Speaker 1: Welcome to this evening's classic episode. Guys, do you remember Afghanistan?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, how could I forget? It was a golden
Speaker 2: time in Afghanistan that we all spent together.
Speaker 1: The Breaker of Empires. The US invaded Afghanistan on October seventh,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and back in twenty twenty, weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: on New Year's Day, we started looking into this, into
Speaker 1: this excellent work by the Washington Post.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, back in twenty nineteen, Craig Whitlock of The
Speaker 3: Washington Post published at War with the Truth and the
Speaker 3: world said, uh what.
Speaker 2: That was a really good impression of the world.
Speaker 1: Matt, Yeah, what do you say?
Speaker 2: We jump right into this classic episode.
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff. They don't go on you to know.
Speaker 1: A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3: Hello, Welcome back to the show. I'm not wearing a hat.
Speaker 2: You're wearing pants, though.
Speaker 3: I am wearing pants. My name is Matt, my name
Speaker 3: is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined, as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Control Deck. In most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are you, you are here, and that makes this
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. This is a
Speaker 1: wartime episode. As we record today's episode, the United States
Speaker 1: of America is still in the middle of the longest
Speaker 1: war in the country's history. That means there are literally
Speaker 1: people listening to the show today who were not alive
Speaker 1: when this war began. Think about that. The United States
Speaker 1: invaded Afghanistan on October seventh, two thousand and one, and
Speaker 1: we are still there as we speak. Why how much
Speaker 1: did our leaders know and when did they know it?
Speaker 1: To answer that, oddly enough, even though this country has
Speaker 1: been at war in this other country for the better
Speaker 1: part of two decades, many people, many voters, aren't one
Speaker 1: hundred percent sure what Afghanistan is, where it is, and
Speaker 1: why it's such a big deal.
Speaker 3: And it's also now the first time we've been engaged there.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, this has an interesting name.
Speaker 1: First things first, here are the facts. Afghanistan is located
Speaker 1: in what is commonly called Eurasia, right the vast stretch
Speaker 1: of land between Asia and the continent we call Europe.
Speaker 1: It's landlocked, It's bordered by some greatest hits countries. In
Speaker 1: the rogues gallery of the United States historically Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Zbekistan,
Speaker 1: and China. Its capital is a place called Kabul. Outside
Speaker 1: of several cities, the country is extraordinarily rural. We're talking
Speaker 1: places that are simply physically hard to access in the
Speaker 1: mountains or in the rugged wilderness. The country itself was
Speaker 1: not officially formed until seventeen oh nine, but as you
Speaker 1: alluded to, Matt, it has a history, a long and
Speaker 1: bloody history of being a battleground. In fact, Afghanistan is
Speaker 1: sometimes called the Graveyard of Empires due to just the
Speaker 1: sheer number of militaries that tried and failed to control it.
Speaker 3: And it's an interesting thing there because and just when
Speaker 3: we're talking about it's the battleground, right the place where
Speaker 3: the wars are fought or the battles are fought, and
Speaker 3: generally controlling the area is kind of the goal. But
Speaker 3: a lot of times, and this is what we're going
Speaker 3: to kind of outline here, is that it's the the land,
Speaker 3: the place where two different warring powers end up where
Speaker 3: they just kind of go right. So it's not as
Speaker 3: though Afghanistan itself is rising up to you know, fight
Speaker 3: A lot of the battles. It's generally it's where proxy
Speaker 3: wars happen. It's where it's interesting. We're gonna continue on
Speaker 3: with this throughout the show. So let's just keep going
Speaker 3: down into the history of Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do a little ancient history, shall we, Yes, okay, So,
Speaker 2: experts believe that early humans were living in Afghanistan as
Speaker 2: long as fifty thousand years ago because it was rich
Speaker 2: soil for farming. There were communities of farmers in Afghanistan
Speaker 2: that were some of the very earliest farmers in the
Speaker 2: entire world, and for a time the area was known
Speaker 2: as Ariyana, or the land of Arians. This is because
Speaker 2: multiple waves of people from Central Asia migrated to the region,
Speaker 2: and many of these settlers were in fact Arians. They
Speaker 2: were speakers of the parent language of Indo European languages.
Speaker 2: Arians also, so migrated to Persia and India in those
Speaker 2: prehistoric times.
Speaker 3: And then let's jump to the sixth century when the
Speaker 3: Persian Empire of the Akimenid dynasty controlled Ariana. And good
Speaker 3: luck saying, Achimenid, it's really fun and to look at
Speaker 3: and write. In about three hundred and thirty BC, the
Speaker 3: little guy you might remember named Alexander the Great, defeated
Speaker 3: the last ruler of the Akimenid dynasty there, and he
Speaker 3: made his way to the eastern borders of the place
Speaker 3: that was called Ariana. Now after this guy, old Great
Speaker 3: Alexander himself died in three hundred and twenty three BCE.
Speaker 1: In his early thirties, feeling that he was a failure
Speaker 1: by the.
Speaker 2: Way, Yeah, no, that Alexander, he sure was great, wasn't he.
Speaker 3: I mean he was, Uh, he's a guy.
Speaker 1: Who's a guy.
Speaker 2: He did great things.
Speaker 3: He did some huge stuff. Whether it was great or
Speaker 3: terrible is depending on which side of the battles you
Speaker 3: were on.
Speaker 1: I said, it had some large scale stuff.
Speaker 3: Let's leave it. Okay, that's yes, there we go. So
Speaker 3: he died three hundred and twenty three BCE. All these
Speaker 3: other kingdoms that were out there, let's name them off here,
Speaker 3: the Seleucids, maybe Seleucids Seleucids, the Bactria, and the Indian
Speaker 3: Mayuran Empire, they all were fighting to attempt in an
Speaker 3: attempt to control this territory that was known at the
Speaker 3: time as Ariana.
Speaker 2: So understandably, there were a lot of folks jockeying for
Speaker 2: position and a lot of kind of power grab situations.
Speaker 1: In the vacuum. Yes, the history of afghanistun involves a
Speaker 1: ton of handoffs and power grabs with a lot of
Speaker 1: names that might be unfamiliar to you know, unless you
Speaker 1: have specifically studied this history. So strap in, we're just
Speaker 1: going to do some highlights. A lot of these empires
Speaker 1: are no longer around and the names will sound unfamiliar.
