>> nobody really thought that this was ever going to happen. it was unthinkable when it finally happened. it was supposed to be this bastion of enlightenment and freethinking. mass executions, executing freethinkers, and everybody was scared that was what was going to happen in paris as well. >> martin do gard, author of the book "taking paris" and its liberation by american and french forces in august of 1944. watch q and date tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can listen on our new c-span now app.

host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." just about one year ago, president joe biden declared what he called the end to america's longest war, the u.s. invasion of afghanistan. the fighting began only weeks after the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001 caused the deaths of more than 2000 americans and left more than 20,000 injured. the cost of the were estimates the u.s. spend more than $2 trillion on the invasion, not counting what it would cost for the future care. that is our question for you this morning. what is our legacy for the war in afghanistan? did we achieve our goals? we are going to open up the regular lines this morning which means republicans, we want to

hear from you at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your number is (202) 748-8000. independents, you will call (202) 748-8002. and we are opening up a special line this morning for veterans of the afghanistan war. your number is going to be (202) 748-8003. keep in mind, you can always text us and we are always reading our social media on facebook, twitter, and you can follow us on instagram. this morning, we are talking about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. one year after president joe biden said that we were pulling out and the war was over. in the washington post this morning, a little bit about what they see of the legacy of that war.

i will read a couple of programs to you. a year ago, the taliban -- government. america's largest war ended in tragedy. islamic militants chased from power in 2001 were back in command after almost two decades of u.s. stability that drained more than $1 trillion from u.s. taxpayers and cost of the lives of more than 30,000 u.s. and allied soldiers and tens of thousands more afghan troops and civilians hung excruciatingly in the balance. hours after afghans tried to flee the advance, the inspector general for afghan reconstructed -- reconstruction issued a report on 20 years of u.s. efforts in the country. it was grim reading. if the goal was to rebuild and

leave behind a country that can sustain itself and pose little threat to u.s. national security interest, the overall picture is bleak, the report noted. coming from the washington post, there are people who say that the withdrawal is still working. there is a column coming up that i will read a couple of paragraphs to you where she argues that getting out with the right call, and here is what she says. this month marks the one-year anniversary of the u.s. withdraw from afghanistan which put an end to america's longest war. the 70% of americans polled last year at the chicago council on global affairs supported president joe biden's decision to withdraw u.s. troops, they are now roughly split on the issue. when asked whether the u.s. made a mistake by withdrawing troops from afghanistan last year, 40% of responders said yes, while

39% said no and 21% said they were not sure. broken down by party, 61% of democrats said the withdrawal was a mistake while 68% of republicans felt it was. once again, that is in reason magazine. it was just about one year ago on august 31, 2021 when president joe biden announced the end of the war in afghanistan. let's take a look at what he said. here is president joe biden. biden: my fellow americans, the war in afghanistan is now over. i am the fourth president that has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. when i was running for president, i made a commitment to the american people that i would end this war. today, i honor that commitment. it was time to be honest with the american people again.

we no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in afghanistan. after 20 years of war in afghanistan, i refused to send another generation of american sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago. after more than $2 trillion spent in afghanistan, cost of research at brown university estimated would be over 300 million dollars per day for 20 years in afghanistan for two decades. yes, the american people spending $300 million per day for two decades. if you take the number of $1 trillion as many say, that is still $150 million per day for two decades. what have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunity? i refuse to continue a war that was no longer in the service of

the national interests of our people. and most of all, after 800,000 americans served in afghanistan, i have traveled that whole country. brave and honorable service. after 20,700 44 american servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2406 21 american personnel including 13 lives lost just this week, i refuse to open another decade of warfare in afghanistan. we've been a nation too long at war. if you're 20 years old today, you have never known in america at peace. so when i hear that we could have, should have continued the so-called low-grade effort in afghanistan at low risk to our service members, at low cost, i don't think you have people

understand how much we have asked of the 1% of this country who put that uniform on, willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation. host: former u.s. and nato afghan commander david contrasts specifically talked about an article in the atlantic this month, what happened with afghanistan. i will redo the statement -- read you the statement that was in this month's "atlantic." our foundational mistake was there lack of commitment. we never adopted a sufficient, persistent, overarching approach that we stuck with from administration to administration, or even within individual administrations. once again, that is from the former u.s. and nato afghan commander. our question for you this morning is what is the legacy of the war in afghanistan?

