Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys and the community. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Software Radio. I'm your host today, Steve
Speaker 1: alastori Um Soft Radio on Time, on Target. We always
Speaker 1: try to bring you the best of what's going on
Speaker 1: out there in the world, and today we have a
Speaker 1: very special guest with us, Justinali, who just finished a book.
Speaker 1: It's called Eagle Down, The Last Special Forces Fighting in
Speaker 1: the Forever War. It was a absolutely fantastic read. It
Speaker 1: was a little concerning, a little upsetting, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say, as a former Special Forces guy. And we're
Speaker 1: going to get into the reasons for all that. But
Speaker 1: Jess Uh was the Wall Street Journals UH person on
Speaker 1: the ground, I guess you could say, they're bureau chief
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan for about four years, excuse me. So she
Speaker 1: definitely spent her time there. She was embedded with the
Speaker 1: Afghan SF guys, with the American as of guys. She
Speaker 1: has a fantastic story to tell. We're going to get
Speaker 1: into that in her book, but before we do any
Speaker 1: of that, we want to welcome her to the podcast. Jess,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time, I should say this
Speaker 1: evening because you're joining us from the beautiful country of
Speaker 1: South Africa today. Thank you very much for having me
Speaker 1: well what it is our pleasure and I just have
Speaker 1: to ask you real quick. Um. You know, I know,
Speaker 1: prior to going to Afghanistan, you spent some time in
Speaker 1: Libya during the you know, the fall of Kadafi and
Speaker 1: the civil war. There was it a big difference from
Speaker 1: you for you, I should say, I know Olibya was
Speaker 1: your first war that you covered. Was it a big
Speaker 1: difference going from say, Libya to Afghanistan for me? It wasn't.
Speaker 1: For me, it was a huge difference, um. I mean
Speaker 1: not just on a personal level, because one thing is
Speaker 1: when you've never been in a war before, to find
Speaker 1: yourself in a war for the first time, that causes
Speaker 1: quite a big sort of personal development. But the Libyan
Speaker 1: war went in two thousand and eleven when I was there,
Speaker 1: was completely chaotic. You didn't know who controlled what, The
Speaker 1: country was split into insert where you had Kadaki's forces
Speaker 1: fighting off very sort of rag tygle science of different
Speaker 1: Libyan militias in Afghanistan when I got there, for the
Speaker 1: first time, which was in twenty twelve, it was it
Speaker 1: felt like a war that had been set set in
Speaker 1: for a long time. You know, everybody knew where they stood.
Speaker 1: You had every country in the world. It felt like
Speaker 1: with a steak with a sort of role on the stage,
Speaker 1: and you knew, you know, this road is under this control,
Speaker 1: the government has this, tallemant has that. And so it
Speaker 1: felt a lot more organized, and it felt a lot
Speaker 1: safer as well. Oh it did, yeah, because I know,
Speaker 1: you know, at that time in Libya and again I'm
Speaker 1: bouncing back and forth, but it seemed like, as you said,
Speaker 1: very chaotic, and they probably didn't have any safety I
Speaker 1: don't want to say safety nets, but like we're you know,
Speaker 1: journalists were probably um kind of embedded more with the
Speaker 1: war in Afghanistan, were probably in O Libbya. You guys
Speaker 1: were left to fend for yourselves. Yeah, we were. I
Speaker 1: mean we were to rely on our own I mean
Speaker 1: in in Libya, we just we didn't have a bureau.
Speaker 1: Nobody had to be a journalist just worked out of
Speaker 1: one of a couple of hotels in town. There was
Speaker 1: almost no supervision and very little security in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't with Reuters at the time. They
Speaker 1: had one security guy in Tripoli for a huge number
Speaker 1: of reporters and photographers, TV people. UM, so you were
Speaker 1: very much left on your own. It was very risky,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was and you had a lot
Speaker 1: of freedom. I mean you could jump in a cab
Speaker 1: and go, you know, tim as Rata, which is another
Speaker 1: town like two hours away. Uh So it was it
Speaker 1: was pretty yardly. But I mean even in Afghanistan, we
Speaker 1: were very much left to operate on our own. Um
Speaker 1: unlike sort of big I don't know diplomatic missions or
Speaker 1: or companies. As a journalist, you are basically the person there.
Speaker 1: You're on your own. I lived in a shared house
Speaker 1: with the journalists that worked for the Washington Post and
Speaker 1: somebody else that rented a room from us. And uh
Speaker 1: I was free to make up my days as I
Speaker 1: wanted to do and if I wanted the only the
Speaker 1: only sort of regulations that we had where if you
Speaker 1: were going to leave the city of Kable, you had
Speaker 1: to plan the trip with our security advisor and get
Speaker 1: it signed off at headquarters. And the idea was that
Speaker 1: the story had to be uh considered worth whatever risk
Speaker 1: you were taking in any trip outside of cable towards
Speaker 1: the end especially was considered high risk. UM, but you
Speaker 1: came up with your own security plan pretty much. You know,
Speaker 1: you think you explained to them how you were going
Speaker 1: to make sure that you made it there and back
Speaker 1: from one piece interesting, you know, and reading the book,
Speaker 1: I think I came away would probably the same perspective
Speaker 1: that a lot of former military, especially special forces guys
Speaker 1: probably have. And to me, the biggest question of this booker,
Speaker 1: why are American Special Forces guys still in Afghanistan? And
Speaker 1: one of the they really doing because you know, we
Speaker 1: tend to think of these guys they have a plan
Speaker 1: and they're going to go in and uh, they're they're
Speaker 1: going to do their mission, do their job, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, But in the book, it's so confusing.