Speaker 1: In the seventh century AD, or whichever way you want
Speaker 1: to go with that, Arab armies carried this brand new
Speaker 1: religion of Islam to Afghanistan, and the western provinces of
Speaker 1: Harat and Sastan came under the rule of these Arab forces.
Speaker 1: But the people of these provinces revolted. They returned to
Speaker 1: their old, pre existing beliefs as soon as these military
Speaker 1: forces were not you know, literally using violence to make
Speaker 1: them pretend to practice Islam. In the tenth century, Muslim
Speaker 1: rulers called Samanids from Bukara and what's now is Pakistan
Speaker 1: extended their influence into the Afghan area. And this kind
Speaker 1: of when we see extending influence, it means that there
Speaker 1: was a soft hegemony, you know, expanding there. People started
Speaker 1: to use the currency of those rulers, they started to
Speaker 1: speak similar languages they acquire their culture. Sos Samanid established
Speaker 1: a dynasty in Gazhni called the Ghaznavids. And again matt
Speaker 1: prescient with that pronunciation, we do not speak these languages.
Speaker 1: The greatest of the Ghaznavids was a king named Mahmoud
Speaker 1: who ruled from nine ninety eight to ten thirty. He
Speaker 1: is the one most responsible for establishing the solid foundation
Speaker 1: of Islam throughout the area of modern day Afghanistan. He
Speaker 1: led a lot of military expeditions into India. Even back
Speaker 1: then people started thinking of of Afghanistan to as the
Speaker 1: gateway to these kingdoms of India. That state falls in
Speaker 1: the middle of the twelfth century to the Gurud Kingdom
Speaker 1: which arose in gur that's a west central region of
Speaker 1: present day Afghanistan. Those guys get kicked out early in
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century by another Central Asian dynasty. And these
Speaker 1: folks are all swept away around twelve twenty CE by
Speaker 1: Jengas Khan.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that Genghis Khan. Guy that's actually called Jengis Khan.
Speaker 3: I like to call him Jangi Janki, k j Janki sure.
Speaker 2: Reminds me of that tower game Djenga.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And so we we include some of this ancient history
Speaker 1: because it's important to know that. Already it's twelve twenty
Speaker 1: Already two of the greatest conquerors in the world have
Speaker 1: come through this place, and now a third one appears.
Speaker 1: Near the end of the fourteenth century, the Central Asian
Speaker 1: military leader timor Lang or the Lame Timur, also known
Speaker 1: as tamer Lane in the West, conquered Afghanistan. Then he
Speaker 1: immediately moved on to India. And when he moved on,
Speaker 1: his children and his descendants couldn't hold the empire together.
Speaker 1: They couldn't rule everything. Their grandfather, their patriarch, took over,
Speaker 1: but they were able to keep a hold on Afghanistan
Speaker 1: roughly for a little while. And now we get to
Speaker 1: where it eventually becomes an independent nation, as we said,
Speaker 1: you know, in seventeen hundreds, becomes independent. But there's a
Speaker 1: story behind that too. There's even more switching off. People
Speaker 1: are trying to control this. They're dying left and right.
Speaker 3: And we're going to talk about let's say a strategy.
Speaker 3: You're something that's going to ripple across time here that
Speaker 3: occurs in the eighteenth century, the king of Persia around
Speaker 3: that time, a guy named the Deer Shaw. He was
Speaker 3: employing this tribe of Pashtuns, an Abdhali tribe of Pashtuns,
Speaker 3: and he was using them in his wars in India.
Speaker 3: So he's got a contingency of other fighters. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: call them mercenaries, but they're fighters for under another flag,
Speaker 3: essentially fighting under his flag. Right. And Ahmad Shaw, this
Speaker 3: Abdhali chief who'd gained this high post within the army there,
Speaker 3: he established himself after Nadir Shah's assassination, that the guy
Speaker 3: we're talking about, the King of Persia, after he was
Speaker 3: assassinated in seventeen forty seven. So Ahmad Shaw is, you know,
Speaker 3: looking to move up a little bit, and thankfully this
Speaker 3: assembly of tribal chiefs proclaim him the new Shaw. And
Speaker 3: then the Afghans extend their rule as far east as
Speaker 3: Kashmir and Delhi and then north to the Amu Daria
Speaker 3: and west into northern Persia. So they really just begin
Speaker 3: expanding there under the rule of Ahmad Shah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he retires from the throne in seventeen seventy two.
Speaker 1: He's one of the few people with the distinction of retiring.
Speaker 1: He dies in Kandahar. He has a son, Timor Shah,
Speaker 1: who assumes control the Afghan Empire survives mostly intact through
Speaker 1: the next twenty years.
Speaker 3: Now think about that time. Yeah, seventeen seventy two. America
Speaker 3: is forming right right in this time period.
Speaker 1: Here, increasingly irritated colonists half a world away are dreaming
Speaker 1: of revolution and saying, hey, one day there will be
Speaker 1: a popular Broadway play about us. And you may be wondering, rightly, so,
Speaker 1: when does all this have to do with me? When
Speaker 1: does all this obscure Eurasian history have to do with me?
Speaker 1: When does my team enter the game? A lot of
Speaker 1: people in the West are wondering, Well, there is an
Speaker 1: entire era of history involved, heavily involving Afghanistan that concerns
Speaker 1: just this. It's called The Great Game. We did an
Speaker 1: episode on this earlier, longtime listeners may recall. But let's like,
Speaker 1: what's the quick and dirty way.
Speaker 3: The Great Game is world dominance? Really, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: It's a bunch of extremely powerful countries and people deciding, Hey,
Speaker 3: I want to maybe be the ruler of all this.
Speaker 3: Let's see what we can do, but there are all
Speaker 3: these other people trying to do the same thing, so
Speaker 3: we have to play these mind games and diplomatic games
Speaker 3: and resource control games. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So for most of the nineteenth century, eighteen thirty to
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety five to be precise, the British and Russian
Speaker 2: Empires were vying for control of Central and South Asia,
Speaker 2: including the country of Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: This period was.