once again, we want to hear from republicans at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. and we are opening up a special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. let's start with william who is calling from baltimore, maryland on the democrat line. william, good morning. caller: good morning, good to see you. no, to stay in afghanistan was definitely not worth it. we stayed there too long and maybe a better strategy would have been search and airstrikes. i really don't believe that boots on the ground sacrifices of our brightest and youngest americans in these wars -- to make matters worse, we go into iraq, and even more egregious

decision, probably the worst in history. and just think, all of this happened because the 2000 election was stolen from al gore. the real stolen election. if you want to talk about stolen elections, i doubt if our boy who also warned this country of global warming and all kinds of problems that we placed, the election was stolen from him. just think all the bad decisions that went into iraq and afghanistan over 20 years. this is where we are. host: what do you think should have been done with afghanistan? we can go back and say we should not have gone in the first place, but since we did, did we get out of it in the right way? caller: there is no right way to get out of a war that we should not have gone in.

secretary of state powell, once we went in, there was no easy way out. this is why i'm always in favor of surgical airstrikes. because once you put boots on the ground, leaving is always difficult, as always proven to be difficult. we should have gotten out a long time ago. war is never a good thing and boots on the ground is never a good thing. host: let's go to herb calling from greenville, south carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, you do a good job and you make it look easy. the mainstream media leaves out huge gaps of information. we've got people who do real journalism and they travel to places and they see people on the ground. the reason the u.s. military was

in afghanistan was to guard the opium cloud. for big pharma. now, you got homeless veterans who have been traumatized from the orders that they had to follow when they were in afghanistan and iraq. how can you say america is great if you got homeless veterans who have psychological trauma and they leave their families because they can't cope with the situation? no, war is a racket. thank you. host: let's go to jim who was calling from rockville, maryland, on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i guess i am going to have to double-dip because i am both a veteran and a democrat. this particular withdrawal left a lot of feelings.

i did four tors in the south, the east, and the north. i think it was disastrous. there is a saying that goes it is not what you do, is how you do it. in the way the withdrawal was done, it was tragic. so many tons of military equipment, ammunition, nightvision gear, i think this is going to come back to haunt the u.s. allies and haunt the united states itself. now our enemies have some of the most sophisticated weaponry on the planet in a situation which there were less than 2000 soldiers that could have balanced out whatever issues that were there and also the

issue of over 1000 americans still over there hiding like anne frank and also thousands of afghans who were interpreters who worked with the u.s. military and now they are being persecuted and murdered in afghanistan. host: according to factcheck .org, when the u.s. signed an agreement with the taliban february 20 9, 2020 to set the terms for u.s. withdrawal, there were 13,000 troops still in afghanistan. as you said, when the withdrawal actually happened, there were only about two. that 13 that made it through prior withdrawal? caller: when i was there it was not necessary to have 13 in order to keep the country stable. there was 2000 troops for the

last two years. there was no casualties, no deaths in the last two years. so that rapid withdrawal from key military bases, it really gave the deathknell to that country. so many billions of dollars that were spent over there. in united states, canada, western europe, a bunch of terrorists. host: what branch of the military were you in? caller: i was in the marine corps. host: you were in the marine corps. what i veterans saying amongst themselves about the length of the war in afghanistan? what will this be remembered for? caller: to be honest, it is a shame and a disgrace, the withdrawal itself.

for this administration -- and like i said, i am a democrat, but for this administration to take the word of the taliban and think they were going to make an agreement? that would have been like roosevelt taking the word of the nazis in 1944 to make an agreement. they cap be trusted. -- they cannot be trusted. if you live in totalitarian part of this world like i have, freedom is not free. sometimes, lives are sacrificed. but sometimes it is better to have the sacrifices on foreign shores then have a neighborhood on main street in the united states here. host: so your suggestion is that the biden administration should have scrapped the deal that the trump administration made to withdraw from afghanistan. caller: i'm not familiar on that deal, i don't know all the

necessary items, but i think the withdrawal of the 2000 troops that were over there was a tragic mistake and people are paying for it today, people are being murdered in afghanistan. those people that work with the united states state department and military, they are being taken out and shot and tortured on the street. there is still over 1000 american citizens over there, basically hostages. and military veterans that i know that have been over there have a very poor opinion of this particular administration. in fact, it might cost this administration many votes, many democrat votes during the next race and also it might cost the white house during the next presidential race. host: let's go to patrick who is calling from lady lake florida on the independent line. patrick, good morning. caller: i see as usual c-span

got all the history of afghanistan. as far as i know, americans used to be on eat pray love vacations in afghanistan before they started going to india. they didn't realize they never talked about that. bush left the northern alliance, let them die, let osama bin laden escape into pakistan. what was it? nine saudis had one meeting in afghanistan.

