we're in trouble. ready when all chose seemed wrong. when older girls just don't know all. the world to get to shape our disdain you can't get educated and in detroit because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground.

hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle after almost 2 decades of war and occupation american military involvement in afghanistan appears to be winding down a deal with the taliban the majority of american troops leave while still allowing a sizable contingent to remain just what exactly is washington's geo political interest to be in afghanistan will america's longest war ever end. cross talking afghanistan i'm joined by my guest. he is the director of center for development and peace studies in lake jackson we cross to daniel mcadams he is the executive director of the ron paul institute for peace and prosperity and am boston we have max abrams he is a professor of political science at northeastern university as well as author of

rules for rebels the science of victory in militant history or a gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate daniel let me go to you they're talking about a peace process in afghanistan. talks between the united states and the taliban and not very many people are happy about it ok because either too many troops are leaving or too many troops are staying and i don't even know what this process is because the afghan government kabul government wasn't even involved in it i mean what is this a half a glass full have a glass empty what does it mean to you other than we need to get out of there after almost 2 days. go ahead daniel. what's fascinating is they need a peace process in the white house because if you look at the fighting over this document john bolton wasn't invited to to a recent meeting of top aides he wasn't even invited he was uninvited pompei o the secretary of state refuses to sign off on the deal nobody knows what the deal looks like except colors and his interlocutors and carter it's the white house is at war

with it so far over this policy and the president is facing a reelection where he knows this is going to be an issue on the table so you may get peace of eventually in afghanistan but you're getting more war in the white house over the war in afghanistan so it's it's very very confusing i've never seen a white house in this much disarray peter ok it is our let me go it's go to our guest in kabul i mean a decade ago at the beginning of this decade there was 100000 american troops in afghanistan now with this proposed plan i don't even know why they call it peace because it's not just with those troops remaining peace will not come in there is still an occupation there in the eyes of many but if we go from 100000 troops the $8500.00 what is the $8500.00 going to do the 100000 couldn't do go ahead in kabul . who will let me be a virtue back to 2001 i remember bush assertion in the senate and he was telling that we're going to afghanistan to do for fundamental things number one we have to

cripple terrorism in the country because that have been have been the sponsor for the day and we have to them 2nd was the sustainable economic development there was the forces improvement in finally the human rights and democracy off to teen years let's judge the whole mission with the result we have right now in hain't i think there has been some wrong military strategies some duty tricks some political wrong maneuvers blood by the afghan go by that is not allies and also the united state i hope that you should have been doing grant. just recently you know him and his honesty and his are right you can go through checking all the boxes you want but nation building for afghanistan is an utter complete failure it's cost about a trillion dollars thousands of american troops countless numbers of afghans ok let me go over to max why do we keep this sharod going and what is the geopolitical interests the united states has in being in afghanistan at all now go ahead max. i

think that washington isn't approaching this correctly i think you're asking exactly the right question which is what i mean caught in afghanistan here and i think that we need to limit it to counter terrorism against to the. associated groups as well as rival groups in that country the united states has one being caught you know stand and that is to prevent another 911 to prevent the church or even from being used as a safe haven to launch a try to say against the united states i am in favor of the united states with drawing from afghanistan but interestingly i guess i'm not in favor of negotiating with the taliban i think that the negotiations or indeed of course this is a group we have no use central trust in the agenda it's all over the table well for

example oh we're pushing the notion that the trial is being should co-exist peacefully with the government but we're making all sorts of stipulations about human rights in that country none of those things are going to happen i think that the united states should talk to the tower and say if we're all were and say well we're leaving the country but if your country again is used as a safe even try to launch attacks against us we might return yeah we're going to go to max i think. max that is that basically the deal but that's not that's basically the deal ok i mean the taliban are to keep isis and al qaeda out and if they don't they will suffer the consequences when we go back to daniel i mean after 20 and 18 years of the american involvement in its allies and then the decade 2 decades before the soviet one i think most people in afghanistan

have probably had enough of foreign occupation and i think that it at the. end of the day it doesn't really matter if you could trust the taliban or not i mean giving the the belief the implicit belief that you can or cannot trust them the united states is imprisoned itself into afghanistan forever why are they calling the shots go ahead daniel. while the. also had safe haven in florida and berlin to to their training so good logic we should be bombing those countries those states countries as well this is all the fig leaf didn't go through a fig leaf the taliban is in the driver's seat this is the fall of saigon moment it's been playing along by the continued boneheaded us presence there but it's all over the war was over when it started because nobody knows nobody knew what victory looks like america has turned against the war look at all the recent polls even the us military members of the military have turned against the war this is a vietnam moment it's

