the country's defense systems. that will be live at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. representative michael mccaul, top republican on the foreign affairs committee, talks about the withdrawal from afghanistan and origins of covid-19 live at 5:00 p.m. on c-span. ♪ announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies, including comcast. >> i used to think this was just a community center. it is way more. >> comcast is creating wi-fi so students from low income families can get the skills they need to be ready for anything. announcer: comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. announcer: coming up on washington journal, your calls,

facebook comments, and tweets on the future of afghanistan. then a conversation with wesley morgan, author of "the hardest place." washington journal is next. >> i will not mislead the american people by claiming just a little more time in afghanistan will make all the difference. nor will i shrink for my responsibility of where we are today and how we must move forward from here. i am president of the united states of america and the buck stops with me. ♪ host: that was president biden defending his decision to withdraw forces from afghanistan. as the evacuation effort continues we are opening our phone lines to get your reaction.

asking you to call in on phone lines with this way, republicans (202)-748-8001, democrats (202)-748-8000, independents (202)-748-8002. and a special line for those who are veterans of afghanistan, (202)-748-8003. you can also send us a text to that number. catch up with us on social media on twitter @c-spanwj, on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. you can go ahead and start calling as we show you more from president biden's address yesterday. [video clip] >> i stand squarely behind my decision. after 20 years i have learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw u.s. forces. that's why we are still there. we were clear eyed about the

risks. we planned for every contingency, but i always promised the american people i would be straight with you. the truth is this did unfold more quickly than we anticipated. so what happened? afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. the afghan military collapsed, some without trying to fight. if anything, the developments of the past week reinforced the ending u.s. military involvement now was the right decision. american troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war afghan forces are not willing to fight themselves. we spent over $1 trillion. we trained and equipped and afghan military force of some

300,000 strong. incredibly well-equipped. a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our nato allies. we gave them every tool they could need. we paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force, something the taliban does not have. they do not have an air force. we provided close air support. we gave them every chance to determine their own future. we could not provide them the will to fight for that future. there are some brave and capable afghan special forces but if afghanistan is unable to mount any resistance now, there is no chance one more year, five more years, or 20 more years of

u.s. military boots on the ground would have made any difference. host: that was president biden yesterday as we take you through the reaction this morning. showing you reaction from across the spectrum including the online media. first from the left, the huffington post headline, biden takes on the war machine. from the daily coast, biden addresses nation on afghanistan withdrawal. republicans scrub history. from the daily caller, biden was dead wrong on the taliban takeover. this from townhall.com, biden's shrunken presidency. here it is from the op-ed pages of today's newspapers. from the wall street journal, biden to afghanistan -- dropdead. from the washington post, the debacle in afghanistan is the worst kind and an avoidable

one. in the washington post, we lost the war in afghanistan long ago. this withdraw has been poorly planned and executed but the naked truth is this -- there is no elegant way to lose a war. we want to hear from you this morning. your reaction to president biden's address to the nation. phone lines, republicans (202)-748-8001, democrats (202)-748-8000, independents (202)-748-8002, and that special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan, (202)-748-8003. kathy is up first, lawrenceville, georgia, republican. caller: thank you for your second day of coverage. i don't really have a question. i sat here from 6:00 yesterday morning and i listened to

everyone and i just could not take my eyes off the tv all day long. i cried and i am not even a veteran. i am 64 years old but came from a family of four years, i married a warrior. he later died in the line of duty as a federal agent. my voice is quivering now. my next-door neighbors a e muslim and they are crying. just to what is happening with afghanistan of what we have fought for. my father took a bullet in a iwa jima. my late spouse was in greece and took a bomb blast. my 28-year-old daughter has lost friends.

god bless america and god bless afghanistan. if anyone watched biden yesterday, i actually sat in front of the tv and finished his sentences and the contentious way he spoke almost made me vomit. we are a proud nation and if anybody has answers, i would like to hear them. thank you so much for covering this. host:host: that was kathy in georgia. james out of pittsburgh, you are next, independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have a comment to the lady who said she had a relative who took a bullet. why don't you ask why they had to turn their bullets in at the end of 1945? i don't think people really cared. i don't think people cared about

the united states dying for five days. i don't think they cared on d-day. they missed every bomb in the air and the sea. host: one about the past 20 years in afghanistan? caller: that goes to. people don't want to understand. do you really believe that two planes took those towers down? there is no inside help on that? host: we will hold off on conspiracy theories on 9/11. tony in california, republican line. are you with us this morning? we will go to dahlia out of miami, florida, republican. caller: good morning. my comment is this. for the last seven months that biden has been there this

country is a disaster. everybody is coming in, we don't know where the taliban are, covid-19 is back because everyone coming in, almost everyone has covid, and now this. he is a total disaster and the worst part is if they were to put in the 25th amendment, what do we get? the laughing hyena. i am so afraid for my grandchildren because if this continues the next four years, there is not going to be any country. host: that was dahlia out of miami. if you watched the coverage yesterday, you likely saw this

scene from the international airport in kabul. the images of the cargo plane being swarmed by afghan citizens trying to get out. that picture is on the front page this morning of the major newspapers. you are looking at the wall street journal, this is the same across the headline of the new york times coverage. we will show you that as well. also from the front page of the washington times. you see the same photo being used in all three papers. it is an image of the chaos at the international airport. president biden speaking yesterday about the short-term military strategy. troops back in the airport to help that evacuation effort get u.s. citizens off the ground, allies off the ground. this is what the president said about the coming days.

[video clip] >> i was asked to authorize, and i did, 6000 u.s. troops to deploy to afghanistan for the purpose of assisting in the departure of u.s. citizens and personnel. and to evacuate our afghan allies and vulnerable afghans to safety outside of afghanistan. our troops are working to secure the airfield and continue operations of civilian and military flights. we are taking over at air traffic control. we have safely shut down our embassy and transferred our diplomats. our diplomatic presence is now consolidated at the airport as well. over the coming days we intend to transport out thousands of american citizens who have been living and working in afghanistan. we will also continue to support the safe departure of civilian

personnel, civilian personnel of our allies, who are still serving in afghanistan. operation allies refugee, which i announced in july, has already moved 2000 afghans eligible for special immigration visas and their families to the united states. in the coming days u.s. military will provide assistance to move more eligible afghans and their families out of afghanistan. we are also expanding refugee access to cover other vulnerable afghans who worked for the embassy. the u.s. nongovernmental agencies or nongovernmental organizations and afghans who otherwise are at great risk and u.s. news agencies. i know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating afghan civilians sooner. part of the answer is that of the afghans did not want to

leave earlier. still hopeful for their country. and part of it because the afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from a mass exodus to avoid triggering they said a crisis of confidence. american troops are performing this mission as professionally and effectively as they always do. but it is not without risk. as we carry out this departure we have made it clear to the taliban if they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation, the u.s. presence will be swift and the response will be swift and forceful. we will defend our people with the devastating force if necessary. our current military mission, we shorten time, limit scope, and focused in objectives.

get our people and allies to safely as quickly -- safety as quickly as possible. once we have completed this mission we will conclude our military withdrawal. we will end america's longest war after 20 long years of bloodshed. host: president biden yesterday from the white house. we will continue to take you through parts of that address and the reaction on capitol hill and around the world. mostly we want to hear from you this morning on phone lines split by political party and the special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan. michael is next out of west virginia, democrat. go ahead. caller: first i would like to say i am a vietnam veteran. when i left vietnam in 1968 i never looked back at vietnam, i never did. i think the people in afghanistan should do the same. i support president joe biden.

i think he is doing the right thing. it is time to get out. i think everything he has done is right. one thing i would like to say though is this, all of the news media, social media and everybody, you were not there. you were not in war. you do not know what war is. you do not know what it is to come home. the last thing i would like to say, there was a movie made in late 1980's called "in country." i think all vietnam veterans, iraqi veterans, afghanistan veterans should look at the movie. it made me feel good. that is all i have to say. thank you for your time. host: jeff in chicago, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say how disappointed i am that the afghan army did not even put up a fight. with a 20 years we spent

sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives it is very heartbreaking. i would like to find out in the future if we go to another country what guarantees do we have their armies are going to stand and fight if we have to give up american lives to protect them? host: that was jeff in chicago. jim in alexandria, virginia. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i want to thank you for doing this. i am a veteran. i fought in afghanistan twice, 2009 and 2010 and then 2012i was wounded and evacuated. spent a couple of months in walter reed. thank you for giving the opportunity for people to talk and to participate in this forum. host: thank you for what you

did. caller: i'm sorry? host: thank you for what you did. caller: thanks. my comment is more on the bigger picture scale. i think we went into afghanistan -- i mean, it was overwhelmingly approved in congress and i think only one person was against it. we went in there for very clear purposes. at some point, we can say during the bush administration, i think it was a real clear demarcation when obama deemed it the good war. there is a great book by bob woodward about the decision. at that point we did the whole of government approach. hillary clinton was secretary of state and we did this. at that point the mission changed. we basically buckled down and said, we are going to change the society. we are going to centralize it in kabul and all these things. i think the lesson is -- and i

am not going to criticize whether we should have done that or should not have -- but when we do make that decision we have to understand that is a multigenerational effort. i think leaving now was the equivalent of leaving germany in 1950 or japan around the same time. lessons of history, south korea was a military dictatorship for a couple of decades after the korean war. now it is a booming -- i think it is one of the largest economies in the world. that is a lesson we should pull strategically. i think there are going to be pundits saying, we need to go back, we need to do powell doctrine that we used in the first persian gulf war with overwhelming political support. then you have samantha powell who would say we have to intervene militarily for

humanitarian purposes. i am not saying either is right or wrong but there needs to be something in the middle. it looks as if warfare has a vote, right? our strategy needs to match and i don't think these polls that are so bipolar fit neatly. host: you mentioned the 2001 use of military force, the vote in congress. one person voting against. it was congresswoman barbara lee. one of the headlines from mike about that. let's revisit her lonely vote against the afghanistan invasion going back to that september 2001 vote. one thing i wanted to ask you before you go, jim, this headline in today's usa today that asked the question that afghanistan war veterans are asking themselves -- were our sacrifices wasted?

how do you feel about that? caller: you know, that is a pretty hard thing. like i said, i spent two months recovering at walter reed and i was probably one of the fortunate ones able to walk around. i would go to the various rooms and visit the wounded warriors. you see guys missing limbs and sitting there with her parents, 20 years old, and they are high on pain medication. when you look at it through that lens you would say, of course. your heart bleeds and you say, god, what have we done here? on the other side we gave hope to a generation of afghans. i personally think we could have found a middle ground there between a large force fighting and no force.

i think a lot of the talk was the afghan army gave up. i don't think they did. we gave up the support they needed. they needed air support, intelligence support, logistical support, maintenance support and we provided a lot of that and we provided a lot of the intel. i think there was a way we could have remained in the country safely with probably under 5000 troops. at the airfield we would have been able, from a purely geopolitical strategy, been able to do a lot of good things. host: and do that indefinitely and make that something like a permanent military base like what we have in germany or japan? caller: yeah. i think the moment we killed osama bin laden we should have declared victory and signed an agreement with the afghan government. that would have been it. it would have been -- i think we

should have a discussion about why ghani was our choice. he was widely represented of the afghan people, he wasn't. he has a masters degree from columbia. afghanistan is 80% illiterate. is he really touching the people? i am not so sure about that. i think we could have done that at a very reasonable price with probably zero casualties and the afghans would have continued to fight, nato would have stayed, nato would have taken over the military training mission with our allies, that would have given more purpose to nato and they would have been able to contribute 2% and 20% on modern technology. i think there would have been -- and that would have been a common cause a lot of people would have stayed behind.

