Barack – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Former United States President Barack Obama is hosting a drive-in rally for Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden on October 27, 2020 in Orlando, Florida.

Eva Edelheit | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Former President Barack Obama made a formal statement on Afghanistan on Friday, his first since the U.S. military entered the final stages of its withdrawal from the country two weeks ago.

Obama said he and former first lady Michelle Obama were “heartbroken when they heard of the terrorist attack outside Kabul airport that killed and wounded so many US soldiers and Afghan men, women and children.”

“As president, nothing was more painful than mourning with the families of the Americans who gave their lives for our country,” he said.

Obama continued, “As President Biden said, these soldiers are heroes who have dangerous, selfless missions to save the lives of others.”

That line served as a rhetorical nod to Obama’s former vice president and essentially confirmed that Biden is now in charge.

Obama’s testimony came the same day that Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak’s family confirmed he was one of the dead.

“We also think of the families of the deceased Afghans, many of whom stood by America and were ready to risk anything for a chance for a better life,” said Obama.

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Obama is the last of the four US presidents who led the US 20-year war in Afghanistan to comment on the situation.

He is also the president who ordered an additional 30,000 US soldiers into the country in late 2009, a decision that his then Vice President Biden firmly opposed.

At the time, Obama believed that US firepower could sustain Afghanistan’s fragile, corrupt post-Taliban government.

Eleven years later, that government collapsed within hours when the Taliban retook Kabul on August 15 without firing a single shot.

Obama did not mention the entire evacuation effort in his statement on Friday. But earlier this year he said he strongly supported Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war.

“After nearly two decades of putting our troops in danger, it is time to recognize that we have accomplished all we can militarily and that it is time to bring our remaining troops home” Obama said on April 14th.

The two Republicans who led the war, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, have both openly opposed Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops – albeit in different ways.

Bush, who started the war shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, said he feared for the country’s women and girls who are facing almost certain repression due to the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law.

Bush in July also painted a bleak picture of what awaited Afghans who had worked for the US-led coalition over the past two decades.

“I think of all the interpreters and people who have helped not only the US forces but also the NATO forces, and they are simple, it seems like they are just being left behind to be butchered by these very brutal people and it breaks my “heart”, Bush told Deutsche Welle.

Trump has taken a different path, making a number of statements over the past few weeks that skew his own record and falsely accuse Biden of withdrawing American troops in front of US civilians. Trump has also tried to label refugees evacuated from Afghanistan as “terrorists”.

In “Renegades,” a podcast collaboration between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, the former president acknowledged that it was, at a glance, an odd partnership.

“On the surface, Bruce and I don’t have a lot in common,” he said. “He’s a white guy from a small town in Jersey; I’m a Black guy of mixed race, born in Hawaii, with a childhood that took me around the world. He’s a rock ‘n’ roll icon. I’m a lawyer and politician — not as cool.”

But they have become vacation buddies and avid collaborators whose podcast — a series of frank conversations about race, fatherhood, social justice and American identity — became one of the podcasts with the most listeners around the world on Spotify.

Now, they will be co-authors of sorts, with the coming release of a book of their conversations. This October, Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is publishing “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a book adaptation of the podcast. The 320-page book includes introductions by Obama and Springsteen, more than 350 photos and illustrations, and archival material such as Springsteen’s handwritten lyrics and Obama’s annotated speeches.

In his introduction, Obama describes how the conversations grew out of “our ongoing effort to figure out how it is that we got here, and how we can tell a more unifying story that starts to close the gap between America’s ideals and its reality.”

As salable book ideas go, a collaboration between a rock star and a former president seems a sure bet. (Crown is suggesting a list price of $50 in the United States and $65 in Canada.)

Springsteen’s memoir, “Born to Run,” which was released by Simon & Schuster in 2016, was a hit, selling nearly half a million hardcover copies in its first few months on sale. Obama’s 2020 memoir, “A Promised Land,” which was published by Crown, has sold 8.2 million copies globally, and nearly five million in North America.

The book version of “Renegades” also marks the latest release from the Obamas’ growing media empire. It is being produced in partnership with Higher Ground, the company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, which has struck exclusive production deals with Netflix for film and television and with Spotify for podcasts. The Obamas sold their memoirs to Crown in 2017 for a record-breaking $65 million. Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” sold more than 16 million copies globally since its release in 2018.

Obama and Springsteen got to know each other in 2008 while Obama was campaigning, and became friends over the years. Springsteen performed at the White House in January 2017, as Obama was preparing to leave office.

In their podcast conversations, the pair largely focused on personal stories about their lives and avoided partisan politics, but spoke generally about the urgent need to understand and address divisions in American society.

“This is a time of vigilance when who we are is being seriously tested,” Springsteen writes in his introduction to “Renegades.” “Hard conversations about who we are and who we want to become can perhaps serve as a small guiding map for some of our fellow citizens.”