00:00:00.000Today on The Charlie Kirk Show, a substantive and very important conversation about Afghanistan and Kabul with James Hassan and Jerry Dunleav.
00:00:48.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:56.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to.
00:01:02.000Fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:49.000You're an investigative reporter, mostly been focused on the Justice Department and the Intel community and also the national security space.
00:01:56.000Tell us about why you decided to write this book and some of your big takeaways as you started the research.
00:02:02.000Yeah, so up until very recently, I was just an investigative reporter.
00:02:07.000Reporter at the Washington Examiner, but I was recently hired to help lead the investigation into Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
00:02:20.000I helped lead that investigation being run by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, GOP led House Foreign Affairs Committee.
00:02:26.000So I just want a quick disclaimer that I wrote the book before I joined the committee, and I'm here just in my personal capacity.
00:02:36.0002,400 Americans were killed during it.
00:02:40.000Went there after 9 11 because Al Qaeda hit us, killed 3,000 people, and the Taliban was protecting and harboring Al Qaeda and protecting and harboring Osama bin Laden.
00:02:55.000They refused to break their alliance with Al Qaeda.
00:02:57.000And for 20 years, they refused to break that alliance.
00:03:02.000Our book is pretty honest about the state of play in Afghanistan when President Biden took office.
00:03:08.000But the way that this withdrawal happened, The way that this withdrawal went down, deciding to do an unconditional withdrawal and an unconditional surrender to the Taliban, pulling all U.S. troops out before we had gotten Americans out, before we had gotten our Afghan allies out, before we'd even come up with a plan to get Americans and Afghan allies out,
00:03:35.000before we had figured out how to keep the Afghan military on the field, to keep the Taliban at bay at least, while we worked to get.
00:03:46.000Closing Bagram, a strategic air base very close to Kabul, where it would have been much smarter and much safer to run an evacuation out of, a base that could have helped us with our air support in stopping the Taliban from taking Kabul.
00:04:05.000An air base, by the way, that had a prison on it that held thousands of ISIS K terrorists, dozens of Al Qaeda terrorists, as well as hundreds of Taliban fighters.
00:04:18.000One of those ISIS K terrorists was the terrorist who ended up successfully hitting Abbey Gate and killing 13 Americans.
00:04:26.000If we had simply held on to Bagram as a base before we did all of this, that bomber would have still been in prison and the bombing likely wouldn't have happened, at least not by him.
00:04:41.000And then, of course, we have the Taliban takeover before we've accomplished any of the things that we need to accomplish.
00:04:48.000The U.S., all that we are holding on to. Is a small airport where we now have to try to do an evacuation of tens of thousands of people, over 100,000 people, all while having to rely on the Taliban, the same people we've been fighting for 20 years who have killed thousands of Americans on the battlefield.
00:05:08.000That's what we have to rely on for security.
00:05:11.000And obviously, we saw how it played out chaotic, dangerous, and ultimately deadly.
00:05:18.000I have so many questions, but I want to get James in on the conversation here.
00:05:35.000At the outset, we really appreciate that because that's one of the reasons why we decided to write the book is that we thought this whole incident had been whitewashed and we thought Americans deserve to know the truth.
00:05:45.000So, we're very grateful for the time to explain in detail everything that we uncovered.
00:05:53.000And to get back to your original question, I served there and then I had a small kind of role in one of the many veteran led efforts to try and get people out.
00:06:04.000One of the things that struck Jerry and I when we were talking to so many of these 18, 19, 20 year old soldiers and Marines who were right on the front lines is just what they had to witness, then try and process afterwards.
00:06:25.000Simply because the administration failed to plan, failed to heed any warnings from the military whatsoever, and ultimately just decided to speed up the withdrawal for political reasons.
00:06:38.000Things like watching women throw themselves on razor wire outside of the gates to try and kill themselves so they wouldn't have to go back through the Taliban checkpoints that just brutalized themselves.
00:06:52.000People who couldn't be evacuated grabbing the Marines' rifles, grabbing their weapons.
00:06:58.000And pulling the barrel up to their head and saying, just kill me now.
00:07:02.000And then watching in full view the Taliban execute American allies, Afghans who had served alongside us for decades in this fight.
00:07:14.000As a veteran, it was very difficult to see.
