Just think about it: our young guys are dying in Afghanistan while the fat cat Wall Street guys are making billions while jeopardizing the entire US economy. Our guys are sacrificing their lives for the "free enterprise" system...y­eah...free enterprise for the big guys, but not so free for the little guys. They have to pay with their lives...or the threat of losing their lives. And as long as it's an "all-volunteer" military, there will develop a certain class of people who will count on the military for employment, and a certain class of people who will count on the military to keep THEM out of that kind of employment...i.e. from never going, and will in turn make it possible for them to make billions on Wall Street while causing thousands of home foreclosures. The draft (with no exemptions) could level the field, and would probably make people think LONG AND HARD before committing their kids to a fabricated, or even a justified, war.

[iridium53]

That Bush screwed things up is a given. It is also in the past.

That the terrorist lived in Afghanistan is interesting. But they are mobile. They were, mostly Saudi Arabians. We have not gone after the real source of their power - Wahabbi money.

In some cases, a thorough investigation should be undertaken to understand the full extent of the damage and the root causes of the problems. In other cases, like Iraq and Afghanistan, they are horrible sunk costs of lives, lives and fortune. Time to cut our losses short.

The United States no longer has a draft-based armed forces and cannot afford a protracted incursion. We cannot be the police force for the world. We must use our forces to futher American interests. That does not include nation building.

Nobody has made a cogent case for risking one more drop of American blood for a people who do not want us there.

What matters now is that the U.S. correct what damage we created and move away as quickly as possible. Let them be.

[Fein]

My fear is, that they'll sucker us in. Then, get MANPADs from somewhere - that would cause a major military disaster.

The only reason we don't take huge casualties there now, is that we have the ability to operate low level
helicopter operations. The Taliban now only have only had a few, 30 year old Stinger Anti Aircraft missles.
If they got even a small number of more modern ones, we'd suffer the same fate as the Russians.

[seawolf77]

That depends on how much oil we are stealing from Iraq. I heard Mark Hanes the other day say on CNBC what I have been waiting for for 8 years and I paraphrase " I would think the American taxpayer has a claim on Iraqui oil." Strarght faced as Jimmy Swaggart at 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning. We've paid enough to have earned whether they like it or not. It's called muscling on some one's territory and it makes us all gangster and imperialists.

[LizM]

Are you sure Cenk, that the people who drove those planes into buildings and into the ground lived in Afghanistan? I'm afraid this story is far more complicated than that. And, as you know, Iraq is still essentially a mess, too...any progress there towards stability remains "fragile and reversible" and there has still been no progress on the national political reconciliation front.

All of this reminds me of a story, Cenk, that the top foreign policy advisor to President Obama used to tell while he was running for president himself. You know the story, don't you? It's about a baseball player, a center fielder, actually...let's call him George. George was playing center field and he kept making errors, day after day...small ones at first but then he starting making very serious errors. Finally the coach had to replace him and he sent Bob out there. Now, Bob was a very good player, but he also, very uncharacte­ristically­, started making errors. Frustrated, the coach came running out in desperation to see what was wrong with Bob. Said Bob, George had screwed up center field so badly that NO ONE can play it anymore!

...continued...

[unitron]

I was all set to cite that baseball story 'til I saw that you had beaten me to it.

Unlike baseball, it *is* possible for one administration to screw things up so badly that it's almost impossible for the administrations that follow to straighten things out.

We'll be cleaning up various aspects of Bush's mess for generations.

[LizM]

True. But, we are off to a good start, at least, with a pretty darn good team. Let's wish them luck...especially with the Afghanista­n/Pakistan review, which may turn out to be the clincher, one way or the other.

[LizM]

...continued...

Well, you get the point. Actually, this wise presidential advisor gave a speech in Seattle to a bunch of Barack Obama's top donors and supporters shortly before the 2008 election in which he described what the Bush administration was leaving in its wake as being akin to the 'Augean Stables'. Of course, Joe Biden’s classical reference, not to mention the central theme of his speech, was lost on the vast majority of the media/blog­osphere/pu­nditocracy and they all inaccurately dubbed this very important address, though only about 17 minutes in length, as the "There will be an international crisis" speech. As per usual, their description couldn't have been more off the mark .

You might want to revisit it, Cenk...I'm sure you'll find it most interesting. Apparently, there is no video but the 'press' was in attendance and there was an audio recording made.

[SparkyDash]

Good words, thank you LizM. From intellectual assessment and intelligent suggestions and strategy for Darfur, Iraq, Afghanista­n/Pakistan­, to wisdom of messages such as the Augean Stables speech (and much more of course), I say: listen to the vice president.

[N2Sman]

Can anyone answer this question: Why do we continue to drive military vehicles throughout Afganistan thus taking roadside bombs killing our soldiers? Can we not police with Helicopters and call it a day?

[doriath22]

Like the Russians did? I hear that worked really well.....

[kamachanda]

Yes, Bush screwed up Afghanistan. Only the completely oblivious could be unaware of that fact.

Bush said he didn't think Osam Bin Ladin mattered. Bin Ladin didn't matter to Bush, but Bush mattered to Bin Ladin. George W Bush was the best friend Bin Ladin ever had. No other president would knowingly let a man who had planed and carried out a terrorist attack on the United States get away. No other president would have said that Bin Ladin does not matter while carrying out an illegal war in an oil rich country.