keep up the good work, c-span. host: miami, florida, on the republican line, good morning. caller: yes, i am calling because the last caller was more correct because joe biden's legacy on afghanistan is going to be one that is not going to be remembered well. i'm just thinking about the caller before him. if somebody is going to be remembered, it wasn't anything like that. thank you. william, good morning. caller: just a statement. joe had an objective to do.

for 20 years, we waited to get our troops out. we got our troops out, we got 126,000 afghans out, we got all the other people out. the objective was obtained. it got a little messy, let's say, but it still was obtained. no one else did it. that is all i have to say. host: we go to michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been dealing c-span for quite a while, but when you have developed a group of monsters, everyone is biased.

you have the traditional groups, but they are all biased. and this bs that you give us that they are not, it is just that, bs. on the afghanistan problem, that particular government response, they don't know why they went there, they don't know what they are supposed to be doing, and they screw up everything they try. that is our government's effort. thank you, bye. host: let's go to ralph who is calling from georgia on the democrat line. ralph, good morning. caller: listen, i have a different take from what so many people were saying earlier.

i am retired. i wasn't in afghanistan or iraq, but i played a part for the united states government. hello? host: you are still on. caller: yes, we had buildings that were similarly blown up, and i was a player along with the other afghanistan and an interpreter for the united states. one of my jobs was to take my rifle, go out hunting and the folks who approached me and asked me why do i have my rifle, i explained to them why. they said you don't need to have a rifle because we are going to

take care of it. i was told that we will take care of you from now on. this was a man who was trying to feed and take care of his family. those are some of the people i am talking about. there are others, but i don't want to take up all of your time. in my opinion, i didn't think that the americans, they had no idea of leaving. those are some of the things. i might have played the role of a village person. i may have walked around so the military could see it and try to build them up. we could not get paid by the military at the time, and in different scenarios, like i say,

they did not think that the military was going to leave. host: well, on february 20 9, 2020, then-president donald trump came out to the white house to announce that the u.s. and the taliban had signed an agreement for bringing peace to afghanistan after then almost 18 years of conflict. here is what then-president trump said about his agreement with the taliban. trump: i have been meeting personally with taliban leaders, and we are very much hoping that they will be doing what they say they are going to be doing. they will be killing terrorists. they will be killing some very bad people.

we have had tremendous success in afghanistan in the killing of terrorists, but it is time after all these years to bring our people back home. we want to bring our people back home. again, it has been a long journey in afghanistan, in particular. a very long journey. it has been a hard journey for everybody. that is not what our soldiers are all about. they are the greatest fighters in the world. as you know, we have destroyed in syria and iraq 100% of the isis caliphate. 100%. we have thousands of prisoners. we have killed isis fighters by the thousands. and likewise in afghanistan, but now it is time for somebody else to do that work and that will be

the taliban. and if there are surrounding countries, the countries that surround afghanistan, we are a thousand miles away, so we will be bringing it down tate thousand, approximately 8600 in the vicinity. -- down to 8600. then we will make a decision some point in the near future. this was a very spirited agreement. there was a lot of talk, a lot of everything. they have been trying to get this for many years. it is time. i just want to thank everybody, i want to congratulate everybody. i don't believe the taliban wants to do something to show that they are wasting time. bad things happen.

it will come back with a force like nobody has ever seen. i don't think that will be necessary. i hope it is not necessary. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. here is one tweet that says the bush-cheney choice should be a lesson to us and our military: don't do stuff like that. another says what same leader would evacuate the military forces and then evacuate civilians? biden will be the worst evacuation in history. how many did biden leave behind? there were needless deaths. decisions have consequences. another says the agreement with the taliban was made by trump and he ignore the afghan people. a lot of the people did not want to leave when they had a chance. a lot of the equipment was disabled or blown up.