a side gone movement the best that the trump administration can hope for is to maintain some semblance of dignity as we run and get the hell out of there very good it does i mean daniel got ahead of my skis here mentioning that saigon i mean this is really what's in play here everyone knows the american effort and its allies is over it it's ended in failure nobody wants to admit that that it was a total waste of time wasted mission i have the numbers here that daniel is mentioned 59 percent of american adults and 58 percent of veterans say the war in afghanistan is not worth fighting how do you react to that in this our go ahead and couple. what i think the american has been shooting itself in the heat by themselves they're just breaking their own i think that has been right option on the table they didn't choose what they were only killing taliban or only only they had an option that they have to uproot the terrorism including taliban they were

getting mixed messages not specific definition for any. in friend there were not specific process for peace and conflict today even as a person who is keeping vigilant eye on the process in qatar in washington and afghanistan i'm still confused that what's really the in donald trump plays in the game what they want i mean exactly if you would like to win this complex peace negotiation we have to be unraveling 3 important question who we are what we do with who we deal and what we want i think these fundamental questions still remain unanswered in and i hold that it would have been answered maybe the kid to go still we have an option here on table and they're going to have 2 options right now whether they have to bow down they have to decamping leave to the united states that could be a few years defeat or either the inking a deal with the taliban so no it depends back on the smart move of the washington

ians including. this is very good playing a consensus role in washington but he failed to receive the support of the afghan government including person danny i think you would have a review with the times report recently that elect bush has been very candid on each others are and it's not a good thing again let me go to max i mean because daniel brought it up let's go back in history ok let's go back. to the vietnam war beside gone government wasn't involved in the in the secret talks that the nixon administration had with hanoi this is the same thing going all over again and why are why isn't the cowboy government there because they're essentially useless and they're corrupt and why should you support a government that's not going to fight and protect its own interests they'll run away just as fast when the last american helicopter leaves they'll be right behind so why should we be dealing with that government either i mean at least the taliban

they control it least half the country. go ahead max. this is exactly what the negotiations are about i don't hear this because i do think that the united states is getting out of the stand but i do think that when we do the situation will deteriorate even more you know when that happens oh everyone's going to point to the united states and say ha ha this is a saigon moment you know this was a complete. you know but it doesn't i think we could get out in a cheaper way with lower reputational costs we were at the united states simply admit the truth of that which is that things are going to get worse but that is not what we're focusing on our goal it's strictly to prevent another $911.00 like a truck oh we cannot be out for the uk in government we cannot vouch for human

rights we cannot vouch for reduction in tokyo violence against the people of afghanistan we need to do you limit what our goals are and be honest about what's going to happen ok daniel 30 seconds phyllis finish off our program 1st half of the program go ahead. well the problem with that is there are enormous political risks for the u.s. to actually admit that it was a mistake and so i agree in principle with what professor abrams said but the reality of u.s. politics as soon as trump or the top administration says something like that boom it's all over this is a presidential campaign we're talking about above all it's about policy in the 2nd half the program on a talk about domestic politics we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on afghanistan state with our.

lead. the 4 lead. lead. lead. play. live. plymouth . leg. length. oh. please.

liz. let's just say lists leg. lifts. playing. very well might continue watching us in such. what politicians do. put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some want to. have to try to cross the saliva before 3 in the morning can't be good. i'm interested in the wives of our.

