Speaker 1: Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to soft Web Radio Special Operations, Military Nails
Speaker 1: and straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome back to soft rep Radio.
Speaker 2: On this episode, I have James Hassen, former Army, former
Speaker 2: Bronze Star recipient. He wrote a book and this book
Speaker 2: is a little bit of a title that I want
Speaker 2: to I just have to read it, okay, and correct
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, James, and then I'll get you.
Speaker 2: I'll get you to Welcome on the show. It's called Kaboul,
Speaker 2: The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American warriors
Speaker 2: who fought to die to the end. Is that correct
Speaker 2: or fought to the end? Fought to the end? Yes,
Speaker 2: that's yeah. Well, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks, Mat, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, So you've been making the circuit. You've been
Speaker 2: getting around talking about your book coming up. Is that
Speaker 2: what's happening? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we released on the on the fifteenth, so people
Speaker 3: can find Kabble you know, Amazon or anywhere else. But
Speaker 3: you know, we've been trying just our best to get
Speaker 3: the word out because one of the reasons that we
Speaker 3: wrote Cobble, my co author Jerry Dunleavy, and I was
Speaker 3: that with twenty years of war, twenty years of experiences,
Speaker 3: twenty years of loss and for things to and the
Speaker 3: way they did, and then with you know, this explanation
Speaker 3: from the administration that this was somehow a quote success,
Speaker 3: that this was inevitable, that.
Speaker 2: You know, well, which part was a success, like just
Speaker 2: the overall Coble evacuation was success because they feel that
Speaker 2: the lives lost work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not more than just said the other day. And
Speaker 3: that's also what you know, the messaging from from the
Speaker 3: White House has been. But that you know that that
Speaker 3: didn't well because I, you know, I knew people who
Speaker 3: were in Cubble when that was happening, and yeah, I
Speaker 3: did it, like my tiny little part to try and
Speaker 3: get the interpreters I knew out and thank god they are.
Speaker 3: But it realized that there was there's a whole lot
Speaker 3: that that hadn't been told. And candidly, you know, when
Speaker 3: we started, I thought that I had a decent idea
Speaker 3: it was what everything you know was like or what
Speaker 3: happened at least, And while writing the book, we realized
Speaker 3: we didn't even know the third of it. So that's
Speaker 3: really you know, there has to be some accountability, and
Speaker 3: more more importantly, the guys in the ground and the
Speaker 3: families of the thirteen deserve to.
Speaker 2: Have, you know, the stories told, So more accountability than
Speaker 2: just going to the VA saying that your injuries that
Speaker 2: you sustained overseas deployed were attributed to that situation. More
Speaker 2: than that kind of accountability to you know, you want
Speaker 2: the Biden administration to, like what it's a great question,
Speaker 2: what's the accountability you know for the situation that was.
Speaker 3: Honestly, if you were to ask me, I think Secretary
Speaker 3: of Austin, Secretary of Blincoln should have resigned, the President
Speaker 3: should have asked for their resignations. And I can go,
Speaker 3: you know, into as granular detail as you want about
Speaker 3: what those failings were. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I think also like accountability, you know, starts starts with
Speaker 3: the commander in chief, and that's that's a totally political matter.
Speaker 2: Let me say something real quick about that. Wouldn't that
Speaker 2: be going back to the commander in chief before him,
Speaker 2: who signed the papers in December saying to evacuate all
Speaker 2: US forces and to put that on Biden's play President Biden,
Speaker 2: the former Trump president, wouldn't that be his? And then
Speaker 2: want to go back to Reagan who actually wanted to
Speaker 2: go back to nineteen seventy nine, to the Soviets who
Speaker 2: invaded Afghanistan. The people, the beautiful people of Afghanistan, because
Speaker 2: we go back and look at Rambo three, the movie
Speaker 2: when he filmed Sylvester Stallone filmed that in Afghanistan, and
Speaker 2: in the credits and oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and the
Speaker 2: whole game that he's playing with the horses where they're
Speaker 2: tossing the goat into the goal, that's with the Afghani people,
Speaker 2: like the Northern Alliance, like the Mujahadeen. So when he's
Speaker 2: over there doing a movie in the eighties, and you know,
Speaker 2: Americans were able to go over there, have a whole
Speaker 2: film production brought over there. At the very end of
Speaker 2: the credits, it says thank you to the like wonderful
Speaker 2: beautiful people of Afghanistan at the very end, because they
Speaker 2: are a wonderful beautiful people.
Speaker 3: Would you agree, Honestly, it's one of the most beautiful
Speaker 3: places I've ever seen. And there are plenty of people
Speaker 3: that are not hospitable to US at all. But there
Speaker 3: are plenty of very very decent people.
Speaker 2: Even here in America.
Speaker 3: People are people. They're trying to I.
Speaker 2: Said, even in America, our own Americans aren't kind to
Speaker 2: one another, let alone in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: Right, well, yeah, I mean that, you know, people are people.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna find ship heads everywhere.
Speaker 3: There were, that's right, you know, And we talked about
Speaker 3: a lot of them in Kabul. There were a lot
Speaker 3: of Afghans who served alongside the US at great risk
Speaker 3: and a great sacrifice, and we made this promise to
Speaker 3: them that if they did that, they would have a
Speaker 3: life here.
Speaker 2: With us in America.
Speaker 3: And not uh, you know, not fulfilling that promise, I
Speaker 3: think was you know, it's a stain on the nation.
Speaker 3: But to get back to your other point about you know,
Speaker 3: they're all of the failures that kind of led up
Speaker 3: to this, right, right, which is it's a very very
Speaker 3: valid point because if you want to tell the full
Speaker 3: story of everything that happened in Afghanistan, then yeah, you
Speaker 3: got to. You got to at the very least you
Speaker 3: have to start, you know, begetting two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: You have to you have to talk about the fact that,
Speaker 3: you know, we we deprioritized Afghanistan when when the Iraq
Speaker 3: War started, you have talked, you know, talk about the
Speaker 3: you know, kind of this whole nation building idea where
Speaker 3: we stopped focusing on, you know, doing what military does best,
Speaker 3: which is defeating our enemies in the field battle. And
Speaker 3: you have to you know, you and and more specifically,
Speaker 3: you know, when you kind of get to the latter stages,
Speaker 3: you absolutely have to talk about the dohagre which allowed,
Speaker 3: you know, which was kind of this conditional agreement for
Speaker 3: US forces to withdraw and to be frank, we have
Speaker 3: a whole chapter in the book about the Doha Agreement.
Speaker 2: Isn't that where the Taliban came to the White House
Speaker 2: with Trump?
Speaker 3: So I think, yeah, I think Trump had not liked
Speaker 3: it never actually happened.
Speaker 2: He didn't have them on the meeting with the Taliban.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so he had a I think he he
Speaker 3: floated the idea of bringing them to Camp David, and
Speaker 3: for obvious reasons, everyone said that's an absolutely terrible and
Speaker 3: it never happened. But yeah, just but again, the Doha
Speaker 3: Agreement was an absolutely flawed agreement. And I want to be.
Speaker 3: I want to be very clear, I don't care which
Speaker 3: administration and which political party was in power. We would
Speaker 3: have told the exact same story the exact same way,
Speaker 3: because those are the facts, and the facts speak for themselves.
Speaker 3: But but specifically to the Doha agreement, the agreement negotiated
Speaker 3: by al khali Zad, who is the Trump appointed you know,
Speaker 3: special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was a very very
Speaker 3: flawed agreement, but it was a conditional agreement, and the
Speaker 3: conditions we said, will get out and again this is it.
