The Daily Signal - Afghanistan Pullout Deadline Is Here. What Happens Next?

Episode Date: August 31, 2021

After 20 years in Afghanistan, the American military was set to complete its evacuation from Kabul by Tuesday, leaving behind a nation under Taliban control.  “It’s a sad geopolitical irony that the Taliban will control more of Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2021, than it did on Sept. 11, 2001, Luke Coffey, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Foreign Policy, says.  The Biden administration's poor handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will cause adversaries to push “the envelope a little bit more,” Coffey says, adding that even “America's friends are questioning U.S. resolve” on the international stage.  Panjshir is the only one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces under the control of a resistance movement led by Ahmad Shah Massoud Jr.  Coffey says Shah Massoud Jr. “is probably, right now, the best hope in terms of slowly turning the tide against the Taliban.” Coffey joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to address concerns over Americans who remain trapped in Afghanistan and to explain the potential ramifications of the withdrawal.  We also cover these stories: Hurricane Ida tears through southeastern Louisiana, leaving over 1 million without power. The European Union recommends suspension of all nonessential travel from America.  China bans the playing of video games beyond three hours a week. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, August 31st. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today is the deadline for all American troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan. Heritage Foundation's director of the Center for Forum Policy, Luke Coffey, joins the show to explain what we know about the number of U.S. citizens still trapped in Afghanistan and whether we will be able to successfully get all Americans out. He also explains the terrorist threats, the Taliban and ISIS-K now pose to America.

And don't forget, if you enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and please encourage others to subscribe. And now on to today's top news. Hurricane Ida tore through southeastern Louisiana over the weekend and into Monday morning. At least one person has been confirmed dead and over one million people are without power. Flood waters forced some into their attics and even onto their roofs. Rescue crews saved at least 15 people from roofs on Monday morning. President Joe Biden and a host of other leaders spoke at a press briefing about the hurricane Monday afternoon.

Here's what the president had to say per Yahoo News. The people of Louisiana and Mississippi are resilient, but it's in moments like these that we can certainly see the power of government to respond in the needs of the people if government's prepared and if they respond. That's our job if we work together. The folks get knocked down. We're there to help you get back on your feet. The most important element, though, is coordinating all the branches of government, state, local, and federal.

And that's what we're trying to make sure that we try to do. before this hurricane hit. That's why we begun working together. We're going to stand with you and the people of the Gulf, as long as it takes for you to recover. More than 5,000 members of the National Guard have been deployed to help with search and rescue operations. The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights

is investigating five states over their bans against forced masking indoors, saying it might be considered discrimination against students with disabilities. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. The Department has heard from parents from across the country, particularly parents of students with disabilities and with underlying medical conditions,

about how state bans on universal indoor masking are putting their children at risk and preventing them from accessing in-person learning equally. The five states under investigation are Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. The European Union has recommended the suspension of all non-essential travel from America. The EU put America on its safe list in June, but has now taken the U.S. off of that list. To be kept on the safe list, America would have to have a max infection rate of 75 infections per 100,000 per day over the last two weeks. But over the past two weeks, America's infection rate rose to 333 per.

100,000. America still has a non-essential travel ban on all flights from Europe. Bad news for Chinese kids who enjoy playing video games, the Communist Nation is banning any playing of video games beyond three hours a week. Reuters reports, nor can you decide when to play video games. Each child will get one hour each day on Friday, Saturday, Sundays, and holidays between 8 and 9 p.m. There will be a system in place to ensure that minors are following the rules. This isn't the first time China has cracked down on video games. Rules started in 2019 allowed miners no more than 90 minutes of video games a day and three hours on holidays. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Luke Coffey, Director of the Center for Foreign Policy

at the Heritage Foundation, as we discuss the final withdrawal from Afghanistan. Are you looking for an easy and entertaining way to keep up with the news you care about? The Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels offer interviews with policy experts on the most critical issues and debates America is facing today, as well as short explainer videos that break down complex issues and documentaries that dive deep into the way its policy actually impacts people. Go ahead and subscribe to both the Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels today. You can search for either on your YouTube app or visit YouTube.com slash heritage and YouTube.com slash daily signal.

Today is the deadline for all American troops to be out of Afghanistan and hear with us to break down the latest news and what we know about the progress of the pullout is Heritage Foundation's director for the center for foreign policy, Luke, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me on again. So today is the pullout deadline. Are all Americans out of Afghanistan?

Well, they're not out right now, but they will be. And we probably won't know when exactly they will be because that would be kept secret, of course, for operational security reasons by the Pentagon. But it's a very precarious time right now for not only the U.S. presence in Afghanistan as we wind up this mission there, but that for also our allies and also for the Afghans who have been essentially left behind. We know that there are probably a couple of hundred U.S. citizens that are left in Kabul. perhaps there are more in other places around the country. And who knows how many Afghan special immigrant visa applicants there are. These are the Afghans who helped us over the past two decades during our time in Afghanistan. Who knows how many are still remaining in the country?

