Laura Bush on Afghan women, U.S. interests and 2016 - USA TODAY

Former first lady Laura Bush has written the introduction for a new book, We Are Afghan Women: Voices of Hope, published this month by Scribner. She sat down this week with USA TODAY’s Capital Download to discuss why she hopes the United States will maintain a troop presence and continue reconstruction aid in Afghanistan despite the public’s weariness about America’s longest war. She also touched briefly on the 2016 presidential race and Donald Trump. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Q: There’s no shortage of causes that vie to get the attention of the first lady. The cause of Afghan women and girls is something you adopted weeks after the 9/11 attacks and have kept up for the 15 years since then. Why?
 A:  Because they needed help, I think. I think American women were shocked after Sept. 11 when the spotlight turned on Afghanistan and we saw a country where women were brutalized, really, and were marginalized. And what we saw in a country where half of the population is left out, is a failed country. And that’s what Afghanistan was. ...

Q: Last October, President Obama changed course and decided to keep a significant number of U.S. troops there. You thank him for that.
A: Yes, I think that’s really important — that we give them that stability that security forces there give them as they try to build their country.

Q: What would have happened?
A: I think they would have been set back. I think it would be very, very difficult for Afghanistan, like it has been for Iraq. And I think things that have happened in Iraq would start to happen there.

Q: When there’s a new president in January, do you see a role for yourself in making this case to the new administration?
A: I hadn’t thought about that but certainly I would be happy to talk to anyone about why I think it’s important. That’s why I wrote the book. The women from Afghanistan didn’t have a voice. You couldn’t hear from them. They didn’t speak up. In fact, women were in prison for speaking up or for laughing out loud. ....

Q: Afghanistan is America’s longest war. We’ve spent so much there in lives and treasure, now spending more on reconstruction there than in the Marshall Plan in Western Europe after World War II. Some Americans say: It’s time for us to get out. It’s up to the Afghan people.
A: And it is up to the Afghan people. There’s no doubt about them. It’s up to them to build their country or rebuild their country. And in this book, there are many women who want to do that. A lot of them left Afghanistan. They left when the Soviets came in in 1979 with their parents; they went to Pakistan. A lot of them immigrated to the United States. Some are now U.S. citizens. But they still felt called after Sept. 11 to go home. And many of them are the ones who have founded a lot of the programs that are supporting women in Afghanistan now. ...

Q: Why should the U.S. continue to invest so much there?
A: I think it’s in our interests. It’s in our security interests. We don’t want to see another failed country there. That’s what we saw on Sept. 11, and we don’t want to see that now. I know Americans are impatient. But we just need to look at our own history, and we need to stay with these countries and help them as long as it takes, and to have them as an ally.

We stayed in Japan for years after Pearl Harbor and after World War II. In fact, I think we still have bases in Japan. But now Japan is one of our closest allies. They’re one of our best friends. And certainly when George (W. Bush) was president and Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi was prime minister, George marveled at the idea that his father and Prime Minister Koizumi’s father had been sworn enemies, and now Prime Minister Koizumi was the very first one that called us to offer help after Sept. 11. 

Q: Your new book is titled “Voices of Hope.” But in some ways it’s hard to be hopeful about Afghanistan. The Taliban now control more territory than they have since the war began. Are the gains pretty fragile?
A: Yes, absolutely. That’s why we need to stay engaged. That’s the very reason we need to stay engaged. If we thought they were secure, then we wouldn’t need to be there and be engaged, but they’re not. ...

Q: If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, will you vote for him?
A: Susan, I’m not going to answer. Don’t ask that.

Q: You’ve stayed on the sidelines in politics since leaving the White House, and so has President Bush. ...
A: We got off the sidelines for Jeb (Bush). He was our candidate

Q: But in your book it’s clear that you don’t think Islam hates America, or that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States. Is there a point where you would feel compelled to come off the sidelines to speak out?
A: This is what I want Americans to remember -- what our real values are. And one of the very first things, one of the reasons we’re a country is because we believe in freedom of religion. We believe that people could be religious. They could choose any religion they wanted to, or they could not worship, if they didn’t want to. We don’t have any religious test in the United States. And that’s what we need to remember. We need to remember what our own values are.

We have a tendency in the United States, and it’s happened other times in our history, to become sort of isolationist and xenophobic and, you know, we’re just going to stay here together and not pay attention to the rest of the world. And it’s something that we have to pay attention to now because our world is so small. And it’s important for us — even though we’ve gone through these stages many other times in our history — to pay attention to the rest of the world. - Read More 
Laura Bush on Afghan women, U.S. interests and 2016

Former first lady Laura Bush believes in continued investment and support in Afghanistan - More