Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - Episode 2: Afghanistan – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Learn English with Matt Gaetz. The Florida Republican Congressman has been targeted by the Deep State for his opposition to the controversial Defense Advanced Partnership with America Act, or NDAA, a bill that authorizes billions of dollars more in military spending on behalf of the war in Afghanistan. In this episode, Matt explains why he opposes the bill, and why he supports the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan. He also explains why the Afghanistan withdrawal is a good thing and why President Obama should pull all of our troops out of the country. Matt also talks about why he thinks we should stand for the flag and kneel in prayer during the national anthem and why we should honor the fallen soldiers who died fighting for our country. Matt is a conservative firebrand who has been in Congress for over 20 years and is a voice against permanent Washington and the deep state. He is a hero to his constituents and a fighter for freedom and justice for all Americans. He has been a member of the Tea Party and has been on the right side of the political aisle for years and has stood up to the establishment in order to speak truth and stand up for our troops and our values. against the establishment and fight for what is right. America s best interests. Matt has been fighting for the troops and standing up to corporate greed and corruption in Washington and against the corrupt politicians and big business interests that keep getting rich and bought and paid for by the war industry. He s fighting for what they don t get to do the things they want in the name of their dreams and dreams in this episode of his new book, "America First: What's the Deal? and why you should stand up to big business and vote for your country, not big business, not the little guy in the big guy? and not the guy who gets it all the money they need to do it the most . and stand for what s good, not by the flag, the flag is not good enough, and that s not good, and put your money in the money that matters not the money you get to pay for it, not your country gets the most, and you get the most out of it, and it s not the most of it. and you don t have to pay the most in the most at home, not enough, not that you get any more, and they get it all, not more, not less, not better than you get it in the least, and so much more.

00:00:01.000 The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.

00:00:03.000 Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.

00:00:10.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.

00:00:13.000 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.

00:00:16.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.

00:00:20.000 Stand for the flag and kneel in prayer.

00:00:23.000 If you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots.

00:00:29.000 You are in the right place.

00:00:30.000 This is the movement for you.

00:00:32.000 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:00:35.000 It's like a machine.

00:00:36.000 Matt Gaetz.

00:00:37.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.

00:00:41.000 Many days, I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.

00:00:45.000 They aren't really coming for me.

00:00:47.000 They're coming for you.

00:00:49.000 I'm just in the way.

00:00:53.000 I think Americans are pretty sick of nation building, but the general public can't really distinguish between 200,000 troops nation building, which does seem like a waste of money to a lot of people and a lot of waste of resources.

00:01:06.000 But they can't distinguish between that and keeping a security presence that prevents another 9-11.

00:01:12.000 People ask all the time, what do we get in the last 20 years of war?

00:01:16.000 No more 9-11s, that's what we got. 1.00

00:01:17.000 We're hungry to get out there and kill some bad guys. 0.98

00:01:21.000 Afghanistan is quickly going to fall into a pre-9-11 kind of situation. 0.99

00:01:26.000 Very, very quickly.

00:01:28.000 And I don't know what they're going to do with all that freedom.

00:01:31.000 I don't think they're going to build a really nice, happy civilization.

00:01:35.000 I don't think they're going to let women go to school. 1.00

00:01:37.000 I think they're going to hang people in the soccer fields.

00:01:40.000 We're out.

00:01:40.000 I mean, we're basically done.

00:01:42.000 Most of our troops are gone at this point.

00:01:45.000 So, it is what it is at this point.

00:01:48.000 Can't fight it anymore.

00:01:51.000 The great coach Vince Lombardi said, winning is habit.

00:01:54.000 Unfortunately, so is losing.

00:01:57.000 The United States has made habit of losing regime change wars.

00:02:02.000 Serious nations and responsible leaders learn from a loss.

00:02:07.000 The question after Afghanistan is will we?

00:02:10.000 Will America? 0.63

00:02:11.000 We are withdrawing from the graveyard of empires.

00:02:14.000 The Taliban will regain total control of the country.

00:02:18.000 It is just a matter of time.

00:02:19.000 The temporary victories that military officers and politicians have been telling you about will be reversed.

00:02:25.000 No intelligent person doubts this.

00:02:28.000 Afghanistan withdrawal is a lot like ending a bad romantic relationship after investing way too much time, emotion, and energy just to make things work. 0.65

00:02:38.000 Sometimes you just have to go.

