Not only did Bernie Sanders vote as a congressman to authorize US military action in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, he approves of President Obama’s decision to keep thousands of troops in the country beyond 2016.
“Well, yeah, I won’t give you the exact number. Clearly, we do not want to see the Taliban gain more power, and I think we need a certain nucleus of American troops present in Afghanistan to try to provide the training and support the Afghan army needs,” he said.
I suspect Sanders is aware that, as incompetent and corrupt as the Afghan government has been since the Taliban were ousted from control, their return to power would make things far worse for the people of Afghanistan.
For example, under the Taliban, fewer than one million children were in school and schooling for girls was virtually forbidden.
Now, as the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative reports, “about six million children are registered in schools and about one third of them are girls.”
That’s still not good enough. But if anything is, in Orwell’s words, a state of affairs worth fighting for, this is it.
Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, by contrast, believes Western troops have no business being in Afghanistan, or apparently anywhere else under any circumstances.
In 2003 Corbyn suggested that the US and the UK manipulated the 9/11 attacks an an excuse to go to war in Afghanistan.
I don’t know if Corbyn believes that “the world” would be “100 percent” better off if Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were still in power. I’m sure George Galloway believes that.
If so, you’ll never guess with whom they agree.
Well, Donald, “the world” also includes the people of Iraq and Libya.
And if you are inclined to agree with Trump, I advise you to read Kyle Orton’s recent review of a book about Saddam’s functionary Kamel Sachet, whose 14-year-old daughter was raped as a means of keeping him loyal to the Baathist regime (a routine practice by Iraqi security forces), and about the rape chambers used by Gaddafi, his sons and other high officials of his regime.