during campaign season it could have been a one-off but people were not overwhelmingly for or against it. it was just a steady state in moving that way. before you kick me off can i add, i think we need to reconsider the amount of aid we are providing to pakistan. pakistan is the second largest recipient of u.s. aid in south asia and for 20 years they have worked against us. i think we need to consider that. host: thank you for the call and talking about your experience. caller: thanks, man. host: you mentioned a few names in afghan politics over the years. here is perhaps a new name for americans to learn. this story from today's wall street journal about a taliban leader emerging over there. in 2001 the cofounder of the taliban led a delegation and

spent most of the last decade under arrest. he returns to power 20 years later after the u.s. lobbied for his release when the trump administration launched talks with the taliban. at the helm of political office he led talks with the u.s. that culminated in a deal do end america's engagement in the work. the world had little idea who the new leaders are and how they will rule the country. if the movement has a face today, it is this man. the picture that goes along with baradar in the middle of the shot. teresa, nevada, democrat. you are next. caller: i support joe biden's decision. we have been there for 20 years

and when we decided to pull out, which was set up by the trump administration, we were supposed to be out by i think the end of may according to donald trump's agreement with the taliban and everybody else. you know, i don't think the end result would have been any different if we would have waited another six months, another year, another five years. it was always going to end something like this. we trained 300,000 afghan troops, we paid their salaries, we gave them top-of-the-line all kinds of military equipment and everything else. and you know, it was basically offer nothing because in the end they would not fight for

themselves. host: to reset in nevada. your comments from social media. john on twitter writing, biden gave a good speech defending his decision. biden was right, it was time to get out. however, you cannot put lipstick on this. you should have thought it better out, the timing was atrocious. this was vicki, biden's speech was so disrespectful to the people and the warriors and then he goes back to his vacation. everything biden touches turns into a disaster. just look at our border. noting president biden going back to camp david. expected to be there today although we are expecting a briefing from jen psaki at the white house around 1:30 p.m. eastern. here is the reaction from members on capitol hill. mitch mcconnell at home in kentucky as the senate is in recess.

this is senator mcconnell talking in jefferson town, kentucky yesterday. [video clip] >> he decided to withdraw and to withdraw a rapidly. what we have seen is an unmitigated disaster, a stain on the reputation of the united states of america. every terrorist around the world in serbia, in iraq, in yemen, and africa are cheering the defeat of the united states military by a terrorist organization in afghanistan. if you insist on leaving, which i said earlier i think entirely leaving was a mistake, but if you insisted on leaving at least you should have had adequate concern not only for the americans who are still in

afghanistan but the afghans who cooperated with us. the interpreters, people part of the government, the people who were on our side through these 20 years while not only we were there but the europeans were there too. this is a nato mission. now we see these heartbreaking pictures of people clinging to aircraft as they tried to escape from the airport in kabul. an unmitigated disaster. i hope the president will put in enough troops to get out as many people as possible. not only all the americans obviously, but those who worked with us, who depended on us, we have even gotten phone calls in my office. phone calls in my office from people who have family over there who are worried about them getting out.

honestly? this administration does not look like you could organize a two car funeral. host: that was mitch mcconnell yesterday from kentucky. he talks about heartbreaking pictures. one picture we talked about yesterday on this program was the image of afghan refugees fleeing in a u.s. cargo plane. here is a photo from inside designated reach 871. it flew out with some 600 passengers. that story noting the air force pilots deciding to go ahead and take off with 640 afghans on board. it is supposed to be among the most ever to fly on the c-17.

that plane has been operated by the u.s. and nato allies for decades. it was not intending to take off with such a large load but the panicked afghans pulled themselves into its half open ramp. instead of trying to force them off the aircraft the crew of the air force plane made the decision to go. approximately 640 afghan civilians disembarked the aircraft when it arrived. that picture from inside 871 making rounds. joel in illinois, independent. you are next. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. good morning, everyone. putting politics aside i believe -- it is not a good time to bring up politics -- but i do

not think this should all be placed on biden. he is not the only president involved. it has been advertised over 20 years. a lot of presidents have been involved. in fact, i think he was against the war while he was vice president. i am not sure that. on the other hand, and i don't appreciate what mitch mcconnell just said, but taking a look at the border i am wondering about this administration's management qualities. like i said, i don't want to bring politics into this but with president trump with all his faults -- and he has a lot -- i think he had some management qualities about him. the border is a mess and now this is a mess. there is a ton of money involved that could be used over here. i don't believe president biden

-- i know he is the president now and accepted the risk but i don't think he should be so hard on himself. by the same token i think this evacuation could have been better thought out. host: you mentioned president trump. president biden yesterday mentioning president trump yesterday, especially his deal with the taliban that president biden said led to the withdrawal. [video clip] >> when i came into office i inherited a deal president trump negotiated with the taliban. under his agreement u.s. forces would be out of afghanistan by may 1, 2021. just a little over three months after i took office. u.s. forces had already drawn down during the trump administration from roughly 15,500 american forces to 2500

troops. the taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001. the choice i had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season. it would have been no cease-fire after may 1. there was no agreement protecting our forces after may 1. there was no status quo of stability without american casualties after may 1. it was only a cold reality of following through on the agreement to withdraw forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more american troops back into combat in afghanistan. lurching into the third decade of conflict. host: president biden yesterday

from the white house. as we talked about already plenty of reaction, including from those on capitol hill. lindsey graham the republican from south carolina with this tweet. president biden was quick to blame others and never acknowledged the blame lies with him. the essence of his address was the buck stops with me but president trump and others maybe do it. not exactly harry truman. this from chuck grassley, president biden said in february america is back. he's right. all the way back to 1975 with american allies clinging desperately to u.s. aircraft to escape after our government broke promises to protect them. from democrats on capitol hill, james clyburn saying, there are no easy answers. president biden demonstrated he is willing to take responsibility for the outcome. that is the mark of a true leader. this from democrat tim kane, 10

years later we found and killed osama bin laden. we stayed an additional decade to train forces and create conditions for a more stable future in that country. just some of the commentary from congress. asking you for your thoughts this morning. frank is next in delaware, republican. caller: i would just like to say joe biden is a horse's [beep]. host: can we get through without name-calling? caller: look at the border. now he has got us -- people are going to die because of the decisions he made. they are locked in, they cannot get to the airport, all because he did this. the democrats cannot throw money at this. that is all they tried to do. they try to throw money at this, it's not going to work this time.

lots of thousands of people are going to die. host: this, roger in south carolina, democrat. caller: good morning. as a former military man myself i have two generations before me that served in wars across seas. my sons, three of them, have served as well. you know what? all of these people wanting to demonize president biden for bringing our troops home, getting them out of harm's way so that another family does not have to worry about burying their sons or daughters, does not mean a damn thing. bring our troops home, i'm glad for it. thank you, president biden. host: darlington, south carolina, john, republican.

caller: good morning. the bottom line is president biden when he came into office did what other presidents do and he unwound a lot of stuff trump had done. why didn't he unwind this and task his advisors with coming out with an assessment and a plan? that would have been able to bring in nato and find out if we did need to leave 2500 people there. they could have also started to move the equipment out so we did not leave the taliban with an equipped army. but the bottom line is the biden administration has been more preoccupied with basically creating a globalist country and authoritarian country and demonizing half the citizens in this country instead of just

operating the country. if you look at the two different types of philosophy of governance in this country, one is the citizens are paramount to being protected and the government is created by the citizens and that is at the bottom of the stack. or you can look at where we are now. the citizens are the bottom of the stack and the government is at the top and whatever happens to the citizens is irrelevant because it is all about pushing the power and takeover of the united states. perfect example, in vietnam if you waved a united states passport, you got on a plane first. in afghanistan they are just letting anybody on and heck with u.s. citizens. they are being held outside right now where the taliban will not let them into the airport to

get on a plane. host: where are you seeing that? that u.s. citizens are being held outside the airport. caller: not held but what i am saying is the 82nd airborne secured the airport. the taliban has put an outer ring preventing people from coming in. what i am worried about is if we are really concerned about our american citizens and getting them in, i don't know how they are going to do it. host: here is the latest from cnbc on flights and the cnet kabul. there was a stoppage of flights. flights resuming from kabul as people scramble to leave afghanistan. we do know the united states surging additional troops to to secure u.s. citizens.

the other thing you talked about was the people responsible for coming up with a plan here. one of those folks responsible is president biden's national security advisor jake sullivan. interesting op-ed in usa today concerning jake sullivan. it is written by the director of global engagement in the obama white house. now president of the global situation room. he writes he served with jake sullivan in the obama administration and this is what he writes about jake sullivan. he is extraordinarily bright and because of that he advanced at record speed as a secretary of state and later to vice president joe biden. while he knows all the theories academic arguments and for policy his overseas experience is less robust. it can lead to the disconnect between ideas and implementation. yes, biden wanted out.

it was on sullivan to figure out how to achieve that goal while ensuring we avoid pitfalls and problems and that is not what happened. unfortunately, it seems that sullivan allowed the president's push for an end to involvement to drive the american timeline. that was a catastrophic error. we failed to get the people out of harm's way. the afghan government and military were not ready either. president biden needs to fire his national security advisor and several other senior leaders who oversaw the botched execution of withdrawal from afghanistan. he has to restructure how and with whom he is making major foreign policy decisions. that was today in usa today. sue, east brunswick, new jersey and by the way, jake sullivan is expected to be at the press briefing today at 1:30 p.m. eastern alongside jen psaki taking questions. you can watch that today.

we will be airing it on c-span. sue, east brunswick, new jersey, democrat. caller: good morning. this afghanistan situation is horrible. host: just keep talking through your phone. caller: good morning. this afghanistan situation is horrible. i stand with biden. where is the president? where is the existing government? i bet you all of those that have money have already left. i -- host: you what? caller: am i on? host: you just have to turned under television. caller: i don't understand where the government is. where is their government? what is happening? we cannot continue to stand for countries that do not want to stand for themselves.

the people here do not even want to wear masks and people are dying. i don't understand. i am a family of the army. my father, my nieces. i have a niece that was in afghanistan. i am so sorry for the people. i am angry. i stand with biden. host: you asked where is the president of afghanistan, ashraf ghani. that is being asked at one of the press briefings yesterday in washington at the pentagon press briefing. this is the headline from the hill newspaper, a female afghan reporter to the pentagon press secretary saying, everybody is upset, especially the women. she is referring to president ashraf ghani asking where is he. this is the moment yesterday from the dod press briefing. [video clip] >> i am very upset because the

afghan women did not expect overnight -- they took my flag. this is my flag. everybody is upset, especially women. i forgot my question. where is my president? president ghani? he immediately ran away. we do not know where he is and we do not have a president. president biden said president ghani has to fight for the people. we do not have any president, we do not have anything. people do not know what to do. women had a lot of achievement and afghanistan. i lived for the taliban 20 years ago.

now we go back to the first step again? president ghani should answer to the afghan people. >> i obviously cannot speak for ashraf ghani or where he is or what his views are, i wouldn't do that, but let me say with all respect that i understand and we all understand. the anxiety, the fear, the pain you are feeling, it is clear and evident. nobody here at the pentagon is happy about the images we have seen coming out the last few days and we are all mindful of the kind of governance that the taliban is capable of. host: that was from yesterday's pentagon press briefing. this is michael in las vegas, independent. go ahead. caller: thank you very much for taking my call. if you really want to know what's happening over there,

just ask your generals. they are worrying about range. if they want to get from afghanistan, tell them to take the plane from mexico. they will walk and no problem. these people are sick. what kind of people are these leaving these people stranded? what a shameful thing. these general should be fired, all of them. thank you very much. host: another michael from california, republican. good morning. caller: hey, boss man. i was really upset. vietnam, infantry, i could have been nailed. host: may ask you a question? caller: i am 72 years old. i saw a lady on the news yesterday and i was listening to the president. i voted for trump, i was on the

republican side but he is drawing lines. how many years? how many men and women have died? they are part of our country. this country was founded on freedom and where i live in northern california by san francisco there is afghani's, indian food, all kinds of different people here already. what is the difference? these people who are in afghanistan, these people are scared. there is one woman saying, i'm going to die, i'm going to die. i would be completely out of my mind. those people need help. their structure of living is completely different from our way of life. host: that was michael in california. stephen in south carolina,

independent. caller: good morning. i stand with biden as well. hard decision to make. this decision was coming already. the people of afghanistan it was coming. the president of afghanistan just disappeared into the clear blue sky and left these people with our money more than likely in his pockets. nobody fought, nobody. 20 years we have been there assisting these people, probably trillions of dollars, and they didn't put up the first bullet i don't think. host: you talk about the biden administration extending this beyond the original trump treaty deadline. i guess the question in light of the past couple of days is,

should it have been extended a little bit longer to somehow plan for the events do not occur in the way in which they did occur in the past week? should it have been extended so better defenses could have been set up to ensure the people got out? caller: yes, let's be real, but it has happened before in vietnam. i agree with you. but it didn't happen that way. in the same breath i find it amazing that certain people out there are screaming about the welfare of these afghan people -- which, i do care about don't misunderstanding. we have a bad habit of people leaving people at the wrong time and we don't seem to remember that. my point being, how many was it,