truth matters, america. another says afghanistan did not fight back when the taliban advanced. they collaborated with them in the way that they were doing all along while we were spending millions. you can't help people who won't help themselves. and one final tweet, in light of the inflation we are dealing with, it would be worse if we had stayed and wasted billions more. it was good that we left. there will always be casualties in war. that is why we should avoid war at all costs. so the story in the business insider was a group that evacuate people from afghanistan. the head of the group gave some quotes about what is going on with the evacuation of people out of afghanistan right now. throughout the war, 2400 48 u.s. service members, approximately

66,000 afghan national military and police officers, and over the u.s. evacuated approximately 120 4000 individuals during the withdrawal last august. since then, the biden administration has been evacuating 800 american citizens from the country, politico reported earlier this month. the new york times reported last year thousands of afghan nationals who have helped the u.s. government throughout the 20 year war were seeking refuge. others said they still needed help getting out, so biden has extraordinary success he has faced criticism from both parties. the guy at the top of it seems to have washed his hands of the whole situation and wants to move on from something that happened last year, and it is a shame, seller said of biden, adding that helping people stuck in afghanistan would require this administration to actually

care. what is going to be the legacy of the war in afghanistan? once again, we want to hear from you. republicans, you are at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, we want to hear from afghan war vets. if you are veteran from the war in afghanistan, we have a special line for you this morning, (202) 748-8003. let's go back to the phones and talk to mike, calling from covington, louisiana on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. like several of the tweets, i think we failed to learn anything from the vietnam era.

once again, those that wish to engage with the united states on the battlefield believe that they can always outlast us in these very much guerrilla wars. we are not going to win those by attempting to convert them to democracy. we need to take some lessons from the israelis. when we have an issue like the first bush president, we need to go in with the capabilities we truly have, the technologies we have. we don't need to carry on and on and on with these wars. even ukraine has the potential to do that for us now as we pump billions upon billions of dollars. i am a supporter of the effort

in ukraine, but it seems like we are just feeding the war beast again. we have a bloated military that cannot turn sharply and operate quickly and get out. we cannot change the world's philosophy on government. we need to build our strength as a democracy and put the right leaders in. i voted for the previous president once. the one we have now, i do not think he has the leadership or the intellect to drive our country in the right direction. i'm concerned about either one of those people getting reelected. i would like to see some young, smart individuals, and the legacy needs to be not that we continue to pump billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of u.s. lives into these faraway countries.

if it is that critical to us, we go in and take out what we can with the technology, and you leave. don't leave like afghanistan or a rooftop in vietnam. host: let's go to paul, calling from wilson, north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. and thank you for c-span. i just want to say i did agree with a lot of the statements that you read from the social media sources. i do want to thank our service members for their service in afghanistan and around the world. i just want to say that, you know, could the negotiated withdrawal have been handled better? i think absolutely, and that is in hindsight. but i want to remind everyone that the trump administration

decimated our state department, placed many unqualified people in our government departments, mostly acting department heads, not even confirmed. and i will just say what was the big, beautiful afghan withdrawal plans the trump administration had in place as they negotiated this at camp david? thank goodness, even when they did that come apparently he did listen to some of his advisors and not had that meeting actually on 9/11 as they originally reported. so i think hindsight is 20/20. i think biden is handling a lot of things that we do not even think about, just because of the chaos that has been going on for the last four years in our government. thanks again for c-span. host: let's go to maurice,

calling from north carolina on the democrat line. marie, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i agree a lot with what i just heard from the last person. but you have to look at things from the beginning. first, there was no reason for the united states to be in afghanistan. i want to send - i am a veteran. when we send military people into an area, it is to fight a war. and even though this was called the afghanistan war, what was the threat in afghanistan against the people of the united states, and what was our national interest? if we do not have a national interest and we do not have an enemy, per se, that is threatening the people of the united states, we should not have the military in there. now there is a lot of bureaucracy across the united states that can go in and do all kind of things to help people. if you want to do the state department, department of commerce, whatever.