And for those Afghans who are left inside the airport after that last USC-17 leaves, it will be a very frightful time for them, I suspect. So in relation to the American citizens that are on the ground there, that we're still working to get out. You know, after the deadline, will those be covert operations trying to get them out? Do you think we'll have some freedom to still, you know, send some planes in and, you know, pull them out relatively, you know, obviously to others, or will those operations take place in secret? That remains to be seen, and it's a very good question.

There are some private initiatives taking place, the so-called Pineapple Express, which has been doing, by all accounts, a good job at getting, um, uh, you. U.S. citizens and Afghan interpreters out of the country, but they're also doing this with the U.S. military presence there in the background. The Taliban have said that foreigners will be able to leave freely, but they don't want Afghans to leave, but there's nothing in the past two decades that has shown us that we can trust the Taliban at their word. So in terms of any effort to get U.S. citizens out, it'll be very difficult, if not impossible, at least in the short term. And what about our Afghan partners? Are there still going to be operations to get some of them out

after this deadline? Or, you know, are we just kind of saying good luck? Well, the Biden administration hasn't been very clear on how they're going to deal with this. They keep telling the public that the Taliban have told them that none of this will be a problem. But clearly, it is going to be a problem. You know, the Taliban will say one thing one day and they'll say a completely different thing another. So I suspect, however unbelievable it might sound to the listener, after the deadline for American withdrawal, there will be American citizens stranded in Afghanistan and there will be Afghan SIV applicants who are also stranded. And do we know how many of those applicants we successfully got out and how many are still in the country as far as our Afghan partners? Again, the numbers coming out from the Pentagon are sort of all over the place. In addition to Afghan SIVs, other Afghans have been taken out of the country.

They've been brought to a third country, for example, Qatar or United Arab Emirates for further security screening before they will eventually move on to the United States or to other places, the exact numbers are unknown publicly, at least right now. How are the Afghan people viewing America's pullout? Is there a sense among them of good written? America's been here for 20 years. It's time for them to leave. Is it mixed?

Do we know how they view this? Well, I think it depends on where you go and who you speak to in Afghanistan. I think generally speaking, many are probably disappointed or sadden or shouldn't. shocked or feel betrayed by the U.S. withdrawal and the way it has taken place. I mean, for example, if you're an Afghan soldier, you must have been shocked to discover that your number one partner for several years has just left in some cases in the middle of the night. President Biden had been criticizing the Afghan military for not fighting, but this is false. Since the Afghans have taken over security and combat operations in 2015, they've suffered more

than 70,000 killed. Tens of thousands of more wounded. And we built this Afghan military around a system that relies on civilian contractors providing maintenance and support to helicopters and planes and logistics and our close air support that we would provide the Afghans. You know, we weren't, this wasn't 2009, 2010, 2011, where we had 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan conducting combat operations every single day, taking casualties every day. When President Biden entered office, there were about 2,500 U.S. troops on the ground, and we were also providing our close air support. So if the Afghans were getting in trouble, we would provide airstrikes or whatever to help them.

And in some cases, all of this was withdrawn, you know, without the Afghans knowing and overnight. So it doesn't surprise me that the Afghan soldier was demoralized by this. I think your average Afghan would not necessarily welcome the Taliban into their village, but what are their choices? You know, the central government has all been dissolved. The U.S. is now gone, and you have an Afghan, you know, school teacher teaching children, and all of a sudden a couple of pickup trucks filled with Taliban fighters with machine guns shows up to your village. What are you supposed to do?

And when President Biden says, well, they didn't fight, well, how is this person supposed to fight? back. So I think in the end, this will be a terrible stain on U.S. prestige and honor in history. And it's probably going to come back to bite us. Well, you know, thinking about into the coming days, weeks, months, do you think that there's hope that we'll see any resistance from the Afghan people that some of those soldiers that were trained by the American military will kind of reform and decide to fight against the state? Yes, well, this is happening, actually, as we speak. There's one province in Afghanistan called Panshir that is under the control of the resistance. Penchir is probably about 60 or 70 miles as the crow flies northeast of Kabul, the capital. This resistance movement is being led by a young man called Ahmed Shah Masoud Jr.