Speaker 2: Known, as you mentioned Matt, as the Great Game, where
Speaker 2: both empires were trying to protect and secure their own
Speaker 2: territories they already held and also expanding outward into others.
Speaker 2: Britain was a huge player in this game, and that
Speaker 2: they were very concerned that Russia might take control over India,
Speaker 2: which was the crown jewel of the British Empire, despite
Speaker 2: the fact that Russia this wasn't really something that they
Speaker 2: had designs on. But you know, Britain that you got
Speaker 2: to protect what she got, and they were to be
Speaker 2: a little paranoid. Afghanistan became once again, as you mentioned matt,
Speaker 2: a very fertile battleground.
Speaker 1: Right you can see you can see some excellent fiction
Speaker 1: based on this period of time. A work by Ridard
Speaker 1: Kipling intensely problematic author, but I would I would say
Speaker 1: a talented poet. He wrote a novel called Kim, which
Speaker 1: is about a child becoming embroiled in what they later
Speaker 1: learn is the Great Game.
Speaker 3: Rudyerd.
Speaker 1: Kipling, of course would be uh. I would be remiss
Speaker 1: not to mention this is the person is the person
Speaker 1: most responsible for the phrase white man's burden. So he's
Speaker 1: not a good dude. But that was a well written book.
Speaker 1: A series of conflicts transpire in real life, not just
Speaker 1: in the book, and these are these are breaking out
Speaker 1: to wars, but they don't really turn into world wars
Speaker 1: at this point. One of these conflicts, the Second Anglo
Speaker 1: Afghan War, which was from eighteen thirty eight to forty two,
Speaker 1: ended in a treaty that gave Britain control of Afghanistan's
Speaker 1: foreign affairs, so it turned into a vassal or a
Speaker 1: puppet state until nineteen nineteen, when Amanala Khan declared independence
Speaker 1: from British influence. He tried to introduce some social norms,
Speaker 1: such as abolishing the practice of product which is the
Speaker 1: idea that women should not be allowed to be seen
Speaker 1: or interact in public. So he was a more forward
Speaker 1: facing leader in some social regards.
Speaker 3: He was trying to do that.
Speaker 1: He was trying to he ended up fleeing the country
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine. People did not really people were
Speaker 1: not receptive to this change. Next, Zahir Shah becomes king
Speaker 1: and for the following four years, Afghanistan is a monarchy.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty three, a guy named General Mohammad Daoud
Speaker 1: became prime minister. He turned to the Soviets, to the USSR,
Speaker 1: and he said, help me out with the economy. Helped
Speaker 1: me out with military assistances. Also, I want to introduce
Speaker 1: some social reforms, including the abolition of pradah. He was
Speaker 1: forced to resign in nineteen sixty three. It's a ten
Speaker 1: year rule there. But in nineteen seventy three he regained
Speaker 1: power in a coup and he said, okay, now we're
Speaker 1: a republic, and he said, you know what, I get
Speaker 1: the trend of history here, So I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to play these world powers against one another. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work the way he wanted it to, because just a
Speaker 1: few years later, in nineteen seventy eight, he is murdered
Speaker 1: or assassinated in a pro Soviet coup. There's a new
Speaker 1: governing faction, the new kids on the block in this situation,
Speaker 1: and the People's Democratic Party they come to power, but
Speaker 1: they have a lot of infighting in their own, jockeying
Speaker 1: for position in the hierarchy. And then of course they
Speaker 1: are eternally battling the Mujadin groups that are backed by
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam. That was at one time seen as controversial.
Speaker 1: That is clearly a proven fact. And let's pause for
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor, and then we'll get to the
Speaker 1: modern history. So the Soviet era, Paul, can we get
Speaker 1: some kind of you know, like really authoritarian sounding big
Speaker 1: but yeah, that kind of music. There we go. Soviet era.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the USSR, it's in Afghanistan in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 3: and it really is trying to shore up this newly
Speaker 3: established regime. Right that we talked about, the People's Democratic
Speaker 3: Party that's running things over there, and those guys are
Speaker 3: by the way in the capital Kabul, and in short order,
Speaker 3: nearly one hundred thousand Soviet soldiers took control of a
Speaker 3: lot of the major areas, the cities, the highways, the ways,
Speaker 3: things are being transported by all means. And here's the
Speaker 3: thing people didn't really take to that there was rebellion.
Speaker 3: It came quickly. It was all over the place. The
Speaker 3: Soviets were dealing harshly with the Mujahadeen rebels and the people,
Speaker 3: you know, the families, the small groups that were supporting them.
Speaker 3: They were just taking out entire villages. Again, it like
Speaker 3: sounds so familiar with the course of our history, with
Speaker 3: the things we've talked about. They're trying to deny any
Speaker 3: place where or that would be considered a safe haven
Speaker 3: for enemy soldiers to be hanging out and you know, regrouping.
Speaker 3: And while this is happening, there are outside foreign supporters
Speaker 3: who were propping up all of these diverse groups of
Speaker 3: rebels that are fighting back against the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Playing the great game once again.
Speaker 3: Exactly that that whole the proxy the proxy battle thing
Speaker 3: is in full effect here. And you know, you've got
Speaker 3: rebels pouring from Iran, Pakistan, China. The US even has
Speaker 3: some people over their training folks and having fighters over there.
Speaker 3: And there's this brutal nine year conflict that just goes
Speaker 3: on and on and on, and an estimated one million
Speaker 3: civilians are killed in this conflict Afghanistan civilians as well
Speaker 3: as others, and there are also ninety thousand Mujahideen fighters,
Speaker 3: eighteen thousand Afghan troops, and fourteen five hundred Soviet soldiers,
Speaker 3: all of them who are killed in this battle, these
Speaker 3: battles in this conflict.
Speaker 1: And the US support varied in many different ways over
Speaker 1: the course of this conflict. This we do have to
Speaker 1: remember this is Cold War era, right. So, so originally
Speaker 1: they had some suits and some agents from the company.
Speaker 3: The company right right right, and it starts with a C.
Speaker 3: It does, this company, it does.
