and afghans who are applying for a special immigrant visa or siv. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including media,. >> mediacom is ready, and we never slow down. schools and businesses went virtual and be powered into reality, because we are built to keep you ahead. >> mediacom supports c-span as a public service, along with these other providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. continues. host: he served as a sport -- spl assistant to rogers of dunford from 2015 to 2019.

thank you for joining us, particularly as we had technical issues with you earlier this week thank you for coming back. >> -- guest: thank you for having me. host: let's look at the book, you try to encapsulate afghanistan as a history. guest: i felt so many years of war -- i started writing in 2015 -- i thought it would be good to have a full discussion of what happened. there are many great books about afghanistan, all cover a section or a piece of it. is we continue to look back on it and get new information, new histories are going to be written. host: taking a look at the scope of it, is there a running theme as far as what you have seen in putting this history together which could explain what we are

seeing today? there are a few -- guest: there are a few running themes but one that pertains to what you're talking about now is the idea of resistance to occupation. why were the taliban able to defeat the afghan forces? and where were they able to best of them on the field of battle? it comes down to a question of who was willing to fight harder and longer. the fact that the taliban were fighting against occupiers, that would be us, gave them a degree of inspiration that you could not see in the afghan forces. there is an anecdote that can elucidate this. the story goes that there was a taliban commander and an afghan commander on the battlefield. they both have radios and can talk to each other over the radius. oftentimes the commanders will talk to each other and make fun of each other.

in this incident, the story goes that the taliban commander shouted at the afghan commander you are a puppet of america. and he trotted back that you are the puppet of pakistan. the taliban commander said yes, but the americans -- with the pakistanis are muslims and the americans are not. there is no response in this story and that is the point. for afghanistan, the idea of resisting occupation as part of their identity. you can see that in their resistance against the british and the soviet union, and now against us. it is more difficult to get to that level of inspiration went on the side of the occupiers were as the taliban is willing to fight until the end.

it is an important theme to understand about the war. it is not the only reason we counter these problems. it is just one that i think deserves to be remembered. host: you wrote this, "the taliban were more united than the tribal leaders or the government had been. between hierarchy, the emphasis on will teach islam, the taliban were less prone to fight each other and thus able to enforce their will on the people." can you expand on that? guest: absolutely. many taliban we have spoken to and officials we have spoken to say that the taliban are one, they are united. they don't have these problems, they're just the taliban. they are not different groups.

what this means is that the afghan government had different organizations and different political figures involved. these just want to think about is the chief executive officer for a little while. the two often could not get along. they disputed over the results of the election. those disputes bleeds all the way down into the military forces and makes it more difficult for them to coordinate together. . scripts on the ground often want to cooperate with each other because they tend to have their own interests and their own things they want to accomplish. the taliban does have separate groups. they set things up in a way such that one person is in charge and there is greater respect for listening to the instructions from above.

a lot of this comes from the taliban's history. the taliban emerged as an organization to try to stop a war of the 1990's -- try to stop a civil war of the 1990's. you can't let infighting happen, you can't let your organization be destroyed by that. there's also an emphasis on islam that the taliban pays attention to that stresses obedience and a student listening to a teacher. that also infuses throughout them and enables them to be more cohesive on the battlefield, to courtney 12, less prone to conflict with each other. host: our guest, carter malkasian, has written the book. for those who want to ask questions, and the central and eastern time zones, 202-748-8000 . if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones, 202-748-8001

. if you are an afghanistan war veteran and you were to get your perspective, 202-748-8002. you can text us at 202-748-8003 and post on our social media sites. earlier this week, president biden gave an interview with abc and one of the things he was asked about with the taliban is what their future holds within afghanistan. >> what happens now in afghanistan? do you believe have changed? pres. biden: no. i think they're going through an accident shook crisis about do they want to be recognized by international communities as being a budget meant government -- a legitimate government. i'm not sure they do. they also care about whether they have food to eat, whether they have any income that can make money and run an economy.