Speaker 3: It is flawed, but we said we'll get out if
Speaker 3: you stop harboring al Qaida number one, if you stop
Speaker 3: attacking American troops number two, and if you agree to
Speaker 3: you know, engage in and of peace Bross diplomacy. And
Speaker 3: they never fulfilled any of those obligations. We were killing
Speaker 3: al Qaida in Afghanistan right before the agreement, right after
Speaker 3: the agreement, and they are you know, card caring members
Speaker 3: of al Kaieda who are in the Talabank government today
Speaker 3: and they continue to attack American forces. So this idea,
Speaker 3: we we focused on the withdrawal period itself because well, frankly,
Speaker 3: if you're going to right, twenty years of history in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: You're gonna need about ten thousand pages. But also because
Speaker 3: no matter what you think about the previous mistakes or
Speaker 3: whether we should have gotten out or not, things didn't
Speaker 3: have to end the way that they did. And we
Speaker 3: make a I think a very very convincing case, backed
Speaker 3: up by evidence and first hand testimony that the way
Speaker 3: things ended was one hundred percent due to the decisions
Speaker 3: and the complete lack of planning from the current administration.
Speaker 2: Now the lack of planning from the other administration. Let
Speaker 2: me let me be devil's advocate here, right, what do
Speaker 2: you think I'm gonna ask you? You're smart?
Speaker 3: I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: But are you an attorney too? Now? You go right
Speaker 2: to school? Aren't you an attorney? Also? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're smart. You're a juris doctorate. That means, you know,
Speaker 2: doctorate of los see my listener out there. If you
Speaker 2: didn't realize, is that a lawyer goes to school for
Speaker 2: at least six years. A doctor typically goes to school
Speaker 2: for about six years. They get a doctorate, and they
Speaker 2: call doctor Bob at the hospital.
Speaker 3: If you call me doctor, I'll hang up right now.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. But a lawyer is a juris doctorate correct, Yeah,
Speaker 2: technically yeah, so would that be like a doctor of law.
Speaker 3: That's technically what it means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm not calling it that.
Speaker 3: I'm in the world if you have an attorney that's
Speaker 3: going to call you doctor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, no no. I just want to
Speaker 2: explain that you know, as much as somebody can know
Speaker 2: about the spleen and the liver and the heart and
Speaker 2: all those valves, you are skilled in knowing what the
Speaker 2: comma means in like a sentence.
Speaker 3: You your trolling me here, But yeah, I mean I guess,
Speaker 3: but more and more, yeah, more to the point.
Speaker 2: Just so, so my question is when planning right, because
Speaker 2: we know we know what planning means. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: when Afghanistan, when did you get when did we When
Speaker 2: did the fall of KBL happen? What was that date
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty one? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, August fifteen one was when the Taliban.
Speaker 2: Fully on to go base their there. We all saw
Speaker 2: the aircraft taking off and people trying to hold on
Speaker 2: to the SEAFI or the c you know C forty seven,
Speaker 2: uh Sea forty seven aircraft. You know a lot of
Speaker 2: that was put out there all the time too, right,
Speaker 2: A lot of that was shown like to show us
Speaker 2: consistently over and over again, like look what happened. And
Speaker 2: then there was the worst of the worst because everybody
Speaker 2: was crowding into the airport, so somebody took advantage of
Speaker 2: a situation to create more catastrophe and panic. Right now,
Speaker 2: I wasn't there. I have talked to many, many people
Speaker 2: who have been there and were even captured by the
Speaker 2: Taliban after they had already evacked out four hundred different people,
Speaker 2: and they were sas, right, special Air Service guys, and
Speaker 2: they were beat on their feet for like five weeks, captured,
Speaker 2: never finding out that they were sas, never finding out
Speaker 2: that they had moved four hundred people out because of
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, translators, families, people who helped you
Speaker 2: know that are just gonna be killed. Which over there,
Speaker 2: they have this very barb archaic you know, law of
Speaker 2: the land. Okay, they still are right now. I think
Speaker 2: Software just wrote an article recently talking about how the
Speaker 2: Taliban are just pissing Afghanistan away right now, like they're
Speaker 2: just putting it into you know, they have the option
Speaker 2: right now to come out and do something with it,
Speaker 2: show the world that they could be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a stone Age ideology and and you know,
Speaker 3: you get a stone Age society if that tho's the
Speaker 3: people who are.
Speaker 2: Running it, yeah, really quickly, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think the car like the original sin of
Speaker 3: this whole thing was given up Bogram and abandoning Bogram.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is, well, first of all,
Speaker 3: it's important to note that every single military general, every
Speaker 3: every military advisor who spoke with the White House just
Speaker 3: pleaded with them not to give up Bogram, and it
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's obvious why for a strategic reason, right,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of standoff this in it's very defensible.
Speaker 3: It was actually built by the Soviets. It also has
Speaker 3: a whole lot of runways, and so it's most in
Speaker 3: proximity to Kabble, which you know, if we kept kind
Speaker 3: of those assets available, it would have been we at
Speaker 3: least would have had somewhat of a protective radius around
Speaker 3: Kabble and then Bogram from which we could do an evacuation.
Speaker 3: But there's also another another point to giving up Bogram,
Speaker 3: and that is that the suicide bomber himself, who murdered
Speaker 3: thirteen Americans, that's correct, wounded forty five more, and killed
Speaker 3: two hundred Afghans. Was in prison at Parwan Prison adjacent
Speaker 3: to Bagram Mayfield or to Bogram, and he was released
Speaker 3: when the Taliban overran it on August fifteenth. He was
Speaker 3: captured in twenty seventeen by the CIA, and because he
Speaker 3: was trying to conduct a suicide bombing in India of
Speaker 3: all places, and it was a joint operation between Indian
Speaker 3: intelligence and the and CIA, CIA asked to have him
Speaker 3: in custody using inn Afghan We put him there and
Speaker 3: then we abandoned Bagram and he gets released by the
Speaker 3: Taliban and eleven days later he's standing outside of Abby Gate.
Speaker 2: And so that alone is good. Know that's wild man.
Speaker 2: You know know that you were in prison and you
Speaker 2: were staring at four walls or whatever your prison cell is,
Speaker 2: and all you want to do is get out to
Speaker 2: blow yourself up because you're so dedicated to your cause.
Speaker 2: Your whole time in the prison is like I must
Speaker 2: get out of here to just blow myself up.
Speaker 3: You know what do What's crazy is it's impossible to
Speaker 3: give you like a logical explanation for an illogical action. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but to your point. So we spoke with an American
Speaker 3: who was held hostage by the Taliban for sixty days
Speaker 3: and it is now free, thank god. But he was
Speaker 3: telling us about some of his time in captivity, and
Speaker 3: you know, he was talking to the Taliban guards, and
Speaker 3: of course anyone's been in Afghanistan. No, it was like
Speaker 3: the very first question that comes up and any of
Speaker 3: these conversations is like, do you have kids? You know,
Speaker 3: do you have sons specifically? And they you know, he
Speaker 3: asked that to the guard and the guard said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not married, and then said I was in the lottery,
Speaker 3: but I never got picked. And the guy said the lottery, like,
Speaker 3: you know, what do you mean, thinking like some kind
Speaker 3: of you know, and he said, oh, to be a
Speaker 3: suicide bumber. And he did this this The Taliban guard
Speaker 3: felt almost disappointed that his name wasn't the one that
Speaker 3: got picked.
Speaker 2: Almost like a revelation from them, come and say it's
Speaker 2: your time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's again. It's impossible to it. It defies explanation.
Speaker 2: Well, I knew that in like I would use they
Speaker 2: would use individuals that had like Down syndrome, Yeah, and put.
Speaker 3: Them and they're they're I mean they you know.
Speaker 2: Truly, truly, truly just like you know, walking into this mark.
Speaker 2: And they just because they were cowards.
Speaker 3: Just because they're cowardly, and just because they're evil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, evil, coward.