but the military, just sitting over there for 20 years with no real mission, it did not make any sense. when trump said "come out of there," even though i do not agree with him about much, i agree. what joe biden did took a great deal of courage. that is why people are trying to use it right now is the one thing he did as a failure. and logistically, as a logistician, we saw one of two planes fly out of there. everyone knows you cannot fly a whole army out of there with one of two planes. there had been months and months of people moving out of afghanistan before we saw the end. the whole idea that we had one plane and everyone was on it is not true. thank you so much. host: republicans in congress are asking the biden administration to provide them more information about the withdrawal from afghanistan, and

rollcall.com has a story about what republicans are doing to put pressure on the white house. i will read a couple paragraphs. one year after the united states' chaotic exit from afghanistan last august, republican lawmakers are putting renewed pressure on the biden administration to answer questions about the withdrawal. in a new report, republicans alleged president biden misled the american public about the consequences of a withdrawal, did not properly prepare for the withdrawal, and failed to evacuate many afghans who worked with the u.s. during the 20 year war there, including elite military personnel. and if the biden administration continues to drag its feet on providing requested information to the committee, it may consider issuing subpoenas. the top republican on the foreign affairs committee talked earlier this week about what he

is looking for from the white house and why this information is important. here is representative mike mccaul. [video clip] >> there was no plan. to your point, even before, i think the state department did not have the resources it needed to carry out an evacuation of this size. they were overwhelmed. but there were so many mistakes. the biggest one for me, having lived through it, being in the classified space, listening to the intelligence community tell the story about this will be imminent, it will fall sooner rather than later -- the military told us the same thing. then we went to state and they paint the white house a very rosy picture. there is a disconnect between intelligence on the ground and what the white house is doing. this report says it all. there is no way we are going to

evacuate embassy personnel with helicopters like we did in vietnam, and of course we know that happened. >> the criticism of this report is this was the minority report, and it is inherently political. and that this will just be a political line of attack. how do you respond to that? >> i was a federal prosecutor longer than i was a member of congress. it has been almost 20 years now. i pride myself on being objective. i think this is a fairly objective report on the failures made. one of the biggest ones was the taliban -- general mckenzie made an offer, you can take control over kabul and secure it for purposes of the evacuation -- >> general mckenzie said that is not what my assignment is here. >> that is not what the commander in chief told me. they run it up to the white house and get no answer. later, jen psaki said they would not have approved.

we rely on that taliban to secure the perimeter -- that led to the chaos. it also led to the suicide bomber that killed 30 teen servicee members, men and women, and injured hundreds of people. and it could have been avoided. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. here is one tweet that says the legacy is we needlessly occupied afghanistan for 20 years, only to have an administration turn their back on the afghanistan government in favor of the taliban, because that is the legacy of tfg authoritarianism. biden had to implement the trump agreement that left no plan to leave. another tweet said the legacy for afghanistan should be that americans will not fight for people who will not fight for themselves. example, the ukrainians.

they are fighting for their country, and that is who we should help. another tweet says we are out. it was not pretty. armchair generals no longer needed. another tweet says yes, it was a lost cause, but we knew that before we invaded. one last tweet says we got bin laden, that was enough. democracy cannot be forced, nor should it be. once again, we want to know from you what is the legacy of the war in afghanistan? let's go to remmy, calling from maryland on the republican lines. good morning. caller: good morning. we got some good commentary going this morning. pretty much almost everybody in the comments. but the thing concerning to me is the boomers. the generation following us will be saddled with a trillion dollar debt. we have not done anything since vietnam, laos, cambodia, fasttrack to afghanistan, only

to not focus on so much the corporations and the 10,000 hardware and software corporations that had profited from these invasions of sovereign nations and the killing of millions of people, and we spent trillions to kill millions. this is the thing that is really bothersome. it is irksome to me and even to people following, the generations following us, is that we are not happy unless we have an agenda that is going to benefit corporations and their lobbyists that take care of our politicians, because they seem to be the masters for our politicians. they are tagteam politicians, like tagteam wrestlers. they have good guys, bad guys. this is something i remember going back to the 1960's when i had to go into the national guard.

