20 years ago Rep. Barbara Lee told America what would happen if we went into Afghanistan
Viral video of Afghans clinging to a U.S. military plane departing Afghanistan circulated online Monday in the aftermath of the Taliban occupying the presidential palace in Kabul and taking control. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday, The New York Times reported. For many, the takeover U.S. intelligence officials seemed to be ignorant of signaled a two-decade-long, $2 trillion failure of the United States government to train Afghan military forces to defend its nation.
And while social media users spent much of Sunday assigning blame, many seemed to have forgotten it was a Black Democrat who had the courage to stand alone and vote against the war in Afghanistan to start with following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Rep. Barbara Lee’s words opposing military force in Afghanistan on Sept. 14, 2001, were both moving and telling.
Molly Jong-Fast tweeted on Monday: “The only person who absolutely cannot be blamed for the war in Afghanistan is @RepBarbaraLee”
Filmmaker and activist Bree Newsome similarly tweeted: “Barbara Lee was literally the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing (George) Bush to launch ‘the forever war’ in 2001. (Joe) Biden was among the senators who voted for it… 1/
“…Again, *the entire US political establishment* is implicated in the compounding disasters we’re facing right now b/c it’s literally been the same ppl in power shuffling around different positions in the government since the 1970s. We need to deepen our collective analysis. 2/2”