Speaker 1: And by nineteen eighty six they were becoming more they
Speaker 1: were being less subtle, Uncle Sam was. They started supplying
Speaker 1: Stinger missiles to the mosh Din, which were a game
Speaker 1: changer because these Stinger missiles allowed people on the ground
Speaker 1: to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships. In nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: four countries, Afghanistan, the USSR, Pakistan, the US signed peace accords,
Speaker 1: and the Soviet Union says, okay, we'll start pulling out troops.
Speaker 1: The last of the troops leave the next year in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, and civil war consumes the country, which
Speaker 1: should not have surprised anyone.
Speaker 3: Let's talk really quickly about some of the landscape there
Speaker 3: and the mountains, the mountain ranges, the mountains areas, the
Speaker 3: very hilly, sometimes very stark areas where if you know,
Speaker 3: as the Mujahadeen, if you're given something like a stinger missile,
Speaker 3: when you're just troops on the ground, it's very difficult
Speaker 3: to battle against something like these Soviet gunships, the helicopters
Speaker 3: that can roll through. They can just travel across these
Speaker 3: landscapes to wherever they need to be in They're heavily armed.
Speaker 3: But you know, if you're on the ground as just
Speaker 3: a single person or even a battalion, small battalion anywhere
Speaker 3: from one hundred to ten people, fighting back against a
Speaker 3: gunship is very, very difficult. But if you're given a
Speaker 3: stinger missile and you can hide out somewhere within you
Speaker 3: know that terrain, you can easily have an upper hand there.
Speaker 3: And again these are ripples throughout time of things that
Speaker 3: we are going to see. We're an explosive in the
Speaker 3: hands of somebody that understands the area, that has lived there.
Speaker 3: You only need a few people to gain the upper
Speaker 3: hand on large military forces.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things where you see it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's even in like SNL sketches from the time, and
Speaker 2: going back and watching a lot of Will Ferrell sketches
Speaker 2: from those days, and there's the one where he's the
Speaker 2: old prospector.
Speaker 3: You know, oh yeah, you've seeing this.
Speaker 2: It's great, but it's well, Chris Catan is playing the
Speaker 2: sergen or whatever, and he keeps making the joke that
Speaker 2: it's an unconventionable, unconventional war, so he got to use
Speaker 2: unconventional methods, which in this sketch is having an old
Speaker 2: prospector to lead them through the terrain. But it's true,
Speaker 2: that's what they're talking about. That's the thing you heard
Speaker 2: thrown around constantly in the news was what an inconventional
Speaker 2: war was and required unconventional tactics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in this case, an old prospector, I forget
Speaker 3: the premise with an old prospector who is like a
Speaker 3: cousin of somebody who was in command of the military
Speaker 3: isn't going to do you much good. You need somebody
Speaker 3: who has lived there and knows the history and the terrain. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also, for the record, the old Will Ferrell sketches
Speaker 1: in general, hold up, oh yes, my god, not saying
Speaker 1: that because he's technically a coworker of ours, just saying
Speaker 1: it because they do hold.
Speaker 3: Up shoes, sentiment, and gravy.
Speaker 1: So who comes out ahead in this next iteration of
Speaker 1: the power vacuum that would be a group known as
Speaker 1: the Taliban. They seize control of Kabul. By nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: they have they have a solid grip on about two
Speaker 1: thirds of the country, and they're starting to be recognized
Speaker 1: in the international sphere. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, for instance,
Speaker 1: both recognize the government. Until that is the US enters
Speaker 1: the Great Game as a full on combatant. And it's
Speaker 1: different because before proxy wars, right, let's call these people rebels. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so fast forward, as we said at the top,
Speaker 1: in October of two thousand and one, US led bombing
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan begins. And this is right after the attacks
Speaker 1: on September eleventh, two thousand and one on the US
Speaker 1: soil anti Taliban Northern Alliance Forces Intricrable, pretty much right
Speaker 1: after and this marks the official beginning of what has
Speaker 1: become the longest war in US history. Across the next
Speaker 1: eighteen years, multiple presidents, three different administrations from both sides
Speaker 1: of the US political divide would continually escalate the conflict.
Speaker 1: They would send more troops. They would propose what they
Speaker 1: called surgis. They would vow we were making progress in
Speaker 1: a war that we knew we could win. Today's question,
Speaker 1: what if they were lying? Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: So behind the scenes, yeah, everyone knew, All of the
Speaker 1: decision makers knew this was a disaster. And Matt, you
Speaker 1: recently had a conversation that touched on some of this.
Speaker 3: Is that right? Yes, quite a bit. And I spoke
Speaker 3: with the gentleman named Steve Hooper that I very much
Speaker 3: want to have on the show. We want to have
Speaker 3: on this show. I forget his exact titles within the FBI,
Speaker 3: but he was a high level person. I hope he
Speaker 3: doesn't mind me saying his name. He has a podcast
Speaker 3: on the iHeart network that he talks about some of
Speaker 3: this stuff, so I think it should be okay. But
Speaker 3: he was just talking to me about how the United
Speaker 3: States was keeping was aware, very much aware of one
Speaker 3: Osama bin Laden and Taliban forces, you know, after all
Speaker 3: of the conflicts and help that we've essentially given to
Speaker 3: that area, and we know our intelligence agencies know a
Speaker 3: lot of the operators, We know a lot of the
Speaker 3: mechanisms that exist out there with some of these forces,
Speaker 3: and they also knew just from past bombings like the
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three attack on the World Trade Center where
Speaker 3: a writer truck was used and thankfully did not destroy
Speaker 3: the entire building then in nineteen ninety three, but it
Speaker 3: was certainly a disaster and a terror attack and a
Speaker 3: major warning sign basically that oh, we need to be
Speaker 3: paying attention to this. And he was just telling me
Speaker 3: that after that attack in ninety three, the intelligence apparatuses
Speaker 3: were so aware of it. However, we went right back
Speaker 3: to the FBI at least went right back to focusing
Speaker 3: on drug gangs and drug cartels that existed and were
Speaker 3: operating within the US, and they didn't turn their eyes
Speaker 3: towards terrorism at that point.