if you ask the pentagon what it is that they had done as far as keeping track of the casualties when it comes to civilians, they will simply tell you, we do not track the casualties of civilians. that is just their blanket coverage. but we need to wake up. we need to start looking closer at these politicians and their corporate masters as to what it is we have to do to change this entire system. in other words, get on the same page. let's rebuild the country, since infrastructure is imploding and in national debt that will not be satisfied. stop leaving the empty suits and talking heads that will do nothing except take us down the next path to what they have been doing to us in the past. host: let's go to joe, calling from atlanta, georgia on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning to you. thank you for taking my call. i want to change the idea of

what they call the afghanistan war. that was not a war. that was an invasion. we have got to learn how to distinguish between the two. just like vietnam. we invaded vietnam. we put half a million u.s. troops in vietnam. they were never a threat to the united states. the business of this country is war and manufacturing war materials. look how many billions of dollars in arms we are sending to ukraine right now, hundreds of billions of dollars in arms. that is not right. we should not be sending weapons of mass destruction all over the world. but we have destroyed our manufacturing base in this country to where we have to keep on building arms, and doing so, just to keep the country working. we have destroyed the food manufacturing business. we import more food now than we

grow. we are paying billionaires hundreds of millions of dollars not to grow food on the land. that is wrong. we should be growing food and not holding all these arms to have a whole war against each other. host: let's go to dorothy, calling from baltimore, maryland on the democrat line. good morning. caller: morning. i cannot agree more, especially with the caller just before the last one, one, and mostly with the caller you just had, and i think he was a republican. i cannot agree with him more. our politicians are not politicians for the people. they are corporate. we have corporate leaders -- that is what we need to call them -- governing us. that is why we always have complaints. we have complaints because we are voting on politicians telling us what they want. they should never tell us what they want. we need to tell us what we want.

but back to afghanistan. we got to remember. we got to go back to the beginning. trump should not have met with the taliban without first meeting with the afghan military. that is not a good plan. i mean you gave their support, and we have no idea what trump told the taliban. the afghan military do not either. as far as they know, he said i side with the taliban. that was the downfall of afghanistan, because they figured america must be on the taliban's side. and trump never removed people from there. once he said -- it took five years, they said, to evacuate from vietnam. it still will take years to get people out of afghanistan. that should have been a plan made when trump first thought he was going to leave. when he made that deal, he should have had planes to get civilians out right then and there.

he should have started it. he did not. he did not have a plan. that is what started it, and that is the truth. host: let's go to jerry, calling from new jersey on the republican line. good morning. jerry, where are you? there you are. are you there? let's try that again. are you there? caller: i am here, can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead. caller: i think, when president biden told the world that he would not leave one american behind, and then he did -- he left over 1,000 of them behind -- i think that the world saw that biden was weak. i think, when the afghan terrorist groups told biden he had to leave by the end of

august, biden wasn't in control. and i think that's part of the reason why we now have the ukraine and china and all the big countries threatening us, because biden showed his weakness. leaving americans behind is something we have never done. we have always protected our own. and everybody, the whole world, saw that biden did not do that with the americans. the $70 billion of equipment, every so often, you see on tv how they are parading with all our equipment. that just leaves a bitter taste in all our mouths. and now, i think the world sees us as weak, and that's sad to me. host: let's go to van, calling

from paris, ohio on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just want to say that the afghan people let the united states down. we worked so hard to try to get their independence, and we worked so hard helping them. we donated more equipment and money in afghanistan than most any other war. and it all went for graft and in the pockets of the politically influenced afghan people. and when the chips were down, they decided that they were not going to defend anymore and help themselves, and they just lay down their weapons and turned themselves over to the taliban and whoever else wanted to come in and take control. they had no backbone. and we are supposed to be the backbone?

we cannot do everything. and i think some of these people that are promoting biden's weakness should understand his his hands were somewhat tied. he had a program to fulfill. his problem was not to have the state department and every american was out. host: let's talk to josé, calling from texas, and a veteran of afghanistan. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i was in afghanistan in 2006, 2007. i knew that was a lost cause. it was great to serve the people of afghanistan.

however, the beliefs were from 300 centuries back in the day. we are never going to make them change their customs, their history, nothing. nothing at all. it was a great idea to get out of afghanistan. for 20 years, losing billions and billions of dollars that it cost americans' pockets, that was great, great to be out of there. host: what branch of the military were you in? caller: i was u.s. navy. host: and what our veterans like yourselves, when you talk amongst yourselves, veterans of that war, what do you think the legacy of that war will be? caller: it was a lost cause. a lost cause.