600 on that aircraft? host: 640. caller: where you taking them? what country is taking these people? are we going to take them? i will be honest, i don't mind if you vet them properly but when they get here there's is a certain group of people who is going to treat them like a doormat and it is a shame. i am sorry i feel that way but our country is very unwelcoming. host: most on the american flights are coming here. re-settlements have been underway for a while. news on that front from axios this morning. some democrats considering allocating a portion of the $3.5 trillion budget toward refugee resettlement for those fleeing afghanistan. that according to sources that talked to axios. they know as president biden defends his plan for a complete withdrawal amid the images, this information came out that $3.5

trillion budget aims to get democrats the deal to push through the infrastructure spending the conversations about how to spend that are in the infancy. expected to continue to develop over the next several weeks. if you want to read more, axios this morning. lawrence, maryland, democrat. caller: i agree with president biden's decision. i do not believe in the pursuit of an isolationist foreign policy. i am anti-collateral damage. instances like the bombing of the doctors without borders is proof. i think biden's move is in line with the trajectory of u.s. foreign policy since the obama administration which has been a pivot from middle eastern diplomacy and a strategy toward

asia. thank you for taking my call. host: scott, nebraska, independent. good morning. caller: morning. i really like this show. everyone has got the chance to speak their mind and i agree with biden. we spent all that time there, all the money training everybody, and then they just flee? i say it is time to come home. if the afghan people want to come, they can come along with us. like the gentleman said, people here are pretty harsh and it would be hard to get along but we cannot just leave them there either. i do enjoy the show and thank you for being there. that is all i have to say. host: do it every morning from 7:00 a.m. eastern to 10:00 a.m. eastern to give your chance to speak your mind.

democrat in maryland, what's on your mind? caller: i agree with what a lot of people said about biden's decision. the oligarchs who are wealthy who are pretty much over there or who have been over there going after the $1 trillion that was spoken to trump about why should we be in afghanistan in the first place? basically we have a lot of profit driven conflict around the world. we don't talk about iraq. you have the oil interest. our soldiers are there not to protect the people but to protect the interest, the wealth, and the pillaging of oligarchs who have been there to take from these people.

other people have said it. you have a lot of people -- saigon, you have people who were fighting on the runway, people died. this was almost like a bloodless, i would say coup, but take over. host: president biden yesterday was blaming the afghan leaders. here as president biden yesterday. [video clip] >> the afghan leaders were unable to negotiate for the future of their country. they would never have done so while u.s. troops remained in afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them. our strategic competitors, china

and russia, would love nothing more than the united states to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention in destabilized afghanistan indefinitely. when i hosted president ghani at the white house in june, and again when i spoke by phone to gandhi in july -- ghani in july, we had frank conversations. we had conversations about how afghanistan should fight their wars after the u.s. departed. cleaning up the government so we could function for the people. we talked about the need for afghan leaders to unite politically. they failed to do any of that. i also urged them to engaging diplomacy, to seek political settlement with the taliban. this was flatly refused. mr. ghani insisted the afghan

forces would fight but obviously he was wrong. host: president biden yesterday from the white house. he mentioned china in that portion of his comments. this story from the new york post, china saying yesterday beijing is ready to deepen friendly and cooperative relations with afghanistan the day after the taliban toppled the government. the foreign minister of china not answering explicitly when asked whether beijing will recognize the taliban but said china would respect the choice of the afghan people. that story from the new york post. two minutes left getting your reaction to president biden's comments yesterday. this is lewis in new jersey, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. for the record, i am not a big fan of the president but this is not his fall. the people who should be blamed

is the congress for the last 20 years to exploit not only our soldiers but the people of afghanistan and they made billions of dollars. that is who should be blamed. host: jim in fort lauderdale, florida, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to comment on to w things. did we ever understand this war and number two, people should stop falling for the speech that joe biden gave that could have been given two years ago. most people are in agreement we needed to get out of the war. there is not any news with people calling in and saying we needed to get out of that war. the problem is how he did it. let me make it simple for the democrats who are falling for the biden line. if you know things could collapse badly when you left, shouldn't the army be the last people to leave instead of the

first people to leave? it is really that simple. he didn't leave anything behind to protect the withdrawal. it is pretty disastrous. the thinking on that was very flawed and terrible. the other side of this is this is a failure of our military commanders. i don't think they ever really understood what they were up against. for example, who was the leader of the taliban? what is his name? does anybody know? host: a story on that we talked about today emerging as one of the faces of the taliban, mullah ghani baradar. caller: where did all this big army congregate? if they are so powerful, they

had to congregate at some point. why didn't we know where they were congregating? why didn't we know how they were communicating? why didn't we know where they were getting their weapons and why didn't we attack the sources of their weapons? i don't think the intelligence services and military had a good grasp on this war ever. host: jim, a map from the new york times showing where the taliban was congregating back on may 5 of this year. you can see the difference in how quickly and completely they took over the country of afghanistan. just in a matter of a couple months couple months from a fit august 14. there is a map there, the fully controlled taliban districts. the white area on that map, and the gray area is the contested district. you can see the change over time.

caller: i have a comment to make. the afghan army had fully mechanized divisions. they should be able to evacuate whoever they want against the taliban. somewhere along the line, someone decided they should surrender. i will agree with president biden, there shouldn't be another american sacrificing their life if the afghan government won't fight. host: last call in the first segment of the "washington journal." plenty more to talk about in our focus or all three hours on afghanistan. up next, we talk with the military and journalist embedded with american troops in afghanistan, wesley morgan is his name. he is the author of the new book "the hardest place, the american

military adrift in afghanistan's pech valley." stay tuned. we will be back with that. ♪ >> all this week at 8:00 p.m. eastern, c-span looks at discussions and hearings about congress and how the institution operates. tonight, a hearing focusing on bipartisanship and civility. wednesday night, a second hearing on political stability with testimony from psychologists, scholars, and journalists. then thursday night, representative derek kilmer of washington and william of south carolina discuss ways to foster bipartisanship among members of congress. friday night, a hearing on the importance of reasserting congress's power and the rule of law. watch this week at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at

c-span.org, and listen to the free @cspanwj radio app -- free c-span radio app. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: a conversation now with wesley morgan, journalist and author of "the hardest place, the american military adrift in afghanistan's pech valley." why is this story an important one to tell?

>> it is a place in northeastern afghanistan, one of the first places u.s. troops and intelligence operators spanned out into in the months immediately after 9/11. it is a place that somewhat serves as a microcosm of the whole war from a u.s. perspective i would argue in terms of showing the gradual mission creep from a limited counterterrorism mission trying to find osama bin laden after he escaped up through this gradual escalation into much more expensive counterinsurgency and nationbuilding until his efforts essentially collapsed and u.s. forces returned to a coward terror -- counterterrorism foster in recent years before leaving. host: when did you first go to pech and why? guest: i first visited in 2010. i was a journalist covering president obama's surge that year when u.s. troop levels had been rising to their all-time high of 100,000 u.s. troops in the country. i was embedding with different

infantry battalions in different parts of the country in a tough fight. the patch was one of them and i got fast -- pech was fascinating. host: why was a fascinating? guest: there was a huge dichotomy with what was going on there and to the rest of the country. traveling afghanistan that summer, the commanders would give you a line about how many new outposts their building, how many new kilometers of road they are paving, how many new afghan security forces they are training. they are on the offensive, surging outcome of doing the counterinsurgency strategy. in the pech, where that strategy had a couple more years time to play out, the battalion commander was pessimistic and made very clear and candidly that he did not think it was working and what it was time for u.s. troops to leave that particular part of the country. host: who is that commander? guest: the guys name was joe ryan, a lieutenant col. at the time. he is a two star general now that has taken over command of

an army division. he has been back to afghanistan over and over again since then. he most recently left in june. host: you mentioned counterinsurgency, stay on that for a second. the difference between coin and ct. guest: the way the u.s. military frames it is counterterrorism or ct is the use of high-end special operation forces like rangers, steel -- seal team six, and cia operatives to go after international terrorist groups, al qaeda and isis, groups that planned attacks overseas in europe and the united states. counterinsurgency is a much broader based work of assisting the afghan government in fighting the taliban insurgency that has now won that fight and taken over afghanistan. host: are we better at one then the other or were we better in the pech valley? guest: that's a great question.

i think there were major flaws to our efforts in both. at a technical and tactical level, i think we were very good at both. but without those tactical successes -- those tactical successes do not often add up to victory. succession of units through their cohorts into the counterinsurgency efforts got as good at it as you could possibly american -- possibly imagine young american soldiers. it gradually turned the afghan people against them despite their best efforts. on the counterterrorism side, u.s. forces really became an incredibly honed counterterrorism machine using drone strikes and other surveillance aircrafts, the occasional night raid, to the point where they pretty much eliminated all of the al qaeda

targets they were going after in that part of the country by 2016 when they killed important al qaeda figure -- an important al qaeda figure. no sooner had they done that then isis emerged in the same place. it is in some sense a machine that has no way of turning itself off. host: viewers are going to be hearing a lot about the pech valley in the segment of the washington value. -- washington journal. explain where the pech is and why the pech is such a unique part of afghanistan. guest: sure. the pech valley is about 100 miles northeast of kabul. it is not right on the border with pakistan but it is close. it is a place that has a credible difficult terrain. we often picture or i often picture afghanistan as before

first went there as desert and dry mountains. in this part of the country, it is lush vegetation, very thick pine and cedar and for tree forests on jagged mountains in valleys that are so narrow that almost describe them as gorges more than valleys. which poses a lot of difficult technical problems for the u.s. military up there, whether that is units trying to fly in and land somewhere, because there's a limited number of clearings, flat clearings, without trees that you can planned and the enemy knows about all of them. surveillance drones, all of the highest tech tools that the cia and joint special operations command have at their disposal really run up against some tough issues in that kind of forest and weather. that has made it a natural place -- going back to 2001, we know that the valley adjacent to the pech, we know that is where bin

laden went immediately after bora-bora, which drew u.s. troops and cia operatives up there, trying to pick up his trail. 10 years later, shortly before his death, bin laden issued orders that were found in the compound where he was killed in which he directed other al qaeda operatives to seek refuge in the same part of the country, making reference to the trees, the mountains, the ability to foil u.s. surveillance efforts. host: wesley morgan is our guest, the book is "the hardest place: the american military adrift in afghanistan's pech valley." the phone lines if you want to join this conversation, afghanistan war veterans it (202) 748-8000. all others is (202) 748-8001. go ahead and start calling in with your questions and comments for wesley morgan. mr. morgan, the dedication of your book to the interpreters that sometimes lost

their lives protecting american soldiers and marines in the pech valley and its tributaries. why that dedication? guest: afghanistan is a really hard place for american military units, especially regular conventional units that do not have any language training to operate and get their bearings and understand what is going on around them. the pech magnifies the problems. in most of afghanistan, the languages people speak are one of two. in the pech valley, there are a lot more languages. there are languages that have no written form that only a few thousand people speak in the valley where u.s. troops found themselves operating. so interpreters were a lifeline, not nearly for literally translating the conversations between americans and afghans but for helping americans understand the nuances of what was going on around them, to read cues they were not equipped to read, to untangle the details