00:02:41.000 The corrupt Afghan government and military leaders that we've backed, they will crumble and flee Afghanistan with whatever money they can steal. 1.00

00:02:51.000 There's even legislation in Congress to let any person who benefited off of the US-funded corruption immigrate here, right to the front of the line, one final golden parachute.

00:03:02.000 We have lost 2,442 of our fellow Americans according to the Cost of War project at Brown University.

00:03:11.000 The United States federal government has spent over $2 trillion.

00:03:15.000 Additionally, over 71,000 civilians, over 78,000 Afghan military and police, and over 84,000 opposition fighters have died.

00:03:24.000 I mean, you're talking nearly a quarter of a million people off the planet Earth.

00:03:28.000 And now, the Taliban is in better position than ever before. 0.62

00:03:33.000 This is what failure looks like.

00:03:35.000 The Afghan government we propped up was never going to fight or win.

00:03:40.000 They were never worth the blood of our bravest or the trillions from our treasury.

00:03:47.000 We support the Afghanistan withdrawal. 0.99

00:03:50.000 Biden is right to get the hell out.

00:03:52.000 The American people were lied to for decades about Afghanistan by warmongers in both political parties.

00:04:00.000 Some of the very same people who defied their oaths and needlessly sacrificed our service members for their corrupt objectives remain in vastly powerful positions in government and society today.

00:04:14.000 People like Liz Cheney, General Milley, Bill Kristol, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

00:04:23.000 There is a well-organized war cartel in America as I lay bare here.

00:04:30.000 I oppose the NDAA not because I'm against our troops, but because I love them so much.

00:04:36.000 America's fighting men and women are so precious that they should not have to die in some failed state, some faraway land that most Americans can't even point to on a map, so that defense contractors can Extend our involvement in these wars so that lobbyists can get rich and so that members of Congress can get re-elected.

00:04:58.000 This good bill has been hijacked by the forever war lobby and their bought and paid for allies in the United States Congress.

00:05:05.000 It puts barriers in the way of an administration that wants to bring our troops home and put America first.

00:05:12.000 This legislation has become too swampy.

00:05:15.000 It does good things to ensure that America can vanquish any foe on the battlefield, but we should only fight when that fight is just and proper.

00:05:24.000 We have spent two decades trading the same villages back and forth in Afghanistan, and I believe that the administration that leads our country should work to bring Turns out, we didn't know much about Afghanistan when we invaded.

00:05:48.000 My fiancé will not travel to a restaurant for dinner without reading the menus and reviews online first.

00:05:57.000 So, just maybe, before invading a country, a quick Yelp check.

00:06:03.000 Disorganized barbarians in caves who are constantly warring and totally ungovernable, quite a handful even before someone gave them Stinger missiles, signed Russia. 0.96

00:06:14.000 A land of tough terrain where our women and children were kidnapped by warring tribes.

00:06:20.000 Some of them were forced to marry their captors.

00:06:22.000 The mountains are pretty, though.

00:06:25.000 Signed, Great Britain.

00:06:27.000 Maybe Alexander the Great would leave the message.

00:06:29.000 A pesky, rebellious people, ungrateful and unwilling to be ruled.

00:06:33.000 Serious lack of bathhouses as well.

00:06:37.000 Dreams of nation-building eroded faster than Joe Biden's mental acuity.

00:06:43.000 You were lied to endlessly by generals acting like politicians and politicians parading around like tough generals.

00:06:51.000 Real toughness is standing up to the military-industrial complex.

00:06:55.000 Real patriotism doesn't require us to sacrifice the body parts and minds and marriages of our troops so that we can go pick winners and losers in tribal disputes in Central Asia.

00:07:07.000 America is a great nation, but great societies have fallen before by foolishly engaging in costly adventurism, some even in Afghanistan.

00:07:17.000 Adjusted for inflation, the United States spent more money on nation-building efforts in Afghanistan than it did with the Marshall Plan, which revived Europe after World War II. Would this have occurred if our leaders weren't such liars and crooks? 0.97

00:07:34.000 The losers of this 20-year effort clearly the United States government and the Afghanistan democracy hypothesis. 0.98

00:07:41.000 The winners?

00:07:42.000 The Taliban and the United States military-industrial complex.