00:07:19.000And then having known people who were on the ground at the time and getting to know a lot of them, a lot of others since then, we just, This had to be a story to tell.
00:07:30.000The bottom line is this was a political decision.
00:07:33.000It wasn't a strategic decision at all.
00:07:57.000So, if you remember, people flooding the airfield and when the Taliban took Kabul, just a frenzied evacuation until the 26th, which is when the bombing itself took place.
00:08:09.000But, you know, immediately, and this is kind of one of just the most, Unforgivable parts of it.
00:08:16.000So immediately after we announced a withdrawal, you know, that was terrible for the Afghan military's morale and for their capabilities, you know, and all, you know, leading to the collapse that happened.
00:08:27.000But at the same time, and this is what I want to emphasize, the U.S. government was telling American citizens who were in Afghanistan, they're painting this rosy picture that all is going to be okay.
00:10:44.000Well, keep in mind when Biden was running for president, he would often.
00:10:51.000Sort of change a little bit what he was saying he would do.
00:10:55.000But oftentimes he was actually promising that he would make sure to leave a small U.S. troop presence there to be able to continue to fight ISIS K and Al Qaeda.
00:11:08.000It's actually not something that Biden ever intended on doing.
00:11:12.000In the course of our writing our book, we were able to get some insights from people who were in some of these decision making rooms and very early on.
00:11:25.000In Biden's presidency, like within the first few days, first week of being in office, one of the questions that he basically asked was, How quickly can we get out of Afghanistan?
00:11:35.000And, you know, the question wasn't like, How quickly can we get Americans out?
00:11:42.000How quick can we get our Afghan allies out?
00:11:53.000When it comes to President Biden, I think a lot of questions get raised about his age, his fitness for the job, whether he's in charge of everything that's happening at the White House.
00:12:05.000And often I think that these are fair questions to ask when it comes to him.
00:12:09.000But when it comes to Afghanistan, You know, and you can read our book and see this for yourself.
00:12:22.000He ignored all advice and evidence to the contrary because this is what he wanted to do.
00:12:28.000His April 14th withdrawal speech makes it very, very clear.
00:12:32.000This is when he announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops, rapid withdrawal, without any conditions, without forcing the Taliban to follow the conditions, you know, set forth in the Doha Agreement.
00:12:45.000This April 14th withdrawal speech, Biden sets the withdrawal date for the 20th anniversary of 9 11.
00:12:54.000There's no strategic reason to do that, but he wanted some sort of victory lap for the 20th anniversary.
00:13:02.000I'm not sure what sort of victory lap he was hoping for, but that's what he wanted.
00:13:06.000But the problem with setting a withdrawal date for September 11th or for any time in the summer is that we've been fighting Afghanistan for 20 years.
00:13:16.000We know that this spring period, where he announced the withdrawal through the summer period, where he wanted the withdrawal complete, this is the middle of the Taliban fighting season.
00:13:27.000This is when the Taliban is at its strongest.
00:13:31.000And at the exact time that the Taliban was at its strongest, that's when we decided to immediately pull all U.S. troops.
00:13:40.000And along with that, U.S. contractors, U.S. logistics, U.S. intelligence, all the things that the Afghan military.
00:13:48.000Had been relying on to keep its planes flying, to keep its people fighting.
00:13:52.000We kicked all of that out from under them at the exact moment that the Taliban was launching its biggest assault yet.
00:14:01.000And so, I mean, it had extremely predictable consequences US pulls out, Taliban moves in, Afghan military falls apart, Americans get trapped behind enemy lines, Afghan allies get trapped behind enemy lines, and the Taliban takes the country before the US has done.
00:14:19.000Anything to get the people that we need to get out.
00:15:39.000I was just going to provide a little bit of extra context to what Jerry was saying when he referenced fighting season.
00:15:44.000And for those who are unfamiliar, and I'm all too familiar, the Afghan mountain passes fill up with snow in the late fall, basically till early spring.
00:15:57.000And it makes it nearly impossible for people to pass from Pakistan to Afghanistan and really traverse any of that terrain.
00:16:03.000So that's why most of the fighting happens in the spring and the summer, and why Joe Biden's decision, again, politically motivated.