of my local disputes that might seem inconsequential but often in fact were driving aspects of the insurgency. disputes over water, overland rights, things like that. i think the interpreters who served and in some cases fought alongside american troops, they saved american lives to the degree that there ever was success up there. i think the interpreters bear a lot of responsibility for that. i interviewed more than 300 american vets for this book as well as afghans and you would not often find an american who expressed anything other than really extreme gratitude for the interpreters and roll they had. and in many cases, they have kept in touch with them and in recent days and weeks, a lot of what i've been doing is fielding

requests from former american officers to help their former interpreters, requests from former interpreters to find ways to get back in touch with their american officers. unfortunately, the precipitous collapse of kabul is cutting a lot of those efforts sure that people have been making. host: what do you tell those officers and interpreters? guest: there's often not a lot they can do. there is a process that seems to be emerging in recent weeks as the administration belatedly announced this airlift effort on july 14. that after all of the regional bases in afghanistan that would have been easier for former interpreters and families to get to that are already closed. but sort of the process was if you have your visa packets in, now there is a lifeline. if you can get to kabul, there will be an airlift for you. i think now president biden is still pledging that will happen,

but the situation is very precarious as kabul airport. host: what were your feelings yesterday on the scenes that are now splashed across the front pages of all the major papers of the people surrounding the airlift flights out? guest: they were very hard to watch. really horrifying images. i was tuning in to them to some degree but spent a lot of the past few days working on a specific case with an american military officer who served in this part of the country that the book is about who has been working to get out. -- get out a former interpreter of his. i have washington post story out yesterday, this guy is a pretty ordinary case. it was a beloved interpreter for five to six years in the province where the pech is, serving succession of american commanders, and exemplary -- an

exemplary interpreter. he was denied a visa and worked to work with afghanistan's cia intelligence agency. he rose to command any unit called unit 03, the premier commando unit in southern afghanistan. his troops were the last guys fighting in kandahar city thursday with every intention of fighting to the last man when the governor called them and explained that in negotiations he had left them in the dark about, he had surrendered the city and they had no choice but to retreat to kandahar's airfield. as josh rodriguez and i spoke with him whenever he could get a chance, he was surrounded at the airfield, seemed like there were low odds of any type of airlift. eventually, any afghan air force plane came and managed to get many men out. he actually went out and came

back to stay with his remaining men who did not want to leave while any of them were still in danger. kind of miraculously two nights ago, another plane came through and got them out to kabul airport. but of course two nights ago, kabul airport looks like the safe route out. now kabul is a very chaotic place. it is not really a safe haven that they had reached. host: to put a face to a name of that story, mohammed on your right in this piece. then the army second lieutenant on the left in that picture. if you want to read the full story from the washington post. taking your phone calls with wes morgan. ruth is up first out of michigan. good morning. caller: yes, i was saying in 1975 we had a thing called the ugly american.

today, the new saying is the arrogant american. now it is the way we left there. people seem to forget that women, there is a little thing we take for granted for freedom, they will be pulled out of their homes, taken in public, either stoned or decapitated. and just because we are there now, where the news media is there now, they are starting to take over all over afghanistan the news media. i am talking about the taliban. and we have sleeper cells all over america. just by detroit, there's an attempted tram it. we are talking full arms companies. these are people that came from over there, infiltrated, and they are armed. host: how do you know about sleeper cells in the united states? caller: because you see them.

this is what i'm saying about the arrogance of america. it is like you do not have your eyes open. host: that is ruth in michigan. wes morgan, she talked about the women of afghanistan. can you pick up off -- pick up on that part? guest: i would like to dismiss that sh -- that we have sleepers of afghanistan waiting. she certainly writes nothing good awaits the fate of many people in afghanistan, women, men, children, especially in -- there is an urban afghanistan that has grown since 2001, especially -- essentially half of the ocular should of afghanistan has been born since 2001. increasingly in the city, though it is largely a rural population. these young afghans in the city have never known the life of re-2001 and they are about to be introduced to it in many ways

and i think it is a tremendous tragedy. host: richard in missouri, you are next. caller: about a year or two ago, you had a gentleman in afghanistan and had an interpreter with him and he was trying to get the guy to come over here and could not get visas or nothing to get them out. just a month ago, congress would not pass a deal where they could get visas to get these people out of there. their culture -- we have tried to go in and change their culture. their religion is so like cavemen. the women are just whoever got the biggest club gets the woman. host: wes morgan on what you learned about the afghan culture and islam over there. guest: i'm not sure what to say that. i would not compare afghans to cavemen. i think that is incredibly offensive. afghanistan is a culture and

country that i think was -- it is unreasonable for any american to expect that rural afghanistan's culture would change as a result of whether it is 5, 10, 20 years of american troops operating in the country. i would say in kabul and other cities, there really is a different culture, and evolution of afghanistan's existing culture, not a new culture. that has come into existence in the past 20 years. i really fear for afghan friends who have grown up in the new urban afghanistan. host: alan on twitter writes this, when the president of afghanistan abandon his country, that expended all to me. bring the boys home. from what you saw on the political leadership in the country while you are over there. guest: i think alan makes a great point.

it is easy right now for americans who do not know much about the conflict or have not seen the conflict firsthand to look at all of these surrendering afghan security forces and think the fault lies with those surrendering afghan security forces. i think as allen points out, a lot of the fault lies not with those forces, some cases not with their commanders, but with the political leaders who have sold them out and who have escaped where many of those below them will not be able to. i will give the case of kandahar where the unit was fighting extremely hard. it is an unusual unit, a much tougher and more combative unit than many units in the afghan army, but to give a sense of the degree to which the afghan army has been sacrificing in recent years, the number of american soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors who have died in afghanistan over the past 20 years is not an insignificant

number, 2500. 2500 american troops have lost their lives in the country as well as another contingent of allied nato and australian troops. the number of afghan soldiers in police dying in recent years, by best estimates top 10,000 a year. in recent years, the afghan security forces lost four times more men in combat than the united states has lost in the entire time. so i think that is something the people need to remember and bear in mind before they speak ill of these afghan security forces who have put on their arms because their governors pulled the rug out from under them and excepted secretly negotiated deals with the taliban. host: two pieces from today's news websites, first from reuters on ashraf ghani, the afghan president, he left kabul according to a senior official.

as for comment, the president's office said they cannot say anything about his movements for security reasons. some reporting indicating he might end up in the united states. more specifically to the point you are just making, this from the bork website, an interview they did with an afghan air force pilot unnamed for safety reasons but one of the questions they asked the pilot to has been fighting for nearly 15 to 20 years, they asked him if there is anything he wants the american public to know. wes morgan, this is how he replied according to the board. "many afghan soldiers died bravely. i have been fighting for over 15 years. we did not all just give up and quit. some did once the americans left. we were not ready to do the logistics. the logistics, the maintenance, the corruption really hurt us. i know people in the u.s. are upset we did not fight longer but we have been fighting for decades and some of us longer.

when the u.s. left, it affected morale, especially how quickly it happened. we woke up one day and they were gone. everyone got scared. it got out of control. i am mad of many of the senior leaders who live there pockets and vanished from the country. thousands of afghan officers were not responsible for that, we were doing the best we could. there were a lot of afghans you trusted the united states, not just translators but afghan soldiers. he loved fighting alongside americans. please don't leave us behind. we will be great americans." your thoughts. guest: i think the pilot here hits the nail on the head and he is one of the most at risk people. we know that the taliban is ushering -- offering amnesty -- or says it is offering amnesty to some afghan security forces. traffic police are told to go back to work but they are working for the taliban. large afghan army units may face similar forbearance, but the

units that have fought hard, the commando units, the special forces units, interior ministry, triple units as they call them, and the pilots. nothing good awaits them. the taliban knows who they are and the taliban will make every effort to find them. in many cases, if not most cases, those people are not eligible for special immigrant visas in the way former u.s. interpreters are because they were not working for the united states. they were fighting for their country, so they're are not eligible for this program except in unusual circumstances where they previously were interpreters or something like that. host: afghan war veterans, it is (202) 748-8000 if you want to join the conversation. all others is (202) 748-8001. carol how massachusetts, you are next. -- out of massachusetts, you are next. caller: hi. i was astonished. i said to myself, couldn't

anyone that was with the president just open up the box and say " gee, what if this happened?" in other words, what if they said this is an opportunity to go in and seize the capital with 2500 troops leaving. nobody said anything about what if that happened. they didn't even -- it wasn't something they discussed. president biden never thought it would happen. he said he never thought it would be like that. they should have thought outside the box. host: wes morgan. guest: i think there will be a lot of debate in the weeks and months and years ahead about the degree to which this was an intelligence failure versus the degree to which this was a policy failure on the part of the trump and biden administrations. we won't know for a long time what the true details of u.s. intelligence assessments were

about how long afghan forces would stand up and what the likelihood of various scenarios were. i think certainly the intelligence community understood this was a possible scenario, a total and sudden collapse. i do not think they judged this as the most likely scenario. i think it is important to understand that, as u.s. forces have drawn down in recent years from the 100,000 troops spread out over the country, working every day with their afghan partners in 2011-2012, to the 10,000 or so that we were at a year and a half ago to the 2500 that we were at when president biden took office. those touch points, the ability to understand what was going on with our afghan partners really went away. we talk about intelligence often without understanding what intelligence collection means are. when it comes to understanding the ability of afghan security forces to fight, the degree to

which their leaders and political leaders are making deals with the taliban, that is generally the kind of information american advisers working with them were collecting. the ca does not have a magic -- cia does not have a magical way of harvesting those details from cities and provinces and districts where it no longer had a presence. to the degree it is an intelligence failure, i think we will have to think about the degree to which -- the u.s. trajectory in recent years has made it possible for our intelligence community to collect information. i would have to say, i think that although president biden has said that he did not believe this collapse would happen, he said that multiple times, said there would not be a scenario, and when he talked to ashraf ghani, he ensured him that

afghan forces would fight. the past two administrations made clear that although this is not their desired outcome, this was an outcome they were willing to risk and except in order to achieve their ultimate goal of removing u.s. forces from the country. host: wes morgan is our guest as we approach the bottom of the hour, 8:30 on the east coast. he is the author of the book "the hardest place: the american military adrift in afghanistan's pech valley." what years were you in the pech? guest: i spent time in the pech in 2010 and 2013. 2010 with israeli forces and 2013 afghan forces. i made other trips to afghanistan over the years to different parts of the country and to kabul to interview after the pech was no longer acceptable to interview people who came from there, who were making trips from the pech to talk to me. so the book really spans a period that is much greater than

the time i spent there, about much more than what i saw there. it is based on documentary evidence from the u.s. military and other sources, based on interviews with hundreds of american afghans -- americans and afghans from every stage of the effort from 2001 and 2020. host: you talk about being there in 2010. the surge of u.s. troops happening in 2010. this was president obama in december 2009 at west point talking about the surge of troops. this is what he had to say. >> afghanistan is not lost. for several years, it has moved backwards. there is no imminent threats of the government being overthrown, but the taliban have gained momentum. al qaeda has not reemerged in afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border. our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with afghan security forces and better secure the

population. our new commander in afghanistan has reported this security situation is more serious than he anticipated. in short, the status quo is not sustainable. as cadets, you volunteered for service during this time of danger. some of you fought in afghanistan, some of you will deploy there. as your commander in chief, iou a mission clearly defined and worthy of your service. that is why, after the afghan voting was completed, i insisted on a thorough review of our strategy. let me be clear, there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010. so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war

during this review period. instead, the review allowed me to ask the hard questions and explore all of the different options, along with my national security team, our military, and civilian leadership in afghanistan and our key partners. given the stakes involved, i owe the american people and troops no less. this review is now complete. as commander-in-chief, i've determined it is in our vital national interests to send an additional 30,000 troops to afghanistan. after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. these are the resources that we need to feed the initiative while building the afghan capacity that will allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of afghanistan. host: wes morgan, when you were