Speaker 1: Because there was a lot of siloing of information and gatekeeping, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, Because again, you think about operating outside of the
Speaker 3: US where intelligence is gathered, operating inside the US, a
Speaker 3: lot of times it separated and this whole thing, it
Speaker 3: kind of became a mess, at least according to Stephen
Speaker 3: our conversation, after you create the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 3: and as that behemoth of organizations begins trying to keep
Speaker 3: tabs on things like that and organize. You know, who's
Speaker 3: controlling what, who's looking into what I say, a mess.
Speaker 3: But that's not true. Anyone who's out there working in
Speaker 3: any of these organizations. You know that's not necessarily true.
Speaker 3: But it was certainly the birth pains of something bigger.
Speaker 1: Oh that's poetic. I like that. Yeah, it's it is.
Speaker 1: It is unfortunately true that many of the same people
Speaker 1: publicly touting progress in this quagmire, we're often the very
Speaker 1: same people lamenting the doomed situation, at least doomed as
Speaker 1: they saw it behind closed doors. We know this is
Speaker 1: not a conspiracy theory. We know this is indisputably true.
Speaker 1: Thanks to the fantastic journalistic efforts and of the Washington
Speaker 1: Post and the recent publication of something called the Afghanistan Papers.
Speaker 1: On December ninth of this year, the Washington Post finally
Speaker 1: won a legal battle that was three years in the making,
Speaker 1: and like the war in Afghanistan, continues today. But what
Speaker 1: did they get? What happens, We'll tell you after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: So three year legal battle, Washington Post acquires more than
Speaker 2: two thousand pages of quote lessons learned end quote. And
Speaker 2: these are interviews that were conducted by the Office of
Speaker 2: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or cigar Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: give me. I love a good cigar, and it's not pretty.
Speaker 2: What's uncovered here. There was no internal consensus on any objective,
Speaker 2: any reasons for going to war. The country was spending
Speaker 2: billions of dollars with no idea whatsoever, what any kind
Speaker 2: of endgame. Looked like they literally had no idea how
Speaker 2: to get out of the war. There was no exis strategy.
Speaker 3: Well yeah that if you guys recall back. And this
Speaker 3: was just to date myself a little bit. This was
Speaker 3: occurring right around the time that I was going to
Speaker 3: be finishing and graduating from high school. As all of
Speaker 3: these conflicts are occurring, as the debates about this stuff
Speaker 3: is happening, and I remember for the first time, not
Speaker 3: for the first time, but maybe for the first time
Speaker 3: looking at the news with a little more understanding of
Speaker 3: history after some classes that I was taking and hearing
Speaker 3: people discuss this, They would argue on the news like, well,
Speaker 3: what what does it actually? What does this conflict actually?
Speaker 3: What does victory mean? What does it look like? And
Speaker 3: you have even the president coming on and kind of
Speaker 3: giving you a vague you know, it's a victory. You
Speaker 3: know it's good. We're gonna victory, right right, It's like,
Speaker 3: what what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah? The thing is that there was not There were
Speaker 1: some metrics for ideas of success, but there was nothing
Speaker 1: that people agreed on with concrete steps. There was no
Speaker 1: universal definition, and without a universal definition, as Chenua Chaba
Speaker 1: would say, things fall apart. The Post got hundreds of
Speaker 1: memos that are really they're almost like they're almost like
Speaker 1: YouTube er Reddit comments from Donald H. Rumsfeld. They were
Speaker 1: called and this has nothing to do with the current
Speaker 1: usage of the word today, Yes, but they were called snowflakes.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a more of a right wing pejorative
Speaker 1: on the internet today, But in this case, they were
Speaker 1: called snowflakes because they would just sort of be sprinkled
Speaker 1: on all these communications, brief instructions or comments that Rumsfeld
Speaker 1: would tell his employees during the course of his time
Speaker 1: working on the war. And they are things that are
Speaker 1: so so informal, like there's one where it says, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure who the enemies are here. We don't know
Speaker 1: we're shooting at someone for sure. So all together these
Speaker 1: memos and these two thousand plus pages revealed by this
Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act. They function as a genuine secret
Speaker 1: history of what we know about the war, and some
Speaker 1: people taking a longer view of history would say, well,
Speaker 1: this is just another act in the ongoing war that
Speaker 1: has been occurring on the land of Afghanistan for much
Speaker 1: much longer than eighteen years. But here's what we learned
Speaker 1: the reports. The journalist and the analyst at the Washing
Speaker 1: Post found four common and disturbing themes running throughout these papers,
Speaker 1: and they're pretty brutal to hear, but we look through
Speaker 1: them and they are well re searched, and there's not
Speaker 1: a ton of editorializing. So every single year covered by
Speaker 1: these papers, US officials, at least some of them, purposefully
Speaker 1: refused to tell the public the truth about the war.
Speaker 1: In some way or another. They would issue these pronouncements,
Speaker 1: they would say stuff that they straight up knew wasn't true,
Speaker 1: and they would hide unmistakable evidence that for one reason
Speaker 1: or another, the war had become unwinnable, which was.
Speaker 3: An odd concept of it being winnable or unwinnable, because
Speaker 3: it just didn't seem like there was one or the other.
Speaker 1: Right, Chocolate rations have been increased, right, yeah, and now
Speaker 1: they're going to be eighty percent less than they were.
Speaker 1: So they also in these papers we see that officials
Speaker 1: who were interviewed, and again this was all internal documentation,
Speaker 1: and so they wanted to tell the truth. They depicted
Speaker 1: purposeful explain efforts by the US government to mislead the public.
Speaker 1: And then they also it's you could describe it. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is a little bit too much editorial voice here,
Speaker 1: but you could describe it as a sort of collective
Speaker 1: disbelief in the facts, kind of cherry picking the stuff
Speaker 1: that would be good, ignoring the stuff that would run
Speaker 1: counter to the narrative. So everybody is like, everybody's doing
Speaker 1: a thing where they're like, all right, we're going to
Speaker 1: all agree that this is fine.
Speaker 3: Everything's great, We're gonna win, and stuff's gonna be good afterwards.
Speaker 1: You know what, You know what that guy who said
Speaker 1: the house is on fire, what he meant was it's
Speaker 1: warm and cozy in here.