they care about whether or not they can hold together a society then fact say they care so much about. i am not counting on any of that, but that is part of what i think is going on right now in terms of -- i'm not sure i would have predicted that when we decided to leave they would provide safe passage for americans to get out. host: that is part of his statements from earlier this week. what you make of those? guest: a lot of those seem sensible and pertaining to the issues we have to deal with. the taliban wants something different. they want to administer the country better and they are aware they need incoming money. they have often said we treat women well, it is not true that we treat women poorly. .wav of the country, we will take care of everything. you're interested in a relationship with the west, these are things that matter to

us. i think that is the case. i think the president was spot on when he said i got that -- i doubt that. they have beliefs pulling them in another direction. the taliban have great confidence in what they see is their ability to control the country. they realize they have difficulty administering -- administrating different services. they look at islamic law as something that brought them support and prevented instability from occurring. they are very confident that as long as they do that again, we would get a lot of support from afghans. we will see a taliban that is more moderate. we will see a taliban that is aligned to u.s.-ritesh and most of the -- to the u.s. and britain and most of the international communities.

i agree with just about everything the president said. host: there is a story on al jazeera this morning that -- is in kabul for talks. guest: he is a deeply charismatic figure. he was not the founding member of the taliban but as soon as it was joined he formed it. after the taliban government fell in 2001, shortly after that he became omar's deputy. he would be a managing -- he would be managing affairs day-to-day on the ground and make sure policies where permitted properly. he did something to moderate the movement. trying to reduce things like

school or the prerogative to execute people. he is put in jail in 2010, there was any operation in pakistan that did that. he remained in jail until 2013. he was released into house arrest. was only in 2018 that he was released and he became the deputy for political affairs for the taliban and oversaw negotiating efforts in doha. he has been his one-on-one counterpart throughout these negotiations. he is always seen as someone interested in progress, not prone to being angry or yelling or anything like that. he does seem like direct figure to go to couple -- to kabul to

see with the custard should be. they are bringing in all the afghans to have an agreement about what the constitution will look like, it will be participatory and compromising. a week after the fall of kabul, the taliban and a few people in kabul creating the constitution, that is not sound like involving a lot of cash does not sound like involving a lot of -- does not sound like involving a lot of participation. in 2004, that process involved representatives from all of the country, many from -- to be able to come and look at the constitution, from the constitution. that is not the kind of process we are seeing right now which goes back to president biden's

comments. host: before we let you talk to our viewers, your assessment of what you have seen play out over the last week in afghanistan. guest: of course to follow kabul which was almost a week ago, that was a tremendous event but not totally unexpected because the spontaneous collapses have happened in afghan history. it looks like what you expect were small tactical things happen, it is difficult to react to it, time is so compressed and a variety of things are happening on the ground. there is that piece. since then, we have seen the comes to accurate large numbers of afghans and u.s. citizens and promote residents. it has been impressive, the u.s. effort there has been impressive. when people talk about if

americans are realists or idealists, i think this is an idea of our idealism, trying to get people out in spite of the risks. i am hopeful more people will be able to be brought out and we will continue this operation. host: our first call comes from bernard in new york. you are on with carter malkasian. go ahead. caller: this gentleman is interesting. i'm not sure where he stands if he is for the taliban. the question really is this, is everybody in america just about -- what thing is out of afghanistan but that is not the question. the question is how we got out of afghanistan. the president, because of his weakness and his mistakes should

not -- into the got our guys out first and then we should have gotten the wonderful afghanistan's that should -- the wonderful afghanistans who stood with america. we should have taken out the equipment that he basically gave to the taliban. now people are not talking about this lockers going on. the taliban are going door to door knocking on doors. if you don't give up everybody that cooperated, we will slaughter your entire family. of course they tell on the people. this guy did it this candidate, and so on. this whole getting out -- joe biden is a spring that up, too. -- is screwing that up, too. how can the taliban be in charge of who gets out?

host: let me stop you there because you put a lot out for our guest. he can respond how he wishes. guest: first of all, i will just say that we have been fighting the taliban for 20 years and it is hard for any of us who have been doing that to not look at this week as something that has been difficult and not have a great worried for the afghan people. in my time in afghanistan, i made a variety of friends and a good number were killed. a good number sacrifice for the country. some of them died as long ago as 2010. some died more recently. there are still put it people there that have tried to sacrifice for their country.