in country in 2010, what did that speech mean when you are there and what does it mean now looking back 11 years later? guest: in 2010, it meant a big shift in the center of the war from a war where relatively small numbers of u.s. special operations and conventional forces -- they look like big numbers now from the perspective of having had only a small number of troops recently, but when president obama took office, there were already thousand to 40,000 u.s. troops in the country along with nato troops. they were not engaged in full-blown out in every district center, working with every afghan police and army units, fighting side-by-side with them. by the summer of 2010, a year and a half into the administration, that is exactly what they were doing. that is why -- what i was there to see that summer. and the previous summer as the marines were surging is this transformation into -- i will

not say the most ambitious ever possible because there were military leaders who wanted even more troops deployed than president obama signed off on. i think there will be a lot of debate for many years, and this is something for historians to look at and they will look at, the degree to which the obama administration ordered that surge in good faith, the degree to which military officers were offering their recommendations in good faith, and the degree to which the surge was productive or counterproductive, whether it created in its tactical short-term success, whether it's created a facade that could never continue, or whether it in fact diverted resources and attention on the u.s. military's part away from the more important mission of building up afghan security forces so they would be able to fight in a way that worked for them. one big effect of the surge is afghan forces all over the country were taken under the

wing and used as auxiliaries by u.s. infantry units fighting everywhere. the way u.s. infantry units fight as they can call in air power at almost any time. especially during that search period. that is what the afghan army became accustomed to because that is what we taught them. that is not a way that was ever going to work. -- work in the aftermath of the u.s. palau. in recent years, the u.s. and nato have done a good although belated job at building up a small and capable afghan air force. that small and capable afghan air force does not have a capable way of maintaining itself. it was designed by us to be reliant on u.s. contractors who are no longer there. i think an important thing to think about as we assess the situation now and compare it to the events of 2009 when the obama administration was

debating whether to do the surge and at what degree to do it and for how long is it president biden's recommendations were. at that time, president biden opposed the surge, of any size. what he wanted to do, he did not want to pull out of afghanistan. he wanted to downsize the u.s. presence in afghanistan to something in the 10 to 15 -- 10,000 to 15,000 range, substantially larger than what was in place when he took office years later, to pursue a more narrow counterterrorism mission, to have rangers, seals, cia operatives around the country pursuing al qaeda. there was this deep tension in the debates in 2009 about the surge between president obama who insisted his goal in being in afghanistan was to deny al qaeda's safe haven. the original mission for being in afghanistan after 9/11. and the military that said the

only way to deny al qaeda's safe haven is not to focus purely on al qaeda but to beat back the taliban where al qaeda was host. that was always the intention there. it is interesting to bear in mind that biden's recommendation at the time was the narrow recommendation. it was the recommendation to downsize, but it was the recommendation to maintain a counterterrorism presence in the country. in fact, a much larger one than the one that existed when he took office and gave the order to pull them out. host: north carolina, this is james. thank you for waiting. caller: thank you. i just want to make a comment. the republicans blaming the democrats for it and the democrats are blaming the republicans for the exit

strategy. i am a vietnam era vet, and what caught me and what hurts me is when i seen the helicopter. it was flying people out, trying to get people out, and it reminded me when saigon failed and everyone was trying to get on the helicopter, getting off of the rooftop of the embassy. what i really believe and i hope, because those senators and congressmen are old enough to remember the fall of saigon in vietnam during that era. so they need to come together and try to fix this before it gets any worse. host: wes morgan, on the comparisons of the fall of saigon. guest: i think there are a lot of comparisons that have been made between afghanistan and vietnam over the years that in many cases have been imperfect comparisons that have been

off-base. but i think it would be impossible for anyone, especially a vietnam veteran like james, not to see that connection that we have seen in the past couple days with these images of helicopters taking off from the embassy to evacuate. it is a very visually striking similarity. yes, many u.s. politicians, to include the president, are absolutely to remember the fall of saigon. i am not old enough to remember the fall of saigon, but there are americans in the afghanistan story and americans in my book who remember the fall of saigon. there is even a guy who had two pech deployments in 2005 and 2011 who himself was a vietnam veteran who had taken part as a very young embassy guard in the evacuation from saigon. so guys like that certainly guys

i have been thinking of in recent days. host: tallahassee, florida. bill, you are next. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. there's a couple quick comments. first and foremost, wes morgan, i appreciate you clarifying and showing it is not so much military people that hold it up but it is the corrupt politicians. and that is what you really need to look at here. the other thing is there are two other superpowers that try to do something in afghanistan, and they were not successful. the one thing that i think so many times we need to get is that there are people who are family members and every time you kill one, you create five,

because you killed a cousin or an uncle or brother. and they then take up arms. it's an unwinnable war. host: wes morgan. guest: i think there's a lot to that comment. the theme of sicilian deaths caused mistakenly by americans and the effects of that on the overall war effort, that is one -- that is a threat that runs through every chapter of my book and when i talked about extensively both to the americans that caused the casualties as well as afghans on the receiving end. i think the broad trend is that, early on, a lot of afghans were willing to give american troops the benefit of the doubt. there is an incident in the pech where an american -- pech valley

, there was a first greenbrae team commander to live out there with them and forged tight bonds. in tragic circumstance, he was out on patrol, a large wild dog came at him and he shot the wild dog, bullet went through the dog, ricocheted off of a rocket, and killed a local shop keep. this greenbrae officer, he was mortified. he thought the jig was up, that everything and his team -- he and his team had done would fall by the wayside because of this mistake. in 2004, the community he was living in, the community leaders and elders rallied to explain to people what had happened, that it was a good faith mistake by a man they knew. and to help him make amends in the way that was culturally appropriate with the family. incidents like that continued to happen over the years. the more of them happens, the less willing afghans were to

forgive and forget because these new units rotated in every six months or year, every 15 months. for every one of them, there was a steep learning curve, especially early months of the deployment where they did not understand what was going on around them and did not know how to read the cues and did not know the in and outs, the day by day things of how people behaved and subtleties. then at the end of deployments where soldiers are close to the homestretch and they want to make it home. those were times that were dangerous for americans and for afghans dealing with americans. so if you imagine this kind of continual rotation of units over and over, and the beginning of every rotation, there are more of these mistakes that kill innocent afghans. good faith mistakes, and from the perspective of those american units, they are just making the same mistakes on their first week or month in country at a previous unit made during its first week or month

in country. from the perspective of afghans, it is not the first mistake, it is the seconds, the 10th mistake. by 2010 when i visited the pech, i think a lot of people were fed up with that. they felt like they had gone out on limbs for the americans, they -- because the americans were making promises to them about improving their quality of life and about a new future, but they were very frustrated with just the continuing pace of civilian casualties. which were a tragic feature of life for afghans who lived in places where the americans and taliban were fighting. the taliban caused many civilian casualties as well. in some cases, accidentally by shelling a u.s. base and the rounds fall short and hit the village. in some cases, deliberately, as they would go out and do spy

hunting campaigns and execute people who they thought would be working with the americans. host: in california, this is edward. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. i want to share the little piece of my mind about the whole situation. and compared to what is happening in our media today. i believe the country, afghanistan, has been sold out by its leaders way back since bin laden. remember, it was obvious he was part of the cia, pretty much already [indiscernible] the country had already been sold out. host: wes morgan, anything you want to speak to annette? guest: bin laden was not part of the cia -- speak about? guest: bin laden was not part of the cia, that is a myth. he received groups that the cia was also receiving help from. that is the kernel of truth.

on the broader point that afghans were sold out by their leaders, i think it is hard to argue with that. host: out of chicago, this is rob on the line for afghanistan veterans. rob, when did you -- caller: i'm a veteran but i was not in afghanistan. host: ok. go ahead with your comment for wes morgan. caller: ok. good morning, mr. morgan. i'm just calling to remind all those republicans that are against what president biden is doing, and remember if it wasn't for george w. bush and dick cheney and condoleezza rice, and others, we would not be in the situation right now. host: wes morgan. guest: i think there's a lot of blame to go around both in the united states and afghanistan, blame for different political parties, blame for different elements of the national security establishment from the

military to the intelligence community, but something i really wish americans could do is be able to look at events in afghanistan and think about them without doing so only or primarily through a lens of american partisan domestic politics. i think to care about afghanistan, to really care about afghanistan is to be able to do that, to be able to separate it from your tribe in the united states and what you want for your tribe. host: speaking of george w. bush, this from the hill newspaper, the former president speaking out on the collapse in afghanistan. bush and former first lady laura bush said in a joint statement issued monday that their hearts are heavy for afghan civilians, americans, and allies. "laura and i have been watching the events unfold with deep sadness. the american and nato allies who

sacrificed so much. he said the afghans now at greater risk are at the forefront of progress inside of their nation." the statement goes on from there, the hill newspaper with their report on that statement. jay is in north carolina. good morning. caller: a very good morning to you. i think the gentleman touched on [indiscernible] which is you have the many complicated factors going on in afghanistan as a "country," if you will. you've got the terrain issues, just plaguing and hardship for generations. the sad part is for some reason we see it in the optics of their election cycle here, who is in charge, who is the next general going to be taking over.

sadly, that trickles down to the folks doing the fighting on the front lines because everything that we are supposed to be doing is not going to change, yet again. i just wanted to ask the gentleman to kinda put all of that together and, looking forward, what does this do to u.s. fighting capability and the ability to conduct war? i will wait on your line. thank you for your time. guest: i think we are on the same page about the first part of the question. i would urge americans too -- if you are watching the news from afghanistan and the way you are processing it is what does this mean for my political party or the election cycle, don't think about it that way for a while. there will be time to think about that later. think about the human tragedy unfolding right now in a country

that does not care about american partisan politics. for the second part of that question, what does this mean for american war fighting capabilities, well i think the united states military is at kind of a turning point as it ends its involvement in the wars it has been fighting for the past 20 years and refocuses towards potential conflicts with china and russia. this is something -- the army in particular is going through a big cultural change as it tries to make the shift without forgetting everything it has learned. that is something that is a shift it went through after vietnam and in many ways did forget everything and learned and had to relearn it all on afghanistan and iraq over the past 20 years. i think something that those of

us that watched the army closely watch for is what becomes of the leaders whose lives were forged in these wars. we have a generation of generational officers and colonels who devoted significant portions of their lives to fighting in iraq and afghanistan and who will never forget those experiences. how will those experiences translate to the army's ability to adapt for new challenges and do so in a realistic way that reflects perhaps lessons americans learned in places like the pech valley about the limits of technology when you come up against tough terrain, tough geography, tough weather. and in a way that preserves the capability to do whatever it is the nation might need them to do next. whether that is gray's own

competition with china in the pacific war whether that is going back to afghanistan in some form or format in the years ahead. host: we mentioned congresswoman barbara lee in our previous segments, or vote against the authorization of military force back in 2001 that led to the invasion of afghanistan. she has been speaking out in the days since the fall of kabul, during an interview this morning on cnn, but this is what she wrote on sunday evening. what is happening in afghanistan currently is a humanitarian crisis. there has been and never will be a u.s. military solution in afghanistan. saying our top priority must provide humanitarian aid and resettlement afghan refugees and women and children. the second part of her statement, was there a military solution in afghanistan at some point? if we fought this were a different way, in your view, do you think it could have been

wanton? guest: i think that is a rabbit hole people will spend years going down and i do not have any good answer for. i can think of waypoints along the way where a different decision here or military approach might have achieved a better outcome. you can look at in 2009 when the surges began, what if instead of a large conventional force counterinsurgency surge, there had instead been a surge of special operations forces, air capabilities, and on the ground advisors to try to build a smaller and more capable afghan army. that is one tempting to think about, but what i can't help but come back to is all of the things, all of the tactical things we could have done better or operational things that could have done better pale in comparison to the real turning

point in december 2001 when the afghan government was formed. and the international community decided what shape the afghan government would take and decided the defeated taliban would not be a part of the government. there was no subsequent time when it would have been more opportune to bring the taliban to government and overt their turn into an insurgency that became stronger with every passing year. host: lee in maryland, you are next. caller: good morning. enjoying the show. warfare has changed over the years. in the 90's -- 1990's, president clinton kicked out milosevic and his murderous thugs from serbia.