Speaker 3: Just look at this banner. What does it say, mission accomplished,
Speaker 3: We're done.
Speaker 2: Look at that sweet bomber jacket. I mean, look at
Speaker 2: that shrutt and gate that the president has.
Speaker 1: Seriously, and again, it's funny because people who consider themselves
Speaker 1: domestic political partisans in the US, like someone who would
Speaker 1: definitely hate the right side of American politics would be
Speaker 1: would levy valid imbiting criticism of the misleading pr that
Speaker 1: the Republican side was doing when they had a presidential administration,
Speaker 1: And then people who hated the left side would levy
Speaker 1: the same again valid criticism at the Democrat administrations because
Speaker 1: they were doing the same thing. All that changed was
Speaker 1: the brand names on the facts. It was still a
Speaker 1: bucket of poison pills. They just had different labels.
Speaker 3: Dude, you're still right though, And I remember seeing that
Speaker 3: we're going.
Speaker 1: To have a surge, right, and a surge will thing.
Speaker 1: But that's okay. So that's just one deliberate, at the
Speaker 1: very least at the most generous, deliberately misleading the public,
Speaker 1: who is, by the way, paying billions of dollars for this.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing we kind of mentioned up above.
Speaker 3: This is number two. By the way, the officials from
Speaker 3: you know, the United States and the Coalition of Forces,
Speaker 3: the allies that were going into Afghanistan with us, they
Speaker 3: pretty much admitted openly that the mission had really no
Speaker 3: discernible strategy, like we don't know. There doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: be a strategy. We've got a lot of people there.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of troops there and some facilities
Speaker 3: that we're building. But yeah, we really don't have great objectives.
Speaker 3: We're not sure what we're doing.
Speaker 1: There's stuff on the level of like, well, have you
Speaker 1: guys talked to Todd, because to Todd put it really well,
Speaker 1: Like I remember walking out of a meeting and I
Speaker 1: was like, this is for sure what we're doing, and
Speaker 1: UH just can't I can't recall one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: it right now.
Speaker 2: He just seems so confident, you know, he's just he's
Speaker 2: such as got such a good haircut. I mean, I
Speaker 2: just love the cut of his jacket.
Speaker 1: You can tell he man like he goes to a manicure.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, his cuticles are impeccable, and you just you can't
Speaker 2: really disbelieve.
Speaker 3: A guy like that.
Speaker 1: So, as far as I was concerned, if Todd's good, we're.
Speaker 3: Good, right, Yeah, you're right. Hopefully hopefully Todd can just
Speaker 3: keep us keep that morale up, you know.
Speaker 1: And the interviewers like Todd, who I think, oh that's
Speaker 1: a great uh you got disappeared. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of he worked. You weren't somewhere in the building. It
Speaker 1: may have been the subway, he may have been in general.
Speaker 1: I just look you guys, You'll know him when you
Speaker 1: see him.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 1: At first, there was this pretty solid rationale they were
Speaker 1: going to we were aiming to destroy al Qaeda. Who
Speaker 1: was you know, we're involved in these very US terrorist acts,
Speaker 1: not just being accused of involvement in the September eleventh attacks,
Speaker 1: but also being active in attacks throughout the nineties that
Speaker 1: you had mentioned earlier, Matt.
Speaker 3: With certain leaders with names that you might know or
Speaker 3: people that were purportedly a part of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Todd would never do that. Once once al
Speaker 1: Qaeda been you know, largely muzzled, the officials involved said
Speaker 1: they had mission creep. The goals got muddy and unclear,
Speaker 1: and they began adopting strategies that might contradict the strategies
Speaker 1: of other agencies or institutions, and they started having goals
Speaker 1: that were unattainable. And people who were running this war,
Speaker 1: folks are dying, billions of dollars going down the drain.
Speaker 1: The people in charge were saying, I have problems with
Speaker 1: basic questions. Who is the enemy here.
Speaker 3: I am not being.
Speaker 1: Hyperbolic when Donald Rumsfeld said that who is the enemy here?
Speaker 1: Who amidst these various complicated groups and alliances can we
Speaker 1: count on as allies? And also, you know, I know
Speaker 1: there's a weird question to drop at four thirty on
Speaker 1: a Friday, But how do we know when we've won?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no bell that goes off, or specific person
Speaker 3: you have to defeat, or a king to overthrow r
Speaker 3: you know, there's no goalpost like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that the Third Revelation, years into
Speaker 1: the conflict, the United States still had a very poor
Speaker 1: understanding of the country overall. Officials from not just the
Speaker 1: US but also from the Afghan government told interviewers that
Speaker 1: a lot of the policies and initiatives coming from Uncle Sam,
Speaker 1: everything from like training Afghan forces to trying to I'm
Speaker 1: going to say it again, trying to woosh, trying to
Speaker 1: stop the opium trade, all of them felt like they
Speaker 1: were designed to fail. Whether that's because of incompetence, because
Speaker 1: they were based on flawed assumptions, or whether because there
Speaker 1: was some sort of ulterior motive, or whether it was
Speaker 1: just a country they did not understand.
Speaker 3: Or you know, I don't want to put my biases
Speaker 3: on it, but a country that maybe some of those
Speaker 3: people in charge just didn't care about at a certain level.
Speaker 1: There are disturbing accounts or allegations and interviews in some
Speaker 1: of these papers where an officials say something like we
Speaker 1: were just giving consultants tons of money, and you know,
Speaker 1: somebody would fly on a plane and they would read
Speaker 1: the Kite Runner or something while they were on the plane,
Speaker 1: and they would hop out and think that they understood
Speaker 1: everything about this place that has been a battleground for
Speaker 1: centuries and centuries and has been trod upon by one
Speaker 1: outside empire after another, the fourth one, which clearly is
Speaker 1: a bit of a cheap scape. Myself, I've been having
Speaker 1: a hard time not mentioning this. Yet the US flushed
Speaker 1: billions and billions and billions of dollars down the geopolitical
Speaker 1: drain trying to nation build in Afghanistan. Nation building is
Speaker 1: a risky endeavor that can pay great dividends if you
Speaker 1: get it off the ground.
Speaker 3: It was once called colonialism.