it certainly brings a connection to the country. in terms of the withdrawal itself, i think it is harder right now for those who understand what happened and what possibilities there could have been to do something different, one of the things that is important here is how difficult it is when events are happening quickly on the ground, to be able to adapt quickly and adapt well to it. i do think right now that a very sincere effort is being made to try to get people out. if it goes day by day, it only becomes more impressive the more people get out and the more risks we are taking by being there. yes, the taliban are letting people through right now but the taliban is the taliban so the chances of something breaking out is there.

it is not without risk. host: in illinois, you are next. caller: good morning. a long time ago i watched a documentary called -- about a forward base in a valley. soldiers were getting shot at from the high ground. as an unsophisticated person, you would watch this and say who would put a forward base in a valley. my point is this, we were there for 20 years. we were told this was not vietnam. why did we fail? what would it have taken to win? did we need to use tactical

nuclear weapons? did we need to change completely the rules of engagement? how could we have won? as assumed people had thought this out about why we were there. what did winnie look like and why didn't we win -- what does winning look like and why didn't we win? host: thank you for the call, bill. guest: that base was in the cornwall valley. i have been to the cornwall valley. the soldiers in that unit were there for 15 months, day after day of patrolling and standing watch and trying to deal with the people they don't want to be dealt with. it is one of the examples of the

greatest bravery and fortitude of the experience in afghanistan. i don't mean that it was right that there should have been a base there. you are right, these options went up 8000 feet and there were pine trees on top. there could be a kilometer between one side and the other in which the taliban could fire across. you see the soldiers going on patrol day after day who were very hardened and used to their weapons and operating entity the snow and the rain and the heat. they had an immediate reaction. in some ways, the battlefield there more like i imagine korea to be then something in a counterinsurgency effort in afghanistan. could we have won in afghanistan? not in the traditional sense we think about winning.

the reason is taliban has pakistan that could go to. there are corruption problems in the government that made it difficult for the government to operate. we were occupiers in which we attracted the attention and the anchor of the various people in the taliban who were willing to fight to some lengths. winning -- in that sense, winning wasn't possible. what we tried to do was to secure u.s. interest, prevent their from being another terrorist attack on the united states and make sure al qaeda and other terrorist groups were defective enough that they could not harm us. they did a great deal of that. what that meant was whenever we left, the government was going to have trouble. the taliban were going to get

the upper hand. winning was essentially being there but being there in small enough numbers that it was affordable enough to secure our interests. we did that for a variety of years. at this point we have left. have we retained a lot of our interests? this is not like a war we could say we won, we did not fail. if we go through point by point what our goals were, we didn't fail. but we have to understand and the larger sense that this was not a war we could win like this. it was one we had to get into that was difficult to get out. how does one achieve their interests in these situations? don't lose resources, try not to lose too many actually valuable american lives. host: was there a point you

write about where at least you have seen where efforts in afghanistan had a stalemate of sorts? guest: not in the traditional sense of a stalemate. how i describe it is from 2002 to 2006 there were some opportunities for us. we were just there setting things up. there are things you could have done differently that probably would have enabled us to have run of the war with less expense and less u.s. lives lost. for those few years there was any opportunity. the taliban came back in 2006 with a major offensive and after that the opportunity narrows. there is not a lot we can do to change, we can only manage things better and try to do what we can to make sure there are fewer costs. the stomach was in effect from then onward.

we do press the taliban back, but the problem with a surge is those things went last. those things can evaporate by today 16 and -- 2016. at the time, i was not arguing for -- i make this statement in retrospect. host: this is carter malkasian joining us, his book "the american war in afghanistan." talk about the work you did with the joint chiefs chair and how you ended up in that position. guest: i went to afghanistan the first time in 2007. i spent some time in iraq and i saw that conflict. i was out to help a reconstruction camp in afghanistan. i spent a lot of time with the folks there working with afghans

. the state department needed more people to be part of the activity in afghanistan during the surgery -- during the sur ge. i was in a desert district, a river runs through it and there is farmland on either side of it. we were working with the population in that area tried to push the taliban back which was eventually achieved. that was a great experience. we worked with five different marine battalions. i went back to the u.s. in 2011. general dunford, who knew me from iraq, asked if i would like to be his advisor in afghanistan.

