13: The Afghanistan Withdrawal

The Modernist Perspective Podcast

The withdrawal from Afghanistan has been rife with debate. In this episode we’re here to break down the many factors involved in the Afghanistan withdrawal and what got us to this point.

0:30 - So ultimately where is the fault in this withdrawal? Is this a 20 year failure spread across multiple presidencies? Does the fault lie with Biden? With his predecessor? With Afghan president Ghani who was plagued with corruption?

7:11 - So as far as we don’t leave our people behind this withdrawal from Afghanistan seems to be a lot more successful then the Syrian withdrawal where Kurdish soldiers and civilians were massacred by Turkey after Trump pulled out at Erdogan’s behest. Why do you think this is getting more coverage than that withdrawal which was more horrendous in terms of betrayal of our allies and leaving people behind who could have been rescued?

12:16 - What is the Doha Agreement? Why do people keep bringing it up as an element that sets up the failure we’re seeing today in Iraq? Why was it such a bad deal for Trump to make with the Taliban?

15:28 - Something that has proven to be a Trump supporter myth in the Afghanistan narrative is that he would have gotten them all out. News broke recently that Stephen Miller sabotaged the visa program which left many Afghan’s that wanted to get out earlier stranded.

17:14 - The xenophobic messaging coming from Fox news and other conservative messaging over the Afghan refugees. They seem happy to criticize the withdrawal process but in reality many don’t seem to actually want these people to be rescued.

21:27 - So the media right now has its focus on the domestic blame game. One of the things we haven’t talked enough about is the failures of the Afghan gov’t which under Ghani had become quite corrupt. Let’s discuss some of the failures that he invited by failing to reform his gov’t.

25:27 - Many experts have said redeploying troops to Afghanistan would be logistically challenging and reversing the withdrawal was easier said than done. Should Biden had done so and there was a retaliation by the Taliban during vulnerable stages of our redeployment what would have been the optics of that?

28:20 - Many of the contractors we worked with in Afghanistan rather than being useful service providers are more accurately described as war profiteers. Erik Prince is running a scam charging $6500 for refugees to get a flight out of the country. What do you think about the military working with people like that?

30:20 - What are the general optics of this? You seem to have people foaming at the mouth with utter glee that the USA under Biden is getting owned. What do you think about some Republican’s making comments that praise the Taliban? How can Democrats turn this around for the midterm?

34:20 - Before Trump political disagreements revolved around taxes, debt ceiling, size of gov’t, etc. Now it seems as time has gone on liberals are spending more time defending basic decency, ethics, and morality. What do you think of these comments and the fact that they reflect an absence of values and the ability to do the right thing?

36:04 - I know of teachers now who say we wouldn’t be able to win WWII today because we don’t live in a common reality and politics has become more about winning instead of doing what’s right for the country. I don’t remember it being that way before Trump as much. How much harm has been done with him refusing to concede the election and turning politics into survival against the other side who are enemies rather than citizens? Is it possible we lose our position as a superpower because of division and inability to unite to greater good?

40:39 - Closing thoughts on where the country is headed and also what still needs to be done to right the ship.

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