Speaker 1: That's building a different kind of nation, I know, but
Speaker 1: that's I mean, yeah, so they wanted to, I don't know,
Speaker 1: they were just so out of out of touch with
Speaker 1: what was happening. So they's this, there's this great comparison.
Speaker 1: Or similarly, in the accounts of the early days here,
Speaker 1: it was an economic boom for the military industrial complex
Speaker 1: obviously for the associated energy and defense industries. It was
Speaker 1: a boom contractors, of course.
Speaker 3: And we can just say like that was immediately affected
Speaker 3: by the September eleventh attacks and the public acceptance essentially
Speaker 3: that yeah, we should probably protect ourselves more and spend
Speaker 3: a lot more money than we were.
Speaker 1: Sure, so we'll pay for it. You handle the details. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to feel good when I see the news
Speaker 1: and feel like I've done my part. So since so
Speaker 1: here's the simile. One of the sources says money is
Speaker 1: like water, and Afghanistan was like a desert, and when
Speaker 1: you pour too much water too quickly, the land cannot
Speaker 1: absorb it. Yeah, and it becomes a wash with this money.
Speaker 1: And that that struck me because it not only does
Speaker 1: it feel true, but it has the unfortunate quality of
Speaker 1: being true. Since two thousand and two, the US has
Speaker 1: allocated more than eighty three billion dollars in security assistance
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan that dwarfs the defense budget the entire defense
Speaker 1: budget of other developing nations. In twenty eleven alone, at
Speaker 1: the peak of the war, this country got eleven billion
Speaker 1: dollars in security aid from Washington. That's three billion more
Speaker 1: than what Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons and a way
Speaker 1: bigger army, spent on its entire military that year. That's nuts.
Speaker 1: They spent eight billion, and the US gave Afghanistan eleven billion. Now,
Speaker 1: I do want to say it may sound like we're
Speaker 1: being unfair here, we have to remember that the military operators,
Speaker 1: people working for the US government, and the contractors involved,
Speaker 1: they're not in these rooms, they're not in these board rooms,
Speaker 1: in these war rooms and so on. They're being sent
Speaker 1: to a place to risk their lives, and they are
Speaker 1: trying to save people on the grounds, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. They're trying to help civilians, they're trying to
Speaker 1: prevent these deaths.
Speaker 3: Yes, But the other side of that coin is that
Speaker 3: the almost the feeling of a goalless occupation like that
Speaker 3: caused a lot of situations where, you know, a few
Speaker 3: a small amount of those contractors and military personnel felt
Speaker 3: as though or at least acted as though there was
Speaker 3: no rule of law. There were no rules. That's really
Speaker 3: good things could happen there, and I think it's because
Speaker 3: that top down guidance just didn't exist.
Speaker 2: Well, we talked too about how you know, maybe this
Speaker 2: is hyperbolic, and I've heard people kind of poopoo this idea,
Speaker 2: but comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam in the sense that it
Speaker 2: was very difficult terrain, it was an enemy that they
Speaker 2: didn't fully understand, and it seemed to have empowered a
Speaker 2: lot of military personnel to commit some.
Speaker 1: Atrocities, right, we also have to consider I think that
Speaker 1: is I don't think that's not based comparison. We also
Speaker 1: have to consider that a lot of the horror stories
Speaker 1: we hear came from the crimes of private contractors, so
Speaker 1: people were working in private industry that have been subcontracted
Speaker 1: out by the US government or NATO, or they come
Speaker 1: from people who were supposed to be the authorities in
Speaker 1: like from Afghanistan. Yes, so you know there are stories
Speaker 1: which are true of military service members being brigged in danger,
Speaker 1: being dishonorably discharged because they refuse to tolerate the sexual
Speaker 1: abuse of children which they saw firsthand. Not in not
Speaker 1: in some like, not in some sketchy part of town necessarily,
Speaker 1: but like in the police chiefs compound in the police station,
Speaker 1: or having to make nice with warlords and crack a
Speaker 1: deal with them because of their influence over a you know,
Speaker 1: a region of the area. Adjusted for inflation and for
Speaker 1: just as they say talking Turkey, for perspective, eleven billion
Speaker 1: US dollars is more than the US spent in the
Speaker 1: entirety of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World
Speaker 1: War Two. Think about that, the entirety. But after almost
Speaker 1: two decades of help from Washington, or attempts at help
Speaker 1: from Washington, the Afghan army and the police force are
Speaker 1: still not probably not going to be capable of fending
Speaker 1: off all these insurgents. It's not just the Taliban, It's
Speaker 1: is the Islamic State and others without outside assistance, without
Speaker 1: backup from the US military.
Speaker 3: I just want to jump in there really fast before
Speaker 3: we keep going. Just to we mentioned the Marshall Plan,
Speaker 3: which was uh the the program we mentioned it was
Speaker 3: after World War two as well, but that was the
Speaker 3: program of aid right that we that we gave to
Speaker 3: most of or a lot of Europe just to rebuild
Speaker 3: after the battles were fought in that region.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, and thank you. So back to
Speaker 1: the money, which I promise I'll stop, I'll stop harping
Speaker 1: on at some point.
Speaker 3: It's just like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what could eleven billion dollars do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 3: Superpowers could be rocked there, it could be brought into life. Right.
Speaker 1: There was so much money flowing that bribery, fraud, and corruption,
Speaker 1: they became superpowered as tendencies and trends. One advisor who
Speaker 1: was working for the US said that when he was
Speaker 1: working this particular air base, any Afghan people, meaning native
Speaker 1: Afghan people who were working there regularly reeked of jet
Speaker 1: fuel because they were just smuggling so much of it
Speaker 1: out to sell on the black market. And then we
Speaker 1: have another point about corruption within the police force. And
Speaker 1: this this comes from an INTERVIEWEE who was comfortable being
Speaker 1: named yes.
Speaker 2: And one interview Thomas Johnson, who was a Navy official
Speaker 2: serving as a counter insurgency advisor in Kandahar Province, said
Speaker 2: that the Afghans viewed the police as predatory bandits. He
Speaker 2: called them quote the most hated institution in all of Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: And then another interviewee, an unnamed Norwegian official told interviewers
Speaker 2: that he estimated thirty percent of Afghan police recruits deserted
Speaker 2: with their government issued weapons so they could quote set
Speaker 2: up their own private checkpoints aka highway robbery.
