Former President George W. Bush is undoubtedly “deeply upset” over the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, according to a onetime top aide.
Karl Rove, who served as senior adviser and deputy chief of staff in the White House, talked about his former boss minutes before President Joe Biden addressed the nation on Monday about the messy end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, which Bush initiated to root out al Qaeda following the 9/11 terror attacks.
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“Seventy percent of the population of Afghanistan, 39 million people, 70% of them are 25 years or less,” Rove said on Fox News. “They only know a country in which there is growing opportunity for everyone. In which women can go to school, in which women can live outside the home, in which women can pursue careers, in which everyone is given a measure of freedom and opportunity. And now they will be thrust back into a barbaric regime.”
Rove had been asked what his thoughts were on an interview Bush did last month about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The former president told Deutsche Welle, a German international broadcaster, he was “sad” about the situation.
“Laura and I spent a lot of time with Afghan women. And they’re scared,” he added.
Rove mentioned reports of how the Taliban are already rewarding its fighters with “arranged marriages” with teenage Afghan girls they’ve never met and have never known, which he noted happened in Afghanistan before the United States invaded.
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“This is the kind of barbarian that we saw for decades in Afghanistan that stopped after American troops and special operators joined with Afghans to liberate this country and now we’re turning it back to the same people who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden, who gave safe harbor to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” he said.
“Now they’re going to reestablish their brutal regime. And, you bet the former president of the United States is deeply upset about this. For 20 years, Laura Bush has hosted groups of Afghan women who came into the United States after beginning to taste freedom in their own country in order to learn about the opportunities that were available to women all around the world. And the idea that the Taliban is going to somehow allow that to continue is absolutely ridiculous,” Rove added.
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Tags: News, Afghanistan, George Bush, Karl Rove
Original Author: Asher Notheis
Original Location: Karl Rove says ‘you bet’ former President George W. Bush is ‘deeply upset’ about Afghanistan