00:07:47.000 Whether we're winning or losing, their stock goes up so long as we are fighting and bleeding and dying. 1.00

00:07:56.000 The American era of regime change stupidity needs to be over. 1.00

00:08:00.000 Are we done thinking we can build Jeffersonian democracies out of sand and blood and Arab militias? 1.00

00:08:07.000 Certainly the powerful interests with a profit motive for war are still around.

00:08:12.000 Let's study their tactics and endeavor to defeat them.

00:08:16.000 A great nation does not ask the next generation to fight the last generation's wars or settle their scores.

00:08:23.000 But we should learn from their mistakes, and we should never make them again.

00:08:28.000 Fifteen of the 19 9-11 attackers were Saudi.

00:08:32.000 Some had direct assistance from the Saudi government.

00:08:36.000 We'd all know a lot more if the full 9-11 files were declassified, which should happen.

00:08:42.000 Osama bin Laden is Saudi, the madrasas that teach his version of extreme Wahhabism spread from Saudi. 0.70

00:08:50.000 We actually know a great deal about the kingdom, more than our government will ever choose to disclose or admit.

00:08:57.000 Perhaps our arms deals, foreign aid, and military presence in Saudi Arabia prevent the establishment from addressing the realities that are staring us right in the face.

00:09:08.000 But enough about Saudi Arabia.

00:09:09.000 George Bush told us that we were invading Afghanistan, where none of the attackers were from, but where a ragtag group of Islamist fighters that our CIA once funded now kind of presided over a failed state.

00:09:23.000 They wouldn't hand over bin Laden.

00:09:26.000 Turns out, the Taliban got invaded for basically having the exact same Bin Laden policy as Pakistan, a nation we happily give guns and money to. 1.00

00:09:37.000 Apparently, if you buy enough F-16s and weapons, you can get away with letting Bin Laden live right under your nose. 0.62

00:09:45.000 The Bush administration, well, they didn't know a damn thing about Afghanistan.

00:09:50.000 Ambassador Ryan Crocker was sent to the country on the heels of our invasion.

00:09:54.000 Does this sound like a guy with an understanding of what to do or why?

00:10:00.000 Well, at that point we didn't know what the task was, what the U.S. was there to do.

00:10:08.000 In Washington as to whether we should embark on a long-term nation-building effort or whether we wanted to keep our role and our agenda very minimal.

00:10:21.000 Displaying the rather pathetic inability to gain sufficient situational awareness to get out after a decade, some people started to wake up to a reality.

00:10:31.000 Afghanistan is a resource baron, lawless, cultureless hellscape. 1.00

00:10:36.000 What were we even trying to win there anyway?

00:10:39.000 Like rights over the poppy fields?

00:10:42.000 Now, the usual suspects are pulling out every stop to justify our extended stay.

00:10:48.000 Russian bounties.

00:10:49.000 Russia will take advantage of the power vacuum. 0.77

00:10:52.000 The 80s can have their foreign policy back, one might say.

00:10:55.000 The Chinese will emerge in the United States' absence. 1.00

00:10:59.000 Iran will feel emboldened. 0.96

00:11:01.000 Girls won't be allowed to go to school or play gender-fluid sports, maybe, in Kabul anymore. 0.96

00:11:07.000 And the poor Afghan government will be driven from the capital, forced to flee or face the wall.

00:11:13.000 It's sad, actually.

00:11:15.000 Tragic.

00:11:16.000 And none of it remotely relevant to the interests of the American people.

00:11:21.000 Afghanistan is no asset to the United States. 0.82

00:11:23.000 So what makes it an asset to any other nation?

00:11:26.000 Hell, watching Russia and China get bogged down in nation building in Afghanistan might be good for American hegemony. 0.84

00:11:34.000 In fact, worst case scenario, the United States leaves Afghanistan as we found it with the Taliban in control.

00:11:42.000 After the U.S. had toiled in Afghanistan for a decade, UPenn anthropologist Brian Rose went, looking for a unifying nationalism to study and highlight and cherish.

00:11:55.000 Instead, he found a corrupt nationless band of tribes that hate each other.

00:12:01.000 National identity is something we take for granted as Americans.

00:12:05.000 We have a national identity.

00:12:07.000 There isn't one in Afghanistan that I could see.

00:12:11.000 There are tribes and there's a lot of rivalry among the tribes.