in 2013 and 2014 i was back in afghanistan at a higher level, in a different location, cobble this time -- kabul this time. then he became the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and i worked with him again there. this was a much broader view of things. having to do with the whole world. we dealt with the islamic state problem, a lot of time going to turkey, going to places in east asia, china, japan. that was a very different experience. it did involve going to afghanistan and italy going back in 2018 and 2019. host: this is from cameron in washington. good morning. caller: i would just make a brief statement and then ask a question.

i think the main culprit of this debacle started with george bush telling us in a campaign there would be no nationbuilding. yet, as soon as we went to afghanistan that is what we did. two withdrawal was absolutely pitiful and should have been managed better. i think the current president should resign as a result of this. the only caveat being that nancy pelosi would move to the vice president position and that would be catastrophic. what i would like to ask your guest is i have seen documentaries about the context of afghanistan with respect to the taliban that they are really essentially a drug cartel like the drug cartels in mexico. for centuries they have been managing the production, distribution, and sale of opioids. can you comment on that?

why didn't the u.s. military and government focus on that and make sure there was no opium being grown in afghanistan outside of a small portion for the pharmaceutical industry and make sure any opiate fields -- any opium fields where eradicated and forced to grow other kinds of crops? that would have been a better strategy. host: thanks for the call. guest: yes, poppy has been a major part of their revenue. probably a majority of their revenue comes from poppy production. they encourage people to grow it. they tax it and they smuggle it. the movement is water than a drug cartel because it is a political movement with political goals with very strong connections into the religious networks of afghanistan and pakistan. it is something bigger than

simply poppy. they absolutely use it to make revenue. one of the things the taliban does that gets them support if they know that in any place in afghanistan there are people living there for years who are the elite and people who are immigrants or don't have a lot of land or came from somewhere else. the people who are poor, they were to be able to grow something to live effectively. the taliban let them grow poppy. when they take over an area, they would give them some land so more poppy can be grown. that allows put people to have a livelihood and money. that also means they like the taliban because the taliban helped encompass their future. what could be done about this problem? i will tell you the main issue which we touched on which is

that eradicating poppy meant dissatisfying a lot of people. some were just farmers just trying to make money. i remember particularly well when i was -- when i heard all about this, there was a call when we went into eradicate all of these fields and have americans do it. that was going to create a great direction -- a great reaction across the people. the military had been given no specific instruction to go and eradicate, that was not considered a military task. those kinds of challenges are important factors as to why poppy was not fully eradicated. you brought up some of the good points like why was there not a program to handle this? why did you not eradicate poppy

and give assistance to people who lost it? there were some programs that attempted to do it and has some degree of effectiveness. i think we probably could have thought more about crop substitution and different kinds of crops that could have been attended -- that could have been tended. when i first came, there was a lot of discussion about crops is positioned -- about crops of the duchenne. when i came back -- about crop substitution. when i came back in 2011, those conversations were still going on. secured areas in a large operation ended up being effective. the people who grew poppy and the warlords and the taliban wanted poppy. in the areas we secured, they could not be there anymore growing poppy. so they moved out of the desert,

but water up from the aquifer, created new places, new farms and villages to grow poppy. it was externally hard to stop, even in places where after we went in poppy production did decrease. host: barbara, go ahead. caller: i have watched this story for decades and this poppy problem and the global drug problem is to genetically modify the poppy plant so that seeds are produced with excessively increasing power in the opioid part of the molecule. we would make these seats and airdropped them all over the world or scatter them however we could. host: aside from that, a question about afghanistan?

do you have bone do you have 1 -- you have one? caller: i just want to say this is a superb guest and i want to send everyone to youtube to watch a documentary called "afghanistan: land of endless war." it would be great if you ran it on one of the channels. if you understand of -- if you understand how we get to today, is meant to difference. there are many other taliban films on youtube. the more you see, the more you understand. host: that is barbara in massachusetts. besides your book, what other sources would you turn people to to learn about the country? guest: the first book i would say is about 300 pages. professor barfield has great stories within it.