now you have drones, drone warfare, which is similar to kosovo, where exactly zero american personnel were killed or injured. now, you have these mongolian drones. in afghanistan, you have the good guys and bad guys. why couldn't they use drones to make it painful for the bad guys? host: wes morgan on drone warfare. guest: not sure if the caller means why can't drones be used now or in the past. the u.s. has waged extremely active air campaigns over afghanistan to massive levels of bombing by man aircraft and drones in the 2012 and -- 2010 to 2012 period and again in 2018 to 2019 as generals nicholson

and miller under the trump administration sought to inflict battlefield losses on the taliban they hoped would help ring the taliban to the negotiating table or hoped would help get a better outcome there. u.s. airpower has been very busy over afghanistan for many years. right now, a lot of the tools the u.s. military used from the air are a lot harder to use over afghanistan. it is tempting to think of drones as this all seeing eye, that they are flown from the united states, that they can do anything, but they are not all seeing and while the pilots are they in the united states, the aircrafts themselves have to be flying from relatively near to the places they are surveilling. the way the u.s. military has become accustomed to operating and hunting terrorists is to soak an area 24/7 with drones,

meaning you keep an individual drone up for 12 hours, replace it with another drone for the next 12 hours, and the way you get that coverage is by having the drones flying out of a nearby place. flying out of a place where it takes an hour to to get to the area where there looking out. -- looking at. now that there is not a basing arrangement in a nearby country, the biden administration has not succeeded in arranging a basing agreement in the country, u.s. aircrafts are flying in from airbases in the persian gulf, which is a far ways away. it's limits the amount of time on station once they get there. as i understand it, even an extended range version of a reaper drone when it is flying out of the persian gulf to go over afghanistan, it certainly does not have 12 hours on station. it maybe has a couple hours on station. the degree to which u.s. airpower can continue to execute

the kind of surveillance strike complex it got so good at in the later years in the war of afghanistan has been dramatically curtailed by this turn of events. you can fly strike aircrafts, they are still flying a c-130s over the country, but that constellation of surveillance drone and manned spy planes, a turbo spy plane that underwrote the cia counterterrorism efforts in recent years, that is not a viable thing anymore. host: time for maybe one or two more phone calls with wes morgan. ike, thank you for waiting in new hampshire. go ahead. caller: good morning, mr. morgan. i was kind of curious. i understand the drawdown and evacuation was a disaster, but i'm curious to your thoughts on the former administration and their part in this.

i feel there was not much of a transition. coronavirus has been horrible. i'm actually working in lawrence, massachusetts and have been in nashua, but without a proper transition, i think trump -- he said in his speech a little while ago that biden had no choice in the drawdown. it was already set up where they made the deal already with the taliban without the afghan and ruling authorities. so was this some kind of -- i am not a conspiracy theorist but is this some kind of set up? host: we will take the question. guest:. -- wes morgan. guest: i think the trump administration's planning was haphazard to the degree it occurred at all in the final months of the administration. i think in many ways, in the final months were after the election, what we saw was the president acting almost

unilaterally in executing the final true cut down to 2500. much of the withdrawal agreement that he negotiated via mike pompeo and others was done at high levels in the administration without the normal interagency staffing that would occur. it is certainly true the biden administration inherited something that was already on the path to this precipitous drawdown, but it is not true the biden administration did not have a choice. president biden had a choice and made a choice to continue to execute the policy he inherited. host: last call from lorinda in texas. caller: i would like for you to talk about the taliban leader that trump let out of prison in 2018, that pompeii met with in 2020, that is set to take over the taliban leadership. i would like to know, after all of this time, equipment,

support, and american flash, we have given the afghan people -- if they are not ready to fight now, then when? enough is enough. host: i will give you the final few minutes here. guest: i am very sympathetic to that point of view. i think yes, the huge question looming over this was with her ever had-- would there ever hava better time to leave? i don't have an answer to that. i'm not sure there would have. as far as taliban leaders who were let out as a part of the deal, taliban leaders and taliban rank-and-file were let out as a part of the trump administration deal and it was a huge complaint of the afghan governments at the time and in retrospect, a valid one. they really increased the number of troops available, for instance, in helmand, a taliban

commander who was let out as a part of that deal playing a pretty key role in the assault on the provincial capital. looking ahead, something that has happened over the past two days as the taliban has taken the other prisons in kabul where the high-value detainees were held, it includes isis detainees captured over the years and the al qaeda detainees captured over the years. we are already hearing reports that the taliban is executing some of those isis detainees because they are mortal enemies but we need to watch carefully for what becomes of al qaeda figures in those prisons. does the taliban grant them positions in their government? do they make hay out of their releases in propaganda videos? do they go back to i at lives? we will see. host: wesley morgan, author of

"the hardest place: the american military adrift in afghanistan's pech valley," thank you for being here this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: an hour left in the program this morning and we will return to the biden defense yesterday of the afghanistan withdrawal, asking you for his -- your thoughts on his speech yesterday and where we go from here. republicans, democrats, independent phone lines on the screen. a special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan, that number is (202) 748-8003. go ahead and start calling in now, we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ >> if you choose to research the origins of a topic in discussed frequently in the united states in recent months called critical race theory, you will find the name derek bell. a law professor who died in

2011, one of the principal originators of this much discussed subject. in november of 1992 he appeared on "book notes," to discuss his book, "faces at the bottom of the well, the permanence of racism." >> on this episode of book notes plus, listen at sea's more. -- c-span.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. saturday, american history tv. sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. television for serious readers. discover and explore, weekends

on c-span two. >> "washington journal" continues. host: here is where we are with one hour to go this morning. coming up in about a half-hour there will be a brief pro forma session in the house and as we always do, we will take you there live for gavel-to-gavel coverage and it shouldn't be more than a few minutes and we will continue afterwards. at 10 a.m. we are expecting a department of defense briefing and that is where we will go on c-span in just under an hour. in this final segment we are asking for your reaction to president biden's defense yesterday of his afghanistan withdrawal, giving his address from the white house yesterday, coming back from camp david to do that. here he is from yesterday. [video clip]

>> i stand squarely behind my decision. after 20 years i have learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw u.s. forces. that's why we were still there. we were clear eyed and plan for every contingency, but i always promised the american people i would be straight with you and the truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. so, what happened? afghanistan's political leaders gave up and fled the country? the afghan military collapsed. sometimes without trying to fight. if anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that any u.s. military involvement in afghanistan now -- ending u.s. military involvement in afghanistan now was the right decision. we cannot and should not be

fighting and dying in a war that afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. we spent over $1 trillion. we trained and equipped and afghan military force some 300,000 strong. incredibly well-equipped. a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our nato allies. we gave them every tool they could need. we paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force. something the taliban doesn't have, the taliban doesn't have an air force. we provided close air support and gave them every chance to determine their own future. we could not provide them with the will to fight for that future. there are some very brave and capable afghan special forces units and soldiers, but if

afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the taliban now, there is no chance that one more year, five more years, 20 more years of u.s. military boots on the ground would have made any difference. host: president biden at the white house yesterday. here is some of the op-ed reactions today. ross -- russell mead called it the biden chamberlain moment. this one says bipartisan blunder from start to finish. from "the washington post," we have lost the war in afghanistan long ago. and from the editorial board of the times this morning, "the return makes u.s. border security makes -- the return of the terror makes u.s. border security more important than ever.

we are opening our phones to you in this last hour, getting your thoughts. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. especially want to hear from veterans of the war in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. anne, greensboro, north carolina, democratic line, go ahead. caller: the republican administration made an agreement to leave and withdraw from afghanistan, made the agreement with the taliban. my question is why would you make an agreement with the taliban rather than the afghan government? maybe that had something to do with what happened at the time of the withdrawals. and the republicans of course realize they made a mistake with that because man, apparently they had an agreement on their website that they were praising

and i understand they have taken the agreement down from their website because they realized that it made no sense at this time to make an agreement with the taliban versus the government. host: this is eric in lawrence, new york, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i think that the president's speech was just a political salesmanship. this country for years has on and off dealt with the taliban. am i incorrect that the clinton administration saw them as positive, citing the opium trade? i think trump was more out in the open. he just continued what had been taking place going back years and years, even to the british. the taliban have really been the main force there, regardless of the government in afghanistan.

i find them appalling. they are muslim heretics and what they did with those buddhist statues years ago is appalling. but this was foreseen and trump understood that. i don't think anybody ever really revealed the power of the taliban. it goes back to the british empire. host: that was eric in new york. johnny, on the line for war veterans. when were you there? caller: yes, good morning. president biden mentioned the over horizon ability to counterterrorism, yet we couldn't predict what was happening for the last 10 days. the second argument is opium. thank you. caller: when were you and afghan -- host: when were you in afghanistan question mark caller: [indiscernible] -- afghanistan? caller: [indiscernible]

host: sorry? we lost johnny. steve, good morning. caller: that lady before, she didn't read the whole thing. it was for conditions, they had to have conditions or trump would've went in. our president, the congress should invoke the congress should invoke the 25th amendment on him. he don't deserve to be dogcatcher. host: germantown, maryland, nate. caller: no doubt this is a total disaster for biden. he bears a lot of responsibility for what occurred, if not all of it. he needs to take responsibility for the disaster that occurred and it's insulting for him to say that afghan military and police haven't been fighting. they have been fighting and dying in much larger numbers for the last 20 years. at the end of the day, he needs to take responsibility and needs

to come up with some type of plan for how they are going to leave the country in a better shape than when we went in. host: nate, germantown, along with that address yesterday from the white house, plenty of coverage throughout the day on the c-span networks of the various events reacting to the fall of kabul, including that emergency un security council meeting that took place yesterday morning. at the meeting the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. discussed the next steps for refugees in afghanistan. here's a portion of what she had to say. >> president biden has made it clear that any actions that put u.s. personnel or mission at risk will be met with swift and strong military response. the united states promises to be generous in resettling afghans in our own country and i am heartened by the pledges we have seen from other nations to do

the same. we need to all do more and the time to step up is now. we urge afghanistan's neighbors, others in the region and beyond, to give resch -- give refuge to afghans attempting to flee and together we must do everything we can to help afghanistan, to help afghans who wish to leave and seacrest ridge -- seek refuge. host: linda thomas-greenfield, yesterday. taking your calls in this last hour. mohammed has been waiting in los angeles. democratic line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. everyone here is blaming president biden for this debacle that i don't see, but the effort of drawing down troops was precipitated by former president

donald trump. just as your previous guest mentioned, several taliban prisoners, hundreds, they were released by donald trump. the u.s. officials met with the taliban in qatar prior to trump leaving office without any involvement from the afghan government. during world war ii we bombed germany, we destroyed japan. then japan and germany became our hostess allies. we worked through the marshall plan to rebuild germany. germans resolved to rebuild their country. afghans have no such revolt -- resolved. they identify by tribe. you ask them. they don't identify as an afghan and you can't go rebuild a tribal, feudal society.