00:12:15.000 There's certainly a level of ethnic hatred among the tribes.

00:12:23.000 The thing about nationalism is in order for it to work you have to have some sort of confidence in The national government.

00:12:34.000 You have to view the capital with a sense of respect.

00:12:38.000 It's not clear to me that that's happening now.

00:12:41.000 It's not clear to me that anyone views the government with much respect.

00:12:45.000 The level of corruption in Afghanistan, I could see, is off the charts.

00:12:50.000 It's extraordinarily high.

00:12:52.000 The honest, politically incorrect truth is that Afghanistan isn't a country.

00:12:57.000 They aren't worth it, and they never were.

00:12:59.000 Their people weren't worth it. 1.00

00:13:01.000 Our money that we sent over there wasn't worth it.

00:13:05.000 The military gains were fleeting at best.

00:13:08.000 What's permanent is the pain, the damage, that folks like this widowed mother felt when she was left to raise seven children without the hugs of their father.

00:13:20.000 The corrupt government we propped up was definitely not worth it.

00:13:26.000 I'm not even sure they'll still be in Kabul when you listen to this episode. 0.96

00:13:30.000 That's how worthless they are.

00:13:32.000 The warlords who sided with the United States and Afghanistan weren't exactly the crowd you'd bring home to bomb. 0.97

00:13:38.000 Google Bacha Bazi if you want to vomit. 0.65

00:13:41.000 Dan Quinn, a former special forces captain, reported, the reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to the people.

00:13:50.000 How they were taking away human rights.

00:13:53.000 But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did. 0.79

00:13:59.000 That was something village elders voiced to me. 0.96

00:14:02.000 Dan Quinn was relieved of his special forces command after beating up an American-backed militia commander because he kept a boy chained to the commander's bed as a sex slave.

00:14:16.000 Lance Corporal Gregory Buckley Jr.'s last phone call to his father included, at night we can hear the victims screaming, but they were not allowed to do anything about it.

00:14:26.000 U.S. officers told Buckley to look the other way because it's just Afghanistan's culture. 1.00

00:14:34.000 The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban.

00:14:43.000 But the soldiers and marines have been increasingly troubled.

00:14:48.000 So how surprised were we really when the savages who were raping children at the military encampments we built for them then turned on American troops?

00:14:59.000 Afghan security forces have been firing upon American and allied forces so frequently that 152 coalition troops have died and 200 troops have been injured from these green-on-blue attacks, several of them my constituents.

00:15:17.000 And it wasn't just frontline fighters who lacked value or virtue.

00:15:22.000 While we redirected hundreds of billions of dollars out of the U.S. economy and while we sent America's moms and dads to die, the very thugs and criminals we were dying for turned out to be lawless thugs and criminals.

00:15:37.000 Listen to the behavior of the Afghani Secretary of Defense that we had installed and who we were backing.

00:15:44.000 He was giggling.

00:15:48.000 And he proceeded to relate to us that a mob had gotten out of control at the airport and had murdered the Minister of Civil Aviation.

00:16:04.000 And he giggled while he related this.

00:16:10.000 Later, much later, it emerged, I don't know if it was ever verified or not, King Khan himself had the minister killed.

00:16:22.000 But I certainly came out of those opening months with the feeling that even by Afghan standards, The media criticized President Biden for pulling troops from Bagram Air Force Base in the middle of the night without telling the Afghans.

00:16:44.000 Well, what does it tell us about this war and all that we spent on it that even at the end, even after all of the blood and treasure, we couldn't even trust the Afghans to tell them that we were leaving? 0.98

00:16:58.000 Informing these so-called allies of our movements would have put American lives in danger.

00:17:05.000 It shows how bad they are and how pointless our mission of supporting them was.

00:17:11.000 They were so unworthy.

00:17:13.000 And our price was so high.

00:17:16.000 It was a solemn journey and the first of its kind for President Obama.

00:17:20.000 Shortly after midnight, he landed at Dover Air Base aboard Marine One to meet an Air Force C-17 cargo plane carrying 18 fallen personnel back to U.S. soil.

00:17:31.000 The latest casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

00:17:34.000 Among them, seven soldiers and three DEA agents who died in a helicopter crash Monday And eight soldiers killed the next day.

00:17:43.000 Before the somber salute and tribute, the president met privately with some of the relatives at a chapel on the base.