Speaker 1: And to me that was like it was very eye
Speaker 1: opening to me. It seemed especially uh in the in
Speaker 1: the earlier years sort of onwards, you had the Abam
Speaker 1: administration saying that the war was over. They had delivered
Speaker 1: on this campaign pledge. There were a fewer than ten
Speaker 1: tho troops. They called it a training mission instead of
Speaker 1: a combat mission, and it seemed to me that the
Speaker 1: focus was very much to make it look like the
Speaker 1: US was no longer a war, and at the same
Speaker 1: time you had the reality on the ground, which was
Speaker 1: but fast declining security situation, with the Afghan government forces
Speaker 1: unable to hold on to major population centers on their own,
Speaker 1: and so you had to figure out how to back
Speaker 1: them up. And obviously the answer came in the form
Speaker 1: of special operations. Because because there's special operations, you don't
Speaker 1: have to embed journalists with them, you don't have to
Speaker 1: really account for what they're doing. You just sort of say, well,
Speaker 1: it's a terrorism mission or it's a training mission, and
Speaker 1: that's that, and you don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, unless you're somebody who's you know, maybe a
Speaker 1: journalist that's been working there for a long time or
Speaker 1: following the company made closely, the average person doesn't really
Speaker 1: have any idea what US troops are actually doing or why,
Speaker 1: because it's no longer talked about um and to me,
Speaker 1: it seems that that they're sort of principal role has
Speaker 1: mean to keep them Afghanistan out of the headlines, to
Speaker 1: prevent the losses of major population centers, and to sort
Speaker 1: of keep the two sides, the government and the Taliban
Speaker 1: and insurgent side sort of fairly balanced on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: The idea obviously is so that at this point, so
Speaker 1: that you can support peace talks. But back then there
Speaker 1: weren't even peace talks going on, and so that that's
Speaker 1: what brought me to to decide to write the book,
Speaker 1: because I thought it was important there should be some
Speaker 1: kind of discussion over the way special operations were being
Speaker 1: used and you know, whether there was any kind of
Speaker 1: long term strategy. Yeah, and and you know, to me
Speaker 1: that was the most disturbing part of the book is,
Speaker 1: you know, we put these guys in harm's way, and
Speaker 1: I say we as a country, I mean, we send
Speaker 1: them there. There they're in uh you know, uh provincial
Speaker 1: capital that's under attacked by the Taliban. These guys are
Speaker 1: in pretty pitched combat, They have wounded troops, they have
Speaker 1: air assets all around them, and they're not allowed to
Speaker 1: use them. And that, to me was it was shocking.
Speaker 1: I'll admit it. I was under the impression that right
Speaker 1: up until today, these guys had you know, everything at
Speaker 1: their disposal and they were able to use it. And
Speaker 1: of course in the book it comes out that they weren't,
Speaker 1: and it may have, you know, contributed to some guys
Speaker 1: getting hurt. Yeah, I think that was the feeling. Especially
Speaker 1: earlier on before the Trump administration came in. They were
Speaker 1: extremely strict rules on what what kind of support these
Speaker 1: troops could have. So unless they were sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: on the brink of total disaster, they wouldn't get the
Speaker 1: air support and the idea or the logic in Washington,
Speaker 1: which you know, always makes a lot more sense when
Speaker 1: you're in Washington and it's sort of all neat the
Speaker 1: organized going to say, well, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: limit support because otherwise the Afghan's never going to do
Speaker 1: it on their own, Whereas in reality is that nothing
Speaker 1: really that Washington is going to do is going to
Speaker 1: change how willing the Afghan forces are, how capable really
Speaker 1: they are too to to provide support in the particular creations.
Speaker 1: So these guys were getting put in very dangerous situations
Speaker 1: without the support that they would normally get. Aside from that,
Speaker 1: I mean, another thing that was common was because the
Speaker 1: administration had planned to pull all troops out, and because
Speaker 1: they supposedly went to combat anymore, they didn't have some
Speaker 1: of the resources that would they would usually have you know,
Speaker 1: like um like the ability to drop supplies with the
Speaker 1: GPS guided supplies, right, so they would just push things
Speaker 1: out of an airplane and they would land wherever, and
Speaker 1: then they had to go find them in the middle
Speaker 1: of you know, a Taliban controlled village rather than be
Speaker 1: able to guide them to the exact place where they were.
Speaker 1: So there were other other factors that further exposed them.
Speaker 1: When the Trump administration came in, they did relax some
Speaker 1: of the some of the restrictions, which which brought some
Speaker 1: some relief, and of course then tightened them up again
Speaker 1: once the deal was signed. Yeah, and you mentioned in
Speaker 1: the board that the Afghan you know, special operations guys
Speaker 1: that the US trained, they're real spread awfully, awfully thin,
Speaker 1: and that was a major issue, and it was an
Speaker 1: issue with those guys in in fact a couple of
Speaker 1: times that you know, it seemed like they they were,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say losing their will to fight,
Speaker 1: but they were getting very frustrated themselves over this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the Afghan commanders, I mean even more than
Speaker 1: I mean than than police and the army forces. I mean,
Speaker 1: they come under a lot of criticism because they're seen
Speaker 1: as not wanting they don't want to fight, or they
Speaker 1: give up along the way. But you have to remember
Speaker 1: is that I like, uh, you know, American troops who
Speaker 1: can cycle in and out every six months or or
Speaker 1: however long. These guys are stuck for the long hold.