2400 service member lives, tens of thousands injured, $1 trillion spent and we couldn't teach them how to become civil and democratic. host: you said you have been to afghanistan? caller: many occasions. i'm in the area rug to business and over the last 20 years the u.s. put in a lot of money in infrastructure to help these farmers come off the opium production. so, they got them into weaving carpets and rugs and i've been importing rugs all my life. a beautiful business. so many of the women weaving the rugs and making very little money. host: do you think you will ever be able to go back? caller: i don't think so. afghanistan has no natural resources, you know? the taliban will once again cultivate the opium business, industry. that's how they are going to make money.

this is a problem for pakistan, iran. this is not a u.s. problem. the arabs have funds. the gulf nations have funds. we cannot pass a $1 trillion package, to trillion dollar package for our own country to help tilde our own country. two former presidents couldn't pass the infrastructure bill. $1 trillion in afghanistan and at the end, they had no courage. they put down their guns and fled the country. abraham lincoln gave up his life to save the republic and the union. host: that was mohammed in los angeles. ed is next in nebraska. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i just noticed yesterday and today, watching president biden give his speech, give his speech, it looks like kind of

off-the-cuff, but it looks like he must've fell or something because he has a lot of scratches around his upper eyebrows in his nose. i'm 72 and i have fallen a couple of times and it's done the same thing to me. that's just kind of off the record. host: hard to be off the record on a live call-in show. caller: yeah, ok. host: go ahead with your comment. i'm not sure i noticed what you were talking about, but what are your thoughts on withdrawal? caller: yeah, ok, i think that, i think that trump and pompeo had it probably right. you know? they made the deal with the taliban and they drew down from 25,000 or whatever it was down to 2500 without incident. they realized, i think, that the taliban was going to have to play a role in the, in the

formation, the re-formation of afghanistan. i think that president biden had it in his mind that he has been so anti-trump, ever since day one, he wasn't going to stick to that. he just kind of bold and there and do his own way. host: that's ed in nebraska. we have a special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan. (202) 748-8003. otherwise, phone lines as usual. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we have been showing you up ads from papers around the country. here are a few of the front

pages having to do with the effort to get refugees, diplomats, and military personnel out from the airport there and we will show you some of the front pages as we hear from mckenzie, next, germantown, maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. we should all regret our withdrawal from afghanistan, republican, trump, whoever did that. there is a saying that you can take if horse to the river and you cannot force the horse to drink. we have done this for 20 years. we have given them everything they need. whatever they needed to form a nation, we gave them. we can't do more than this.

to stay in america -- to stay in afghanistan it means that america is colonizing afghanistan and that time is over. we are done. it's time to move. i don't blame anyone, don't blame any president for pulling out of afghanistan. it is time, the time is now. host: paul on the line for veterans from afghanistan. when were you there should mark caller: i was there several times. in 2000, i was there four times, actually. different smaller trips and supporting roles. really, truthfully, i want to talk about the senior generals as opposed to the president of the united states. the president is the commander-in-chief but i have been really disheartened by the politicalization from senior leaders. general milley writing that book about things that happened in the past and i think the military is getting more and more politicized. with that, the senior folks are

giving bad advice to leadership. that's my observation. host: what does it mean to be there in a supporting role? caller: supporting medical units, primarily. i don't want to get specific into my job. host: mostly in kabul? caller: no, actually. i was in bagram. i have been in couple. i was in the kush for a while. host: as someone who has been there, what did you think of that scene from the international air worked there? caller: it's heartbreaking, it's heartbreaking. one of the missions, primarily marine corps mission, it's the evacuation of noncombatants. the fact that it was so disjointed, that our intelligence took us by such surprise that it was taken so quickly, that's a failure, a failure of senior leadership. obviously the president is the commander-in-chief, but those

senior leadership generals, i'm very disappointed. host: is there any senior leadership general over the past 20 years in afghanistan that you think had it right? caller: sure, actually. one of them was relieved from tactical decision-making. i think that part was right. we adjusted to the battle in the enemy. but the political had a larger policy decision that always hampered the military action and i think that's where the disconnect was. among the junior leaders, phenomenal. brothers and sisters, incredible. i really think the senior leadership led us down on this one. host: are you in touch with anyone still over there trying to get out? caller: no. most of the people i am still in touch with, i've been out of the game for a while.

most of the people i'm in touch with, contractors. most of what you are showing on television is accurate. chaos, uncertainty, and unfortunately they think it will get worse before it gets better. host: from the contractor perspective, were they all out by now? what do we know about contractors? what do you know in terms of when they were able to get out? caller: it's ongoing, truthfully. some of them worked for larger companies that are -- hello? host: i'm listening. caller: some of them are large companies and they are still negotiating getting there people out and things like that. most of them are out. i have two individual still there that are there by choice. host: if you can say, why by choice? caller: again, it is business. i believe they are there with

their company and they are seeing what their role could be. they are taking a more of a wait and see type attitude. they do have the means to probably get out of the country as long as the airport stays open. that is a critical, critical thing. airports must stay open and that's the only strategy the people have right now that i'm aware of. host: is there a belief in these businesses that the taliban is going to need them, too? caller: i think these individuals are working for our government. i don't want to speculate on the specifics of their job. host: appreciate you talking about what you can talk about, thanks for calling in. kevin is next, kansas city, missouri. caller: here's something the people haven't taken into consideration. the afghans trained by the american military have more

superior weapons than the taliban. so, what happens here? the american trainees and afghans, they lay down their weapons not because the taliban have more superior weapons. they laid down their weapons and turned them over because of religious beliefs, because they don't want to see afghanistan become a christian country. yeah. they don't want to see afghanistan become a christian country. host: where are you reading or seeing that, that it was done as a religious decision? caller: well, look at the photos of the taliban in kabul. they had these old ak-47s that they had 30 years ago during the mushu dean. and it happened in the 90's.

as soon as the taliban, they threw the russians out, they took the same weapons that america gave them and turned on america. host: some 83 billion dollars spent on training afghan forces over the years. that story, we talked about that story yesterday, it's not including arming as well. president biden talking about that in his address to the nation yesterday about the equipment that was given to the afghans along with the training. just a few minutes here before the house is set to come in for a again very brief pro forma session. they are expected to come in at nine: 30 eastern, gavel in and out. not much expected. we will be here on the others of that discussion so if you don't get your phone call in in these next couple of minutes, stick around and stick with us.

until the house comes in, this is richard from starlike, new york. good morning. caller: i think on reflection it might be something to consider that george bush senior made the correct call when he didn't allow the general to go all the way into baghdad. i think that they accomplished their mission at the time and did not move forward. my guess is that some people are wishing that with the current situation we made the decision long ago to slowly withdrawal, but i don't think it was our intentions as americans. we wanted to go in there and show them how to do it our way and it's not going to work the afghan people. they have a different form of life and you will not beat their religious beliefs. the other thing that's important i think is that, i don't understand how we leave all the equipment around when we vacate the way we did. if we left jeeps and equipment

and all the heavy armaments and things like that, i can't figure out why we wouldn't have destroyed those things as we were leaving because we knew we were just replenishing the taliban with arms. and i do think, my last point is, we have screwed this up. i don't think that we understand the afghan mind after being there for 20 years. i think that the biden administration has really the fondled this thing. they should have started this withdrawal very slowly a while ago under the plan they had to. thank you, that's about it. host: when do you think it should have ended? caller: i don't know. i'm not aware or knowledgeable enough to tell you, but i think we should have made our intentions a long time ago. i can't put a date on that. host: i guess the question is, you still wanted it to happen,

you are saying happen with a better plan in place? caller: yes, i think it should have happened with a better plan in place. leaving that air force base, leaving the equipment there, i would love to know the answer to that question. did we disable those vehicles and things like that? i just don't have an answer. it seems like we just didn't really have a good plan in place. host: baltimore, michigan. independent, you are next as we wait for the house to come in. caller: i'm calling because we have been in afghanistan since my 22-year-old son was in fourth grade. at some point you have to pull out. anyone defending biden and his handling of this is very misinformed. you can't defend his actions,

what's going on over there is terrible. anyone that voted for joe biden in this administration, i feel is very foolish in my opinion. we saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. he signed so many executive orders reversing -- host: we will end it there because the houses gaveling in for a brief session.

proceedings is approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. madam, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on august 16, 2021 at 1:20 p.m. that the senate agreed to, senate concurrent resolution 14. that the senate passed without amendment, h.r. 3684. signed, sincerely, cheryl l. johnson, clerk.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house an enrolled bill. the clerk: h.r. 1448. an act to direct the secretary of veterans affairs to carry out a pilot program on dog training therapy and amend tidele 38 united states code to authorize the secretaries of veterans' affairs to provide service dogs to veterans with mental illnesses who do not have mobility impairments. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 11-b of resolution 188, the house now stands adjourned until 3 - on friday, august 20, 2021. -- democrats, (202) 748-8000.

independents, (202) 748-8002, and a special line for war veterans of afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. this being reported from "the new york times and other news sites as well, u.s. set to advise boosters for most americans eight months after vaccination. nursing home residents and health-care workers are likely to be the first to get those shots as soon as september followed by order people who were vaccinated last winter with more expected from federal health officials on that front today. now to your phone calls when it comes to afghanistan and the president's speech. the line for afghanistan war veterans, willie has been waiting in texas. thanks for waiting. when were you in afghanistan? caller: 12 through 15.

i served as a mentor to afghan command staff. my concern here is that biden, president biden, with all of the supporters on his calls, he's succeeded in transferring the blame to others and i think he's going to get away with it, which is too bad. there are two bottom lines here. you know, we keep calling this a war. we provide vital intel and air support to the afghan army. without that, you know, you know, they fight. they have been fighting and dying. but without the vital support that we provided them, they wouldn't have lasted. i think those are key things and we just took it away from them, summarily took it away from them. clearly they would not have

survived. the big thing here, typical of the speech, the main issue is not whether to leave. several presidents decided that. like your guest was saying, we realized that is something we needed to do for years. the issue was how we leave. in his speech, joe biden avoided any discussion of that whatsoever. such allows an -- lousy planning cycle, we have. you asked one of the callers, and i think we should have taken into account fighting seasons. it's again surprising to me, unconscionable that it wasn't considered. donald trump's plan was big and that's why the deadline was made. host: before you go, you said you were a mentor to the afghan command staff.

is that the advisor role we hear about? caller: i was one of the advisors for the afghan commandos. again -- host: what happens to those commandos now? what are you hearing? caller: at this point, i don't know. i would have figured that out of all the units, these guys, they were crack troops, trained and supported by special special ops folks. i would imagine that they would have been fighting until the end. so, i don't know. honestly. i lost my contacts there. host: one of the headlines from today's paper on this front, many u.s. veterans feel confusion, disappointment, and anger. how would you describe your feelings? caller: my feelings

are not anger or confusion. people join the u.s. military for very different reasons. you have your hard-core patriots. people that want to take care of their families. people that realized it was something they wanted to do since they were a kid, whatever it is. they decide area but the bottom line is that when you join, you know that you are going to be put in a compromising, in a position where your life and your safety may be in danger, as well as the safety of the people that you work and serve with. i'm not taking away anything that anybody else has, any feelings they have had about what's happening here aced on their service. but as for me, i happen to know that this, this is how the world

goes and we have had plenty of tragedies and the world will see plenty more. i think that this will get sorted out, but we need to be honest and address the mistakes that were made here. host: willie, why did you join? caller: honestly? i was one of those kids who loved war movies and i was enamored with the service. i had no real big lineage i guess in my family of folks who joined. my father served in the national guard for a couple years. but other than that, you know, not a really big lineage, though i am really proud of the people who did serve in my family. i looked up to them. i said, you know what, i would like to wear the uniform and i were 24 years. host: what do you do now?

caller: enjoy my grandchildren. host: how many you got? caller: i got 2, 2 beautiful girls. host: thanks for the call, willie. karen is next out of detroit, michigan. caller: good morning. i just have a couple of points. one, everybody is so quick to jump on president biden regarding the withdraw but what they fail to realize is that this is something that was put in place by president trump. hello? host: i'm listening, karen. caller: by president trump. it was something that was started. biden couldn't stop the process, so to speak. also, remember during the transition, president biden wasn't privy to any information

regarding afghanistan or anything. so, this was the plan. host: on that point, he pushed back the deadline once from that original spring deadline and the question that many people are asking is, could he have pushed it back again or at least pushed it back enough to land for a better transition? caller: well, the transition doesn't fall on him. it falls on the military leaders, the people who are actually there. host: he's the commander in chief. caller: i understand that, he's the commander-in-chief. he pushed back and it's like you said -- like he said, it's time to get out of there, we have done everything for them. like the dude earlier said, we have turned the opium fields, showed them how to farm and protect themselves. when it comes to the protecting themselves, they lay down their guns.