6 guys or financial survival. customers go by you reduce the price. now well reduce some lower. that's undercutting but what's good for markets is not good for the global economy. welcome back across top where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing afghanistan. ok let's go back to our guest in kabul and desire was the war a mistake from the very beginning. well i think the stake of the war is just

killing innocent people the taliban also the going to go on and also the united states in. turning the in a blind eye and they're just doing some brazen attacks on civilians top leadership of taliban or station in qatar in while the afghan leadership of both in security and politics are guarded by heavy falls the only thing in afghanistan or the stick a can mention is the death of the civilians i'm sitting right now on the top floor here talking to you i don't believe that i would return alive to home this is how we breed daily life in this is because of the wrong strategy the wrong governance the afghan government inside has been poorest they were unable to deliver services they were unable to enforce law corruption is very high in the drug in what economy has been one of the top priority for the tourism in for the tourist actors to use it as a case in afghanistan one of the stronghold for tourism of any type maybe 3

years ago there was only taliban now there is 21 group what that means they are not a state international community came to afghanistan to increase the number of the risk group in the afghan in afghanistan or they had came here to provide them well now there's the question fundamental question we have a mess everywhere we have to clean it up right now yeah but i mean india's are a switchover to max here i mean but foreign occupation is something that hasn't been very well tolerated in afghanistan asked the british the soviets and now the americans are understanding that as well here i've got a question for you max i mean i think you're some very good points in this program about the mishmash in this kind of confusing peace process that it's being called i don't think that's the right word but that's what they're calling it is just this trumped kind of fudging it you know we're going to take some out because i just think the the amount that they want to take out is going to be smaller than the ones that are remaining so i mean is this

a campaign trick on the part of trump saying i pulled out some troops without stressing the word some go ahead max. you know i mean i think that shrum to get the feeling among many americans that was going to explode us which is that the u.s. is overextended around the world i mean he would like to claim that he was the president who helped to wind down the war in afghanistan and i think that his inclination often is to retrench u.s. forces and then. gets to him and they say no this isn't realistic we need to maintain a contingent i mean we saw the same thing happen with syria but you would definitely like to say look you know this is a major foreign policy accomplishment i just respond to the question about whether going into afghanistan in the 1st place was a mistake but i do not think that it was

a mistake i think it was the right thing to do and i think that it was inevitable regardless of who was president at the time we were going to respond to 911 and indeed we should. be very early still it is we're not entirely useless we forget we didn't kill off a large portion of the al qaeda leadership the problem is that right after the how we should have a lot so probably exactly this matching right counterterrorism to nation building we should write in there were about a few months kill the leadership and then got out exactly max because if you look at the events of $911.00 it's a crime a crime was committed a massive one and at that and then the reaction should have been law enforcement go and get these bad actors that did this take to destroy them ok because they were combatants and then leave daniel that what that's what it should have been but no

there was too much money to be made and too much hubris to suck up on that was the mistake ok and that the end the further. they went down that path the harder it was to say it was wrong the initial stages of a job of destroying al qaeda i don't think anybody has a problem with that there was actually international support for it as well go ahead daniel even among iran there was the iranian government you know i think the the reports for the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction should be required reading for any time in the future of the u.s. decides to get involved in nation building because those reports really capture the insanity of what the us tried to do and you talk about why did we stay well don't forget also that the left to try to sell this war in a big way to as a wonderful human rights experiment look all the girls are going to school everyone's happy they're going to adopt our values and our system of governance how

wonderful it is it's all a lawyer to keep the war machine going you know and it will continue going the us will continue to occupy afghanistan until it's forced out you know ted carpenter at cato has a great piece in the national interest where he talks about this as a kind of u.s. bridge doctrine you know britain of doctrine was that any country communist would remain communist and ted points out that the u.s. president of doctrine any country who is a security dependent on the us will always remain a security dependent occupied by u.s. troops and you look at how we're in europe now how many years after world war 2 that seems to be a doctrine and it is a recipe for our own downfall a recipe for disaster for the united states into so. hypothetical question if the united states over the next 30 days just picked up and left what would happen in afghanistan in your opinion. well i just person danny he said that when

t.v. and he said like if american are not here in afghanistan i think we will collapse in 6 months why i would take a lot. of time and all of the money after all of the money all of the resources all the material over the course of 18 years and you would collapse after the last american left on a helicopter or saigon like what in the world has happened in your country for 18 years. well this is a shame this is really a shame as a person as an individual in afghanistan i'm ashamed by this assertion of the president and all the top leaders in the country what the hell they were doing on earth just getting that money and in putting it in their own pockets at the same level i think americans in that community were disporting out to money into the pocket of people who are not believing in democracy that was another problem for example the war economy as i told you in 2007 there was only 7000 hectares lane cultivated by drug now in 201718 it's 374000 hectors lane cultivated by

