“Personally, I would like a period of silence from all of you,” journalist says in one-minute diatribe
By Jake Johnson
In a brief and fiery monologue on national television Sunday night, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan took aim at the journalists, hawkish politicians, and defense industry-funded ex-military officials who are currently denouncing the ongoing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after playing an integral role in launching—and lying on behalf of—the catastrophic 20-year war that set the stage for the chaotic departure.
“Our newspaper op-ed pages, our TV screens are filled with people who got it wrong still trying to lecture the rest of us about what should happen now in Afghanistan,” Hasan said in the “60-second rant” segment of his weekend show.
Hasan continued:
“There are the journalists, people in my industry, who never covered Afghanistan, never talked about it, helped make it the forgotten war all these years, now expressing outrage over the ending of it. The top U.S. generals and intelligence officials who falsely told us year after year that we were turning the corner in Afghanistan, that we were winning the war against the Taliban and building an amazing Afghan army and a democratic government, even now still insisting we stay just a bit longer.
The top U.S. generals and intelligence officials who falsely told us year after year that we were turning the corner in Afghanistan, that we were winning the war against the Taliban and building an amazing Afghan army and a democratic government, even now still insisting we stay just a bit longer. The Bush administration officials who got us into this mess in the first place, the Trump administration officials who signed the damn deal in Doha with the Taliban, both trying to blame it all on Joe Biden.”
"Keep your views on the end of this war to yourself! Personally I would like a period of silence from all of you…if you do feel the need to comment…how about starting with the word 'Sorry'?"
My #minuterant, on @MSNBC, on the hawks all over our media:pic.twitter.com/MZBZLJMCJ9
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 23, 2021
Hasan’s segment—which garnered applause from anti-war activists and lawmakers, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—aired hours after former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair slammed the Biden administration’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan as “imbecilic.”
Blair was a key ally of the George W. Bush administration as it launched the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and, just two years later, the disastrous Iraq War, which continues to this day. Bush himself issued a statement last week voicing concern for “the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO allies who have sacrificed so much”—comments for which he was roundly panned.
“Forgive me when I say, ‘Keep your views on the end of this war to yourself,'” Hasan said Sunday, referring to Bush and other war hawks who have spoken out about the withdrawal in recent days. “Personally, I would like a period of silence from all of you, if that’s alright. And if you do feel the need to comment on the disaster that is Afghanistan, how about starting with the word ‘Sorry’?”
Watch the clip in full:
Published atwww.commondreams.org