Speaker 3: And ready to describe it, you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean, And I mean just to do that
Speaker 2: and just to cause that, you know, commotion. These people
Speaker 2: wanted to get out because you know, they wanted to
Speaker 2: leave the country. They thought they had to leave the country.
Speaker 2: They don't want to be there, they didn't want to
Speaker 2: They wanted to be able to go to school. The
Speaker 2: girls were smart, are smart still smart, should run the world,
Speaker 2: but here they are overpowered by these guys with aks
Speaker 2: and some of our blackhawks. Now interesting, Yeah, there.
Speaker 3: Were plenty of people that are outside the gates that
Speaker 3: had no connection to the US, but there were plenty
Speaker 3: and tens of thousands, and it's heartbreak and hear their
Speaker 3: stories who who could have gotten out and should have
Speaker 3: and didn't right and Americans and you know, well over
Speaker 3: one thousand Americans too, which is interesting because when you know.
Speaker 3: On August thirty, first Secretary Anthony B. Lincoln, Secretary of State,
Speaker 3: Lincoln said it's about close to one hundred people, one
Speaker 3: hundred Americans that are left behind, and that is patently false,
Speaker 3: and we lay out in Cobble exactly why that's false.
Speaker 3: And in fact, just the other day, Blinking ragged that
Speaker 3: we had evacuated nine hundred Americans since Cobble fell, and
Speaker 3: so so even by his own numbers, that.
Speaker 2: That disc is just a lie. Now for your book,
Speaker 2: you guys went and talked to folks who were like
Speaker 2: at the gate, right, almost like the Marines that were
Speaker 2: that They were mostly Marines, right, is that who? You guys?
Speaker 3: Cat Marines and a second airborne talked some some Air
Speaker 3: Force folks. You know a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: those people are still serving. So we were very careful
Speaker 3: to try and make sure that we didn't, you know,
Speaker 3: put them in a really tough spot where all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, now you know, the brigade commanders calling down like, hey,
Speaker 3: why you guys like you know, talking to dudes write
Speaker 3: a book. But yeah, we talked to a lot, you know,
Speaker 3: more than count and what they did and what they
Speaker 3: dealt with, what they did was heroic. What they dealt
Speaker 3: with was horrific, and but they they literally it was
Speaker 3: it was the best of the American people kind of
Speaker 3: you know, on the individual level, and the American government
Speaker 3: at its worst.
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow. So so let's just talk about a little bit.
Speaker 2: Let me go, let me just kind of rewind here
Speaker 2: from my listener. I just jumped right in with you.
Speaker 2: Usually I say go to my merch store and I say,
Speaker 2: you know, go check out our book club at software
Speaker 2: dot com. So I'm getting that in there. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's like you were in the army. All right, let's
Speaker 2: just kind of really speak on your background a little bit.
Speaker 2: You were airborne ranger, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I went, I went through to school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you went into Afghanistan yourself. You've been
Speaker 2: there boots on the.
Speaker 3: Ground right the coast and Nangahar and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and then what year was that?
Speaker 3: Do you think I was there twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen times, so it kind of as really the
Speaker 3: last you know, I think at twenty fifteen was when
Speaker 3: the the Pentagon said just it was kind of just
Speaker 3: right right before I left. It was when they said, okay,
Speaker 3: we're ending combat operation. Since then, now i'm you know,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, I'm leading like a much more boring
Speaker 3: life as a lawyer, but but a lot of like
Speaker 3: you know, my my grandfather was a marine, and that's
Speaker 3: on my mom's side, and all of my mom's brothers,
Speaker 3: all three of them served.
Speaker 2: And then I have do you have lawyers? Do you
Speaker 2: have attorneys in your family? Also? Are you the first attorney?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, my my dad was.
Speaker 2: Also.
Speaker 3: It was funny because I was like, I was like,
Speaker 3: there's no way I'm gonna ever gonna be like a lawyer.
Speaker 3: That's right, that sounds stupid, you know, joining the army
Speaker 3: and uh you know I got out and I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: well it's combat arms. Like I'm not to break things,
Speaker 3: but I need like a skill set and uh yeah, right,
Speaker 3: go to go to law school. But yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 3: my I have two cousins right now who are in
Speaker 3: h arm special forces groups.
Speaker 2: And so there's that in your blood close.
Speaker 3: To like about ten across all four major brand well
Speaker 3: three really no, it's in the coastcar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You ever thought about re enlisting and going JAG
Speaker 2: now that you can be an officer with your attorney degree.
Speaker 3: My wife would kill me.
Speaker 2: You seem young, You seem like you're still young enough
Speaker 2: and I know the army's looking for a looking for that.
Speaker 2: It could be all you can be. Right now, I'm
Speaker 2: doing some free advertising right for them.
Speaker 3: They're definitely especially. I mean I remember being in law
Speaker 3: school and just being like, man, I miss you know,
Speaker 3: the purpose of the people and all that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: now now I'm happy. Yeah, I have a wife and
Speaker 3: a daughter and my You know, if I want to
Speaker 3: come home alive, I have to tell you, no, I've
Speaker 3: never thought about it.
Speaker 2: After this conversation. Yes, sir, Yes, ma'am. He loves you
Speaker 2: very much. He chooses your deployment. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: So what made you you just had to get this
Speaker 2: off here? You have to write this? Did you? Did
Speaker 2: you put your hands on the keyboard? Is this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You wrote?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Jerry and I I wrote it together. His
Speaker 3: brother we've been friends, by the way, for almost a decade,
Speaker 3: and his brother did three deployments in Afghanistan is still
Speaker 3: still active duty, and so Afghanistan was something that we
Speaker 3: always talked about. Actually, his brother went through ranger school,
Speaker 3: I think just a few classes behind me, and but yeah,
Speaker 3: it was something we always talked about. And then when
Speaker 3: there was the Dough agreement, and then when President Biden
Speaker 3: gave his his speech on April April twenty twenty one
Speaker 3: saying that we're getting out. We both are longtime followers
Speaker 3: of the Long War Journal, which I'm sure you know
Speaker 3: plenty of some listeners might be as well. But you know,
Speaker 3: they were cataloging at just the granular level of all
Speaker 3: of the district's falling and the you know then that
Speaker 3: the provincial capital is falling, and we kind of looked
Speaker 3: at it and we said, oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 3: this could be a kind of disaster. And talking to
Speaker 3: folks that I knew who were who were there, you know,
Speaker 3: I knew that they saw the writing on the wall
Speaker 3: as well. And then really, you know, what it comes
Speaker 3: down to is that it didn't sit well with me
Speaker 3: at all that this is the way that ended, and
Speaker 3: and more specifically that there were a lot of mistakes
Speaker 3: that we detail in Kabble. One is you know, like
Speaker 3: I mentioned with Bogram, and we can get into some
Speaker 3: kind of during the evacuation itself that were really driven
Speaker 3: a lot by decisions made by leaders in d C
Speaker 3: and put that really put no meta women at incredible risk,
Speaker 3: and we abandoned the American citizens. It used to be
Speaker 3: that a blue passport, right, the blue American passport is
Speaker 3: the most valuable document in the world, because it meant
Speaker 3: if you're an American and you know, like Captain Phillips, right,
Speaker 3: and like that whole whole story. If if you know
Speaker 3: terrorists or pirates hijack you and have you floating on
Speaker 3: a boat, you know, off of Somalia, We're gonna come
Speaker 3: and we're gonna we're going to kill those people, and
Speaker 3: we're going to rescue you. And we actually we did
Speaker 3: that even you know, in late twenty twenty in Nigeria,
Speaker 3: when Americans were taken hostage by Islamic militant's affiliate with
Speaker 3: Bokohram and this was the first time in modern history
Speaker 3: that the American government knowingly abandoned not just American citizens,
Speaker 3: but thousands of American citizens. And one thing that we
Speaker 3: learned while writing Kabble was that on August twenty fourth,
Speaker 3: the military, we were Admiral vasile Is, the Navy Seal
Speaker 3: in particular, determined that it would be impossible to get
Speaker 3: every American out by August thirty first, and they communicated
Speaker 3: that to the White House. The White House knew, and
Speaker 3: yet the White House continued to say publicly. National Security
Speaker 3: Advisor Jake Sullivan said, we're gonna, you know, we're going
Speaker 3: to get everybody out by the thirty first. The White
Speaker 3: House Press Secretary Jensaki actually lectured a journalist who said, well,
Speaker 3: what happens if we don't get people out? And she said,
Speaker 3: that's irresponsible. They're not stranded. But the White House knew
Speaker 3: at the time that that was not true, and so
Speaker 3: that that that just you know, it stuck in the
Speaker 3: crawl and we felt like somebody needed to tell the story,
Speaker 3: and we spent a year and a half doing it.