00:16:10.000To pick a midsummer date to begin withdrawing all forces from Bagram, which is a whole other thing we should get into.
00:16:18.000Just the broader decision to withdraw at that time strategically made no sense.
00:16:22.000And that's why, again, it just reinforces how political this decision was.
00:16:26.000So I want to ask either of you can pick this up.
00:16:29.000So you guys keep on saying it's, I agree, it's political, political, political.
00:16:32.000I'm going to push you guys a little bit.
00:16:35.000This feels as if Joe Biden had an ideological agenda more than a political one.
00:16:40.000And what is the normie explanation here?
00:16:44.000Jerry or Jerry, like what did he think was the best case scenario here?
00:17:22.000Well, look, I wouldn't use the word treason related to this, but I would use the word dereliction of duty.
00:17:27.000I mean, this was the commander in chief not following through on his duty as the president.
00:17:36.000His duty, I think, to the Americans that were there, his duty to our Afghan allies, and his duty to the American troops who he put in danger because of this.
00:17:47.000Let me try to get in Joe Biden's head here.
00:17:52.000President Biden was elected to the Senate when he was very young, in the 1970s, is at the tail end of the Vietnam War.
00:17:59.000And I promise that this is relevant because he got there, he got to the Senate too late to make a big impact on the ending of the war.
00:18:09.000So, how he decided to make his impact, make his mark on the war in Vietnam, was he was the biggest, most vociferous voice, political voice in America against helping save South Vietnamese allies.
00:18:25.000And stop to oppose then President Gerald Ford's efforts to help the South Vietnamese who had helped us, help some of them escape the impending North Vietnamese takeover of the country.
00:18:39.000He had a quote that I dug up from the Senate archives where he basically said, We don't have an obligation to 1,001.
00:18:46.000We don't have an obligation to one South Vietnamese who helped us.
00:19:43.000And that just kind of resulted in Afghan allies being left behind, Americans getting left behind, and American troops getting put in a really dangerous position where ultimately 13 of them lost their lives.
00:19:57.000And I want to emphasize dozens of them injured, some of them with life altering injuries.
00:20:03.000Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews lost two of his limbs.
00:20:07.000Another service member, a female service member, is paralyzed.
00:20:16.000The best way I would describe it is as a toxic combination of ignorance and self assurance.
00:20:22.000Joe Biden never trusted the military leaders' advice.
00:20:27.000In fact, Robert Gates in his biography wrote how Joe Biden, Secretary Gates' words, subjected Obama to water torture by saying every single day, you can't trust the military leaders, they're going to screw you.
00:20:40.000And he famously told a biographer, well, They won't screw me.
00:20:45.000And I'm paraphrasing that last part a little bit, and I forget the exact quote, but that's exactly, I think, the mentality that he had I know better, and go figure he didn't.
00:21:27.000So, what bothered me the most about this Afghanistan story, and James or Jerry, you could pick it, is that we saw this thing was falling apart, that it was obvious that the Taliban were taking territory.
00:21:56.000And then, number two, what was going on in the Department of Defense and the Pentagon as they were obviously getting reports like, oh, Taliban is 80 miles out, Taliban is 40 miles out?
00:22:08.000I mean, why was there no adaptation in real time to save Americans from a coming slaughter?
00:22:16.000So I think taking those one at a time in terms of, What happened to the Afghan military?
00:22:22.000First of all, the administration kept overstating the capabilities of the Afghan military.
00:22:27.000They continually would say, oh, we have 300,000, they're fine.
00:22:31.000And in reality, they were also inflating that number by a significant margin because they were counting local police, they were counting border checkpoints, they were counting all kinds of things that we would never say if we were talking about the strength of the US military, we wouldn't be talking about local police forces as well.
00:22:47.000So it was a disingenuous talking point, number one.
00:22:49.000Number two, it was a well known problem and it was known within the DOD, it was known within the administration.
00:22:54.000That there were so called ghost units within the Afghan military where they existed solely just on paper.
00:23:01.000And basically, there's a way for corrupt Afghan leaders to just pocket extra salaries, extra resources, that kind of thing.
00:23:13.000And step two of that problem was when we pulled out, we just immediately just got rid of any enablers and they become completely reliant on our drone feeds or ISR to give them.