it reads well. it was the first book i assigned to my students. another book i would suggest is "punishment of virtue." the author is with npr and she lived in kandahar for about seven years. she learned how to speak the language and she was living out among the people in the city, not on a u.s. base. the book she writes is about the difficulties and trouble she saw and afghanistan owing back towards violence. i would also recommend documentary "restreppo." -- plus some of the efforts around peace talks that happened before 2018. any of those i would recommend.

host: carter malkasian joining us for this discussion. you are asked on twitter if you could provide the audience and the evaluation of president trump's plan of leaving afghanistan. guest: we are referring to the plan that he tweeted out or put out one or two days ago? host: i believe this is probably the plan initially developed as far as getting out in may which the biden administration referenced many times. that is my assumption. let's go with that. guest: absolutely. president trump wanted to get out of afghanistan. he said in his august 2017 speech that my instinct is to get out and i often follow my instincts. he was willing to take a shot at peace talks. those peace talks and negotiations ended up with the

date of 2020 -- may 2021 that all u.s. forces would leave. if i was to look at president trump's effort, first i would say that he personally pressed withdrawal more than any president before him. by reducing us to 2500 troops, he made the withdrawal decision all the more compelling. in terms of other aspects of the plan, i think it would have been better when it was being negotiated to put more in writing, demand more writing of what the taliban was going to do and demand they do more towards

reaching a political settlement. i think that would have been possible. why do i think that would have been possible? in september 2020, the agreement had basically been reached. -- in september 2020, the agreement had basically been reached. the taliban was not willing to -- and trump walked away from the table. after he did that, because the taliban was worried the u.s. would not withdrawal, the actually considered even more. i think if president trump had been a little bit more patient, if he had walked away from the table a few more times, we could have gotten the taliban to a different position. i don't think that means there would have been completed peace but it would have been a better situation. host: let's hear from paul in new york. good morning. caller: one quick point, i am

amazed at the level of partisanship some of the callers to your show exhibit. the calls for impeachment and policy taking over -- and nancy pelosi taking over our over the top. if you want to look at this debacle, it started with bush who started nationbuilding and ran through trump to triton's withdrawal to biden's -- withdrawal to biden -- the afghan government was corrupt from top to bottom. afghans were being shook down for money. the programs we tried to put in place were siphoned off for their revenue captured by leaders of the afghan government , starting with mr. karzai. i have not heard you speak once about this. the effect of the matter is, no

one in a country is going to fight for a government they know is abusive, corrupt, and is not working for the people but working for their own elites. i would like for you to speak about this. that, for me, was the main driver of our failure of afghanistan as it was in vietnam where we backed a completely corrupt regime that had no depth with the people. host: paul, thank you. guest: that is a great point and one thing i was trying to touch on when i mentioned there were several reasons we are seeing issues here. corruption is one of them. afghan commanders would have forces and would have all of the names to have all of the men

they needed but many of those men would not be in the ranks. that is because they were taking the money and going off with it. kabul woodwork managers on the ground -- warlords would be trying to politics to see who would be in place and demand certain people would be in place. this was a continuing problem and it meant that the afghan forces did not have the manpower or supplies they should have had. however, i want to point out a few other things that make us think more deeply about the problem here. the afghan forces in many places

where they were defeated, they had more men than the taliban and more supplies than the taliban and better weapons than the taliban. the corruption was bad, but there has to be something else going on. even with correction, they still had the ability to defend themselves. the point caller makes is excellent. i have no doubt that the corruption going on was a problem for the morale of the afghan forces. we have to look at this from two sides. exactly how great we think the taliban were? how great is to rethink their leadership was? if they get shot or wounded, they will be transferred to pakistan. they are not paid very much, they're not supplied very well. why is this that we think corruption is going to be sapping this whole factor in

afghan forces with the taliban had legal problems yet had a morale? the answer to that has to be that the taliban are more inspired by something else, something that is deeper and related to identity. that is not me corruption was not important. try to understand everything that is happening on afghanistan and all the factors coming into place. the last thing i will point out is that when you put these things together, when you put corruption together and you put these identity issues in and what it means, what you see is a problem that is intractable. you see a problem that cannot easily be overcome which then gets to where we were unable to win. host: from kevin in san diego, you are next up. caller: i have two comments about the reason the taliban was able to take over the country so quickly.