Speaker 2: So when you just said what you said, are you
Speaker 2: referring to Africa bocal karam a moment ago or are you
Speaker 2: referring to Doha kabble? When you said, Jensaki.
Speaker 3: The Attorney, I was speaking about Nigeria, and that just
Speaker 3: to say as examples of the you know how the
Speaker 3: US has always gone to rescue its citizens, and then
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan, we just ripped that precedent to shreds and
Speaker 3: we knew that we were abandoning citizens and that that's
Speaker 3: what I was saying with the Jensaki and Jake Sullivan,
Speaker 3: they knew what they were saying as.
Speaker 2: Falls I see, I see, now I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to let you say that and then
Speaker 2: someone can comment down below if they go find something else,
Speaker 2: whatever that case is. That's that's in the book. That's
Speaker 2: the comment section. I want to engage my listener. No,
Speaker 2: that's why I'm poking the bear here. Please, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I know it's it's great because I lived through all
Speaker 2: of this as well, you know, and I've and I
Speaker 2: can interpret what I've seen, and I think not being
Speaker 2: there is a huge thing that I can't talk to,
Speaker 2: you know, which I can only you know, talk from
Speaker 2: hearsay from those that have relayed information from themselves personally
Speaker 2: being there or like what you're saying, you have people
Speaker 2: who have heard those same things that have maybe sworn
Speaker 2: a testimony to you somehow, but they're not willing to
Speaker 2: give up that information because they're fearing reprisal or retribution
Speaker 2: in their ranks, because they're actively in the military mind.
Speaker 3: And some of them a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: what we got were actually sworn statements submitted to the
Speaker 3: Pentagon that were published through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Speaker 2: So these would be like Pentagon papers that you guys
Speaker 2: went and got like THEO on and then put that
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 3: And there were all the interviews that the Pentagon abby
Speaker 3: Gate Report about everything that happened, kind of their like
Speaker 3: after action review contained all of the transcribed interviews with
Speaker 3: over one hundred service members. And then the second there
Speaker 3: was a second investigation into the drone strike in the ninth,
Speaker 3: the twenty ninth and Krabble that killed Afghan civilians. And
Speaker 3: there also there were a lot of you know, sworn
Speaker 3: statements submitted by individuals, and I'll add we're talking about
Speaker 3: individuals in the room. People were hot like one of
Speaker 3: them was the authorizing authority for fifty one different air
Speaker 3: strikes or unmanned you know, air strikes in Afghanistan from
Speaker 3: August eighth to August fifteenth. So you're talking about people
Speaker 3: who clearly are in the know, and we quote their
Speaker 3: words directly, and you know, some of their names were adacted.
Speaker 3: We were able to kind of figure out who some
Speaker 3: of them were. We have to actually get in contact
Speaker 3: with some of them. But you know, again, do.
Speaker 2: You think there was like behind the scenes stuff that
Speaker 2: you and I haven't heard about let's make up something.
Speaker 2: Let's be hype for hiper talking here real quick. Do
Speaker 2: you think that maybe we need the Taliban to fight
Speaker 2: the Chinese eventually? And so there has been some kind
Speaker 2: of chess move behind the world's back to actually give
Speaker 2: them all that equipment and let them have all of it.
Speaker 2: And they no, no, no, no no no, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: let's we will need them to defend against the Chinese.
Speaker 2: Let's again I said the Chinese, right, they border the
Speaker 2: China they bordered, yeah, right, and so they have all
Speaker 2: that stuff now to kind of you know, go to battle.
Speaker 3: What's interesting about it is actually China and Taliban have
Speaker 3: been co op ever since though we got out, and
Speaker 3: in fact, we spoke to the well now former I was.
Speaker 2: Trying to want to cooperate with them. They'd want their land, right,
Speaker 2: and so that's just another invader coming into Afghanistan, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they want the natural resources that are
Speaker 3: all on those mountains. They also Bogram is a very serviceable,
Speaker 3: large scale military airfield that is right in that region
Speaker 3: that allows them to just project all kinds of power.
Speaker 3: And you know, the Taliban hasn't given it to them yet,
Speaker 3: but it seems like, you know, China has some some
Speaker 3: designs on that. But but it's interesting you bring up China.
Speaker 3: They from the moment that this happened, they're propaganda mouthpieces,
Speaker 3: uh you, including their their their foreign minister labeled it
Speaker 3: the quote unquote cobble moment. That's that's how they described it.
Speaker 3: And they immediately started saying things like, hey, you know, Taiwan,
Speaker 3: if you stay with America, this is going to happen
Speaker 3: to you too, like don't you see and uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean China they call Taiwan. There's but
Speaker 2: Taiwan calls China there, so you know, it's West China
Speaker 2: to them, right, right or West Taiwan, right, they say
Speaker 2: east or East China.
Speaker 3: How do they call it what Taiwan says? But I
Speaker 3: know China thinks Taiwan belongs to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, China's wrong because they're democracy and they're Taiwan.
Speaker 2: They have their own their own people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they they but China used this as a
Speaker 3: propaganda tool. And you know, even just on the anniversary
Speaker 3: of the week and a half ago or two weeks
Speaker 3: ago now, on the fifteenth, you know, China again described
Speaker 3: it as the quote unquote Kable moment where they said,
Speaker 3: basically America's week and America won't stand up for its friends,
Speaker 3: and so they took it as kind of this this
Speaker 3: you know, they're emboldened. And to that matter, so was Russia.
Speaker 3: We may we have a whole chapter on that in
Speaker 3: Kable where if you look at the satellite photos, you
Speaker 3: look at the statements that that Russia was making, you
Speaker 3: look at even the ground troop movements they had. They
Speaker 3: started the military build up around Ukraine in September of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, right after that withdrawal, and we all
Speaker 3: know that they invaded, you know, in February twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: February twenty second. Yeah, that's like another nine to eleven
Speaker 2: for the world right there. There's been so many casualties
Speaker 2: and destructions in Ukraine. Yeah, I told my friend right now,
Speaker 2: we have to support that war over there. We have
Speaker 2: to support those people because are you ready for a
Speaker 2: hypersonic missile to blow up your smith's marketplace right now?
Speaker 2: That grocery store across the street. Are you ready to
Speaker 2: stand here while we're getting our oil change, Bobby, and
Speaker 2: you're ready to have that place blow up behind us?
Speaker 2: Are you ready? For your daughter to come screaming saying
Speaker 2: that her neighbor has been blown apart here in America?
Speaker 2: Or would you rather just keep the fight at bay,
Speaker 2: you know, and just put that, you know over there.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's the conversation that's going on in this
Speaker 2: neck of the woods of Utah. You know where I talk? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Where in Utah?
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 3: By the way?
Speaker 2: If Salt Lake City, Salic City, Park City, all the
Speaker 2: fanciest places, the ski resorts, they're all my house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Utah,
Speaker 2: that's my house. Welcome yea, well you walk into.
Speaker 3: You got a nice fire back there.
Speaker 2: Man. I do, I do. Oh. I'm hardcore mountain guy.
Speaker 2: I'm up in the mountains. You know. We snowboard all day,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty much every day of the week. My
Speaker 2: wife and I, you know, we enjoy the snow so
Speaker 2: we don't have to complain about it. You know. It's
Speaker 2: like just embrace it and then yeah, because then you
Speaker 2: shred it and you're like, I just shredded this mountain.
Speaker 3: They say people are either like mountain people or beach people,
Speaker 3: and I'm definitely like more of a mountain Yeah. Like
Speaker 3: data week, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I like to say, is that as someone
Speaker 2: who's got mental health issues myself all right, that tries
Speaker 2: to stay alive every single day, is I just like
Speaker 2: to go outside and connect, whether I'm going and boxing
Speaker 2: at the gym and yeah, just working on my own
Speaker 2: self being or mental toughness. Yeah, dude, and just like
Speaker 2: snowboarding or surfing, go and play some badminton or pickleball
Speaker 2: or something. Go do something. Yeah, get out to pickleball. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know it's true, right, stay healthy, you're a ranger.
Speaker 3: It's it's like, I think the more that everyone just
Speaker 3: sits behind their computer, which is funny because we're still
Speaker 3: about the computers right now, but true and kind of
Speaker 3: loses touch with that like the worst, uh the worst.
Speaker 3: It's for everyone's mental health, especially get on people dealt
Speaker 3: with a whole lot.
Speaker 2: See over my shoulder though, I keep my snowboard there
Speaker 2: to make sure that you know, on my wall my
Speaker 2: snow findings, yeah right there, just so you know. It's
Speaker 2: it's like, hi, I know it's still September, and yes,
Speaker 2: the fireplace is going it's about uh you know, eighty
Speaker 2: degrees maybe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was gonna say, you know, that's
Speaker 3: not for warmth clearly, but I love it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I do not need to. It's definitely
Speaker 2: for you. The fireplace is for you. I appreciate it, yes,
Speaker 2: and it's it's actual. And again, go to the merch
Speaker 2: store and buy stuff because every time you buy a
Speaker 2: branded softwarep shirt or coffee mug or pocket knife, the
Speaker 2: fireplace gets to stay lit, and so does mine.
Speaker 3: If you buy cobble by the way, I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: just gonna throw that out.
Speaker 2: I had bro we're gonna have a link in there,
Speaker 2: or we're gonna have it in the description for sure.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know it's probably on Amazon, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's Amazon and anywhere else you can find books.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even if you go check your local Mom's publish
Speaker 2: or do you think this is do you uh? Do
Speaker 2: you think it's at the airport book lounge?
Speaker 3: Your lifts to God's Ears?
Speaker 2: Man? Hey, you know, well, next time you go through
Speaker 2: the airport and you want to have something to read,
Speaker 2: just go check and see if there's a book, or
Speaker 2: download it to your phone. Yeah, simple.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 2: Oh did you do that or did you?
Speaker 3: Jerry the publisher chose somebody with a much sexier voice
Speaker 3: than mine to do it. But yeah, but no, but
Speaker 3: he does a great job, and it's he's.
Speaker 2: Like stuff on outside of our life. And then the
Speaker 2: six pack abs You're like, no, no, no, no, great voice,
Speaker 2: but no, oh that's great. So tell me a story
Speaker 2: about being a ranger. Can you tell me one thing
Speaker 2: that was super tough for you through going through RIP,
Speaker 2: which is ranger and doctor Nation or was that right? Rip? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Give me use if you're if you're going to go
Speaker 3: join the seventy fifth Regiment. So if you if you're
Speaker 3: an officer, you do Ranger school first to become ranger qualified,
Speaker 3: and then I do do your four years, then you
Speaker 3: can apply to go through RIP and become a platoon leader.
Speaker 3: I did not do that. I went through ranger school, graduated,
Speaker 3: I got out after Afghanistan. I had a lot of
Speaker 3: friends who applied and did get in. But I can
Speaker 3: tell you about yeah, range of school just in general.
Speaker 2: Man, Like, if somebody's looking to go right now, they're
Speaker 2: on the fence. Yeah, they're on the fence. They're like, hey,
Speaker 2: do I want to go in the army and become
Speaker 2: a ranger? You know, give them a piece of advice.
Speaker 3: I think what I would say is it is that
Speaker 3: was probably the most grueling subone months I've ever done.
Speaker 3: I lost thirty to forty pounds because you're you're sleeping
Speaker 3: a couple hours a day, You're you know, you're getting
Speaker 3: probably like one thousand and twelve hundred calories, and you're
Speaker 3: walking with like eighty pounds on your back the whole time,
Speaker 3: and you know, doing training and then doing you know,
Speaker 3: training mission where they evaluate you. I remember one time
Speaker 3: just walking on a trail and literally falling asleep and
Speaker 3: waking up. The trail turned. It was it was kind
Speaker 3: of a file formation, and the trail turned right, and
Speaker 3: I just they called droning. I just kept walking straight,
Speaker 3: just walked right right off the trailer in the woods.
Speaker 3: And I remember just waking up this all right, just
Speaker 3: like slapping me on the helmet, just like, what the
Speaker 3: hell are you doing?
Speaker 2: But you're trying to get some sleep.
Speaker 3: Man, I just I don't know, I don't know what
Speaker 3: I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But so so you got back in column right formation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got back and just just pretended it, you know,
Speaker 3: kept trying to keep an eye on the.
Speaker 2: How is land navigation did you work on land nav
Speaker 2: using like a compass and a protractor.
Speaker 3: Of course, they give you a bunch of points and
Speaker 3: it's all you know, like the trains all about, like
Speaker 3: you know, branches and vines like two inches in front
Speaker 3: of your face. The whole time you're trying to like
Speaker 3: you can't use anything that you know, and it's a night.
Speaker 3: But you know, I was able to like stumble into
Speaker 3: the right points, I guess, and uh, you know, but
Speaker 3: when I was actually in the army, my god, man,
Speaker 3: I relied on the n CEOs and whoever that point
Speaker 3: man was to be like, tell me where we need
Speaker 3: to go. Because not my greatest skill set, but there's
Speaker 3: good enough, I guess, just to pass school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you had to pass at school.
Speaker 3: But you know that there's always somebody's been doing it
Speaker 3: a lot longer than you have, and there's a lot
Speaker 3: better than you do.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so maybe get a lens static compass if
Speaker 2: you're thinking about doing it, and start messing around with
Speaker 2: that and learning about all the different functions of like
Speaker 2: a lens static compass. Did you have technology to find
Speaker 2: your land navigation or was it a lens static that
Speaker 2: lens static style?
Speaker 3: Yep, just the old school compass. And that's really all
Speaker 3: you need, you know, like GPS can failure. But but
Speaker 3: the compass some points in the north, you know, yep,
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean back to to specifically to Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: I you know one thing that you know, you asked
Speaker 3: about stories and that that's actually what kind of just
Speaker 3: chogged my thought on that we had the absolute honor
Speaker 3: and privilege of hearing a lot of the you know,
Speaker 3: whether the eighty second guys, whether they were you know,
Speaker 3: the Marines from two to one or you know, even
Speaker 3: three ten ten mountain guys tell their stories of what
Speaker 3: they dealt with because they were placed in an impossible situation.
