Earlier today, former United States President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush issued a statement regarding the Taliban's swift capture of Kabul, completing their (almost) unchallenged re-conquest of Afghanistan and the nearly immediate collapse of Afghanistan's now defunct democratic regime and military. In the former President's statement, he reminds us of a staggering statistic:

Nearly 65 percent of the population is under twenty-five years old. The choices they will make for opportunity, education, and liberty will also determine Afghanistan’s future. As Dr. Sakena Yacoobi of the Afghan Institute of Learning, which has opened schools for girls and women around the nation, wrote this week: “While we are afraid, we are not defeated.” She added, “Ideas do not disappear so easily. One cannot kill whispers on the wind. The Taliban cannot crush a dream. We will prevail, even if it takes longer than we wanted it to.”

President Bush didn't elaborate on this enough, but 65% of the population of Afghanistan is too young to remember the Taliban's brutality when they were in power. Many of them have seen their terrorist attacks, too many witnessed this first hand, so they know to be fearful of these men who care nothing for life or liberty. That means that an enormous portion of the Afghan population, much larger and much more powerful than the Taliban, will never accept the human rights abuses as "just a part of life." Additionally, when they recall what happened when the United States abandoned them and their government collapsed, they'll know they can't rely on foreigners for their security and that they absolutely cannot tolerate corruption among their public servants.

We thought the transition to an "independent" democracy in Iraq was ugly. Afghanistan's is going to be worse to an entirely unimaginable magnitude, but there is hope. And for the first time in 20 years, the hope isn't squarely focused on foreign soldiers.

We here at KTracy.com are still horrified by how quickly and calliously President Biden abandoned Afghanistan. Most of us served in the Global War on Terrorism and some of the staff were deployed in Afghanistan. The scenes unfolding at air ports, public places, and in military transports are gut wrenching. We worked with many of these people in some way or another.

However, the level of responsibility President George W. Bush must feel for these men, women, and children fleeing Afghanistan must be enormous. President George W. Bush is blamed for virtually everything even remotely negative that happened during his Presidency; whether he was really to blame or not. That's largely because President Bush invited the criticism by habitually accepting the responsibility for everything anyone in the government did without ever blaming Democrats in Congress (or Republicans in Congress), career bureaucrats in the "deep state" or anywhere else in government, liberal justices on the Supreme Court, foreign governments, the United Nations, or anyone else. President Bush certainly held people accountable, but he willingly took the burden of responsibility and never tried to deflect that responsibility on to others. This is demonstrated by the fact that he hasn't directly criticized President Biden for his handling of the situation. Anyone with a heart and an ounce of empathy can see how much the decision pains him, but blaming someone else isn't part of who George W. Bush is.

When I enlisted as an Air Force Intelligence Analyst and later worked as a counterterrorism analyst for the government, the mantra from the President and his executive branch was simple. "Stay Vigilant. We can never let 9/11 happen again." I also remember our feelings on this, too. "Thank God that Al Gore wasn't President when this happened."

President Bush thanked us for our service as well:

You kept America safe from further terror attacks, provided two decades of security and opportunity for millions, and made America proud. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and will always honor your contributions.

And this was the other trademark of President Bush. Whenever anything good happened, he never accepted credit for it. He always credited the troops, or members of his administration, or just ordinary men and women doing their jobs in extraordinary circumstances.

Despite the horrible setbacks to freedom and hope in Afghanistan, those hope still exists and freedom still burns in the hearts of millions of young Afghans because of President Bush's unwavering belief that freedom, education, and opportunity will ultimately be what rids the world of terrorism. It was ultimately this belief that resulted in us spending 20 years in Afghanistan. At face value, it may not seem worth it, but there's hope in the country today that wouldn't otherwise be there if not for President Bush's convictions in 2001 that he stuck to throughout his entire presidency.