Speaker 1: You know, we embedded with commanders that had been commanders
Speaker 1: pretty much in the same position for ten years. You know,
Speaker 1: they were incredibly experienced, incredibly smart, perceptive guys who were
Speaker 1: alive by miracle, and most of the people had started
Speaker 1: out with were no longer alive. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: they're in the same position where they're being sent out
Speaker 1: to basically rescue you villages and district centers from the
Speaker 1: Taliban to make it look like that the government isn't
Speaker 1: losing um and they're seeing the same places fall over
Speaker 1: and over again, and they're being sent back to the
Speaker 1: same places and they can go and drive the Taliban out.
Speaker 1: But the problem is there's no plan after that to
Speaker 1: ensure the place doesn't fall back under um insurgent control.
Speaker 1: So it's very demoralizing for them and at a certain point,
Speaker 1: you know, their own sense of survival has to kick in.
Speaker 1: The Other thing that is also important to remember is
Speaker 1: that they don't have any nice benefits system waiting for
Speaker 1: them when they get back or if they die. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to look after their family. If they get wounded,
Speaker 1: they're pretty much left on their own or anyone or
Speaker 1: you know, they can be helped out by contacts that
Speaker 1: they might have, but chances are, you know, that's it's
Speaker 1: ruinous for them. So you can understand why they're reluctant
Speaker 1: to put themselves on the line right in um. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at these Afghan commandos, I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems like they're the best fighting force that the Afghans have,
Speaker 1: but there's just not enough of them. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're always talking about the Afghan standing on their own,
Speaker 1: but it seems like once the US does pull out,
Speaker 1: these guys are going to be really hard pressed to
Speaker 1: hold onto a lot of their areas because it seems
Speaker 1: like they're the fireman going from one hotspot to another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, they are exactly like firemen. And the problem
Speaker 1: is it takes a lot of time to build, you know,
Speaker 1: a commando. And while they the government has tried to
Speaker 1: increase the production of them, you know, the quality isn't
Speaker 1: going to be as good because they won't have had
Speaker 1: as much training. In earlier years they worked, the commanders
Speaker 1: worked very closely with U S Special Forces. Obviously, as
Speaker 1: the number of your special forces has gone down on
Speaker 1: so has that level of interaction, which also reduces the
Speaker 1: amount of training that they have. So you have more
Speaker 1: commanders which are less trained, acting as firemen. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not it's not a sustainable situation. At this is not
Speaker 1: a situation that's going to turn around things on the
Speaker 1: battlefield in the way that is hoped. Uh. And once
Speaker 1: the US leaves, you know they're going to leave not
Speaker 1: just with with the troops, but the air support they provide,
Speaker 1: the transport support. You know, some the Afghans rely on
Speaker 1: the US to be able to sort of ferry finders
Speaker 1: into the battlefield along with providing air support and intelligence support,
Speaker 1: so all of that will go. Um And and these
Speaker 1: guys I mean likely to have limited loyalty to the
Speaker 1: couple administration, which is seen to be horribly corrupt and
Speaker 1: their own military leadership which is also seen to be
Speaker 1: pretty corrupt, where they steal food, uniforms, vacation time, that
Speaker 1: sort of things. So rather than seeing some vantage, you
Speaker 1: might see Uh fires to gravitate towards who they see
Speaker 1: is their natural leader, whether it's by tribal association or
Speaker 1: ethnicity or some other thing. We're speaking today with Justinali,
Speaker 1: the author of Eagle Down, the Last Special Forces Fighting
Speaker 1: in the Forever War here on Software Radio, and and
Speaker 1: just there was a couple of very compelling characters. That
Speaker 1: all of the characters were compelling, but a couple of
Speaker 1: them I wanted to mention because I think we could
Speaker 1: probably spend days and days talking about everybody that's in
Speaker 1: the book. But obviously Hutch was a focal point in
Speaker 1: the book, and how difficult was it to get him
Speaker 1: to open open up to you and talk about what
Speaker 1: actually went down, especially in the part of the mission
Speaker 1: that went bad during the retaking of one of the
Speaker 1: provincial capitals. Yeah, I think that. I mean the way
Speaker 1: that I got to know Huch was through a different
Speaker 1: story that I was researching. Um. I had heard his
Speaker 1: name Uh sort of in these circles of contractors in
Speaker 1: carbl so I knew I knew who he was, But
Speaker 1: I was investigating a story about a former Green Beret
Speaker 1: who was raising trying to raise an anti Islamic State
Speaker 1: militia in the East, and that effort had gone horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: They had ended up decapitating these ISIS fighters and putting
Speaker 1: their heads on piles of rocks. It was very gruesome.
Speaker 1: He got into lots of trouble, but he claimed to
Speaker 1: have support from American Special Forces and so the person
Speaker 1: who claimed supported him was Hutched. So I reached out
Speaker 1: to Hutch and I said, you know, would you like
Speaker 1: to explain why you guys have been supporting a militia
Speaker 1: that decapitates people and puts their heads on on rocks.
Speaker 1: And he was very worried that another very negative story
Speaker 1: would come out about US Special Forces and that, you know,
Speaker 1: soon after the bombing of the MSF hospital. UM and
Speaker 1: so that's how I initially got to speak to him,
Speaker 1: um and he he clarified some of the details of
Speaker 1: that story. So, as it turned out, the guy had
Speaker 1: been vastly overstating the amount of support that he had
Speaker 1: from the U. S military. UM and Uh. I was
Speaker 1: always fascinated by Hatching's story because, um, I, we had
Speaker 1: heard so much about everybody else involved in that incident
Speaker 1: that no one had ever heard from the soldiers who
Speaker 1: were involved. And I was really interested to know his
Speaker 1: viewpoint and how you know, how he I guess lived
Speaker 1: with what had happened and how he viewed it. And uh.