Speaker 3: On August fourteenth, we had six hundred troops in the
Speaker 3: country that was it in a tiny airstrip in a
Speaker 3: dense urban environment surrounded by you know, pallar buildings that
Speaker 3: have oversight over you know, yeah, basically run and we
Speaker 3: ended up flying five thousand people back into the country
Speaker 3: to help this, you know, to secure it and help
Speaker 3: the evacuation. But a lot of them landed without. It
Speaker 3: was so it was so quick and everything was so
Speaker 3: at hog that they landed without you know, some of
Speaker 3: them didn't they didn't have a map, they'd never been
Speaker 3: to h guy before you have the you know, the
Speaker 3: crew chief on that the C one thirty just pointing
Speaker 3: and saying, hey, north is that way, and you know,
Speaker 3: guiding him into into positions. Some of them were when
Speaker 3: if you remember that those scenes of you know, the
Speaker 3: crowds flooding the airfield and you know, the people falling
Speaker 3: off planes, and that was August.
Speaker 2: Fifteenth, Baby up to the Marines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, fallowing off the airplanes as they were
Speaker 3: taking off because they were trying to cling on for
Speaker 3: dear life. They were there. Some of the Marines from
Speaker 3: two to one were you know, they come from Jordan
Speaker 3: and they were in my memories. I believe tark Weight
Speaker 3: it's it's in the book. I'm just confusing the two
Speaker 3: air base names right now. But they were there and
Speaker 3: the last thing that they saw before they got on
Speaker 3: the flight was was that chaos. And in between when
Speaker 3: they took off and when they landed, we were able
Speaker 3: to clear the airfield with the help of the CIA's
Speaker 3: para paramilitary organization that did National strike units. But so
Speaker 3: they landed thinking we're about we're walking like we're in
Speaker 3: to land and there're gonna be people like twenty feet
Speaker 3: off the ramp and you know, we're gonna be kind
Speaker 3: of like wrestling hand to hand with people, the same
Speaker 3: way our buddies are. And but that at that point
Speaker 3: it was you know, it was clear year and that
Speaker 3: they got off, and you know, the NCO was like, hey,
Speaker 3: get up, you know, should add like it's it's you're fine.
Speaker 3: But the point of that is they had no idea
Speaker 3: what they were walking into. And then what they dealt
Speaker 3: with at the gates. You know that the crowds were desperate,
Speaker 3: so they before the first shift at Abby Gate for
Speaker 3: one of these platoons, and Abby Gate was was that's
Speaker 3: the gate obviously where the bombing happened. It's also it
Speaker 3: was one of the main entrance points for American says
Speaker 3: Afghan allies, but also just the crowds of people who
Speaker 3: didn't eat the criteria but wanted to get in. And
Speaker 3: but before that first shift, their chaplain, it was a
Speaker 3: Catholic priest, told them, you know, you're going to see
Speaker 3: things that no person should ever have to see. And
Speaker 3: one of the Marines we spoke to said, you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't know what he mean. I was like, okay, chaplin,
Speaker 3: and then he said, like, you know, several hours later,
Speaker 3: I got it because there was a dead baby just
Speaker 3: floating in the canal right in front of me, and
Speaker 3: they they went, you know, babies and women being trampled
Speaker 3: to death by the crowds. There were women throwing themselves
Speaker 3: on the razor wire to try and either hurt themselves
Speaker 3: enough that they got medical treatment and brought inside the airfield,
Speaker 3: or because they didn't want they wanted to they kill
Speaker 3: themselves because they didn't want to go back through the
Speaker 3: Taliban checkpoints that are just brutalized.
Speaker 2: And that's right, because they're yeah, because want to be free.
Speaker 3: They were allowed in the Taliban to provide security again
Speaker 3: because of that failure to plan. But then also, you
Speaker 3: know they watched, you know, the Afghan or the Taliban
Speaker 3: were beating Afghan allies. They're beating American citizens and in
Speaker 3: some cases executing.
Speaker 2: Where the hell were the Afghan army doing anything at all?
Speaker 2: I just want to say something real good. Where the
Speaker 2: hell were they? Why weren't they standing up? Why are
Speaker 2: they willing to be translators for the Green Berets, Why
Speaker 2: are they willing to go and risk their lives? And
Speaker 2: now is suddenly we got to pull them out. Why
Speaker 2: can't they just stay there and fight like we fought
Speaker 2: against the British. Why can't they just die for their country,
Speaker 2: you know, with arms like wor supposed to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great.
Speaker 2: Why is it our fault that they don't defend their country? Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, No, I mean I think there's plenty. There's plenty
Speaker 3: of that to go around. And we talked about that
Speaker 3: a lot in Cobble. The people have talked about are
Speaker 3: kind of like the interpreters are served with US units,
Speaker 3: and when the US units they were left behind. But
Speaker 3: for the Afghan military, I remember, you know there's there
Speaker 3: was one air force, remember this Air Force Special Operations comming.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be a discrete here, but he said,
Speaker 3: and we quote in the book, and you know there
Speaker 3: was there was basically a riot at the gates and
Speaker 3: a lot of them were young military age males who
Speaker 3: had no connection to the US and no connection to
Speaker 3: Afghan government even, who were pushing, shoving, punching, trying to
Speaker 3: get their way through. And he said he remembered thinking, man,
Speaker 3: if you guys just fought the Taliban is half as
Speaker 3: hard as you're fighting us right now, we wouldn't be
Speaker 3: in this situation. So there's there's and there are a
Speaker 3: lot of units that just melted away. As anyone in
Speaker 3: Afghanistan knows, allegiances changed very quickly, and you know, you
Speaker 3: can rent loyalty, but you can't buy it. But you know,
Speaker 3: but there a lot of those other people, those interpreters,
Speaker 3: Afghan contractors, they were loyal and they were there and
Speaker 3: and we we bandoned them, and that I think is
Speaker 3: just morally disgraceful.
Speaker 2: Well let's let's let's put into perspective then real quick.
Speaker 2: You know, James, if there was about six to nine
Speaker 2: hundred of our troops, soldiers, marines in country that were there,
Speaker 2: you know, under orders, you know, what are they going
Speaker 2: to do? Right? Right?
Speaker 3: I mean I think so said the airfield on the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to get out. You got to get out, right
Speaker 2: if we're getting out? And so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry to interrupt, Yeah, I mean that's well.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking like so, you know, when we
Speaker 2: had the height of the you know, looking for Bin
Speaker 2: Laden and going to our Bora caves, you know, Delta
Speaker 2: was going after him, getting stopped in Pakistan because they
Speaker 2: couldn't cross borders and all these different types of things
Speaker 2: that were going on, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you know, we're down to like eight hundred people. Six
Speaker 2: you know, there was a whole administration six hundred people
Speaker 2: and prior to that, for four years, Trump could have
Speaker 2: uped those numbers or whatever. Yeah, he could have done something,
Speaker 2: but no, he just pulls out and signs it under
Speaker 2: you know, direct that he's not the president anymore, and
Speaker 2: he's just putting that on Biden's plate. And I get that,
Speaker 2: but it should be the American's failure. It shouldn't just
Speaker 2: be attached to Biden. Well, so we voted for both
Speaker 2: of those guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me let me be very clear. I think
Speaker 3: that that was what what you know, and even December
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty one or twenty twenty excuse me, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty after your action, you know, Trump, you know, proclaimed
Speaker 3: like we're just gonna get everyone out right now, which
Speaker 3: also would have been an absolute disaster, and he got
Speaker 3: talked out of it, and thank god that didn't happen.
Speaker 3: And we're also we're very very clear eyed about you know,
Speaker 3: Secretary Michael, let's.
Speaker 2: Talk about who talked him out of that, right, General Millie, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I believe so if that's the case.
Speaker 3: It was, it was it was the joint chiefs when
Speaker 3: he's a chairman, you know. But like again in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty in the summer, you know, Mike Pompeia was was
Speaker 3: also saying things that you know about the Taliban's ability
Speaker 3: to in at the Taliban breaking with al Qaeda, that
Speaker 3: just we're not true and we know we're not true.