00:17:49.000 But Mr. Obama's choice to meet the fallen at Dover is in contrast to his predecessor.

00:17:54.000 George W. Bush chose not to travel there, saying the private meetings he held with hundreds of families were the most appropriate way to pay his respects.

00:18:02.000 His father's administration also barred cameras from photographing the events at Dover 18 years ago during the first war in Iraq.

00:18:11.000 President Obama lifted that ban in April, saying the human cost of war shouldn't be hidden from the public.

00:18:17.000 And now, not hidden from the Commander-in-Chief.

00:18:20.000 Bush wasn't a Dover guy, I guess.

00:18:22.000 Maybe it was the optics, maybe the guilt.

00:18:25.000 I've been to Dover, with President Trump.

00:18:28.000 We rode together from Air Force One to meet families of the fallen from my district.

00:18:33.000 I'm close with several of them to this day.

00:18:37.000 We have to show the country the cost of these wars and we must bring them all home, Trump said to me.

00:18:43.000 Trump and Obama had the same Dover policy, showcasing the costs of war, however searing on the soul.

00:18:51.000 America invaded a land we didn't understand and we made up for it by not learning much along the way. 0.79

00:19:00.000 Just look at how the mission was aimlessly wandering over time.

00:19:06.000 The goal of the United States remains a genuinely independent Afghanistan, free from external interference.

00:19:13.000 I said a long time ago one of our objectives is to smoke them out and get them running and bring them to justice.

00:19:18.000 We're smoking them out, they're running, and now we're going to bring them to justice.

00:19:23.000 Some of you fought in Afghanistan, some of you will deploy them.

00:19:30.000 As your Commander-in-Chief, I owe you a mission that is clearly defined, And worthy of your service.

00:19:37.000 This is a war we have to win.

00:19:40.000 I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan and use this commitment to seek greater contributions with fewer restrictions from our NATO allies.

00:19:51.000 I will focus on training Afghan security forces and supporting an Afghan judiciary, with more resources and incentives for American officers who perform these missions.

00:20:02.000 And just as we succeeded in the Cold War by supporting allies who could sustain their own security, we must realize that the 21st century's front lines are not only on the field of battle.

00:20:14.000 They are found in training exercises near Kabul, in the police station in Kandahar, and in the rule of law in Harat.

00:20:22.000 Moreover, lasting security will only come if we heed General Marshall's lessons and help Afghans grow their economy from the bottom up. 1.00

00:20:31.000 The fact is, we went there for one reason.

00:20:34.000 To get those people who killed Americans.

00:20:37.000 Al-Qaeda.

00:20:38.000 We've decimated Al-Qaeda Central.

00:20:40.000 We have eliminated Osama Bin Laden.

00:20:43.000 That was our purpose.

00:20:46.000 Whatever the cost, however difficult the victory, we cannot afford it.

00:20:49.000 We must win.

00:20:51.000 I agree completely.

00:20:53.000 Reagan wanted Afghanistan to embrace Western democracy.

00:20:57.000 How quaint.

00:20:58.000 Bush wanted some revenge killings, I guess, but then he got bored and wandered off to Iraq, leaving Afghanistan as the forever war as a secondary plotline.

00:21:09.000 Obama embraced an Afghanistan surge, followed by reckless, hopeless nation-building.

00:21:15.000 It actually made things worse.

00:21:16.000 Maybe the American president with the proper Afghanistan policy was actually Bill Clinton.

00:21:23.000 There have been and will be times when law enforcement and diplomatic tools are simply not enough, when our very national security is challenged, and when we must take extraordinary steps to protect the safety of our citizens.

00:21:39.000 With compelling evidence that the bin Laden network of terrorist groups was planning to mount further attacks against Americans and other freedom-loving people, I decided America must act.

00:21:52.000 And so this morning, based on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, I ordered our armed forces to take action to counter an immediate threat from the bin Laden network.

00:22:05.000 Earlier today, the United States carried out simultaneous strikes against terrorist facilities and infrastructure in Afghanistan.

00:22:14.000 Clinton's theory on Afghanistan is that we should mostly ignore them.

00:22:19.000 And when they get naughty and allow terrorist bases to build up, we should bomb the smithereens out of them from a very high altitude and then fly home.

