Expressed. Hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered im 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 well see a bill majority of american troops leave while still allowing a sizable contingent to remain just what exactly is washingtons geo political interests to be in afghanistan will americas longest war ever end. Talking up to an extent im joined by my guess it is our guardian in kabul he is the director of center for development of peace studies in lake jackson we cross to Daniel Mcadams he is the executive director of the ron paul ince. 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 all right gentlemen cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate danny let me go to you theyre 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 dont even know what this process is because the Afghan Government couple government wasnt 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. Whats fascinating is they need a Peace Process in the white house because if you look at the fighting over this document john bolton wasnt invited to a to a recent meeting of top aides he wasnt 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 its 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 youre getting more war in the white house over the war in afghanistan so its its very very confusing ive never seen a white house in this much disarray peter ok it is our let me go its go to our guest in kabul i mean a decade ago at the beginning of this decade there was a 100000 american troops in afghanistan now with this proposed plan i dont even know why they call it peace because its not as 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 couldnt do go ahead in kabul. Who are media were to back to 2001 i remember this and bush assertion in the senate and he was telling that we are going to afghanistan to do 4 fundamental things number one we have to cripple terrorism in the country because that is on have been the sponsor for the day and we have to them 2nd was the Sustainable Economic Development there was the forces improvement and finally the human rights and democracy off to teen years lets judge the whole mission with the result we have right now in haint i think there has been some wrong military started some duty tricks some political or wrong maneuvers both by the afghan go in by that is not allies and also the United States i hold that you should have been doing grand just recently you know him and his honesty and its our idea you can go through checking all the boxes you want but nation building for afghanistan is an utter complete failure its 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 isnt approaching this correctly i think youre asking exactly the right question which is what i mean caught in afghanistan here and i think 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 it from being used as a safe haven to launch attacks against the United States i am in favor of the United States with drawing from afghanistan but interestingly i guess im not in favor of negotiating with the taliban i think that the negotiations or indeed of course this is a group we have no you Central Trust in the agenda its all over the table well for example oh were pushing the notion that the should coexist peacefully with the government but were 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 were all going to work and say look were leaving the country but if your country again is used as a safe even try to launch attacks against us we might return yeah were going to go to max i think right now max that is basically that basically the deal but thats not thats basically the deal ok i mean the taliban are to keep isis and al qaeda out and if they dont 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 but 2 decades before the soviet one i think most people in afghanistan are probably had enough of Foreign Occupation and i think that at. End of the day it would doesnt really matter if you could trust the taliban or not i mean giving 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. While the card also had safe haven in florida and berlin to through their training so good at logic we should be bombing those countries those states countries as well this is all the fig leaf didnt go through a fig leaf the taliban is in the drivers seat this is the fall of saigon moment its been thinking long and by the continued boneheaded us presence there but its 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 its 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 and does our i mean daniel got ahead of my skis here mentioning that saigon i mean this is really whats in play here everyone knows the american effort and its allies is over it its 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 theyre just breaking their own i think that has been right option on the table they didnt choose what they were only killing the taliban or only only they had an option that they have to put the terrorism including taliban they were getting mixed messages they had not specific definition for any. In friend they were not specifying the process for peace and in conflict today even as a person who is keeping vigilant eye on the process in qatar in washington and afghanistan im still confused that what really the 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 kid to go still we have an option here on table and theyre 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 if you ask me is defeat will lead to thinking a deal with the taliban so no it depends back on the smart move of the washington ians including. 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 a review with the times report recently that elect bush has been very candid on each others are and its not a good thing again let me go let me go to max i mean because daniel brought it up lets go back in history ok lets go back. To the vietnam war beside gone government wasnt 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 isnt the cowboy government there because theyre essentially useless and theyre corrupt and why should you support a government thats not going to fight and protect its own interests theyll run away just as fast when the last american helicopter leaves theyll 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 dont you know this because i do think that the United States is getting out of afghanistan but i do think that when we do the situation will deteriorate even more you know when that happens oh everyones going to point to the United States and say ha ha this is a saigon moment you know that this was a complete. You know but it doesnt i think that we could get out in a cheaper way with lower reputational costs 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 were focusing on our goal is strictly to prevent another 911. 00 like attack but we cannot be out for the Afghan Government we cannot vouch for human rights we cannot vouch for reduction in tokyo violence against the people of afghanistan but were we need to do you limit what our goals are and be honest about whats 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 us 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 of mistrust and said Something Like that boom its all over this is a president ial campaign were talking about above all its about policy in the 2nd half of the program on a talk about domestic politics were going to go to a short break and after that short break well continue our discussion on afghanistan stayed with me. This is the news into the christmas day. By telephone simple compare its simple to do with Climate Change as compared to making the triple tariff so dangerous to delusion to think that the risk of those people whos going to do the focus here. Is this is a stick. In the stomach of the fish the brand is part of the Cocacola Company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that lets tell consumers theyre the bad ones theyre the litterbug for trying this way industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. There. Special projects funding. On. 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Welcome back across top where all things are considered im Peter Lavelle to remind you were discussing afghanistan. Ok lets go back to our guest in kabul and its our once the war a mistake from the very beginning. Well i think the stake of the war is just killing innocent people the taliban and also the going to go on and also the United States in. Turning the in a blind eye and theyre just doing some brazen attacks on civilians top leadership of taliban are stationed in qatar in while the afghan leadership 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 im sitting right now on the top floor here talking to you i dont believe that i would return alive to home this is how we breathe 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 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 terrorist group what that means they are not the state International Community came to afghanistan to increase the number of to risk group in the afghan in afghanistan or they had came here to paralyze them well now theres the question from the question we have a miss even where we have to clean it up right now yeah but i mean it is our switch over to max here i mean but Foreign Occupation is something that hasnt been very well tolerated in afghanistan asked the british and the soviets and now the americans are understanding that as well here ive got a question for you max i mean i think youre some very good points on this program about the mishmash in this kind of confusing Peace Process that its being called i dont think thats the right word but thats what theyre calling it is just this trump kind of fudging it you know were going to take some out because they 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 trumped to the feeling among Many Americans that was and spread us which is that the u. S. Is overextended around the world but 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 isnt 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 were not entirely useless we forget we didnt kill a lot a lot. Of the our quite got leadership but the problem is that right after that we should have left so probably exactly this matching right in counterterrorism to nation building we should write in there were for about a few months kill the leadership and then got out exactly max because if you look at the events of 911. 00 its 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 thats 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 dont 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 dont forget also that the left to try to se