Now, Ahmed Shah Masud Sr., his father, led the resistance against the Soviet. and also against the Taliban in the 1990s. He was assassinated on September 9th, 2001, two days before 9-11, by al-Qaeda. His 32-year-old son fled Kabul and some helicopters, went to his homeland in Panshir Valley, and has set up resistance. He claims that forces are pouring into this region every single day, and that I suspect they're trying to hold out until winter. If they can hold out until winter, then we might see some movement.

on their behalf, taking back some of the provinces in the north of Afghanistan, where the Taliban are going to have a difficult time controlling and managing. But this is very early days. But there is a resistance. There are Afghan commandos, soldiers that are pouring into this region. But I don't know if they're called the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, the NRF. I'm not sure if the NRF thinks that knows if they can trust the United States right now. Could they trust the Biden administration after what the Biden administration?

after what the Biden administration had done. But this young man, Ahmed Shah Masu Jr., he knows, he's acutely aware of his father's role and his father's history. And he will act accordingly because of this legacy. So he is probably right now the best hope in terms of slowly turning the tide against the Taliban. But this takes us back full circle to where we were in the 1990s. And regrettably, all of this could have been avoided had President Biden kept the two and a half thousand troops in the country and the close air support. Well, and that really brings us to ask the question of how has President Biden's actions affected really America's position on the world stage and other international leaders' views of America?

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, well, it's been horrible, to be honest. America's adversaries will now be pushing the envelope a little bit more every single time to see just what they can get away with with the Biden administration. America's friends are questioning U.S. resolve and commitment. President Biden was all but censured in the House of Commons last week. This is from America's number one ally. So many people are scratching their heads wondering, well, what does this mean for the, you know, our reality? relations with the U.S. for American commitment to security alliances and security agreements.

And our adversaries in Beijing and Moscow and Tehran, they're all looking at this as an opportunity and they will take advantage of this. How they will take advantage of it remains to be seen, but they will. I can guarantee it. So Luke, let's chat a little bit more about the day that's ahead of us, this pullout deadline. We are having this conversation on Monday. It's impossible to know what's going to happen in the next 24 hours. But how likely do you think it is that we're going to continue to see attack attempts like we saw over the weekend and on Monday on the airport as Americans complete this pullout on Tuesday? Well, we'll for sure be under threat. The withdrawal of this nature creates a very vulnerable environment for the military.

They have to gradually hand over chunks of the airport to Taliban control while they continue to secure a smaller and smaller bit until the last airplane takes off with the last soldiers and the last equipment. What will they do with the remaining equipment? Will they destroy it? Will they just leave it behind or will they find a way to take it out? Who knows? Obviously, the priority will be taking out the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that are there. When that last C-17 takes off, will you have a situation where desperate Afghans flood the runway again, trying to stop it? How will the Taliban react?

And of course, you have the so-called Islamic State of Khorasan, or ISIS-K, as it's known. The ISIS branch in Afghanistan is probably the easiest way to describe them. they were responsible for the terrible bombing that killed 13 U.S. service personnel and more than 170 Afghans last week. And they will be trying to take advantage of the situation. And, you know, the U.S. where the Biden administration is now reliant on the Taliban and specifically the terrorist organization called the Haqqani Network to provide security for Kabul and security for the U.S. forces that are leaving. I mean, the leader of the Haqani network has a $5 million bounty on his head from the FBI. And this is a guy whose group, terror group, is now responsible for the security in Kabul.

You couldn't make it up if you tried. The situation is so absurd. So it is a very dangerous time. Right now we should be, you know, praying for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that are trying to wrap up this very dangerous mission in Kabul. We should also have in our minds. We should also have, in our minds those Americans who will be left behind and also the Afghans who deserve to get out but can't. What is the Taliban doing right now? Have they been cooperating with America and do we know if they have any responsibility for the attacks that we have seen? Well, for the most part, the Taliban has allowed the bare minimum to occur so it looks like the U.S. is withdrawing people from Kabul International Airport.

But they've been doing so while not allowing full and free access for Afghans and American citizens to get to the airport. Basically, they want the Americans out. They don't want to do anything too provocative that would somehow change President Biden's mind. At this point, I have no idea what that might be, but they still don't want to tempt their fate in this. and they want to let the world see how incompetent and weak America looks while it does the withdrawal process. So that's why they're letting it happen.

They're just not letting it happen very smoothly. And so there is some cooperation and coordination between the U.S. military and the Taliban. Now, ISIS K and the Taliban are actually adversaries and enemies, which just shows how complicated Afghanistan is. In the past, the Taliban have fought ISIS in Afghanistan. In fact, there have been reports of, you know, the U.S. providing airstrikes in support of Taliban offensives against ISIS K in eastern Afghanistan. And this will likely become a major headache for the Taliban as the ISIS and Afghanistan tries to exert more control and take advantage of what is a very chaotic security situation. and it will probably mean that the Taliban will not be able to control and secure and govern much of the land that it currently has in Afghanistan. It took a lot of land and territory over the past two weeks, but can it govern and control?