Speaker 1: Right, literally.
Speaker 3: Just extorting people that were traveling through what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And the other statements these officials make don't
Speaker 1: sound pretty. But of course we you know, we have
Speaker 1: to point out again that part of this is a
Speaker 1: maybe a function of these shifting goalposts, right, But to
Speaker 1: not know who your enemies are and not know who
Speaker 1: the difference between your enemies and your allies is, that's tough,
Speaker 1: especially in a situation like this. There were other revelations.
Speaker 1: It turns out that several senior US officials believe there
Speaker 1: was a realistic opportunity to cut a piece deal with
Speaker 1: the Taliban back in two thousand and two or two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. Again, we're not saying it's definite, we're
Speaker 1: saying that's what they felt was in the cards. Also,
Speaker 1: when this stuff came out, you know who else was surprised?
Speaker 1: Congress And with Congress, it's tough, like how many is it? Performative?
Speaker 3: Right? I have to be upset at the for my constituents,
Speaker 3: so they know that I was definitely upset at this.
Speaker 1: Right, And there's bipartisan there's bipartisan anger at this. At
Speaker 1: least if we look at Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Howley,
Speaker 1: they're both on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and they've
Speaker 1: already called for hearings based on these reports. Even former
Speaker 1: Afghan President Hamen Karzai gave an interview to the AP
Speaker 1: Associated Press recently and he said the Afghanistan papers proved
Speaker 1: the US was at fault for his country's corruption. However,
Speaker 1: Praig Whitlock, one of the journalists who brought the story
Speaker 1: to light from the Post, said the US was at fault,
Speaker 1: but the Afghan government did not prosecute many people for
Speaker 1: corruption or fraud, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Geez.
Speaker 1: And this is where this is where this leaves us.
Speaker 1: I know it's a high level look, but there's so
Speaker 1: many other things to report.
Speaker 2: Well, there'll be new revelations surely, right, I mean there's
Speaker 2: a lot of documents here.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up, because, yeah, as we
Speaker 1: record today the Washington Post, we said it was an
Speaker 1: ongoing war for them, right, they're still in court fighting
Speaker 1: for more documents, and they're pressing Cigar to identify everyone
Speaker 1: they interviewed for the Afghanist on papers, which they haven't yet. Currently,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration is holding direct peace talks with the Taliban.
Speaker 1: A lot of the experts that The Post spoke with
Speaker 1: said that they believe the only way to end this
Speaker 1: war is to cut a deal that militarily, it is
Speaker 1: impossible to entirely defeat the Taliban unless it's something like
Speaker 1: sewing the Earth with salt aka nukes, which no one wants.
Speaker 3: Scorched to earth policy, right, Yeah, please don't do that.
Speaker 3: Anyone who's listening who has one of those things?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and this has given these out of civilians now, yeah, costco, baby,
Speaker 1: it's the only things you have to buy three to
Speaker 1: get the deal, got it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Don't you remember in twenty twenty three that whole
Speaker 3: declaration happened and we all got nukes. That it was
Speaker 3: the Mutually Assured Destruction Agreement of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: I'd rather have a giant psychic squid.
Speaker 3: Those are coming too. Have you heard the news, the
Speaker 3: good news? Yeah, there's this guy, he's working on a
Speaker 3: giant the intergalactic squid. Thing. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 3: know the details. I have no comment. Well are you
Speaker 3: the guy I know?
Speaker 1: Look, let's go to a different abb yours. This is
Speaker 1: another thing about this story that is still continuing, and
Speaker 1: this I don't know, This is just my I want
Speaker 1: to be too conspiratorial. I do want to note it
Speaker 1: is a fact currently Afghanistan still dominates global opium markets.
Speaker 1: Last year, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes,
Speaker 1: so twenty eighteen, right, eighty two percent of the world's
Speaker 1: opium supply was produced in Afghanistan. Some of the biggest
Speaker 1: problems in the US, they're drug related, come from opium. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not growing a ton of it here, are they. No,
Speaker 1: Like you know, the different the different pharmaceutical companies that
Speaker 1: are probably gonna avoid too many serious consequences of creating
Speaker 1: the opium crisis.
Speaker 3: Nobody's saying conspiracy here, people, We're just we're just going, hey,
Speaker 3: look at this. I'm just saying we talked about this
Speaker 3: in a previous episode. Just how much security was devoted
Speaker 3: to what looks like from the reporting and the images
Speaker 3: that were sent back over the course of years up
Speaker 3: until very recently, that we are protecting the poppy fields,
Speaker 3: I guess from allowing anyone to.
Speaker 1: Use them, right and well, it's also tough because you
Speaker 1: can see interviews with farmers in the area who say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a subsistence farmer. Yeah, Like there were
Speaker 1: different plans to institute new crops for cash, but obiam
Speaker 1: makes the most money to sell and the markup is huge.
Speaker 1: The worst part is those farmers are not making what
Speaker 1: you know, nobody's going to be buying a mansion doing that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the same way with cocaine in Colombia and stuff, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, largely the cartels put the burden of cultivating
Speaker 2: it and growing it on these families who look at
Speaker 2: it as you know, some sort of subsistence living, but
Speaker 2: they're not sharing in the profits of the criminal enterprise.
Speaker 1: Again, elephants war and grass. Right, when elephants make war,
Speaker 1: the grass suffers. It's there's a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: we missed and we've got to emphasize. Just on the
Speaker 1: ending note, we have to emphasize the human element, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. People who are soldiers are not bad.
Speaker 1: People who are civilians in a country that is being
Speaker 1: subjected to a conflict are not bad. Either this is
Speaker 1: these are all human beings who are trying to survive.
Speaker 1: And the horrific thing is that a lot of decisions
Speaker 1: upon which lives hinged are made by people who will
Speaker 1: never physically travel to the places where they see their
Speaker 1: consequences of their decisions made real. And that's our classic
Speaker 1: episode for this evening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 3: That's right, let us know what you think.
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