00:23:26.000Intelligence to provide air support, maintenance for their aircraft.
00:23:33.000And in fact, the Trump administration commissioned a study into exactly what would happen, the Afghan forces' ability, and the special forces in particular, to withstand and support themselves.
00:23:49.000And the answer was essentially a resounding no.
00:23:52.000So if you're going to withdraw, you need to do it in a way that you take those realities into account.
00:24:00.000Secondly, what I would say about what was going on inside the Pentagon.
00:24:04.000General Scotty Miller, who's just a legendary general who served in the Army's what's known as Delta Force now, or at least in common use of the term.
00:24:19.000He's just about as accomplished as they come.
00:24:21.000And he was tracking all of these local provinces falling in real time and just sending up warning signal after warning signal.
00:24:30.000And the administration refused to listen.
00:24:33.000And it's not just a refusal to listen, there's a dangerous.
00:24:38.000Naivete at play as well, when the military was trying to convince the State Department to draw down the footprint of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which at the time was the largest United States embassy in the world.
00:24:53.000After the withdrawal, there were four diplomats roughly to every soldier who was there.
00:24:57.000Then the acting ambassador at the time said, How can we influence democracy after the Taliban takes over if we don't have an embassy?
00:25:05.000And that just kind of sums up how little they failed to grasp well.
00:25:27.000Well, one thing I'll point out is that, by the way, we have an entire chapter in the book on the connection between the CCP and Afghanistan.
00:25:36.000So I highly recommend people check it out because we dive into this.
00:26:13.000And you can almost trace a line, by the way, from them ratcheting up their military pressure on Taiwan to the fall of Kabul.
00:26:22.000You know, they're also active inside of Afghanistan.
00:26:25.000You know, we obtained evidence in the book that China has helped the Taliban with some intelligence, with helping ID interpreters and just collaborating with the Taliban generally.
00:26:38.000And I point out that, you know, Iran has also used this as an opportunity to pressure.
00:26:47.000Former Afghan commandos who work with the United States and Russia has attempted to recruit those former Afghan commandos to fight in Ukraine.
00:26:56.000But China and these other countries see this as an opportunity to get real granular information about how the U.S. military operates, right, from people that worked with us for 20 years.
00:27:08.000And then, you know, China's going to use that to figure out how to fight us when they need to.
00:27:13.000Of course, China has also been taking advantage of, you know, attempting to take advantage of Afghanistan's.
00:27:20.000They have a lot of things there that you need to build up an economy and a lot of things there that could be useful to their military industrial complex as well.
00:27:30.000One other thing to keep in mind is that Bagram was a very strategic base, not just for fighting the Taliban and ISIS K and Al Qaeda, but Bagram's actually pretty close to China as well.
00:27:43.000Many people have noted, including former President Trump and plenty of others, national security experts, and on and on, that Bagram was very key for the U.S., not just in Afghanistan, but also regionally, including helping keep an eye on the Chinese.
00:28:02.000China is seeing this as a win for them.
00:28:07.000They're the Taliban's biggest advocates on the world stage for getting the U.S. to send even more money into Afghanistan and even more money into the Taliban's coffers.
00:28:19.000And I think the collapse of Afghanistan and NATO and the United States being in shambles, I think Putin looked at that.
00:28:27.000And that was what we kind of assessed in our book as kind of the final thing that he needed, the final push he needed to invade Ukraine as well.
00:28:35.000So China and all of our enemies, I think, benefited from this.
00:28:40.000And we're obviously now in a more dangerous world than we were in 2021 before this debacle in Afghanistan.
00:28:50.000Yeah, to stay on the CCP topic, one of the folks we talked to, as Jerry mentioned, helped or spoke about how the CCP was helping the Taliban track down interpreters.
00:29:04.000And there's a very clear quid pro quo there because at the same time, That was alleged to be happening.
00:29:10.000The Taliban was also clearing out ethnic Uyghur areas right on the border of Afghanistan and China that the CCP has long been concerned about, is the wrong word, but has long targeted.
00:29:25.000And I just want to thank you also for a very, very substantive discussion.
00:29:29.000I wish we could sit here for three hours and tell you everything we learned.
00:29:32.000I have so many other questions too, but I'd encourage everyone just to read the book because it lays it all out.