George Walker Bush, as President of the United States. Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

September 2004: “And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free.”

December 2004: “In Afghanistan, America and our allies, with a historically small force and a brilliant strategy, defeated the Taliban in just a few short weeks.”

October 2005: “Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence — the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago.”

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2008/12/15/33732/bush-taliban-eliminated/

I don't know what good, if any, a post like this does. I don't think the American people are ready to accept that they could have been lied to so monstrously by their elected leaders. It would be too unsettling, create too much insecurity, would shatter their faith in the government. They would rather find a way to work around an unequivocal statement such as "Taliban no longer is in existence".

And I think that it's as important to remember these betrayals as much as we remember 9-11 and Pearl Harbor. But we won't.

Arf