we had been there 20 years for no reason. terrorism will never be won -- we will never win the war on terrorism. we kill the terrorist leader, they will be replaced with another leader. it's a ladder. replacing one by another one. host: let's go to nate, calling from wisconsin on the democrat line. good morning. caller: thank you. i appreciate the program. i have a lot of agreement with my preceding caller. it is great to hear from a veteran who was actually there. as a democrat, i think we should not be as partisan as we are about a lot of this stuff, because, really, we are all

taxpayers and we are all citizens. this war cost both blood and treasure. it was just an incredible waste of money. when you think about all the things that money could have been used for and the lives that could have been invested in. just think of the families damaged by the loss of husbands and brothers and sons and the chaos the families of veterans were thrown into. the loss is just incalculable. and we are just talking about our side. think about how the afghan people feel about the losses of their family members. that is the part of the story we do not even know.

my points would be, from the beginning, this was a flawed idea. the blame now, because republicans are out of power -- they were in power when this started. this was a bush venture. corporate military ideas were prominent. it was afghanistan and iraq. iraq has so much oil. these corporations, they just paid for the war. that it would not cost anything, what a pipedream that was. host: let's go to steve, calling from south dakota on the republican line. caller: good morning, sir. yeah, i got a problem with biden's withdrawal. it was an absolute cluster -- and i will leave that term at

that. you do not pull out your military before you pull out unarmed civilians doing the government's work. you pull out the civilians first. the civilians were unarmed. they had no way to defend themselves. 13 troopers are not going to be able to ward off hundreds of taliban. then, he denies that he did anything wrong. to this very day, biden thinks he did everything right and used the excuse, well, the agreement that president trump had with the taliban was set in stone. no, it was with conditions. if so much as one american was injured or killed as the result of an attack by the taliban or any other terrorist group, there

would be hell to pay. and this administration did nothing. host: let's go to douglas, calling from cocoa, florida on the democrat line. caller: sir, good morning, america. i hope everyone is feeling good today. i had a few comments on this subject. one, vietnam withdrawal, they left a whole platoon of marines sitting on top of an embassy. now afghanistan, which is the real subject, one, we should have never went in. we should have just made the whole country glow-in-the-dark and say terrorism, american style. but we went in, had to go -- they sent the army to go somewhere else, remember? but that is another story as well.

then, we had a great president, donald trump, that surrenders and then sits on his ass for 11 months. host: let's go to mary sue, calling from norfolk, nebraska on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a few opinions, i guess. i don't know -- you said $350 million a day supporting afghanistan. you could have given $100 million to an american and an electric car and heat for that money. i am really disappointed in our government. i was young when i saw saigon fall.

i joined the army when i was 17 years old due to the fact that i loved my country and i never wanted anything like that to happen over here. we should have left afghanistan alone. they've been warring for eternity. it's religious, it's power, it's oil -- it's all of these things. yet it's not something we can change. they do not want a democratic society. they don't want to have freedom. it's all about control there. now, ukraine? i absolutely admire that president.

he went from television to leading his country in a war that absolutely he should not be able to be holding his own the way he is now. host: let's go to joe, calling from north carolina on the independent line. joe, are you there? caller: good morning. i just want -- yes, i am here. can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: hello? host: go ahead.

caller: he did the best thing he could considering trump did absolutely nothing. host: coming up next, we discussed the 80 building -- the 80 billion -- and later ranked choice voting and other voting reforms. with us. we will be right back. >> nobody really thought this was going to happen.

>> liberation by american and french forces. watch on q&a tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcast on our new c-span now app. >> a live report on in-depth. uc berkeley scholar stephen haber -- steven hayward will be our guest. he is the author of several books including two volumes in

the age of reagan series. greatness and patriotism is not enough. about the scholars who changed the course across america. join us with your facebook comments text and tweets. steven hayward lives sunday, september 4 at noon eastern. on c-span two. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back and we are going to talk this morning with the ceo of the freedom foundation. he is here to discuss the additional 80 billion dollars the irs will be getting as a part of the inflation reduction act and how that will affect america. aaron, good morning. guest: thanks for having me on the show. host: first tell us a little bit more about your background and who funds your work? guest: