report from a conservative watchdog claims there is a multimillion dollar scheme to boost left wing movements across the u.s. . italy's former interior minister faces charges of inciting violence against a german rescue boat captain who illegally docked on a time shores with dozens of migrants. and the u.s. carries out military exercises near venezuela's borders in line with its apparent strategy of surrounding the. latest on these stories you can head to our t.v. my colleague kevin i want to be here in about an hour's time with the news but right now stay with us for cross.

and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered. 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 interests to be in afghanistan will america's longest war ever end. talking about ganesh then i'm joined by my guest. in kabul he is the director of center for development and peace studies in lake jackson. and we cross to daniel

mcadams he is the executive director of the ron paul institute for peace and prosperity and in boston we have max abrams he is a professor of political science and 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 it 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 couple government wasn't even involved in it i mean what is this a half a glass full half a glass empty what does it mean to you other than we need to get out of there after almost 2 decades 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 a to a recent meeting of top aides he wasn't even invited he was uninvited pump aoe the

secretary of state refuses to sign off on the deal nobody knows what the deal looks like except his interlocutors and carter 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 like i was 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 and couple. who will let media word to back to 2001 i remember person 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 has been have been the sponsor for the day and we have to purge lies the 2nd was the sustainable economic development there was the forces improvement in finally the human rights and democracy after 18 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 manoeuvers blood by the afghan government that is not allies and also the united state i hope the 2 should have been doing grand just recently you know him and his honesty and his are i 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 interest 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. here and i think that we need to limit it to counterterrorism against 2. associated groups as well as rock groups in that column for the united states has one being caught you know. and that is to prevent another 911 to prevent the church or even from being used as a safe haven to launch or try to suggest the united states well i'm 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 central trust in the agenda it's all over the table well for oh we're pushing to do. should co-exist peacefully with the government but we're making all sorts of stipulations about human rights in that time none of those things are going to happen i think that the united states should talk to the pm and say if we're all were and say look we're leaving the country but if your country again is used to see if you can try to launch attacks against us we might return you know we're going to go to max. max that is. basically the deal but that's not that's basically the deal ok i mean the taliban are to keep isis and al qaida out and if they don't they will suffer the consequences let me 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 given the believe 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. well the. also had safe haven in florida and berlin to to their training so good with that logic we should be bombing those countries those states countries as well this is all the fig leaf the negotiations are 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 u.s. 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 moment 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 and it's our i mean danielle 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 waste of 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 the taliban or only they had an option that they have to provide the terrorism including taliban they were getting mixed messages there not specific definition for enemy in friend they were not specific to process for peace and in conflict today even as a person who is keeping vigilant eye on the process in qatar in washington in afghanistan i've 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 and rebuilding 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 k. to go still we have an option here on table they're going to have 2 options right now whether they have to buy. down they have to decamping leave to the united

states there could be a few asco even i mean years defeat will lead to thinking a deal with the taliban so now it depends back on the smart move of the washington ians including. this this is very good playing a consensus rule in washington but he failed to receive the support of the afghan government including person danny i think you would have reviewed the times report recently that elect bush has been better understand each other's 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 this side 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 and 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 we're going to go she should are about i don't you know this because i do think that the united states is carrying. on but i do think that when we have the situation will deteriorate even more you know when that happens everyone's going to point to the united states and how hard this is a sorry go along with you know if this was a complete star you know but it doesn't i think that we could get out in a cheaper way with lower costs we're at the united states simply admit the truth which is that things are going to get worse but. what. focusing

on our goal is strictly to prevent another $911.00 like attack we cannot ballot for the afghan government we cannot vouch for human rights we cannot vouch for a 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 fearless 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 trump instruction said 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 the 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 certain.

politicians to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so if you want to be president and she. wanted. to go right to be close this is what the korean people are. interested in the. city ready ready ready ready. i

am sure to stop it for continuing to grow. i just never felt very good about the idea of bringing children into the world because i didn't feel like things were in very good shape that a life was just going to be a lot of software programs. there's no reason you're more world you take things that are going. the there's movies on the move something we love to everybody's scared to talk about is survival is truly dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can even talk about it and reach anyone have a conversation about it. more in trouble ready. the world is driven by shaped by.

the day or thinks. we dare to ask. welcome back across top we're 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 his heart 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 are stationed 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 the 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 paralyze them well now there's the question fundamental question we have a miss even where we have to clean it up right now yeah but i mean india's our switch over 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 on 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 trump 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 a lot a lot. of the are quite a bit leadership the problem is that right after the how we should have left so exactly the smashing right in counterterrorism to nation building we should right and they were for about a few months killed 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 on 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 the say it was wrong the initial stages 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 u.s. 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 go in 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 u.s. 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 posted in gunny he said that when

t.v. he said like if american are not here in afghanistan i think would a collapse in 6 months why i would take a lot of asteroids 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 that's 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 it just getting the 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 were 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 y. in $1200000000.00 spent on the united nation one on the face of earth will 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 on their watch dog in afghanistan they 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 lot during the american only large and this is all happening under the american occupation and the 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.

soften. and not. negotiate with them and see if you can tell them oh we know you want to start here and you know what we want to get out of here oh about or staying out of here is condition. i know being another and i don't know . if it is the gloves are coming though so why don't we do you know you do your best to police this scenario and don't just come back because we don't want to and you don't want us to come back. daniel i mean you brought up the saigon analogy i want to do it 1st but we are smarter than i am that's why you did it. the domino theory the domino theory remember all that you know you know one south saigon falls then it will be laos will be cambodia and only you know you 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 of hubris here that never admitting you're wrong ok i think they'd be good 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're 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 of people like pence and pompei were freaking out the us is determined to maintain its surrounding of iran with military force that's the reason for keeping these 8000 troops there it's about surrounding

your mob 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 was just totally go ahead matt if you look go ahead matt jump in max go ahead if you look at the thing foundation for defense of democracy. you know the most hawkish 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 deal and the more the policy of maximum pressure of so i do think that. being so we among the insiders tell you sort of kin team 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. more that than in life that's a big concern that's a that's a that's a big concern and we're just beginning around for you 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 guests in kabul lake jackson and in boston and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember.

you know world's big partners who mock us and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media. just to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. exists is a sticker from the water bottle phone in the stomach of a fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that let's tell consumers there are the bad ones there are the litter bugs are throwing us away industry should be blamed for all of this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic.

stickle capsules excuse. to mailer as soon as school sets for their classes because 60 costly on my end only stay on your hands at a special projects funded we tell the difference and also agree on the i'm your best bet is the end of a footy team but for now the mountains of waste only grow higher. this is. one of the most important issues if not the most important issue that humanity needs to be talking about. and we had nobody wants to talk about it because everybody's scared to talk about it everybody knows that. you know an emotional issue in such a personal you know subject. and people are scared so people just don't talk about it and that's sad. in our species survival is truly dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can even talk about it which

many even have a conversation about it then. we're in trouble. 6 when i was studying biology at the university of california in san diego i had a biochemistry professor that one day came into class and told all the students to close their books and said we're not going to talk about biochemistry today we're going to watch a film about population and i was probably about 20 years old and i remember just being clearly devastated by what i learned in that film and i walked across the entire campus talking to my professor about human population and i really decided on that day that i didn't.