one is in response he -- one was in response to a guest earlier. the previous color store my thunder. first, in response to your guest's earlier comments, he says part of the reason the taliban was successful is it is part of the afghan identity to resist occupation because of their history. i don't think that is unique to afghanistan. if we try to occupy and instill a new government in australia or germany, we would face a similar resistance. from my perspective, the issue is that the taliban was able to roll in and that's role in in pickup trucks and fatigues -- was able to roll in in pickup trucks and fatigues and take over the country in one week or two because the vast majority of the people in the country want

the taliban to be the government. we were popping up a cop government against the will of the people which is fundamentally anti-democratic. i think on the caller's last point, it is not so much the corruption within the military that led to the lack of effectiveness, it is the fact that the government was corrupt so there was an unwillingness of the afghani people to support the government in general. that is why they did not resist the taliban taking over. host: that his kevin in san diego. guest: that is a great point on resistance to occupation and that being a factor in many countries. i think that is definitely the case. that does not mean that just because it is a factor in many countries that it is not important in afghanistan.

yes, i completely agree that the corruption in the military and in the government itself does to some extent resist the motivation there. i don't think that is enough to explain what happened here. there are many people who benefited from the resistance of the -- the existence of the government. many people benefited were going to make more money from it. many people were defending their homes and their own territory in which they were able to maintain that they will continue to be corrupt and pocket money. we know that war is a fairly strong motivator for people to fight. when we look at how things fall apart, it has to be beyond corruption. it does not handle everything we see happen. we have a lot of other things coming into play, too. the shock of our withdrawal

announcement, the fact they would not have u.s. support, and if you think the next battle you are going to get in is going to be defeated because you have seen everybody else be defeated, you are more likely to run away. that is what tends to happen in a rut. -- in a route. host: there have been questions asked about what the future of afghanistan concerns and if there is the possibility for it to become a terrorist safe haven again. guest: we should be ready for some type of terrorism to come out of afghanistan but we should be resilient. we should not fear it. we should not be worried there is going to be something like another 9/11. if a terrorist attack occurs, we should not be tempted to go back into afghanistan. we should think about how we are going to defend ourselves

better. if we need to do a limited punitive supply, that is fine, that we should not get ourselves entangled. how can afghanistan -- what kind of safe haven would occur? the taliban has a lot of connections to al qaeda. they will admit that in private and other settings. one former taliban i worked with when i was in kabul and we were working on trying to do some things to negotiate peace negotiation -- to encourage. peace negotiations. after about -- to encourage peace negotiations. i told him it is time to go home and he said i hope you have a good life. we remain friends. then he said why would you think i would feel any different about al qaeda? they are our friends, too.

that means it is going to be difficult for them to tamp down al qaeda or other organizations. they may not want to cede an attack out of afghanistan, but that does not mean they want to be doing things behind their back and other people will be unwilling to it -- to counter it . what kind of attacks will emerge? we should not think of the magnitude. the timing is probably years away and it is not even clear if these groups do intend to attack the u.s. they will have the ability to do it. when we think about covid and climate change, when we think about other problems the u.s. has and our interest in rebuilding america which is something i think both parties share, it is hard to see why we should be worried about a terrorist attack that will have much less effect than a covid test. host: from ed in massachusetts, you are up next.

caller: good morning and thank you for having him on. how does this impact the average afghan? from an average afghan's standpoint, are they and their families better off with the taliban or better off with the situation the way it was before the taliban took over? what is their mindset? did they say, we don't care if the taliban comes in? how is their life changed when the taliban take over compared to the situation before the taliban takes over? how are they impacted? guest: that is a question we should be asking as we think about our whole war in afghanistan. the lives of afghans during our time there in many ways improved. it approved for education, for

employment, for opportunities and rights for women. in some places in afghanistan there was peace for most if not all of those 20 years. on the other hand, in a lot of places there was war and fighting and death and destruction. with the taliban coming into power, there is a good chance that war and fighting and death and destruction will end. while people will have fewer rights and be oppressed, their lives will be left in danger. a woman is less likely to have a job or to be able to go out freely were to be educated -- for to be educated and perhaps will have a shorter lifespan. but they will be less likely to die in an erratic event of war if the taliban can instill order.