Speaker 1: And over over the years, as I got to know
Speaker 1: more Green Berets that had fought at the time and
Speaker 1: convinced the critical mass of them too participate in the book,
Speaker 1: I asked him if he would, if he would do it,
Speaker 1: and and he agreed. Uh, And I think you know it,
Speaker 1: just it. I think the thing that soldiers most worry
Speaker 1: about when they speak to journalists, that journalists are going
Speaker 1: to have an agenda um or that they have some
Speaker 1: kind of motivation for it. And for for me, I
Speaker 1: really just wanted to tell um part a story, or
Speaker 1: tell part of the Afghan War that I felt wasn't
Speaker 1: being represented anymore in the news because journal has no
Speaker 1: longer had access to special operations in the government, was
Speaker 1: no longer really saying what they were doing, and they
Speaker 1: did have this critical part, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: do as be as fair and balanced as possible. And
Speaker 1: that was and I guess that finally convinced to convinced
Speaker 1: the guys to to participate right and during this one operation,
Speaker 1: and I believe they couldn't do. I think it is
Speaker 1: the operation there. What happened was the Afghan commando said,
Speaker 1: come under fire. Um, they had identified of a target
Speaker 1: for air for an air strike, and there was a
Speaker 1: mistake made and the target ended up being a hospital
Speaker 1: with doctors without borders, and and it went horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: But you know, um, rather than trying to it seemed like,
Speaker 1: rather than trying to find out what had happened and
Speaker 1: interviewing the soldiers, it seemed like the higher ups in
Speaker 1: Cobble immediately declared it a war crime, and you know,
Speaker 1: went after hutch and um, you know, they kept asking
Speaker 1: him and you mentioned it in the book you want
Speaker 1: to change your story, you aren't. And they were accusing
Speaker 1: him basically of lying. And it was before even all
Speaker 1: the events had come out, and then later on after
Speaker 1: the fact that he was proven correct, but it was
Speaker 1: still a horrible mistake. And one of that was one
Speaker 1: of the more compelling parts of the book because in
Speaker 1: it you're you're not only getting his perspective as you
Speaker 1: talked to him, but his wife in back in the States.
Speaker 1: You know, he's talking to her on the phone and
Speaker 1: she's like, well there already calling the work round and
Speaker 1: it was just a terrible, terrible incident, and no one
Speaker 1: came out on top of that one. No, yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And I think that was one of the one of
Speaker 1: the one of the incidents that did to breed a
Speaker 1: certain amount of resentment amongst the ranks of sort of
Speaker 1: the soldiers on the ground, hutches level and below, because
Speaker 1: they felt that they've been thrown under a bus because
Speaker 1: you had you know that this major city falls to
Speaker 1: the Taliban. You've got pictures on Twitter of the Taliban
Speaker 1: sort of partying in the middle of Kundus, and you
Speaker 1: send in these guys who've never been to Kundas before
Speaker 1: on this very dangerous mission to rescue the city, and
Speaker 1: then when something goes wrong, you then act like they
Speaker 1: are war criminals and you don't take any responsibility for
Speaker 1: the fact that you have come up with a plan
Speaker 1: to leave Afghanistan that's not sustainable. Because the problem was
Speaker 1: was the dynamic that the Americans had withdrawn support from
Speaker 1: Africa and forces. African forces were not ready to hold
Speaker 1: on to the to the territory that they were supposed
Speaker 1: to hold on in the US wasn't prepared to let
Speaker 1: it go. Um you know, another way that could have
Speaker 1: turned out was the U S could have said, Okay,
Speaker 1: they lost Kundus, we're going to step back because, as
Speaker 1: we said, we're no longer involved in this war, and
Speaker 1: things that have turned out differently. But they weren't prepared
Speaker 1: to both let go of the war and and and
Speaker 1: the fighting. Yeah, and that, you know, because at that point,
Speaker 1: like two thousand, two thousand and fifteen, you know, the
Speaker 1: government is telling us, you know, we're not at war
Speaker 1: anymore in Afghanistan. And there's the famous saying at that
Speaker 1: time was there's no boots on the ground. I remember
Speaker 1: hearing that quite often in the news. But there were
Speaker 1: boots on the ground, and it seemed like, um without
Speaker 1: well i'll just call it like I see it. It
Speaker 1: seemed like the higher uption cobble were setting these special
Speaker 1: forces eight teams up to fail. Yeah. I think they were,
Speaker 1: I mean, or to fail or I mean I think
Speaker 1: I think there weren't a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: the missions that they did, and especially sort of later
Speaker 1: on if you look towards what was going on in
Speaker 1: later years. I mean, they did the missions did succeed
Speaker 1: in the short term. I mean, even in Kunda's. Even
Speaker 1: with the disastrous bombing of the hospital, they did get
Speaker 1: the city back under Afghan government control, there still was
Speaker 1: very little information out about the role that the US
Speaker 1: had actually had, and the whole aim of keeping these
Speaker 1: secret was to make it look like the Afghan government
Speaker 1: had done it, but mostly by themselves. And so from
Speaker 1: that perspective, I mean, you could say the missions had succeeded,
Speaker 1: but they hadn't. There was no long term success built
Speaker 1: into it because there was no plan to avoid losing
Speaker 1: the city again and having to send the O. D
Speaker 1: a s Back in over and over again to the
Speaker 1: same places. Right. You know that as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, um, there was some hard feelings between
Speaker 1: some of the soldiers and you know, either the government
Speaker 1: or their military headquarters. And you know, one of the
Speaker 1: quotes that I wrote down from the book because I
Speaker 1: mean I thought it was quite telling, where you know,
Speaker 1: one of the troops said, we don't know what our
Speaker 1: goals are because they keep changing all the time. You
Speaker 1: don't know what we're supposed to be doing. Yet you
Speaker 1: keep sending us out on crazy missions where we could
Speaker 1: all die for no reason. And that isn't something you
Speaker 1: would normally hear from SF troops when they're talking to
Speaker 1: their commanders, right, yeah, and that um and that soldier
Speaker 1: ends up stepping on a mine and sang in during
Speaker 1: an operation whose purpose is not really clear. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: you know why the US was out and a clearing
Speaker 1: operation and sanging when they weren't supposed to be at
Speaker 1: war anymore. Um, you know it was It is a question.
