Why It Took So Long To Leave Afghanistan: Antiwar.com’s Scott Horton
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- "After 20 years, I've learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces," said President Joe Biden in defending his decision to take U.S. personnel out of Afghanistan. "How many more generations of America's daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan's civil war when Afghan troops will not?"
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Biden's decision to pull the United States military out of Afghanistan after two decades has been roundly condemned by interventionists, who say that the retreat was "humiliating" and disastrously planned, leaving thousands of Afghans prey to vengeance and violence at the hands of the Taliban.
For Scott Horton and other critics of U.S. foreign policy, the biggest question about the withdrawal is what took so long. Horton heads up the Libertarian Institute, is editorial director at Antiwar.com, and hosts The Scott Horton Show podcast. He's also the author of Enough Already: Time To End the War on Terror.
Reason's Nick Gillespie talked with the Austin, Texas-based Horton about why he believes American intervention in Afghanistan was doomed from the start, U.S. foreign policy has been a disaster for all of the 21st century, and a libertarian approach to both domestic and foreign affairs would make people better off all over the globe.
Music Credit: When The Sunrise, Instrumental Version, by Sivan Talmor from Artlist
Written by Nick Gillespie; produced by Regan Taylor; audio post-production by Ian Keyser
Scott Horton's mastery of these topics is amazing.
Ryan Dawson, too.
Scott is an American hero for his dedication to standing against the war machine I wish more people knew his name
I'm glad Reason is getting back to the LP's antiwar non-aggression roots.
Imagine how different our lives would be if the United States had skipped the first Iraq/Kuwait war, and then ended our involvement in the Middle East. We would not have been a target of al Qaeda, and the 9/11 attacks would not have happened. The war in Afghanistan and the second Iraq war would not have happened.
Getting out of Afghanistan is fine, but how were they so stupid as to leave behind US citizens and billions of dollars of military equipment before pulling out?
They're not stupid, if what they're doing doesn't make sense you've misidentified their goals.
Also the weaponry should have been burned-out and made inoperable!
USG wasn't in Afghanistan for the reasons you think they were.
A lot of those equipment was donated by the cowardly Afghan army.
I always thought that, IF you bail on yer war-making equipment, YOU DESTROYED IT! Then you leave! Duh?
just like a 20 year marriage, there is no way it's going to break up without some drama. So why is everyone surprised.
well ideally we could have not armed them considering the amount of lead time we had..
Usually when you break up with your girlfriend you don't leave her your attack helicopters.
@@Vaelosh466 You should have told that to the ANA (Afghan National Army) before they abandoned them.
@@mathewm7136 The US military has known for years that the ANA was not an army that would seriously fight the Taliban, and that's being extremely charitable to the ANA. Scott Horton mentions it in this video, and listen to any soldier that had to deal with the ANA regularly and they'll tell you the same thing. So, either the administration knew that and left weapons knowing they would most likely get taken by the Taliban anyway, or were so naïve they actually thought the ANA would put up a serious fight. Either way, every bullet that was left by the ANA for the Taliban to take is 100% the administration's responsibility.
Where is the accountability for 20 years of LYING TO US that we were going to leave with a capable Afghan government in place?
"Should we have just stayed forever?" is a HUGE RED HERRING
The pullout was a failure because of 20 years of failure.
"accountability?" LOL
Well I think you're right. My guess is that a lot of experts knew it wouldn't work.
But what should Bush have done? You cannot just remove the government and replace it with nothing. If the us didnt do anything and a genocide or civil war broke out, then they would be blamed for that.
I dunno... Try to remember what it was like in 2001 (or look it up if youre too young). Basically everyone was in favour of war, even outside the US.
Now maybe that was the wrong decision, but we cant blame the experts or politicians for that--anyone who was opposed to the war would have been removed from any position. Ultimately it was us, the public, who drove the decision to remove the Taliban.
The mistakes of the U.S. go back decades. We should have skipped the 1991 Gulf war, and withdrew from the Middle East. The 9/11 attacks would not have happened and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would not have happened.
@@JesseLH88 Hillary and O'bama wrecked Libya, left and didn't attempt to re-construct, they are selling slaves openly in Libya now.
This is after Gaddafi gave up his nuclear ambitions, after Reagan's strike on him. They should have left Gaddafi alone, he was holding the islamofascists at bay.
The problem with the plan was that they never planned on leaving.
Yes. An organized staged withdraw of civilians, then combat troops in defensible positions, would be an admission of failure and futility of 20 years of social engineering.
You just called it. There was a time when we didn't have a clue where Biden stood on Withdrawal. Nobody ever asks Joe or his team about Afghanistan before he announced U.S withdrawal. Maybe he did want to leave but didn't want Trump to get all the credit. So he ignored the plans Trump left him and created a dumb plan in its place.
That was the plan... A forever war
@@jonnyenough1531 Let Vietnam we had the mix of Woke left and the Neocon Right, messing things up. President Biden couldn't decide either path but Trump didn't care!!! He despised the Military Industry complex while going after the Looney left.
@@rfe8nn2 Untrue, Biden has always had a stance. Biden has been involved/hands-on with ALL of this "foreign war" crap, from Siagon to Kabul. In 1975, he spoke out against a Congressional bill regarding evacuations of friendlies/nationals in Nam. He said only specific diplomats (about 1,800 diplomats with the foreign embassies) should be evacuated, that the US "has no obligation to evacuate one or 100,001 South Vietnamese." He didn't learn from his own mistake then, seems to be repeating and almost doubling down on that stance some 46yrs later
I don’t want to be in Afghanistan either but the retreat was handled in the worst possible way
Amen!