that is something we should be thinking about in our own endeavor. we should think about how much good did we bring versus how much suffering? would be suffering have been less under the taliban? we should understand that the suffering that did occur for the afghan people while we were there, that was part of trying to protect ourselves against terrorism. to protect ourselves like this terrorism and protect ourselves and home, other people may have had to suffer. that does not mean it was wrong for us to go in. that is not mean we shouldn't do what is necessary to protect americans, it does mean we should think about those questions. thank you for your question. host: this is elizabeth in new jersey. go ahead. caller: good morning. what i don't understand is how all of you keep talking about president biden. what about president trump who set up all of this in 2020?

it has been calculated. this is why you had the insurrection. january 6, people tearing up america to take over the government. biden comes in and he does not even know what is going on. have you seen the documents signed by trump? he signed all kinds of agreements. in his mind, he was going to take over america. host: that is elizabeth there. she brought up the actions of the trump administration if you wanted to take the on-again. go ahead -- take that on i. -- take that on-again. guest: he sustained afghanistan with 2500 troops but it would

have been an ongoing war with airstrikes and there is no chance for peace talks or political settlement. he would have spent four years with 2500 troops there and in the end he would pass it off to his successor. there was some chance you might have to reinforce. that was not a comfortable option. the other option was to withdrawal. that option, as we have seen, brought a lot of cost. no doubt, it was a really hard decision and that decision was created by trump's decision to go down to 2500 troops. host: this is from susan in massachusetts. susan, hello. caller: can you hear me?

host: go ahead. caller: you are an excellent guest, your broad, nuanced explanation for many things that have occurred and afghanistan over the past two decades. it is great. i have always been dumbfounded by how this debacle was ever--was able to be so protracted. i guess it was all of the invested interests in making millions to perpetuate the falsehood that this region of tribal enclaves and tribal leaders could ever really be pacified. we created an unsustainable,

almost hollywood set of and it for class and upper middle class for advancement. it was never going to succeed. i am fairly disappointed in americans who are blaming biden for all of this. this is the tail end of decades of failed philosophy where you can just impose your way of life on another country that is just not receptive to it. the same in iraq. meanwhile, china, always strategic and taking the long game has been able to shore up incredible relationships around the globe and capture all of the rare earth minerals supplies in africa and other places because the u.s. was involved in this.

i have always been concerned about the relationship with rank and file sort of people and then having to work side-by-side with private contractors from these nefarious companies like blackwater and stuff who were paying a much higher salaries and the morale situation you had. host: susan, thank you. she did bring up the fact about russia and china and other countries as far as the role they will play in the future of afghanistan. what are your thoughts about that? guest: that has been one of the questions for the past few years. russia had some relationship with the taliban. that is gone. russia's interest in afghanistan don't seem to align that well with the taliban's.

russia does not like the idea of terrorists operating in any part of the world, especially when russia is closer to them than the u.s. is. there is some cause for friction there. on the other hand, he taliban has taken kabul and we have only heard a few things from russia. they may be waiting to see what happens. same thing with china. china does not share a lot of natural interest with the taliban. they have an alliance with pakistan and pakistan is a supporter of the taliban. china does not want to see a lot of terrorism coming out of the area and will be worried about the future government the taliban will have. but they, too, have been quite. a lot of people are worried that china is going to open up economic assistance to the taliban and recognize them. i think it is too early to say that. i don't think china is going to

want to be launching them onto the international stage as a superpower supporting the taliban. host: the book is called "the american war in afghanistan: a history." >> c-span's washington journal. everyday we take our calls live on the air of the news of the day, and discussed policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, we discussed the taliban takeover of afghanistan, from the former acting cia director. the latest on covid-19 and the new recommendation for booster shots. bob c-span's washington journal, live at seven :00 eastern on sunday morning.

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