Speaker 3: And as we point that out in the book. So
Speaker 3: you know, we speak about Biden because he is the
Speaker 3: commander in chief and he was the one that made
Speaker 3: the decision when the military asked to keep twenty two
Speaker 3: hundred people there in the whole bog at least in
Speaker 3: terms of while also even if you're conducting an evacuation,
Speaker 3: let's keep at least you know, whole bogram while we
Speaker 3: do it. They said that thirty five hundred was the ideal,
Speaker 3: but there were there were twenty five one hundred people
Speaker 3: still in the country when Biden and they.
Speaker 2: Asked for.
Speaker 3: And so there were twenty five hundred still in the
Speaker 3: country and they didn't have orders to leave, yet those
Speaker 3: orders came from it. That's why you know what we
Speaker 3: focused on that point in time, because no matter where
Speaker 3: you come down in the first nineteen years. It was
Speaker 3: the decisions that were made to abandon Bogram, but then
Speaker 3: also to ignore all of the warnings coming from the
Speaker 3: military and even from the embassy officials, including the regional
Speaker 3: security officer, who's that the head State Department security guy
Speaker 3: stand warrying that, you know, Cobble was going to collapse,
Speaker 3: the Taliban were going to take over, and we're gonna
Speaker 3: have a disaster, and they ignored that. And so that
Speaker 3: that's why, you know, if you see in the subtitle
Speaker 3: of the book, it references Biden, but we're very very
Speaker 3: clear about the failures.
Speaker 2: That led up to it.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, he's a commander
Speaker 3: in chief. The buckstops there, and he made the decisions
Speaker 3: that he made independently, and in fact, he stated that
Speaker 3: he would have withdrawn. He said this in his I
Speaker 3: believe in his April speech announcing with draw for twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, he said, Doha, no, Doha, I would have
Speaker 3: gotten out. And it's funny because they thought this was
Speaker 3: a great idea, and they thought that this was this
Speaker 3: is going to be kind of a win for them,
Speaker 3: and so throughout the spring and summer they were actually
Speaker 3: taking a lot of credit for making a decision. And
Speaker 3: it wasn't until everything fell apart that all of a
Speaker 3: sudden you hear this, Oh, our hands were tied. We
Speaker 3: were forced to do this again. The Dough agreement was
Speaker 3: conditions based. The Taliban didn't meet the conditions, we didn't
Speaker 3: have to get out, and those twenty five hundred were
Speaker 3: still there and didn't have redeployment orders before prison Biden commit.
Speaker 2: So if I pick up kind of, you know, the
Speaker 2: gist of what just you just said, and I interpret
Speaker 2: it through my specialism as in special led through school,
Speaker 2: so I have to interpret it that way, is that,
Speaker 2: you know, the administration of Biden was hoping that something
Speaker 2: could you know, transpire that was more successful than what
Speaker 2: had happened. Pulling out of a war is going to
Speaker 2: be difficult no matter who's in charge when you're pulling out. Okay,
Speaker 2: whether it's the previous guy or the previous guy or
Speaker 2: the next guy, so or gal let's be open here, okay,
Speaker 2: guy or gal okay, because it could have been anybody's
Speaker 2: name in that title, I imagine was what you're kind of
Speaker 2: saying to me right now. Yeah, And so as long
Speaker 2: as they're in command at the time that that all happened.
Speaker 2: Respect on that.
Speaker 3: You know, it could have been anybody who made those decisions,
Speaker 3: because I don't want to say passively as in command,
Speaker 3: because he actively made those decisions.
Speaker 2: And the thing is is that, you know, I think
Speaker 2: the hope was that they would defend their country. That
Speaker 2: these Green Berets and these Special Operation Teams and these
Speaker 2: CIA teams that you mentioned, these National teams and all
Speaker 2: these things have been working with the Afghan people for
Speaker 2: these years. They've been working with them all in different areas,
Speaker 2: in different villages and you know, tribal areas. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know what are we like?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, I mean I'm a sympathetic.
Speaker 2: Are you damned if you do or damned if you don't?
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, well I'm a sympathetic to the next
Speaker 3: guy as wanting to you know, to get out. That's
Speaker 3: actually kind of where my sympathies were. Like, you know,
Speaker 3: so I'm not speaking to the eventual decision to withdraw
Speaker 3: troops specifically, were speaking to all of the decisions that
Speaker 3: were made then, but to your point about the Afghans
Speaker 3: or the decisions that are made along the way to
Speaker 3: do it in such a foolhardy and you know, frankly
Speaker 3: politically motivated decision that ultimately led to the loss of
Speaker 3: thirteen lives, thousands of Americans abandoned, and thousands, tens of
Speaker 3: thousands of Afghan allies abandoned. But to your point about
Speaker 3: the Afghan military, I think that this is something that
Speaker 3: we point out in Kabble.
Speaker 2: We you know in your book that we have whole
Speaker 2: story went out in.
Speaker 3: Our book Kabble, which you can find in Amazon that
Speaker 3: the so the administration continued to push this talking point
Speaker 3: that the Afghan military was three hundred thousand strong, and
Speaker 3: even General Millie pushed this talking point in you know,
Speaker 3: while testifying to Congress, and that that was simply and
Speaker 3: it was known inside the Pentagon that that that number
Speaker 3: was inflated and besides being inflated, inaccurate. And there's two
Speaker 3: reasons for that. First, when they were doing that, they
Speaker 3: were counting Afghan local police, Afghan border police in the
Speaker 3: figures of you know, the strength of their military, which yeah,
Speaker 3: they're they're they're armed, but you wouldn't say, like police
Speaker 3: in Peoria, Illinois, you wouldn't add those account of the
Speaker 3: US strength of our military.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: But then Also, and more problematic, there was this issue
Speaker 3: of they're called ghost units and they existed entirely on
Speaker 3: paper with names, you know, of supposed soldiers in this battalion,
Speaker 3: but they didn't actually exist, and they were just a
Speaker 3: way for corrupt Afghan military officials to pocket all of
Speaker 3: the salaries that they were getting for you know, having
Speaker 3: those people supposedly there. And on top of that, they
Speaker 3: continued repeating that figure even through spring and summer when
Speaker 3: the Taliban onslaught was happening and Afghan soldiers being killed
Speaker 3: by the thousands, others getting you know, others deserting or
Speaker 3: falling apart, So that that was simply a you know,
Speaker 3: if you want to make the case to the American people,
Speaker 3: hey we're going to do this, but also the Afghan
Speaker 3: military is going to fall apart, the country's going to
Speaker 3: fall apart, go ahead and make that case. But what
Speaker 3: they did is they pretended that this was somehow going
Speaker 3: to be a viable option where the Afghan mility terry
Speaker 3: just stands up on its own and there's something important
Speaker 3: I want to get to that led from that and real, real,
Speaker 3: sure like actual handible harm from that. But just to
Speaker 3: underscore what I'm saying, we spoke with CIA. Individuals are
Speaker 3: relatively high places of the CIA, and we quote this
Speaker 3: in our book Cobble. The agency's assessment was without American
Speaker 3: contractor support or military support, the Afghan military would collapse
Speaker 3: between thirty days and ninety days. Ninety days being the
Speaker 3: most optimistic. And so you know, by and this is
Speaker 3: what I alluded to. That's what I said when I
Speaker 3: wanted to get to something, by creating this rosy narrative
Speaker 3: for the American people that this wasn't you know, this
Speaker 3: isn't going to happen, and also failing to plan for
Speaker 3: when it did happen. What it did is it created
Speaker 3: this false sense of security for a lot of Americans
Speaker 3: who were in Afghanistan working as aid workers for NGOs,
Speaker 3: for the World Bank, that you know, they don't need
Speaker 3: to get out now because everything's okay. And you know,
Speaker 3: at one point even Secretary Blincoln said, Afghanistan is not
Speaker 3: going to fall between a Friday and a Monday, and
Speaker 3: lo and behold, it actually literally fell kind of Friday Monday.
