Afghanistan: George W. Bush criticizes the ‘mistake’ of withdrawing NATO forces

Berlin | Former US President George W. Bush criticized, on Wednesday, the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, a “mistake” from which, according to him, “Afghan women and girls” will suffer.

Afghan women and girls will suffer untold harm. It’s a mistake,” alarmingly, in an interview with German media, “Deutsche Welle,” the former president, who sent U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, after the September 11 attacks.

“They will be left behind to be massacred by these very brutal people, and it breaks my heart,” the former Republican president said in this interview given on the occasion of Angela Merkel’s visit to Washington.

Mr. Bush also said he believed the German chancellor “felt the same as he did”. He praises the “class and dignity” of Merkel, who will step down from the chancellery in the fall after 16 years at the helm of Germany.

The chancellor will meet Democratic President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday.

The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Austin Scott Miller, passed his hand on Monday at a ceremony recalling the imminent final withdrawal of foreign forces from the country, as the Taliban continue to make gains.

The passage of the torch is one of the last stages before the final departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan, which is supposed to end at the end of August.

About 2,500 US troops – and 7,000 from other countries – were in Afghanistan when they began their withdrawal in early May.

This withdrawal would put an end to 20 years of interference by a US-led coalition that entered Afghanistan in October 2001, following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, after the Taliban regime rejected it. Extradition of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was granting him asylum.

He intervened in the midst of the Taliban’s offensive, allowing them to seize large swaths of territory against an Afghan army now bereft of crucial American air support and who had little resistance.