There is no "good" way. Sooner or later, there is always that last plane out.
@@gary7vn there is no perfect way. But the way we handled it seems to be among the worst possible ways.
@@Frank-pp9iyI disagree; and I know I am the odd man out, but I think that history will judge the pullout as amazingly bloodless. Everyone complains that it should have been done better, but nobody ever offers up how they would do it differently (in a realistic way). Some say they would have kept Bagram open and evacuated out of there, but that wasn't a realistic possibility. I think it was done about the best that could have been expected, all things considered.
So glad to see Scott Horton interviewed by reason
I am not trying to mean, but Mr.Horton no issues or anything is upset that his ''Jesus Christ'' Dr.Ron Paul did not become president in 2008 and or 2012
Yeah, it's good to see a complete loon interviewed to remind ourselves that it could always be worse.
Whether you think USA should've been there or not... USA failed them on every level over the last 20yrs, and most tragically with this pull-out, when this chaos was foreseeable & preventable. No spin, wishful thinking, or ideology changes the truth that USA failed Afgans.
@Jon VB You'd think America would have learned it's lesson in Vietnam, never get involved in a land war on the Asian mainland.
@Jon VB You either stay there forever or you accept military defeat. But if we had unequipped the Afghan army on our way out the door, we would have been blamed for their defeat in that manner. Accept the loss, there was no way this was going to end pretty. All things considered, it could have been far worse.
@Jon VB big fucking. a bunch of old uparmored humvees, black hawks and some modern prop CAS aircraft? This wasnt a modern US armed egyptian military. Good lord.
Please have Scott on more often.
The execution and the non planning for getting our people out is the issue, not the withdrawal itself.
I took issue with that part of the video too, but they quickly skipped that strawman and got back to reasoned analysis.
That's exactly my thoughts!
I think the issue is the delusion with which people like you had that this was going to be smooth at all. People hate Biden ... fine, but ultimately this would have been no different with Trump and I doubt he'd have done this at all.
@@TheLouisisawesome That depends on what you mean by "ultimately." We were leaving. That is the ONLY similarity with the Trump plan. The botched execution was all Biden Administration incompetence. You are either blindly partisan or just badly misinformed.
@@TheSocratesian the trump plan was earlier than the Biden plan and I'm not convinced he'd have taken that risk anyways. It was never going to end well anyways or be smooth. I think you are the one blinded by partisanship. I guarantee if Trump left under the exact same circumstances you'd be defending it.
I'll ask this - do you or do you not think Biden was the legitimate winner of the election?
"He [General McMaster] was in charge of ending corruption in the Kabul government."
Corruption Perceptions Index for Afghanistan
2020 Rank 165/180 2020 Score 19/100
Bang up job.
It's hard when you have a presidents that wouldn't pressure the Afghan government and threaten to leave if they stayed corrupt but said we will leave regardless. What could McMaster have even done, the Afghan government wasn't just a colonial peice.
Well, I highly doubt the Taliban will allow women or suspected Christians to leave.
Probably
as Christians we cannot deny the faith, they will be murdered unfortunately, by the locals and taliban
All two of them.
@@kelamullah1999 Well, there might not be very many, but there’s probably more than two.
It's about *how* the withdrawal was executed not that it needed to take place.
People who believe that the Taliban is not ruthless are fooling themselves.
It was never ever going to go well anyways. You can quibble about the withdrawal and stuff but ultimately it had to happen, it's definitely a good thing that Biden did on balance horrible some of the impact of it but ultimately the job of the American military shouldn't be to enforce Western values inconsistently across the world. The Taliban are bad, but they aren't worse than the Saudi's or a myriad of other countries that the US actively works with.
@@TheLouisisawesome Actually you're correct. I don't think most people wouldn't quibble with withdrawal. As long there is a plan and we do it right, nobody would have a problem with it.
It's not. Not one more moment ought to be spent there on American taxpayer dime. If someone wants to go "help" (what on earth would someone even do?) they can do their best on their own dime.
The western world doesn't even want to take in all the refugees from Syria. How many C130s should they fly out of Kabul?
@@neonidus7918 I would agree with you if there were at least no U.S citizens left who had been in the country before the Taliban took over. I'm pissed that we still have American's trapped there. Anyhow whatever happens it's all on Joe.
9:10 The US Government had no evidence.
Great interview
They should have kept Kabul free of Taliban while people were evacuated.
Yeah right.
❤️ Scott Horton.
"I was just a kid, I liked explosions and jet fighters and stuff like that."
Bruh, that hits a little too close to home. That was how I felt about Iraq 2 when I was a kid. I just knew that I loved the F-15 and I wanted to see it kick some ass. Big oof.
same here, I've always been fascinated by military history and I had to make a conscious effort to remind myself about all the innocent lives that are impacted by war
@@elamstoltzfus1422 The only validation I feel is that, the F-15C is strictly an air-to-air system, and there are no innocent civilians in MiG-29s.
Well ok there are, but fortunately none of the privately-owned imported MiGs have tied into it with the Air Force. And A2A is just so much more awesome than dropping JDAMs.
Scott is the best. When it comes to American foreign policy and anti-government libertarian ideals hes second to none.
Why dont we blame Bush?
