Here’s proof that Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post was dead wrong in her assessment that President Bush suffers from a heaping helping of “Manliness.”
In response to the revelation that an Afghan court will quite possibly sentence a man to death for converting to Christianity, Bush said that he is “deeply troubled.” Deeply troubled? “Deeply troubled” may be a lot of things, but in no way is it a manly response. The impression I get is that Bush read the Marcus column and is trying to show a little restraint and introspection and a dash of self-doubt.
A better response would have been to come on national television and tell the American people that he will not let this trial continue, then get on the horn to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “Look here Karzai, If it weren’t for us, you’d still be holed up in some closet or cave somewhere, so I’m gonna tell you what I want you to do. Put an end to this circus of a trial and tell your people that starting now, Afghanistan is joining the rest of the civilized world. We’re not spilling more American blood while you invite the butchers back in. No more two-bit Muslim clerics peddling barbarism. And if that doesn’t work for you – fine. We’ll just pack up our American flags and head home and you can high-tail it back to your cave.”
While the above Bush monologue is only the product of my fertile and slightly twisted imagination, something similar may have actually played out. The prosecution in the case has indicated that Abdul Rahman may be mentally unfit to stand trial and a spokesman for President Karzai has said that if Rahman is in fact mentally unfit, the charges will be dropped. The notion that Rahman is mentally unfit is entirely bogus and is an obvious ploy that allows the Karzai government to squelch the matter while saving face with his people.
But Bush still has a problem in that as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. forces, he showed ambivalence towards our reason for being in Afghanistan. He had an opportunity to demonstrate to the American people that we won’t allow the thugs of the Muslim world to ply their sadistic programs of fear and violence in Afghanistan, and he blew it.