a drug why in $1200000000.00 spent on the eradication one on the face of earth would accept that the same time transparency international colace that we are the sick and corrupt country on the face of earth. to watch and get us another watchdog in afghanistan to say that over $2000000000.00 has been corrupted in 2016 now this is the scenario if the president is saying that and this is a lottery marriage can only be large and this is all happening under the american occupation and auspices of nato it is all happening during this time my goodness that's nation building in a way that i don't think anyone could ever imagine max what is the solution to all of this max. i think we need to just. to be honest self interest. in not. negotiating we've been saying if you could

tell them oh we know you want us out here and you know what we want to get out of your oh above all staying out of here is conditional on her not being a brother and i don't like to tell it it is the gloves are coming well so why don't we do you know you do your best to police that scenario and don't let us come back because we don't want to and you don't want us to come back to you. ok daniel i mean you brought up the saigon analogy i want to do it 1st but me are smarter than i am that's why you did it. the domino theory and the domino theory remember all that you know you know one of south saigon falls then it will be lousy to be cambodian only you know if american prestige will be crushed around and out of that really happened ok it really didn't ok and i mean it seems to me that again this element to puberty is here that never admitting you're wrong ok i think they'd begin to start there i think you'd be a whole lot more understanding among the the the populate the american electorate

because i think they feel that way too it's just that war is a bad habit of the of the of the elites of the deep state and well if you if you say you were wrong in afghanistan you might have to say that about syria you might have to say that about libya and the list goes on and on and on ok this is why to write down you. and i was just in washington for our own poems to a conference war is very very profitable for washington for the well connected elites that's why they push war they suck the life out of the rest of the country in a rich themselves but one elephant in the room that we have a mention peter is the issue of iran and that's the reason the neo cons are freaking out the bush the trump administration people like pence and pompei were freaking out the u.s. is determined to maintain its surrounding of iran with military force that's the reason for keeping these $8000.00 troops there it's about surrounding him on trump is trapped by his own idiotic iran policy and it's keeping him from keeping his

promises in afghanistan and getting himself reelected so this is this is the real issue let's not forget that iran is very intricately tied to our our afghan policy ok and daniel is just totally mad if you look go ahead matt jump in max if you look . foundation for defense of democracy. you know the most hawkish on you wrong and they're also the most hawkish on afghanistan and there is indeed a strong correlation between those who insist on staying in afghanistan and those who have been in favor of withdrawing from the run nuclear if you know. the policy of maximum pressure of so i do think that. being sold we among insiders tell you the wrong sort of continuing mean strategy ok and it's our last 30 seconds to you is the worst problem afghanistan experiencing right now is

the lack of democracy is that your number one concern. no. in life that's a big concern that's a that's a that's a big concern and we're just beginning our own person to survive that's the big thing we want right now ok well i hope after 18 years somebody has learned something and i actually hope somebody would be punished and held responsible for this absolute catastrophe and particularly for the afghan people we have to remember that that's all the time we have gentlemen many thanks to my guest in kabul lake jackson and in boston and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember. it's a dangerous mission to stick with mistake the earth for use by terror for the most

it's simple compared it's simple to do climate change as compared to making knows how to triple terror from those who dangerous to do seem to think that we've got a plan b. just for those people we've got to do the focus here. is loss of western germany that steve lobel ization this came in with trump in 2016 that he the idea of monitor ization the global central banks cooperating to put out a currency unit of accounts that was better than gold is a 6070 year experiment that is now collapsing which is leading to d. dollars ation as do countries like russia move aggressively away from the dollar and buy gold antiglobalization simultaneously.

i'm. ready ready ready sure to stop at the to do a better grow. i just never know very good about the idea of bringing. it into the world because i didn't feel like things were very good shape . life was just going to be a lot of software programs. there's no reason you're more. you take things that are to me. there's no reason to make something else that. everybody's scared to talk about is survival is really. dependent on us addressing this issue

and if we can't even talk about it if we can anyone have a conversation about it. are in trouble. ready money and influence a new report alleges there's a covert multi-million dollar scheme to boost the popularity of the left across the u.s. . it's all interior minister matteo salvini faces charges of inciting violence against a german rescue boat captain who would legally adopt all natal insurers with dozens of migrants salvini described the accusations against him as a medal of honor. and the u.s. carries out its military exercises in south america next to venezuela in line with his apparent strategy of surrounding the enemy we breakdown why the tactic isn't anything new.