Hmm. The war on Afghanistan had some merit. The war on terror not as much now. Bin Laden was assassinated after Bush’s presidency.
whats the soundtrack in the beginning? ive heard it before...
More of this please!
Every Taliban dude I met: "you have the watches, we have the time"
His full title is: "the legendary Scott Horton"
who is still not happy that Dr.Paul did not become commander in chief in 2008 and 2012
Government is great at fixing problems....
Great stuff. Thanks, Scott!
Larry Elder for California Governor! Spread the word everywhere, especially cali residents!
Be an advocate, get the word out! We're down to the wire... the election is in less than a month, sept 14th! (Ballots available now)
This election is all about *turnout* and a victory could be the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche!
For freedom.
Lets gooo!!!!
"You can lose a fight, but you can't win a surrender." - Andrew Klavan
Instant thumbs up for scott
The problem is foreign policy isnt like protecting against a burglar. Its like a forest fire. You have to go to the source to put it out followed by maintaining the brush.
No. That type of mindset is dangerous.
@@nastyheretic4240 you mean reality
They are following the Californian way of maintaining the brush.
The Pentagon had always dreamed of having an eternal war just to keep their trough filled.
One word.Heroin
great. Scott Horton is a passionate man.
you are right about that
We should have stayed. We still have forces in Germany, Japan and Italy and they don't have terrorist organizations like the Taliban but some how we are be able to leave Afghanistan and the Taliban will not take over? We should have stayed to keep doing what were doing aiding the Afghan forces and let them keep the Taliban in check.
We're friendly with those countries, they don't shoot at our troops and we don't shoot them back. It makes no sense to put troops in harm's way unless you have to, and we were keeping the Taliban "in check" for what exactly? So they could have a corrupt national government that resembles ours? Afghanistan isn't the West or even similar, so of course they'll do things differently there. That's not our problem in the least.
True, there were barely any casualties and the money spent drastically went down in the later years
John Fernandez there was a ceasefire, and US was paying Taliban to not attack their convoys since the surge ended.
@@snake1625b Only because the Taliban had agreed not to shoot at U.S forces. They said, in no uncertain terms, that if the U.S did not follow through with the withdrawal as agreed.. well then the war was back on.
@ReasonTV Please keep posting more of Scott Hortons work!!
"The Taliban arent going to build a Berlin wall", that comment didn't age well. They just stopped any Afghani's from getting to the airport.
Yeah its crazy. Why do the Taliban want to keep Afgans from leaving? So they can round them up and kill them?
What would be the bad of just letting the ones that want to leave, leave, just without taking all their $$ with them.
"Everybody assumed that the Taliban would come in and kill everybody as our guys are trying to get to the airport, but they haven't done that." Yep... aged like milk.
They don't want them being corrupted by other countries. But yeah whats the point of trying to keep people who don't want to be there or participate in your society structure?
Airport ain't even working now. It was sabotaged when the us left
@@bobsmith962 Probably so we couldn't get back in and the Afghans couldnt get out
Its because no one could read the road signs,so no one could find their way out til now.
The Taliban have also said if you're important to infrastructure and civic duties they don't want you to flee. Imagine what they're gonna do when one of those people wants to leave and they get stopped by the Taliban?
Yeah, so we should just stay for-f'ing-ever to stave off the inevitable threat to Afghans. This war was lost before troops even landed. Bush, Cheyne, & Rumsfeld wanted to nation build the Middle East. Be glad someone had the balls to finally withdraw.
Lots of books on the subject. Its always been about surrounding Iran. Take a look at a map of the area and it will make more sense. Lofty goals with terrible planning by stupid leaders.
A division of infantry is 15,000 men, not 1,000.
The issue is the method of withdrawal. We had years to bring our allies and our local contacts back to the US. We could have at least destroyed the armories that were left in regions where the ANA caved.
Well, we don't know they were going to cave. So, to start "planning for its collapse" years in advance kind of sends a bad message to the ANA during the prep.
@@mathewm7136 Ohhhh yes we did. They were caving when I was getting ready to deploy in '19. My buddies that we were going to RIP in for warned us that the local ANA refused to patrol after 4pm and they let the Taliban run their AO for the better part of 2 years prior. People think that Afghanistan is a country that has problems that other people can solve. Afghanistan isnt a country, its a tribal region and its problems can only be resolved from within.
@@herptyderp4927 My time was earlier (08-09 in Iraq and 12-14 in Afghan). and it was operational level so I can't answer for 19-20 timeframe.
But, I will say this, if we told the Afghan Command that we're doing things are "Planning for your collapse", we would be on the next flight home with walking papers in our hands.
@@mathewm7136 Why would you tell them that you were planning for their collapse? Just take all your gear and walk, then make sure you can at least blow everything you left behind. By the time I was going they had 19 years of training, they were just about to start getting MRAPS (never should have bothered handing those over, 3/4 of them still couldn't drive). We were following the local ANA and police forces total collapse live on CNN over the last 17 days, no reason to not blow equipment at that point. But again, the collapse was already happening several years ago. Everyone knew they were going to collapse, why leave anything to the Taliban.
@@herptyderp4927 The "equipment" left behind was the equipment given to the "Ghost Army". Afghan Command inflated the numbers of actual soldiers to collect their pay (we subsidized) and US Command did nothing otherwise reporting the true numbers would be looked at as failures. It was a very symbiotic relationship. We (US) don't look at your balance sheets and you (Afghan Cmd) don't make us look bad.
Well, if you have an army on paper that totals 400,000+, to cover yourself, you need have equipment for 400k. The equipment, unlike the soldiers, has to be real and in country.
Sooo, when the 100 or so Afghani soldiers decide to run from a base with equipment stored for 5,000, they ain't going to be too concerned about taking all the equipment with them.
Scott Horton is the man
The humiliation is not from pulling out. It was long past time to leave. It was the way it was handled and like was mentioned here breaking the deal didn't help.
I'm glad this happening , The War was designed to be perpetual never end!
6:22 They do now
my personal theory is that most people did not really care about conflict for a long time because of the Iraq War (2003-2011) and other issues and conflicts going on
Dave Smith for president, Scott Horton Secretary of Defense. :-)
Why did we stay?
Horton is the best
Federal funds rate popped the bubble
The problem people have isn't that he left, but how he left, leaving billions in weapons and equipment and many American citizens, while we still regularly drone strike the country is whats pissing everyone off.
Scott is OG anti-war
❤
I think it can be both a humiliation and the right thing. We should never have been there and should learn not to do it again from the shame. I hope
Staying there just gave them longer to take control??? Uh..... what?
We "go green" giving up on this was the dumbest thing ever..... We now have to simp to the ccp for rare earths.
what is simp?
It's not about leaving or not, it's how it was carried out. We needed to get out but Afghanistan need to get their act together
You're quite kind to give all of Afghanistan such useful advice.
From now on---and stay with me on this, I know this is counterintuitive---let's only declare war on sovereign countries that attack us or our allies. Next time someone comes along saying we need to declare war on drugs or war on terror or war on I-don't-care-what, let's calmly and kindly shove a chill pill down their throat and calm the fuck down.
Too bad they didn't wait 9 more days to do this interview
Buncha salty neocons loitering around Reason these days I guess
It's been that way since the end of the Bush administration.
@@FourthRoot Neocons were all over the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. administrations.
@@RPGGunman That's not Reason.
We simply have to pursue nonmilitary intervention solutions to geopolitical problems. The CIA created the Bin Ladin's Mujahideen (Rebranded to Taliban) to defeat the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan, then called Charlie Wilson's War.
The Taliban are not Mujahideen. They are the radicalized children of the refugees who fled to Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war while the Mujahideen fought. The Taliban came back in the 90s, and overthrew the Mujahideen. As far as I am aware, we never funded the Taliban, but I may be wrong. But the Taliban and the Mujahideen are not the same.
leaving Afghanistan and the way it happened is two different things. right now, US has citizens who will be left behind and who knows what will happen to them. that is the scandal.
Yea stayed too long yea should have gone no mercy wipe floor with Al-Queda and left
Well it was great while it lasted, 20 years of profit. I wonder what we're going to do next.
Eh, I’m sure the next war has already been planned.
Just tune in to any coverage of the day after January 5th. That's where.
Syria, Iraq and all non-leftist in the US.
I was humiliated that we invaded and occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and never caught Bid Laden there.
Why do we pretend we broke anything, or that Afghanis were "helping the US" as the entire real premise is that the US was helping Afghanis create a better government. Yes, we went there to get revenge (and failed as we only hurt the Taliban and Afghanis, never capturing Bin Lade, etc. there), but the 20 years was at least supposed to be about helping Afghanis, so their efforts working with the US was to help Afghanis. It's just that they didn't want to own it.
As is often the case, Reason is tone deaf here. Leaving isn’t the issue. The completely fucked and incompetent manner of leaving is why people are angry. While I lean libertarian, there is a reason we never win elections….here’s a good example. Too many libertarians minor on the majors and major on the minors. We now live in a police state yet one of my friends won’t shut up about privatizing highways. 🙄
Take your own advice, that we're leaving is the major here and how we leave is the minor. "Botching" it is the government's last attempt to sabotage the withdrawal and you're falling for it hook line and sinker.
what is major on the minors?
@@spudg8558 I rest my case. Let’s say for the sake of argument that you and I agree we should have left. Your argument is that the criminally reckless and incompetent manner of doing it was a conspiracy???? Are you the shirtless dancing guy at the libertarian convention they like to show every 4 years? Why are you making excuses for our feckless leadership?
@@majermike it’s being “right” about unimportant issues or at least not the important issues at the time. It’s talking gold standard and private highways or private police when cities burn down, property owners can’t evict non paying tenants, freedom of assembly is gone, and people are forced to take experimental , while state schools we are forced to pay for teach kids racism. It’s a matter of perspective and priority and it’s why libertarians never win anything of substance. It’s being right about leaving Afghanistan but pretending that the criminally incompetent manner that got Americans and afghans killed doesn’t matter…because it does matter to most Americans and it should. It matters that we armed terrorists through incompetence that I would consider criminal negligence in a court.
@@danielgriebling6123 ah thanks. why is it called minor on the majors?
Gross
Vote democrats this is what you get. This is only the beginning.
Something great about Scott is that you could ask him the same question two days in a row and get a completely different path of facts to the same conclusion. A wealth of knowledge
This is some funny shit.😆
Dont know why Scott has never investigated the event that triggered the war he hates so much. Always disappointed when i hear him defending the official story.
Nick Gillespie's hair or wig is distracting
😂😂
Everyone is against the war. But what about the unintended consequences of pulling out of Afghanistan. Example: resurgence of terrorism, china gains a new Allie.
A resurgence of terrorism where, do you think?
@@neonidus7918 well I guess what I meant to say is they never went away
Should we be there forever?
"China gains a new ally"
yeah just like they were pals with the USSR? You can't be serious
Wow I maybe the next Nostradamus but more likely Biden is a Vegetable with no regard to the consequences.
The war was fucking over. There was what 3000 troops? We pull that out and people get slaughtered. What a horrible take.
*We pull that out and people get slaughtered* you have no idea what's happening on the ground.
Here is the big myth behind what Scott is saying - "the forever war." Yes, we were at war there for years, but look at how many Americans were killed under Trump. It was very few. It was not a war at that point - it was the US supporting Afghan forces with air power. The real question is not "total, forever war" vs withdrawal. The real question is a small support force and some boots on the ground supporting the Afghans, vs totally leaving and having no support on the ground and creating chaos at the airport, and letting the taliban have that country, from which they will now stage worldwide jihad.
The Taliban is not an international jihadist group. They're a nationalist Islamist group, who only seek to establish an Islamic state within their own country's borders.
@@iafigueroa91 they are allies of Al-Queda and will allow them to have a base from which they can launch terror attacks.
@@Welleher We actively supported Al-Qaeda for years in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. AQ doesn't need support from Taliban. They receive plenty from the US and Saudia Arabia.
@@Welleher Actually, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have not always seen eye to eye, with each other. They, quite frequently, have had their rough patches (read "The Enemy We Created"). The Aghanistan "safe haven" claim is a big myth. Al Qaeda has never needed Afghanistan to launch attacks on the United States. For example, the 9/11 attacks (the planes operation concept) evolved from the Bojinka Plot, which was planned in Manila, Phillpines (1994-95); the attacks (and the USS Cole bombing of October 2000) were planned in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 11-13, 2000; the hijackers were recruited in Hamburg Germany, they had meetings about the attacks in Spain; and the hijackers trained in flight schools inside the United States (Florida, California, Arizona, etc.). After the United States invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban in late 2001, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan went into hiding in Pakistan, which a majority were killed in Obama's CIA drone war in Pakistan, from 2009 through 2012. Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011 (Bin Laden had been in Pakistan since early 2002, and settled in Abbottabad, in 2005, until his death in 2011, with his family). After Bin Laden's death, Al Qaeda became very weak and fractured. It hasn't been the same deadly terrorist threat since 9/11. Also, if the Taliban were bring Al Qaeda back to Afghanistan, they would be bombed off the face of the Earth and quickly lose political power. America would come back to Afghanistan and establish a permanent military presence, there. Plus, Al Qaeda is pretty much decimated, at this point.
A huge reason why no Americans died in Afghanistan was because Trump made a unilateral deal (in March 2020) with the Taliban, in which he promised that he would withdraw all US troops and dismantle bases from Afghanistan by May 2021, as long as the Taliban promised not to attack US troops or launch assaults against US bases (in addition to not allowing Al Qaeda back into the country and allowing them to use the country, as a base from which to launch attacks against the United States), and the Taliban held their end of the bargain, resulting in no US troop deaths in all of 2020 and 2021 (at least not by the Taliban's hand).
8;28
Wow...really disappointed with Nick and his guest in the first few moments of this video. I like Reason because it does tend to break down the middle and is...well...reasonable. With that said....
Biden's address on Monday was one of the most dishonest and callous performances I've seen from a President in my 40+ years of following politics. The issue was never about leaving. Most Americans agreed it was time and accepted Trumps time line. The issue is how incredibly idiotic was handled. The multiple lies he told. How incredibly callous his was and the unbelievable gas lighting. But, he is a Democrat after all.
He lies weeks ago when he said there was 300k in the Afghan army. They was maybe 60k combat ready at any given time. Regardless, Biden and his team cut the legs out from under them. We taught them to fight with joint ground and air support and then we took the air support away. Not only ours but Biden wouldn't allow the private contractors stay to keep the Afghan Air force flying. Afghanistan is also a massive nation with little infrastructure outside of the cities. The Afghan soliders replied on air to supply everything from ammo to water. They weren't using mules and stolen trucks like the Taliban. They didn't just stop fighting. They didn't have resources to fight with. Over 60k of them died. Many so that Americans didn't die. We didn't just let then down.,.we insured their defeat.
Biden said the Afghan govt didn't want a mass exodus. Ok...so... out military could leave and Baghram abandoned but people America and Afghans could fly out of Kabul? That's neither a reason or excuse. It's a lie!
He tries to blame Trump...of course ...but didn't follow his conditioned based deal. The Taliban doesn't fear Biden. Why should they. But, they knew Trump was unpredictable? I seriously doubt they would have rolled into Kabul had any America forces still been there. They would have waited.
Biden screwed this up because he's a fool that surrounded himself with fool and did what he always does. Worries about politics first Regardless of the impact it has on Americans lives! He is a despicable human being.
Lastly, since 2014 we've had troops there I a primary non combat roll. It was our air assets supporting the Afghan's for years that kept the taliban at bay. It was at least a stalemate. So...how do we justify 40k troops in South Korea...a stalemate...and 33k in Germany? Are we really worried Russia will invade Poland? Talk about a paper tiger? 12k in Italy. Why? In Japan? Why? Well, in a case like Germany...they are addicted to America to dollars being spent there and less of their own money they have to spend for their own defense. We have bases in other countries for strategic reasons. A rapid response and QRF capabilities. I can actually see benefit from having 10k troops in Afghanistan if it insured what just happened didn't happen. It brought a degree of stability in the area and kept China and Russia out. They will certainly take advantage of this now. China will be selling us products with rare earth metals mined from Afghanistan mountain. It provides great combat training for our air crews and pilots at a very low risk. Was also great training for our young officers. And hey... there are a lot of families in America making a good living producing weapon, ammos and military equipment. Maybe they should learn to code. Anyway...when is South Korea going to be able to defend itself? Germany?
Biden lied, avoided responsibility and is derelict in his most important duty. Protect America lives. To say he was right or looked good in the address is appalling!!!
We were spending something like $200 million a DAY for twenty years in Afghanistan, with very limited success, in a hot war costing American lives. That's not the same as 40 thousand troops in South Korea sitting on their butts doing occasional military exercises. If Biden's most important duty is to "protect America lives", then we should have been out of Afghanistan a long time ago, because American lives were being killed there almost nothing.
@@chrimony IT appears we have a conflict of perspective. Currently, we're spending about 50 billion a year in Afghanistan. Or, Russia's YEARLY defense budget. Not much when you look at a 4 trillion annual budget that Biden wants to blow out to 6 trillion a year. The IG just released a report last month and two independent firms confirmed that an estimated 400 billion was lost to fraud in unemployment assistance from last years 1 trill covid bill! Much of which went to foreign crime syndicates. They apply for unemployment and the state and fed did no real verification. They cash the checks and covert to bitcoin. That money is gone! They suspect it's as bad with the paycheck protection act. So, perspective. I'd rather see that money going towards keeping the taliban in a stalemate in Afghanistan. Why we trust the fed with any money is beyond me.
You are right. Troops in Korea and sitting at artillery batteries not doing much of a anything. In Afghanistan, command and control, Intel and occasionally young officers are getting real world experience and killing bad guys! Now... we are tearing up through the hours or our airframes. Jets and helicopters have a life span of so many hours. But, our pilots and aircrews are the best in the world. Hell...they have 30 years of combat experience.
Afghanistan hasn't been a hot war for US ground troops since 2014. We lost 2317 soldiers killed which is tragic bit over 20 years... pretty amazing. The last combat related death was feb of 2020. There is a distinction between civilians in a foreign country that are to be just as protected as if they were home... and a volunteer military signing up knowing they are going into harms way. They understand the risk. Although our civilians trapped in Afghanistan knew they were going to a dangerous place, Biden and his admin LIED to them when he said on July 8th That there is no way the taliban would take over. After all... they weren't the North Vietnamese army. His Intel people and the Joint chief, as it's being leaked out to the press, told him a very different assessment. He ignored it for one reason and one reason only. Politics! The only reason he and his entire party does anything. To gain and maintain power no matter the consequences! To over ride the Joint chiefs and order them to shutdown Baghram airbase and move everyone to Kabul was for politics. Had he followed the Trump plan and conditions none of this would have happened. But..since it had Trumps name on it Uncle Joe had to tear it up and do it his own way. Now...we see why his own party thought he's been a joke for 40 years. He's been wrong on every foreign policy issue and now...he's just dangerous. The ramifications of this debacle is going to last generations. He'll end up giving billions to the Taliban to get our people out.
What he should do... 1. Actually listen to his generals... after firing Milly and Sec Def Austin! 2. Tell the taliban.... it's simple... you want us out, we want to go. Escort every American and Afghanistan national that worked for us to the airport and offer them snacks and bottles of water or... we will stay...will mobilize 5 divisions of army and two divisions of Marines ( taliban hate Marines) and well go get them ourselves. And before we leave...we will track and kill every single one in your leadership if it takes a thousand cruise missiles to do it. That...is the only thing these 8th century cavemen understand? Brute force.
Listen... I can look at this rationally. We would likely never "nation build" that backwards ass County into a western like republic? I come from a military family and community and have heard countless stories of just how ignorant and brutal their culture is. Men raping young boys is common place. Brutal treatment of women. Over 90% of the population didn't even know 9/11 happened. When we got there the villagers thought we were Russians. My son spent 9 months on a mountain with USMC 2nd Recon. I get it. But... we were killing bad people. Keeping China out which...now they'll just go in there and mine rare earth metals to sell back to us. It kept Russia in check and continually reminded the radicals in the middle east what our military is capable of. Nation building was never our objective. That's a term politicans like to use in speeches when they throw around and misuse words like democracy! (We aren't a democracy) We helped the Mujahadin kick out the Russians and then forgot about Afghanistan. The USSR was crumbling and the eastern European map was changing almost daily. But, look what the result were. 3000 dead Americans, 2 buildings leveled and the Pentagon attacked. We fight them there so we don't have to fight them here. Isn't that the job of our military? Whether we stayed or left, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists are going to hate us and try and do us harm. It's how they maintain their power. Again...better there than here. Now... we just look weak and they and others will take advantage of it!
@@chrimony Actually... after thinking about it and getting some feedback from a USMC officer in the Middle East.... the military wants to push out a perimeter and go and collect evacuees in Kabul but the Biden admin is terrified of any images of our troops and civilians getting caught in a firefight in the streets? The commanders are more than a little pissed. Biden could threaten the taliban all he wanted but they know he is weak and more concerned with the political optics. This is exactly why they made the push to Kabul now. It took them months after the spring thaw to get people and resources from their Pakistani comrades and a across the board and in position. They absolute knew Biden wouldn't commit more troops. Furthermore, they also knew that Bagram was shuttered...apparently we didn't even tell the Afghan govt were were leaving that base. Left in the middle of the night like we owed rent. Once American air power was gone the taliban knew they had to move now and that the Afghan forces would crumble. We... knew that too but Biden wanted the visual of saying were out by 9/11. He ignored everyone including our allies! Trump may have been a lot of things but.. the Taliban understood he was unpredictable and would unleash hell on them had they tried this. They would have just waited another year at least. The taliban leadership aren't stupid radicals. Most of them are educated, some in western institutions. Trained in warfare by countries like Pakistan, Saudis and hell... the older ones...by us when they were Mujahadin! They saw weakness and opportunity and took advantage of it.
@@Sabotage_Labs your first mistake is listening to an officer. In all my years in the Marine Corps, only a small number of officers had the slightest idea what was going on in-theater. Just a bunch of politicians with brass on their collars. For the most part, the Segeants and Staff NCOs run the Corps.
@@riffism This is a junior officer in Recon. So, he hasn't become a politician yet. My son's former Gunny he deployed with in Iraq and Afghanistan and if he trust him, it might as be from God himself. Are you 0311? Recon as you may know...is a different beast in the Corp. I always jokes with them that they walk around like the football jocks in high school. 😋 They don't play a lot of games like the average grunt or POG. They can't afford to.
I spent nearly a year practically living, eating and sh!ting with JSCO, SMO and other units from all branches as the lead engineer for a tactical small arms simulator training system. I have not served but I learned a lot in that time. Some of the most amazing (and bat sh!t crazy and funny) individuals I can ever imagine to know. I came to learn that very few of the typical stereotypes and tropes rarely apply to them. They are on an entirely different level. If they tell me something... I would bet my life on it!
I also know after speaking to a few of them, active and inactive... that they are beyond furious right now over this mess in Afghanistan. Yea, pissed about leaving but enraged at the current admin, suits all the way up to the Joint chiefs. A couple saying it's the worse they've ever seen even compared to the Obama years. They want to do their jobs and protect Americans. Unfortunately, we have a President that likely isn't the actual commander in chief and either doesn't seem to know what is going on or is just lying. Maybe both. Having Special Ops people pissed is never a good thing. Strange days were living in.
Thank you for your service! If I can ask... what's you MOS? MY son was 0321 With 2nd div Bravo Co out of Cherry Point. He did a deployment to Iraq...post surge (thank god) and to Afghanistan. Nine months living on a mountain "pooping I'm a hole"... as he put it...lol. Hell...he knows we're never would have turned that place into a western style "democracy" (a representative republic). But...what he believed then as he does now that nothing strikes more fear in the Taliban and Al Queda than hearing the Turbo Fans of an A10 coming in for the 9Line my son just gave them. They knew the GAU was next but...they rarely ever heard that...because they were already dead! Dead there...in the desolate fields and mountain of remote Afghanistan and not here in the states learning to only take off a commercial jet and not caring about landing it.
The reality is... these radical fundamental Muslims are never going to go away. Christianity may try and preaching the gospel and covert souls but... they've learned since the Crusades that they can't be converted by force. Islam... has a different view. It's a religion that believes at its core that EVERYONE must covert. Convert or die! Islam must take over the world! Maybe not your average moderate Muslim but the radicals we're fighting believes this and are taking actions to accomplish it. There is a reason that the majority of migrants that flooded Europe starting in 2015 were young men. Young men of not only fighting age but...of reproductive age! The radicals believe military force isn't the only way to covert infidels. Making babies in foreign lands is a tactic as well.
Sadly...too many people in power want to use Muslims! Like any other minot group in western society as a political tool. A tool to be used to bludgeon your political opponents with for one purpose and one purpose only. Gain and maintain power at all costs. Look no further than the Democrat party over the last 20 years. Willing to say or do anything no matter how much it hurts the groups they claim to care so much about. They can do this because the other major party is full of feckless cowards only slightly as corrupted and immoral than the dems. Our elite class here in the states and doing there damn best to repeat history and push us into a civil war. The European elites are just and ignorant. I don't want to see this happen for obvious reasons but as importantly, our enemies, will take advantage of it! Biden... or whomever is really running this shot show, has just started another piece of this and it will have an impact for generations to come!
Anyway... be careful on social media man. The people in power are watching. White rage you know. 😋 I appreciate to polite discussion but... you should probably tell me in your next post that I'm outta my bloody mind and crazy. 🤪
Again... thank you!
I learned from Scott Horton about Biden's bloody hands in past wars and the horror that always ensues. I hate to hear Biden talk about his "religion". He's no more than a liar about everything and always has been.
If Joe Biden falls in the woods and nobody’s there to see it. Does he know he fell?
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and Joe Biden's incompetence" - Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln started this empire
@UCEDfDSSkuZi0RuitaS5vIKg lol no Washington did.
Because that's how long it took for Trump to become president.
Scott horton is THE MAN
There is no cogent argument for USM staying an additional second in Afghanistan.
How about Biden just do something other than nothing! He completely dropped the ball on the withdrawal. EVERYONE WANTS OUT OF AFGHANISTHAN, EVERYONE! But you have to actually plan and do the withdrawal.
"Why is the US so bad about that?" Basically, because we're kinda jerks. Just let them in, and let them live in freedom.
Welcome to USA INC. where we free the fuck out of you.
@@coulombicdistortion1814 lol, facepalm
@@coulombicdistortion1814
😏😏😏
You truly do not understand the culture in the middle east.