Speaker 2: They even said it fell faster than they wanted it
Speaker 2: to fall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it literally fell exactly over a weekend the
Speaker 3: way way, you know, said yeah, and what is going
Speaker 3: to happen? And when that happened, right those Americans right
Speaker 3: behind the Taliban with a Taliban between them and safety.
Speaker 2: Oh. I outfitted guys that were going over there from
Speaker 2: Utah to bring their friends out. They I have a combats.
Speaker 2: They were looking, well, I do war games and so
Speaker 2: I have all the equipment that you wear. And he
Speaker 2: came in. He's like, I need eight plate carriers. And
Speaker 2: I was like, I know what you're doing. You're not
Speaker 2: playing Airsoft, but you want Airsoft gear because it's readily available.
Speaker 2: You know, the market was crazy during COVID. And if
Speaker 2: you have there is nothing on.
Speaker 3: The BA Ballistic Black Carrier, then all right.
Speaker 2: But here's my Airsoft store and it's got all sorts
Speaker 2: of gear inside of it. That's just everything we do
Speaker 2: for war games. And I've got these guys rolling in
Speaker 2: and I'm like, where do you play? That's what I say.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what what team are you on? He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm doing other things. I was like, oh, okay, full
Speaker 2: price peace out.
Speaker 3: You got contract stories of some of those groups who
Speaker 3: went you know, who went back, and yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm happy for them. I'm happy they went back
Speaker 2: and they tried.
Speaker 3: To do the right but oh yeah, but you know, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: Some friends of mine went also to Ukraine to get
Speaker 2: friends out of Ukraine. You know, they're friends, like they
Speaker 2: don't want to go to war, bro they don't want
Speaker 2: to be in war.
Speaker 3: But they but they also have a deep sets of
Speaker 3: justice and also, yeah, you know, it's kind of there
Speaker 3: was this idea of you know, if not me, then
Speaker 3: who went when it came to stranded Americans stranded Afghans
Speaker 3: because the government wasn't doing it. And to this day,
Speaker 3: the people who have evacuated the most American citizens from
Speaker 3: Afghanistan have been these private groups and in some days,
Speaker 3: in some ways they've done that despite administration, you know,
Speaker 3: the State Department interference and at times the interpreter. At
Speaker 3: times the administration has actually claimed credit for their successes.
Speaker 3: And one specific example of that is interpreter's last names Khalilie,
Speaker 3: who was the guy who helped rescue Joe Biden in
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven when he was a senator and
Speaker 3: he was visiting Afghanistan as part of you know, congressional visit,
Speaker 3: and this helicopter got forced down and this interpreter in
Speaker 3: a snowstorm, and this interpreter went, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: out in the middle of nowhere and was there and
Speaker 3: helped facilitate his rescue. And then he you know, his
Speaker 3: story became known when everything collapsed and he was left behind,
Speaker 3: and he publicly pleaded in the Wall Street Journal, you know,
Speaker 3: don't leave me behind, almost essentially return the favor. And
Speaker 3: the Biden administration said on August thirty first, after we
Speaker 3: pulled out, that they were going to do everything they
Speaker 3: could to make sure that he escaped, and he was
Speaker 3: rescued by a group of veteran and former intelligence community
Speaker 3: officials who got him out of the country. They drove
Speaker 3: him out of the country, taking a thirteen hour route
Speaker 3: to avoid Talben checkpoints. They got him to a safe
Speaker 3: house in Pakistan, and it was only then that the
Speaker 3: administration learned that he was out of the country. And
Speaker 3: when they found out where he was because this group
Speaker 3: was trying to arrange safe passage to Kosovo, the State
Speaker 3: Department left capital of Pakistan and drove out to where
Speaker 3: the safe house was and completely exposed the location of
Speaker 3: AT Number one. Picked this guy up and his family up.
Speaker 3: Very deserving but they picked them up, left all of
Speaker 3: the other evacuees in that safe house behind, and then
Speaker 3: flew him back to the United States or out of Pakistan,
Speaker 3: excuse me, and publicly took credit for keeping their promise.
Speaker 3: And they even have the goal to think the quote
Speaker 3: groups who helped along the way, and I think that's uh,
Speaker 3: you number one, you.
Speaker 2: Don't think that was all tied in at all. There's
Speaker 2: no you don't think there's any backdoor channel that we're not.
Speaker 3: We spoke to people, we spoke to. We spoke to
Speaker 3: the individuals responsible for that evacuation, and they told us
Speaker 3: that story. We didn't know about it. They told it
Speaker 3: to us because we were trying to just learn more
Speaker 3: about what they create, what they were doing to, you know,
Speaker 3: rescue people. And I asked, you know, as as the government,
Speaker 3: but helpful and this individuals said. There are multiple individuals
Speaker 3: who spoke to and one of them said, no, in fact,
Speaker 3: you know, in some cases, they put all of our
Speaker 3: lives at risk by you know, exposing that safehouse just
Speaker 3: to claim credit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they're expendable. And fortunately that's the that's that
Speaker 2: covert world, right. You never hear we never heard us.
Speaker 2: You never saw this. None of this ever happened, and
Speaker 2: if it did happen, we don't know nothing about it.
Speaker 2: And it's like all Lord of War.
Speaker 3: And that's why some of these stories are very important
Speaker 3: to tell and we try to tell them in the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Capture, And I'm happy that to meet you,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad that you put this on paper and
Speaker 2: you've put it into a book, and you know I
Speaker 2: would and we didn't want to give spoilers. You guys
Speaker 2: have all watched it if you've watched the actions of Coble,
Speaker 2: but this has more insights from people who were there
Speaker 2: that James went and talked with and got all that
Speaker 2: insight in. And so this book I'm going to read
Speaker 2: it again. It's called Cobble, The Untold Story of Biden's
Speaker 2: Fiasco and the American warriors who fought to the end.
Speaker 2: All right, so go check that out. It should be
Speaker 2: dropping at all your favorite places, Amazon, etc. We've already
Speaker 2: mentioned that real quick. I do want to mention that
Speaker 2: I do have that merch store, and you know, go
Speaker 2: check it out at soft rep dot com and get
Speaker 2: some branded goods. And we really love that you send
Speaker 2: us some tag us on Instagram and stuff, so keep
Speaker 2: doing that and on behalf of James. I just want
Speaker 2: to say thank you so much, James.
Speaker 3: Thanks man. This was awesome. There was a it was
Speaker 3: a lot more fun than you know, a center conversation
Speaker 3: with anyone else.
Speaker 2: A little different, huh, A little different, bro. Thanks Ranger.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Appreciate your attorney juris doctorate. Dude, I
Speaker 2: wish you know. I'm young enough. I could still get one. Okay,
Speaker 2: still can do it. I still can actually graduate f
Speaker 2: I can finish college. My lawyer friends tell me you
Speaker 2: know your problem. Rad I'm all, what, You're not a lawyer.
Speaker 2: I'm like you, dick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they tell me you know your problem.
Speaker 2: You're a lawyer, so you're a lawyer. Well, mister attorney,
Speaker 2: mister Ranger, mister American bleeds red blood just like me.
Speaker 2: I want my listener to know that you can have
Speaker 2: a random conversation with a stranger and still come out
Speaker 2: of it saying it was nice talking to you one
Speaker 2: hundred percent, and thank you to my listener. First soft rep.
Speaker 2: Thanks to all the special operation forces out there that
Speaker 2: go and do things that I just sleep through. So
Speaker 2: all right, Well, with that said, I just want to
Speaker 2: say thanks again. Go buy that book, check it out,
Speaker 2: and likely subscribe. Comment down below is right saying peace.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to self red lydia h.