Thread by @SPMiles42

.@POTUS just finished his remarks laying out his plans for a complete drawdown of the US war in Afghanistan. I'll link to the full text once it's live, but I think it's REALLY important for progressives and anti-war advocates to show up in this moment. Let me explain why. 🧵

First, let's start with the obvious. @POTUS is doing what many, many of us have LONG called for. Yes, details matter. Yes, he's also doing a LOT we disagree with. And yes, this all should have happened a decade ago. But he's also still doing what we've called for. 2/

More often than not, we're in the business of pressuring, pushing, and calling out when the President isn't doing what we want. And trust me, I'll be back to that very, very shortly. But right now, he's doing what we want and we should recognize that and applaud it. 3/

Because while this is what many of us (and the majority of the US public) wants, this is NOT what the DC establishment/blob/callitwhatyouwant wants. They are nearly universally opposed to this, and they're not hiding that. They're loud and pushing back to reverse this. 4/

This isn't just a hypothetical. After the drawdown in #Iraq. The blob told a story - a lie - that the corrupt Maliki gov't and violent sectarian divide was somehow all irrelevant. The only thing that REALLY mattered was if US boots were on the ground or not. 5/

Let's be clear, they want that and no matter how untrue that myth is about the reality of how ISIS was created or what helped fuel the ensuing violence, it meant that Washington's answer was...more US troops! 6/

If the Blob is allowed to define the narrative again in Afghanistan, if they're allowed to erase 4 decades of conflict, 2 of them with a US military occupation, and somehow claim that it is the LACK of US warmaking that is fueling violence, US troops may yet be sent back in. 7/

But it's also deeper than that. Right now a lot of people still believe that it's bad politics to do what the American public wants and that instead we should do what the blob wants. That was never true, but that doesn't change the fact that powerful people in DC believe it. 8/

So now that @POTUS is doing the right thing, the popular thing, but also the thing the blob doesn't want him to do, it's important to show our power. It's important to show that if you do the right thing, people will have your back. It's important to show up. 9/

At the end of the day this isn't just about finally ending the longest war in US history. It's about preventing the next war from ever starting. To do that, we have to show up and applaud when a President does the unthinkable and actually ends a war instead of starting one. 10/10