@@riffism No, I've got a pretty good idea.
Sure chine needed more time to gain their wallets. They are eying the coppamines atm. Lithium will be next.. sorry for the grammerthingys 😉
Americe (not you folks, but the cimpany) making room for them to come in..
Would be so hard to have a single division hold Kabul for a bit, while the US and other countries managed a proper evacuation of civilian personal, military equipament, documents and computers with important data etc? That is the biggest fuck up, not the decision of leaving or not.
Sounds to reasonable. Hard-core libertarians only like childish ultimatums.
Why the heck didn’t they just hang onto the airport? A division could definitely keep the Taliban out of an airport.
So many. Boxes so long a time.
I love Scott but he is going too easy on Biden.
i would like to Mr.Horton rip into Zionist Israel Shill and Islam Blamer Erick Stakelbeck of the watchmen with Erick Stakelbeck propaganda TV Show
This interview just came out and did not age well
Scott is brilliant and right about every last thing on Afghanistan.
🤡🤡🤡🤡 Biden
FOOL'S ERRAND........... I WILL REPAY SAYETH YAHWEY
When you nation build, you can only lose
I feel the worst about all the Afghani interpreters who were assured they’d be helped by the American government. They couldn’t have known our government lies about everything to get what it wants. Cynical people like us take that for granted.
It took long to leave because we didn’t drop the moral hammer when we should have. Theocratic dictators and Taliban leadership needed destroyed 20+ years ago, like Yaron Brook and Leonard Peikoff had been saying. Instead we make deals with terrorists and continue the endless wars. I would hope that “Reason” would respect the most reasonable perspectives on the matter.
Yeah the real problem is the religion in government, I hear they don't even have drag queen story hour there! 😡
@@spudg8558 that’s a straw man argument.. I don’t view drag queens as inherently beneficial, nor do I view them as a threat to my life. If there were a religion of drag queens I would be more worried.. because then the drag queens would have faith in their beliefs and reject reason altogether. Which means force is the only option left for them. It’s the faith and force that I disagree with. Otherwise people should be free to act upon their inalienable right to liberty.
@@bradbecker8982 That's not a straw man, I didn't say you like drag queens. I'm saying the "theocratic dictators" are protecting their people from evils we're subjected to here in the "rational" West. FYI drag queen story hour is when they have drag queens read books about being gay to preschoolers-elementary school kids, which is very different from them existing.
@@spudg8558 I'll pass on Sharia law AND drag queen story hour.
@@chickenfishhybrid44 You can pass on sharia law but you can't pass on all religion/public morality AND drag queen story hour. The latter is a direct result of rejecting the former.
I aplaud the US for leaving in the words of Ron Paul, "We leave the same way we came in"
US should have not been there from the first time. Leaving Afghanistan after all the shit show is good move by Biden.
Let the afgan decided their fate. If they want Taliban to lead, so be it.
They may not have risen to be as powerful as they are not if the US hadn't propped up the opium trade and pedophile warlords for two decades; basically free recruitment material for the Taliban
Biden delayed the withdrawal, Trump had set the date for May. I know politics is politics and Trump was BS'ing too but I am sick of seeing people crediting Biden.
Only 7 minutes in and Horton is now wrong about everything he's said.... Horton- "they're not gonna stop people from flying out" ....ooo yeahhh that doesn't age well lol Power of hindsight I guess
But Scott he pulled the rug out from under our people and theirs. This is a garbage take.
Your take is garbage. There’s no way you can pull out of a country without any negative outcomes. With that logic we will never get out.
He said we'd leave months ago, there was no rug pull. If there was, it may have saved some troops' lives by getting them out early.
How would you have done it? What's the "good" take? We've been there for 20 years and got NOTHING but death and divestment.
@@neonidus7918 leave on may first like the agreement stated instead of changing the time without negotiations to take credit for the deal, and make it happen on 9/11 of all days. get all the equipment out before the cease fire ends after may 1st, or at least start returning by that time instead of letting yourself get caught completely unprepared. don't go on a fucking vacation while you're fucking up the whole system for 8 months, come back to make a fool of yourself in front of everyone without even answering the pre-selected questions they admitted to having, just to go back on vacation immediately afterwards. stop blaming literally everyone else when multiple things that you and your team said contradict every excuse you use to avoid taking the credit for the thing you did to take credit for someone else's deal. at the very least, don't beg the enemy not to attack your embassy, despite the fact that YOU and YOUR betrayal of the deal were the reason they gained enough support from everyone else that they could take over the afghan government so quickly. and before you strawman me about how i just wanted us to stay in the middle east, or say that Trumps deal wouldn't have changed anything, screw nation building, the afghans were incompetent and we should have never been there to begin with, but if we are going to get out, we should do so completely rather than leaving everything behind. the Taliban didn't fight until well after may first, when the deal was over, if they would have broken their side of the deal if Trump's deal wasn't being blatantly disregarded, so be it. we could have blamed Trump if his deal failed, but Biden changed the date to take all the credit for ending the war, so give him all the credit he deserves and stop playing defense for the corrupt politician who got us into the war to begin with.
@@davidlewis6728 Nice. I don't understand how libertarians can be so gleeful about leaving Afghanistan when it was botched so horribly. A normal person does not react to the deaths of thousands of innocents with glee.
Captain Hindsight
Scott Horton? He's been at it for years.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Meaning?
@@iafigueroa91 It's not really hindsight if you've been criticizing the war all along.