Speaker 1: And that's how it was. As as things worsened in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: the rules changed, The rules that were sort of being
Speaker 1: made in Washington changed, and as they were handed down,
Speaker 1: the soldiers weren't really given any explanation for them. It
Speaker 1: was more like, okay, from not going out at all,
Speaker 1: now they're being told that they have to go out,
Speaker 1: you know, every week and do an operation, which is
Speaker 1: without any bigger goal other than to just do an
Speaker 1: operation and clear something or yeah. So I think it
Speaker 1: was very confusing for them. Yeah, and for someone who
Speaker 1: spent so much time in Afghanistan, I believe it's like
Speaker 1: four years of your life that you spent there. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've always been fascinated by,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to ask you that just you your
Speaker 1: personal opinion on this. Having been there, you know, um
Speaker 1: for so many years, the US change in their mission
Speaker 1: to kind of a nation building type of thing where
Speaker 1: it seemed like Afghanistan has always been a tribal society.
Speaker 1: Do you see just this is just your personal opinion,
Speaker 1: do you see this changing, uh for the Afghans? I mean,
Speaker 1: are they actually going to pull together as a country
Speaker 1: or is it going to remain a tribal society for
Speaker 1: years to come? You think, I mean, I think when
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're there, you do see,
Speaker 1: for example, the influence left by the Soviets, right like
Speaker 1: there's an older Afghans that speak Russian and have you know,
Speaker 1: were sent universities in Russian. And you see that kind
Speaker 1: of influence. In the same with the US. After twenty
Speaker 1: years of the US being there, you see a lot
Speaker 1: of US influence that has become part of Afghan society.
Speaker 1: And um, you know in major cities, I mean Incabble
Speaker 1: for example, for me, especially going back you know the
Speaker 1: last time in ten you know there's cafes where you know,
Speaker 1: men and women and they're singing together. You have one
Speaker 1: or two I guess you could say nightclubs where they
Speaker 1: can go listen to music and mix together, and there's
Speaker 1: absolutely no foreigners involved in this. This is just an
Speaker 1: Afghan Afghan thing. And so I think there are a
Speaker 1: lot of Western values that have that have builded into
Speaker 1: into society. But in the in the longer run, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no way that the US can build a country
Speaker 1: in its in its own image or in any image.
Speaker 1: I mean, Afghanistan has a very long history with a
Speaker 1: lot of traditions. It's a very um, very diverse, diverse country,
Speaker 1: and so I mean there's nothing they can do the
Speaker 1: US can do to decide how they should how they
Speaker 1: should live. And the problem is when the US leaves,
Speaker 1: the Afghans are going to have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to balance all of these influences amongst themselves. You know,
Speaker 1: because you have in the south or in the East,
Speaker 1: very conservative, very conservative Bible societies that you know, their
Speaker 1: way of living. It's it's close to what we imagine
Speaker 1: the Taliban influmence being, you know, women in burker's and
Speaker 1: not going out. And that's something that's native and it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily even a religious thing. That's more a tribal thing,
Speaker 1: whereas in cities over decades, You've seen liberal influences come
Speaker 1: and go, and so they're going to have to balance
Speaker 1: that somehow without the US. Uh yeah, yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: UM and and looking at Afghanistan as as a whole. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the things have changed obviously several times since
Speaker 1: our first troops hit the ground in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: and one of them was the um the introduction of
Speaker 1: ISIS into the country in the Islamic State. And you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of in the United States here and most
Speaker 1: of the people kind of lump ISIS and al Qaeda
Speaker 1: and the Taliban all into a big cauldron and like
Speaker 1: they're all the same, but they're really not. And you know,
Speaker 1: they're kind of like the interlopers because they've got some
Speaker 1: uh their support from former Taliban members. What's it the
Speaker 1: feeling with the Afghan government and the Taliban for you know,
Speaker 1: for what you can glean from your time there about
Speaker 1: how they feel about ISIS. I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of um, there's a lot of confusion and
Speaker 1: uncertainty over what ISIS really means in a essence, UM,
Speaker 1: the links between ISIS headquarters, say in Iraq, Syria, are
Speaker 1: are unclear. I mean there are sort of isolated reports
Speaker 1: of money passing from one weep to the other, certain
Speaker 1: amount of training, um, some maybe a little some ideology,
Speaker 1: but generally there's not a very clear link. And when
Speaker 1: we see One of the troubling things when you're looking
Speaker 1: at the Afghan war is that you see a lot
Speaker 1: of attacks or high profile attacks blamed on ISIS and
Speaker 1: you don't really have any claim from ISIS other than
Speaker 1: you know, a day later ISIS in Syria puts out
Speaker 1: a statement there's no real evidence that ISIS actually had
Speaker 1: a role, uh and so um, so we don't really
Speaker 1: know a lot about about them there. But there wasn't
Speaker 1: asis spokesman. Um. There was a group initially formed out
Speaker 1: of the Pakistani Taliban. The spokesman was killed in the U.
Speaker 1: S drone strike within a month or so of becoming
Speaker 1: the spokesman. And no one's really heard from the Afghan
Speaker 1: groupe since. So there's not really been any reliable journalist
Speaker 1: interviews with them directly, and so we just don't know.
