George W. Bush finally said farewell last night and one of his gloats was his pronouncement that "Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored al-Qaida
and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting
terror and encouraging girls to go to school." It seems Bush missed the NYTimes report the day before about young women in Afghanistan who had acid thrown in their faces because they dared to attend school.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question.Bush will never understand the unnecessary destruction, hate, and death he purposefully brought into the world.
"Are you going to school?"
Then the man pulled Shamsia's burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia's eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read.
We can only hope and pray President Obama will, in some way, be able to start to heal the mortal damage done by the United States under Bush's legacy of indiscriminate cruelty.
Sickening - both the act itself and Bush's ignorance.
Wonderfully apropros for his presidency that he would so badly miss the boat on this issue. Just totally clueless.
Nicola!
It was a short speech. A 15 minute spin job. I do like the "what he said" and "what really happened" aspect of this AP story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_unsaid
It's amazing to watch the spin machine rotate all around him, Gordon. His approval ratings are actually rising in the waning days!
The most ridiculous thing they're trying to do is blame 9/11 on Clinton and not Bush -- they have to try, I guess, because it happened on Bush' watch and that ruins his hoped-for legacy of "no terrorist actions on American soil" during his presidency.
That is a great take on that speech - maybe translations like that should be mandatory for all our politicians. Hopefully Obama will not need them.
It was a surprising translation, Nicola, because the AP has been so far up Bush for 8 years... only now they place the truth next to the lie? Where have they been?
I read we're officially in "Obama time" now because as of 5pm today, Bush's administration is effectively retired. The weekend is here and Monday is a holiday, so the next day of official federal business is Tuesday when Obama takes over.