i feel really bad for the women and everybody else who is there, but we didn't fail them. other afghans who have spoken on this line this morning stated it , america has not failed them. they failed themselves. host: that's karen in michigan. a few of your comments from social media. from viewers around the country, aubrey writing and that the one thing we didn't give the afghan people was national and local leadership that was competent and possessed integrity. this from our text messaging service. jack in florida, saying the tragedy is that we never had a coherent national strategy and that our initial objective as eliminating it as a terrorist safe harbor was misplaced and multiple administrations tried to throw money at it as a way of solving the problem in the worst

feature was making it a patriotic duty to support. this from sherry in indiana, who said the withdrawal need to be done, seemed we could have done it at her and gotten the people out in the equipment out first. now the equipment belongs to the taliban. donna writing and on twitter that making a procurement of your children's future to fight the war, stand with president biden. gerald out of long island city, new york. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you. i've been hearing a lot of calls. i'm a vietnam veteran. everybody seems to be passing the blame onto the previous administration. joe biden blaming it on the previous administration. chuck rashly tweeting about people hanging off of a c-17. people are dead, unfortunately. but i think a lot of the blame

is misguided. they should be blaming israel, they seem to be behind all this. host: all right. de soto, texas, good morning. caller: from my fellow texans, i have a lot of lineage. my nephew died in iraq. my husband, 82nd airborne. let me go to my nieces. three tours in afghanistan. three. the one who is in intelligence, more than that. both of them have been in the military since they were 18 years old. one of them is 35, the other one is 41. she's still in the military, still in intelligence. when i hear people talking about give them more time, well you sued up. those two are still in the army, they love the army, they love their country.

the one out of garfield, her mom was a contract worker. a contract worker. her job was eliminated in louisiana and she was called back and they said hey, we got a job for you. you have to relocate and she said, where, afghanistan? afghanistan, i have to think about that. her daughter called her back and jasmine said mom, as long as you stay inside of the embassy, couple, you will be fine. just don't go outside at night or anything. people don't realize how much money. the reason people are angry is because rachel maddow last night just showed it. all those million-dollar homes and things they are building over there. contractors, they talk about shipping things to mexico and china. the reason china and russia don't want to leave is because of the businesses inside of that. quit blaming joe biden.

i say hooray mr. biden, you had the guts to stand up and do what no one else had done. it started in two thousand one. my nephew died in a rack in 2005. someone had the nerve to say they just don't want to be religious? you go over there and make them religious. i'm sick and tired of us spending money. i'm here in texas. female. our vote is being suppressed. you have state senators, satan -- state representatives, and guess who is going door-to-door to arrest them? what's the difference between the taliban and what they do and what greg abbott is doing in texas? host: that's anna in texas on the line for veterans of the war in afghanistan. j, washington, d.c., when were you there? caller: i was there around 2010,

with the surge with the marine corps. host: what was your role? caller: logistics. helmand province. host: what were your feelings on sunday? caller: i looked for the speech. i was waiting for it. to be honest, i thought it was one of the best speeches i had heard. i will explain why, hopefully. give me some time. you know, i grew up during 9/11, joined the military, you know? i figured they would probably send me. everybody expected it. but i think the blame, the blame should be in president biden. he really, you couldn't ask for more transparency. i thought that his remarks about them being able to last longer, that was a bad mistake, but in terms of, in terms of being

honest about the role their -- host: why did you think it was a bad mistake to say that he wanted them to last longer against the taliban? caller: i think that that was probably bad intelligence. that was probably more on the military, to be honest, they were advising him. they made the same mistake in vietnam and what i'm getting at is that we keep making the same mistakes over and over and i would hope that in future, the people that join the military, you know, that in general we don't make these same mistakes. i watched a good documentary. i didn't know why i went over. i don't think most people know where afghanistan is on a map. i'm older now, i travel in my job. been to the middle east, plenty of locations now and it's a really diverse place. i watched this good documentary from a british correspondent.

the u.k. went into afghanistan in the 1800s, they went three times and it was the same result . the afghani's really learned how to perfect war fighting in the 1800s and you had a fight to kick them out and they did the same fighting with russia in the 1980's. i mean they perfected it over 200 years. the united states never really, if there's blame in this it's really the initial coalition and presidency of george bush. they didn't learn their facts, they didn't learn the history of the soviet union and the united kingdom and then they didn't understand the tribal system and that was the biggest thing. the tribal system and the differences between their form of islam and other parts of the middle east. host: you say our military keeps

making the same mistakes. are you glad to serve? caller: yeah, course. i owe everything to my service in the military and i believe in the government, i trust the government, but i just think a lot of it is just ignorance and it's hard. it's like a bad relationship. like one person knows it's a bad relationship. no one wants to say anything, don't say can't do this anymore, they thinkable get better. it's unrealistic to think it will get better. in the military families, we knew that the afghan army, it couldn't last. when i was over there, it was a joke. most of us knew it. we heard stories all the time about them shooting their own people. it's not really a surprise.

i'm really disappointed at the news i think. not c-span, but the main news jumping on president biden, i thought he gave it straight. we had an opportunity and it didn't work out. what else can we do? there's no other good way to pull out. the soviets couldn't do it, u.k. couldn't do it. vietnam. when you fall back, it is what it is. host: before you go, what do you do now? caller: i would rather not say. but you know, i still travel and am involved in these types of things. i would just hope that the american public and the government would do their research so that this doesn't happen again. host: do you think you would want to go back to afghanistan someday? caller: yeah, of course. afghanistan, morocco. dubai, i love the middle east.

the people are friendly, the countries are beautiful. it's just, it's a very complicated part of the world. it's very stuck in the past. i don't think americans appreciate their where of life -- way of life and what's going on over there. it's ignorance in general and there is nothing wrong with saying you were wrong. nothing wrong with saying that you are wrong, it's over. let's move on. host: thank you for the call. just a few minutes left in the program this morning. from the department of defense, ned price will be speaking at 10 a.m. eastern and until that gets underway, your phone calls. christian has been waiting in phoenix, arizona. your thoughts? caller: his speech, it was just

ridiculous. i hear from all the great people who serve our country and i think we have all heard from them and they have all said that the withdrawal was absolutely a disaster, catastrophic. and one thing that many people haven't pointed out today is that joe biden prioritized the lgbtq agenda at the u.s. embassy in afghanistan over the withdrawal of troops, keeping the taliban and check, reducing the risk to secure u.s. citizens. biden had eight months to prepare and over 47 years of government experience. he had all the experience in the world and what good did it to him? it gave him nothing. host: what would you say to the caller who we had on before you, the former marine who did logistics over there who was glad that biden made the decision here to finally end the

u.s. effort in afghanistan, to rip off the band-aid, as it were? >> it's not, and this is what the democrat media is trying to do with the american people and citizens. they see headlines and small clips. no one is disagreeing that it's time to move on and withdrawal our troops. and safely move the u.s. citizens and the people who assisted us. no one disagrees. what we disagree with is watching people fall off the wheels of u.s. air force carriers out of the sky. but we are disagreeing with is watching the villages of people running for their lives just to get to the airport, hanging off the aircraft, trying to get out

of there because of the disorganization of joe biden. every single thing that we watched for the last 48 to 72 hours is exactly why joe biden and the democrats always fail whenever they get into power. and just remember, under obama, the taliban and the taliban got strength but under trump they would not have even tried to think about it. host: how much of what we have watched over the last 48 to 72 hours, how much of the american public do you think will be remembering that in 2024? caller: oh, they are deftly going to remember it. those are going to be lasting images that will live on through the test of time and when people go back and think, they will remember that under the last two

democratic presidents, the taliban gained strength and they became stronger and under the president that the media hated and that most of the people in the establishment hated, he was the man that projected strength. host: that was christian in arizona. dan, independent line, a few minutes left in the program. caller: i would like to correct the last caller. under trump, under obama, and under biden, the taliban has been making gains for the last decade. coming back and bombing people. kidnapping people. just on a rain of terror over the last 10 years and yes it happened under trump. please turn off the fox news. i use the term news lightly and understand afghanistan a little better. but that's not why i'm calling. i'm calling about the elephant

in the room that no one is talking about, pakistan. pakistan is where the taliban was born. it's where their ideology comes from. it's where the money, funding, troops, weapons have been coming from for decades. i don't understand how america is aligned with pakistan, still. how the global community has allowed them to have nukes. i have been following afghanistan journalists and activists on twitter and all of them have been going off on how terrible pakistan is and how a lot of the taliban coming through the cities are not speaking the local languages. that a lot of the taliban are pakistani. so, i think back in 2001 or 2002, when we went into afghanistan, we should have used our soft power and are hard military power in the northwest region of pakistan as well.

host: you might be interested in wesley morgan -- walter russell mead's column, he touches on that dynamic saying that the american war aims reached loftier heights and the military studiously ignored the gaping flaw in the strategy, unrelenting support for the taliban from our "allies" in islamabad. they could not be destroyed and after any departure of the taliban with pakistani backing would have an insurmountable advantage over the government and the u.s. security establishment dithered for 20 years unwilling to confront islamabad effectively or change their policies to accommodate consequences and as it is, pakistan is a nuclear power with a record of promoting proliferation, deep ties to china, the most hate filled and

murderous jihadist groups, installing a friendly regime in the north. he goes on from there but it sounds like a column you might be interested in reading. caller: yeah, i agree with him. bush, obama, trump, biden, they have all been too soft on pakistan and thank you for bringing that article up. host: bob is next out of wheatfield, indiana. republican line, good morning. caller: i think it's a big ball of confusion. we don't know every side of the story. so many different nuances that are there. people complain about the afghan government disappearing? well, they are in hiding. we don't know the strategies going on. people are rushing too quickly for judgment and i think the world press is playing a large role in this. host: when should we wait for

final judgment on this, bob? caller: the judgment has been made by theleaders but i has not disseminated into the people's network. we are not going to give away all our strategies before it is time. host: chris and milwaukee, wisconsin, an independent. good morning. caller: i support the withdrawal. i am saddened by the execution. we ought to be focusing on the pentagon and the leadership, and people held accountable. i am convinced that the problem with our society, with all the problems we have, is that, for the last 25 years, nobody is

ever held accountable regardless of party, and that is why we see this slow decline and one other thing. you just asked a previous caller a couple minutes ago about why -- how he thought it was going to affect the 2024 election. i think right there was an example of politicizing everything. host: think this will have an impact on who people want as commander in? -- commander-in-chief? caller: i do, but i also think we have borne a lot more mistakes from others and we are tolerant. yes, it was a bad mistake. the execution was god-awful and i am horrified by it, but i

think we have to hold people accountable. i do believe it was the military leadership or the pentagon. i do believe the buck stops with biden. i do think this is surmountable as long as we take care of all of our afghan allies and get them out of there. host: you talk about focusing on the pentagon. journalists have another chance this morning to ask questions of the pentagon spokesman, ned price. we are waiting for that briefing to start. that is where we are expecting to go. it was supposed to start at the top of the hour but we are waiting for that. as we continue, amelia, jonesboro, georgia, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks to c-span for giving me this opportunity. i think biden did the right thing and if he had put off the

departure for another 12 months, it would have been the -- so we don't know what was in this agreement. the taliban basically walked in. there wasn't no violence. there was no fire. the afghan people just let them come in and take over. host: amelia in georgia. as we continue to wait for this briefing, one update. it will be john kirby doing the briefing today. journalists in the room but the briefing not yet underway. here is a caller from new york

city, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. host: turn your television down so we can hear you a bit better. caller: ok. sorry. yeah. i am from north africa and my point to all the callers, every american person who has been talking to the news and all, i understand biden's decision. i really appreciate the courage that he admitted that it is a mistake. he admitted it has been a miscalculation and everything. and the blame, the one thing that i don't like, americans, they blame each other, which is not good. it is -- i don't think that there is anybody to blame about this. the situation is chaotic. where i came from, they are

afghan. they stand by their people. the afghani government are the ones who failed their people, period. that is all i feel like saying, and i really appreciate a president -- appreciate the president. he admitted there are some flaws and mistakes by this side and i appreciate him standing by the american people. host: that pentagon briefing getting underway now. we will see you tomorrow morning on the washington journal. ♪ -- before i ask the general to give you an