Speaker 1: And one of one of the examples is with the
Speaker 1: recent spate of attacks that you've seen in Carbon. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, so many different groups have an interest in
Speaker 1: destabilizing carble, making it look like it's chaos. So when
Speaker 1: you're looking at an attack and you're blaming it on ISIS,
Speaker 1: it might well be some disgruntled gun I'm an official,
Speaker 1: or some world or something. I mean, there's never you
Speaker 1: can never really be sure unless you investigate each specific
Speaker 1: attack whether it really was carried out by the person
Speaker 1: who claimed it. And the Afghan government has had an
Speaker 1: interest in playing up ISIS in the country because that
Speaker 1: keeps the Americans interested, and to a certain extent, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps the Americans have also had an interest in making
Speaker 1: it seem like ISIS is this very defined entity, because
Speaker 1: then it gives you a very defined reason for staying right.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the comments that President Biden
Speaker 1: made recently and why he was like, the counter terrorism
Speaker 1: mission will continue, but it's kind of it's kind of
Speaker 1: a murky thing because who's you know, what missions are
Speaker 1: going to go on there? But we I guess that's
Speaker 1: a topic for a different time. But as a woman,
Speaker 1: how difficult was it working being embedded with the Afghan
Speaker 1: you know commandos? Was was there any pushback on there
Speaker 1: or did they welcome you? I mean, for me, it
Speaker 1: was for me. The reporting that I did was possible
Speaker 1: because I had an excellent Afghan colleague, Habibill, who I
Speaker 1: would do these inbds with. And he was a pastuon guy.
Speaker 1: He looked like a talent, you know, long beard, long hair,
Speaker 1: but he was quite a hippie at heart, and you know,
Speaker 1: he was basically keeping me safe there. He would tell
Speaker 1: me when a situation was good or bad, you know,
Speaker 1: will he'd be able to read the room for me.
Speaker 1: He was able to get access from the Ministry of Defense.
Speaker 1: And because you had there was actually quite a bureaucratic
Speaker 1: process to embed with Afghan forces, which you know, because
Speaker 1: they were built in the image of American forces, you'd
Speaker 1: have all these forms to fill out. So he was
Speaker 1: very good at navigating the Ministry of Defense um. And
Speaker 1: so it was possible that way. I mean Afghan commanders,
Speaker 1: Afghan men in general, know, they don't see Western women
Speaker 1: quite like Afghan women. They sort of see them as
Speaker 1: a as a sort of third gender almost um. And
Speaker 1: so you do get access. People will talk to you.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes they even want to talk to you
Speaker 1: because they're curious and they maybe haven't seen a woman
Speaker 1: for months or years, and who knows how long, and
Speaker 1: so so you do. Obviously there are there are other
Speaker 1: risks as a woman, So you don't really want to
Speaker 1: be walking around a commander base by yourself, uh you know,
Speaker 1: um having your guide there. The way you described him
Speaker 1: in the book, he seemed like he was and not
Speaker 1: say it threatening, but he would kind of deter anyone
Speaker 1: from taking liberties with you. Well, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: don't want it to sound like I don't not appreciative
Speaker 1: of the hospitalities that we received, because you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the Afghan commandos especially you know, we would
Speaker 1: we would be attached to uh you know, like some
Speaker 1: captain level sort of guy, and they would they would
Speaker 1: really be very hospitable. They would you know, arrangel of
Speaker 1: our meals and take us out on you know, patrols
Speaker 1: and give us the you know, full view of what
Speaker 1: was going on. They were very interesting people. So um, so,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it was he just kind of
Speaker 1: helped me, I guess, uh fit in and he helped
Speaker 1: them unders opened up when he you know, kept me
Speaker 1: out of trouble when I was there, you know, saying well,
Speaker 1: you know, don't go down that hallway or you know,
Speaker 1: you know that sort of thing right right now. Did
Speaker 1: you wear the traditional woman's garb over there? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean if even when I was with the Afghan, you know,
Speaker 1: embedded with the Afghan soldiers, I always wore anabaya, which
Speaker 1: is like a long black cloak. It's popular and sort
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabian and which over over my clothes, and
Speaker 1: I would wear an Afghan tunic underneath, uh, and then
Speaker 1: obviously a head scarf if we were going out and
Speaker 1: sort of trying to report from you know, if we
Speaker 1: were going to sort of see an Afghan militia out
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, or or do reporting in
Speaker 1: very remote areas, and I would just I would wear
Speaker 1: an Afghan tunic nearby and then buka over it, because
Speaker 1: also you're under robuka, you know, people tend not to
Speaker 1: bother you a notice you. And so that was my
Speaker 1: way of getting around places that were more dangerous. Did
Speaker 1: you ever feel in danger working over there at different times? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, there were there were a lot of
Speaker 1: times where where we would we would felt in danger.
Speaker 1: You know, you were only as we we relied a
Speaker 1: lot on local sort of contacts and fixtures, and so
Speaker 1: if you're going somewhere very remote like Kuna, and you're
Speaker 1: going in the car and you're driving in a you know,
Speaker 1: in your Toyota Corolla. You know, you're hoping that you
Speaker 1: don't get stopped at a checkpoint or Taliban checkpoint. You know.
Speaker 1: We we drive and into a couple of ambushes, you know.