00:22:29.000 After all, the Taliban isn't exactly an expeditionary force. 0.71

00:22:34.000 80% of Taliban fighters have never been more than 20 miles from their own home.

00:22:40.000 If bombing the bad guys without moving in with them for 20 years is wise, one of the key lessons we must take from the Afghanistan loss is that pouring US dollars into a vat of lawlessness does not a nation make. 0.87

00:22:55.000 U.S. efforts at nation-building actually make things worse, not better.

00:23:01.000 When Uncle Sam rounded up all the tribal Bedouins and tried to mold them into a provisional government, we always believed that more money would ultimately be the glue to create a stable democracy, national unity, and identity. 0.91

00:23:17.000 But it turns out, when you give a bunch of corrupt people more money than they could ever imagine, it only makes them more corrupt, especially in the eyes of their own people.

00:23:29.000 Regular Afghans didn't trust the provisional government.

00:23:32.000 Like, when they had more American money and support, they were able to demonstrate that they had the trappings of corruption all around them.

00:23:40.000 New cars, new houses.

00:23:42.000 This did not endure to create support among the people.

00:23:46.000 The endemic and deeply rooted nature of corruption, whether it's Kabul Bank or anything else, is now beyond the ability of even a determined Afghan president to correct.

00:24:02.000 There's a lot of guys that should have been arrested.

00:24:07.000 You've got to have accountability.

00:24:09.000 So that's part of the problem of instilling confidence in a population that they see it happening right in front of their eyes.

00:24:18.000 We see it happening.

00:24:20.000 And we don't...

00:24:25.000 Furthermore, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, Congress is given the sole power to declare war.

00:24:33.000 Over the years, this responsibility has been almost completely degraded and ceded to the executive branch.

00:24:40.000 The executive branch has been acting unilaterally, with only passive approval from the Congress in the form of authorizations of force instead of declarations of war, as our founders intended.

00:24:53.000 It is time that we repeal the authorization of military force from 2001 and bring our troops home.

00:25:01.000 On Wednesday, July 21st, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley held an Afghanistan briefing.

00:25:10.000 Both Austin and Milley confirmed President Biden's deadline to withdraw and they affirmed its efficacy.

00:25:17.000 Secretary of Defense Austin laid out five objectives as part of this withdrawal.

00:25:22.000 The President has made a decision that we're going to get it done and we're going to get it done right.

00:25:28.000 And we have four ongoing key tasks.

00:25:31.000 We remain committed to protecting our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan and to providing funding to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and to advising Afghan security ministries and to preventing the re-emergence of transnational terrorist organizations.

00:25:49.000 And we've added a fifth urgent task, and that is working closely and urgently in support of the State Department as they relocate brave Afghans and their families who have provided such exceptional service during our long mission.

00:26:04.000 So let's review what Lloyd Austin is saying here.

00:26:07.000 His four ongoing key tasks are, one, to preserve America's diplomatic presence in Afghanistan.

00:26:14.000 Who are exactly we preserving ties with?

00:26:17.000 The corrupt regime we propped up and refused to prosecute when they stole our money and the people's money?

00:26:22.000 Or the Taliban?

00:26:24.000 Will we have real diplomatic relations in Afghanistan if there's no unified, centralized state with any semblance of federal authority?

00:26:33.000 The second and third key tasks are, two, to provide funding to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, and three, advising Afghan security ministries.

00:26:42.000 So, two trillion dollars in 20 years wasn't enough, but the next 12 billion the Biden government wants, that's the key to lock things up and to ensure the preservation of democracy and national unity in Afghanistan.

00:26:57.000 Give me a break.

00:26:59.000 It seems like we're clinging on to Afghanistan like a simp with separation anxiety clinging on to an X. It's furthered with the ongoing key task number four, preserving the re-emergence of transnational terrorist organizations. 0.90

00:27:15.000 Look, I hate terrorists and I hate terrorism, but does it bother anyone else that preventing transnational terrorist organizations was the reason we went into Afghanistan?

00:27:25.000 So it seems a little bizarre to say that we need to keep that going as we leave.

00:27:32.000 It takes me back to the 2000s, the very same words President George W. Bush used to get into these forever wars.

00:27:40.000 Now the Taliban will pay a price.

00:27:44.000 By destroying camps and disrupting communications, we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans.

00:27:53.000 Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places.

00:27:59.000 Our military action is also designed to clear the way for sustained, comprehensive, and relentless operations to drive them out.

