Hightower Lowdown

One thing that George W can count on is that history will wholly and harshly condemn his bumbled war effort…and I’m not talking about Iraq.

A special spot in historical hell is being reserved for BushCheneyRummy & Gang because of their outrageous abandonment of the people of Afghanistan. This is the war that had legitimacy, for it was the tyrannical Taliban that harbored Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda as they plotted the 9/11 attack on America. By any standard, the Taliban was cruelly repressive toward the Afghan people, and the world cheered when the U.S. invaded to set things right.

But having ousted the Taliban rulers and promised the impoverished people a bright new future, Bush & Gang cut and ran! Filled with ideological fantasies, they rushed off to the suffocating sands of Iraq, taking the world’s focus, the U.S. treasury, and America’s credibility with them.

Bush keeps hailing his hand-picked Afghani president, Hamid Karzai, but Karzai’s “government” has no authority. It is widely seen as corrupt, incompetent, impotent…and a Washington puppet.

Meanwhile, after shoveling billions of dollars into the coffers of corporate contractors being paid to “rebuild” Afghanistan, the Bushites have little to show. Forget the schools and hospitals that were promised—there’s not even a police force to protect the people. DynCorp received a billion dollars in 2005 to train police, but there’s no effective program in place, DynCorp can’t verify how many officers are on the job or what they’re doing, and tons of police equipment have simply disappeared.

Worse, the Afghan people are more impoverished than ever and more angry at America. The resurgent Taliban controls most of the country and is spreading its reach into Pakistan and beyond, and Afghan opium production is booming—headed to America as heroin. Heck of a job, George.