Speaker 1: One of them, our car was damaged because we drove
Speaker 1: into or rather the insurgents in the in the mountaintops
Speaker 1: open fire down on the road where we were not
Speaker 1: not firing at us, but at a police convoy that
Speaker 1: happened to pass us. Um. And so we had like
Speaker 1: a flat tire and and stuff from that and and
Speaker 1: broken engines. So we broke down in Sarobi, which is
Speaker 1: a very insecure area, and we obviously had nobody coming together,
Speaker 1: so we had to take the three ordered like a
Speaker 1: local garage, and I just sat there in my worker
Speaker 1: for hours, you know, hoping that no one would wonder
Speaker 1: who we were. Um. And so, yeah, there were there
Speaker 1: were lots of times when when it felt insecure and
Speaker 1: you were really it was really just down to luck.
Speaker 1: Because other journalists over the years that I was there,
Speaker 1: would be doing sort of something similar and and it
Speaker 1: would go wrong. Um. So you know, part of it
Speaker 1: is planning. You try and plan for for every outcome.
Speaker 1: You try and make sure you have the information on
Speaker 1: the road that you're traveling on, and that you know
Speaker 1: your local contacts. You know, whether it's the local provincial
Speaker 1: district governor or whatever, or you know, local journalists or
Speaker 1: something helping you. You know that they're reliable and they
Speaker 1: can be trusted not to sort of sell you to
Speaker 1: to the enemy, I suppose. And h you know, speaking
Speaker 1: about the the US Special Forces guys in the book,
Speaker 1: was there any pushback on I'd say, from like the
Speaker 1: Special Operations Command for them not to cooperate with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, And it was really sort of grassroots UM effort.
Speaker 1: Like when I went to to sort of headquarters to
Speaker 1: ask for interviews with people like General Swindel, they were
Speaker 1: denied um. And so it was more a case of
Speaker 1: reaching out to people individually and then they would reach
Speaker 1: out to their public affairs person. And I did have
Speaker 1: uh an approval from public from the military pub affairs
Speaker 1: which sort of said that um, you know that they
Speaker 1: were supposed to cooperate and help with my research, that
Speaker 1: they supported the publication of the books. I did have
Speaker 1: that kind of official stamp. But I didn't get a
Speaker 1: lot of support from headquarters. But I did at the
Speaker 1: at the lower level, Um, at the knower level. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean public affairs guys would be like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you know, talk to so and so, and they would
Speaker 1: sit in on the interview and they wouldn't interfere generally. Um.
Speaker 1: They were really supportive in that respect. And one of
Speaker 1: the another really compelling part of the book you talked
Speaker 1: at length above Caleb the special operator that lost both
Speaker 1: of his legs and you know his story going through
Speaker 1: all of his you know, struggles and and travails of
Speaker 1: learning to walk again and and all that. Have you
Speaker 1: been in contact with him since the book's been up?
Speaker 1: And how doing? I mean, he's good. He's he's found
Speaker 1: his calling in helping other people. So he's he's teaching archery.
Speaker 1: And he's a really really impressive guy because he's so
Speaker 1: thoughtful and so reflective on on things and he knows, Um,
Speaker 1: he has a good way I think of viewing what
Speaker 1: happened to him and uh and sort of coming to
Speaker 1: terms with it. He's got an amazing family. He's got
Speaker 1: two little girls who are amazing UM. And he's very
Speaker 1: you know, and he's very open and so he'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I mean I found it really really
Speaker 1: good to work with him, and and we do keep
Speaker 1: in touch. That's great. And his wife seemed like a
Speaker 1: very very strong woman, very strong woman, very impressive woman. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how she has she managed. I mean
Speaker 1: I have I've had a baby myself now, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how any of the wives managed. Now that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in a sort of in the in the
Speaker 1: position of pair, and I just can't imagine doing what
Speaker 1: they did. Now. Your your baby is quite young, right,
Speaker 1: you didn't have any children when you were over in Afghanistan? No,
Speaker 1: I did not, um, And so yeah, yeah, I've got
Speaker 1: a six month old baby, so no more for me
Speaker 1: for a while. That's the funny age that when they're
Speaker 1: they're six to ten months old. I I look back
Speaker 1: on that. My son's now twenty two, so you know,
Speaker 1: I probably am looking through rose colored glasses. But I
Speaker 1: I love that that stretch, you know, from the six
Speaker 1: six months of a year was part of my favorite time.
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, it's great, Um, it's it's a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: And it's also you know, it's good to have two
Speaker 1: parents in the house because there's no time and so
Speaker 1: I don't know how these how they these women managed,
Speaker 1: you know, worrying about their husband's never coming back, or
Speaker 1: dealing with the injuries like Caleb had with you know,
Speaker 1: one too small it Tina was pregnant when hutch was
Speaker 1: over um in the mission in Quintus. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't I can't imagine doing what they did, and I
Speaker 1: find that so impressive. Yeah, they the women in the book. Again,
Speaker 1: that was you know, one of the better products of
Speaker 1: the books because you know, not only are you getting
Speaker 1: the story of the soldiers, you're getting their families back home.
Speaker 1: And you know, the women I thought were really strong
Speaker 1: in this. And your heart goes out to some of
Speaker 1: the guys who who end up getting killed, because you know,
Speaker 1: most of the American public we see just the aftermath.
Speaker 1: You might see a picture of a funeral where somebody's
Speaker 1: getting a folded flag, but you know there's a lot
Speaker 1: more to that, and the families there. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know that for example, Alexandra McClintock, who's McClintock whose husband
Speaker 1: was killed in Margin, I mean I know that she
Speaker 1: hasn't she hasn't read the book. She hasn't read I mean,
Speaker 1: as I was writing before publication, obviously sent the chapters
Speaker 1: over to the people that were in it so that
Speaker 1: they had a chance to correct anything that was inaccurate
Speaker 1: or guay in, and she didn't read them because, I mean,
Speaker 1: five years on, it's still such a such an awful,
Speaker 1: awful thing to have gone through. Um, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think people when they talk about, oh, well, we're
Speaker 1: only losing you know, ten US soldiers a year or twenty,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, what are we losing them for?