00:28:07.000 Moving on to General Milley.

00:28:09.000 Furthermore, all the military operating bases outside of Kabul have been fully transferred to the Afghan Ministry of Defense and the Afghan Security Forces.

00:28:18.000 A small contingent of predominantly military personnel, but some civilians and contractors along with Department of State remain in Afghanistan to provide security and bolster our diplomatic presence in Kabul.

00:28:33.000 The forces here are key to achieving the five ongoing tasks that the Secretary laid out in his comments.

00:28:38.000 A major component of sustaining a robust diplomatic presence in Kabul is to maintain a functioning and secure airport in Kabul.

00:28:49.000 So we continue to dedicate our security resources to that, to secure the embassy, to secure the international zone, and to secure HKIA, the international airport in Kabul, for our diplomats, our personnel, and our continued support to the government of Afghanistan.

00:29:05.000 The Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country, and we will continue to support the Afghan Security Forces where necessary, in accordance with the guidance from the President and the Secretary of Defense.

00:29:22.000 The future of Afghanistan is squarely in the hands of the Afghan people. 1.00

00:29:26.000 And there are a range of possible outcomes in Afghanistan.

00:29:30.000 And I want to emphasize repeatedly, and I've said this before, a negative outcome, a Taliban automatic military takeover, is not a foregone conclusion.

00:29:39.000 General Milley declares that the Afghanistan security forces, who we will now continue to fund, presumably forever, have the capacity to fight and defend their country.

00:29:48.000 And we will continue to support them.

00:29:52.000 So, basic question.

00:29:53.000 If their security forces have the capacity to defend themselves, why will we continue to support them and fund them?

00:30:00.000 Is their capacity to defend themselves solely based on US taxpayer dollars continuing to flow to Afghanistan?

00:30:08.000 Was the two trillion dollars not enough for this crazy experiment?

00:30:13.000 I support President Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

00:30:17.000 But you have to realize that Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley's press conferences provide mixed messages.

00:30:23.000 And there should be additional clarity that leaving Afghanistan is not going to bind us to additional resources and additional personnel down the road.

00:30:34.000 And we must remain diligent in calling out these facts.

00:30:37.000 Because the media increasingly sides with the neocons.

00:30:41.000 And that powerful war cartel still exists in Washington today.

00:30:46.000 Just take a look at the debate that I had against Democrat Jason Crow and Republican Liz Cheney when they were trying to keep the United States forever in Afghanistan.

00:30:58.000 But here, many Republicans are going to support Mr. Crowe's amendment that in fact ties the administration's hands when it comes to leaving Afghanistan.

00:31:08.000 You know, the gentleman said there's always a right way and a wrong way to leave.

00:31:12.000 I would say that a great nation does not force the next generation to fight their wars.

00:31:19.000 And that's what we've done in Afghanistan.

00:31:20.000 I think the best day to have not had the war in Afghanistan was when we started it, and the next best day is tomorrow. 1.00

00:31:27.000 I don't think there's ever a bad day to end the war in Afghanistan.

00:31:31.000 Our generation is weary of this and tired of this, and what this amendment does is it puts additional barriers in front of the administration as they would try to leverage or withdraw and get the best conditions we can and And certainly, Afghanistan is a dangerous place.

00:31:47.000 The gentleman from Colorado said, well, you know, we might be able to prevent an Afghan civil war.

00:31:52.000 It is not my expectation that we are preventing a whole lot of violence there now.

00:31:56.000 You see the extent to which the administrative districts that the Afghan government is controlling is declining, not raising as a consequence of our continued involvement.

00:32:07.000 Even the military and governmental officials that were executing the war did not have a vision for victory and knew that we were entangled in a mire pile as it was going on.

00:32:20.000 We know this is a consequence of the Afghan papers.

00:32:22.000 Mr. Kahn and I have called on the committee to hold hearings on the Afghan papers so that we can ascertain the extent to which our government was negligent with the most precious resource our country has, and that's the blood of our bravest patriots.

00:32:36.000 I know that there are desires to continue to have American taxpayers invest in the Afghani security forces to a greater and greater degree.

00:32:46.000 I'm sure, ultimately, there'll be some defense contractors that do very well on those deals.

00:32:50.000 But, like, pardon me if I just like to make our country great again before we make Kandahar great again.