Speaker 1: And do we really consider the impact of the loss
Speaker 1: of just a single soldier really? And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I wanted to convey um conveying the book, right,
Speaker 1: and you know, speaking in general terms, is do you
Speaker 1: think the journalism is changing the way wars are covered nowadays?
Speaker 1: I mean, because we live in that era. You know,
Speaker 1: back in World War Two and even in Vietnam, it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, so in far in the distance,
Speaker 1: and you'd have to rely on newspapers back in World
Speaker 1: War tour, you know, the radio, and you'd get reports
Speaker 1: there were maybe a day or two old then in
Speaker 1: Vietnam and started coming into our you know, living rooms
Speaker 1: at night. But today, I mean we're seeing stuff. Is
Speaker 1: that unfold and is the way it's journalism changing the
Speaker 1: way we look at wars now? I think that it's
Speaker 1: really I think it's more the other way around. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that in early years in Afghanistan and in Iraq,
Speaker 1: obviously you had journalists embedding with a range of different
Speaker 1: troops for a length of time that gave them a
Speaker 1: chance to really see or understand what was going on.
Speaker 1: Since twenty fifteen, when the Afghan War was, when there
Speaker 1: was this effort to put the Afghan War out of
Speaker 1: the public, you know, journalists don't really get to embed
Speaker 1: with US forces and the very few and beds that
Speaker 1: are granted are granted only to you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of DC journalists who haven't got a lot of um
Speaker 1: uh in depth and experience in Afghanistan, and they don't
Speaker 1: get a lot of time to see to spend with
Speaker 1: these troops. So you know, you don't really learn a
Speaker 1: lot just by being there for two days or so
Speaker 1: three days, and so I think that really makes it
Speaker 1: difficult for journalists to really cover what what the war
Speaker 1: is like now. Um and yeah, and and so it
Speaker 1: has unfortunately sort of faded out of the public's mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's It's very true. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: see it every day here in the States. But you know,
Speaker 1: the book and again to our listeners out there, we're
Speaker 1: talking with Justinati. She wrote the book Um Eagle Down
Speaker 1: the Last Um Special Forces Fighting in the Forever War.
Speaker 1: And and really, I mean, after reading the book, this
Speaker 1: should be required reading, I think for a leaders and
Speaker 1: military war colleges because it shows what can happen, and
Speaker 1: it can happen quite easily when we strip our uh
Speaker 1: special operations forces, are anyone involved in that kind of
Speaker 1: uh you know, situation of their assets and you know
Speaker 1: we're putting their lives in harm's way. And I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how much I thought I was impressed with
Speaker 1: your work in this and and uh, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a fantastic book. And like I said, at times
Speaker 1: it was very um uplifting and at other times it
Speaker 1: was very uh concerning. I guess, uh In, you know,
Speaker 1: when we see what our guys are going through on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, and I think you've captured that, our
Speaker 1: hats are off to you and we you know, encourage
Speaker 1: all of our readers are all of our listeners. Two,
Speaker 1: definitely check out the book. It's available on Amazon dot
Speaker 1: com and it's also available I believe, off of your website. Correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a list of sellers from the publisher's website,
Speaker 1: from her chette Um and so pretty much all book
Speaker 1: sellers should be able to get a copy. If you
Speaker 1: don't want to go down the Amazon route, great, And yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't want to take up too much more of
Speaker 1: your time. I know you have a young baby at
Speaker 1: home and your is your husband a journalist as well?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not another journalist. He's in the Foreign service, so
Speaker 1: he's currently handling the baby. Oh well, there you go.
Speaker 1: And that's uh that that is a diplomaticure in itself.
Speaker 1: So yes, screaming, I hope, but I can hear him
Speaker 1: from here. I won't keep you any longer. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us this evening on your time and morning on
Speaker 1: our time. But we really appreciate your inside you're taking
Speaker 1: the time to talk with us here at Software Radio. Again,
Speaker 1: we definitely encourage our readers and our listeners out there
Speaker 1: to check out the book. It's well worth it. But
Speaker 1: before we go, oh, you're quite welcome anytime. And is
Speaker 1: there anything before we go? Is there anything on the
Speaker 1: agenda for you? You're working on something new? No, I'm
Speaker 1: going back to my job covering national security at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. Um, starting in March, and um, we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll go from there. Oh, excellent. So that means you'll
Speaker 1: be probably back in the States by then, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: heading back next week. Excellent. Well, I know it must
Speaker 1: be tough leaving Africa because it's such a beautiful place.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we wish you all the best in that.
Speaker 1: And again, thank you for taking the time with us today.
Speaker 1: Before Okay, before we go, I just wanted to read
Speaker 1: a quick note from our editors here. If you want
Speaker 1: to get soft rep on your phone, download our free
Speaker 1: mobile app and get easy access to our articles, podcast
Speaker 1: and gar reviews, all perfectly formatted to your device. Please
Speaker 1: subscribe to softwap dot com to get access to all
Speaker 1: our library of e books and our exclusive team room content,
Speaker 1: uh forums and available on all your Apple and Android devices. Jess,
Speaker 1: thanks again for taking the time with us today. We
Speaker 1: really appreciate it, and all the best to you in
Speaker 1: the future. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It was our pleasure. All right, that's it for us
Speaker 1: here at soft Rep Radio. We'll be back with another
Speaker 1: podcast real soon. Until then, don't turn that dial. SOFTWAP
Speaker 1: Radio on time on Target you've been listening to Self
Speaker 1: Red Radio m