00:32:57.000 And I think that's, while on this committee that might not be a popular view, I think when we get to the broader Congress, if you've got the right-wing populists like myself and the left-wing populists that are members of the majority party working together, you know, it's going to be hard to stand against where a majority of the American people are, and that is against this war.

00:33:15.000 I yield back.

00:33:17.000 The gentleman yields.

00:33:18.000 Is there further debate on the amendment?

00:33:20.000 Mrs. Cheney?

00:33:21.000 Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.

00:33:23.000 I want to begin by thanking my colleague, Mr. Crow, for his very diligent work on this.

00:33:31.000 This is a very careful amendment, very careful piece of legislation that focuses on what's really critical about what we need to do to protect our security and what needs to be done in Afghanistan.

00:33:45.000 We need to make sure that we're denying terrorist safe havens, We need to make sure that we are able to continue counterterrorism activity.

00:33:54.000 You know, I listened to my colleague, Mr. Gates, say that, quote, we started it.

00:34:00.000 And I would just urge everyone in this room, and I know all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle recognize how flawed that assessment is.

00:34:12.000 We didn't start this.

00:34:13.000 We were attacked on 9-11.

00:34:15.000 And the reality of the situation is, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, a number of those same terrorist groups continue to operate in Afghanistan.

00:34:26.000 In fact, we have reports that Ayman al-Zawahiri has been in Afghanistan recently, may be there now.

00:34:33.000 So we have an obligation as we look at how we're going to be able to continue to protect this nation to do it in a way that is responsible.

00:34:44.000 Increasingly, I hear the term sustainable force around the Afghanistan debate.

00:34:49.000 Sustainable, after all, that's a good word.

00:34:51.000 We like sustainable.

00:34:53.000 But sustainable force is merely the language that allows our national security apparatus to convert these policing operations into forever wars.

00:35:03.000 The best thing to do with Afghanistan is to cut our losses, leave that hellscape wasteland, and endeavor to never make the mistakes that got us there in the first place. 1.00

00:35:16.000 There was a lot of conversation from my colleagues about the need for us to be obligated to secure Saudi Arabia's southern border.

00:35:23.000 I wish we had that much passion and interest in securing our own southern border.

00:35:27.000 To me, that would seemingly be a more consistent application of our principles.

00:35:32.000 And it seems odd to bang our chests about American leadership while referencing Afghanistan and Yemen.

00:35:38.000 If what we get from American leadership is involvement in one of the most brutal, horrific civil wars in Yemen, and then a multi-decade war in Afghanistan, one asks the question if that leadership is being properly husbanded for the benefit of our country.

00:35:56.000 There is an opportunity for the President under any circumstance To respond to terrorism, to threats against our forces, as my Republican colleagues have referenced, attacks against our interests and against our allies, we would still have the ability, under the language of the amendment, to fully respond to those things.

00:36:13.000 But what we do not need is excessive entanglement from the United States in some civil war where we're trying to build some democracy out of sand and blood.

00:36:23.000 And that is what we have done for far too long in the Middle East.

00:36:26.000 We have done great work in this legislation to raise our gaze to combat the real threat that we face, which is China. 0.99

00:36:35.000 Continuing to obsess about our Middle Eastern conquests just does not rise to the level of a great body or a great nation.

00:36:45.000 We just got word that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered all members of the military vaccinated by September 15th.

00:36:53.000 And what's so frustrating is that the lead Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, endorsed and went along with his decision.

00:37:02.000 He noted that 70% of the military is vaccinated now.

00:37:05.000 And he thinks that number should be 100%.

00:37:07.000 Here's the problem.

00:37:09.000 With the way they're hunting people over this faux sense of extremism in the military and now this, it's almost like they're trying to drive out anybody who's capable of independent thought.

00:37:20.000 Similarly, we don't know the long-term impacts of this vaccine on readiness, on the human body.

00:37:26.000 And the fact that we're forcing military families to take this vaccine before it goes through the normal process, That's deeply troubling to me, and I think Republicans should be fighting against this decision, not supporting it like Mike Rogers has.

00:37:40.000 Thanks for joining us for Firebrand.

00:37:42.000 Make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast listening platform of choice, on Rumble, on YouTube, and watch our full episodes on Facebook.

Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - August 12, 2021

Episode 2: Afghanistan – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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