And that's the big question for the Taliban now. So we're really looking at a situation that's obviously deteriorating quickly. what do you think as far as kind of strength and numbers does ISIS K pose an immediate threat to, let's say, overtaking the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then what threat do they pose immediately to America? Well, one of the good news stories about America's presence in Afghanistan for two decades was that during the course of 20 years, there wasn't once a terrorist attack that was planned, coordinated, and launched. from Afghanistan that was successful against the United States. Now it's likely that Afghanistan will revert to the chaos we saw in the 1990s, where you have four or five different warlords or power brokers that control certain parts of the country. And this chaos is likely that non-state actors and terrorist groups will be able to set up shop if they wanted to.

already we have signs of senior al-Qaeda members coming back from Pakistan into rural places of Afghanistan. This is documented on social media for anyone to see. And ISIS will continue to pose a threat to the U.S., but they will pose a threat to the Taliban's legitimacy and the Taliban's ability to control and govern certain areas. They're not a major power right now. And in Afghanistan. They were recruiting a lot from disenchanted Taliban fighters who felt like that, you know, the movement wasn't going in the direction. It should be going. ISIS K is very extreme in its views and how it practices Islam in a way that even the Taliban find abhorrent in many ways. I mean, the Taliban would release statements criticizing ISIS when they did things in Syria.

So these two powers will be fighting against each other. This will make the Taliban focus a lot on trying to defeat and counter ISIS. One thing the Taliban would have going for it is, you know, recruitment is improved when you're successful. And the Taliban has been successful. So a lot of recruits that might have gone to ISIS are likely to go to the Taliban. But the Taliban is going to have a problem governing and controlling the whole country because most of the country, most of the big cities and provinces, switched sides to the Taliban without a shot being fired.

Incidentally, and coincidentally, I should say, this is how the Taliban gained most of its power in the 1990s was through local deals, bribery, convincing people to switch sides. And this happened again. So how the Taliban manages this new complex setting, of relations that it now has with different power brokers across the country will determine how securely and how well they'll be able to govern and control the country. And this will not be easy for the Taliban. Well, and of course, you know, we can't change the past. We can't change

what's already happened in Afghanistan. But how does America go about mitigating the damage and trying to prevent any further loss of life moving forward? What does our foreign policy towards Afghanistan need to look like right now in the immediate future? Well, the Biden administration hasn't left much room for maneuver here. I suspect this administration will try to pursue a pragmatic relationship with the Taliban, which ultimately will let America down. There's, in terms of America's options, I think in the short term, we need to find ways to get the remaining Afghan SIV applicants and U.S. citizens out of that country.

I'm not sure how that might take place, but that should be a top priority. And then we need to double down on our relationship with key partners in the region, such as India, for example, or some of the Central Asian republics, the so-called stands, you know, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan. These are countries that are right on the front lines, not in a military sense, but in the literal sense. the Tajikistan and Uzbekistan border Afghanistan. They have a lot at stake with how Afghanistan goes. There are huge ethnic minority groups in Afghanistan that come from. There are a lot of ethnic Uzbeks, ethnic Tajik's. So these countries will play a role in the future of Afghanistan one way or the other.

So the U.S. needs good relations with these countries. And then finally, I think we need to have an honest discussion about how we engage with or maybe even support the NRF, the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. You know, right now they need bandwidth and connectivity. The Taliban are trying to cut off their internet access. You know, right now from my contacts that are involved with the NRF, they tell me that they can't stream anything. They can barely use Twitter and barely send text messages.

And we need to provide them cold weather gear. The winter is coming in Afghanistan. If they can survive the winter, it gives them more options in the springtime. They can consolidate more, get more supporters into this secure region. And also, you never know. This region may be a, if they can expand this region, the National Resistance Front, then maybe that becomes a safe area where those who are stranded in Afghanistan can somehow make their way too. So we need to figure out how we support this new group.

I'm not sure if they even need weapons right now. I mean, there's so many weapons floating around Afghanistan. But they do need secure communications. They do need bandwidth. And they do need winter weather equipment for this coming winter. That's a practical need. Yeah. That's very achievable.

Yeah. Well, the anniversary of 9-11, it's less than two weeks away. Do you think that America is at legitimate risk of facing another terrorist attack, whether it be from the Taliban, ISIS? K, Al-Qaeda. Of course. But I've always, you know, I always start at the assumption that we are at risk and that we have to take steps to mitigate that risk.

But certainly, the way the Taliban has been able to sweep across Afghanistan, it will emboldened Islamist fundamentalists around the world to be even more daring or to be more aggressive towards the United States. It's a sad geopolitical irony that the Taliban will control more of Afghanistan than on September 11, 2021 than it did on September 11, 2001. And all of this was avoidable had the Biden administration pursued a different policy. But this is where we are. So hopefully, you know, the U.S., I'm sure the professionals and the Department of Homeland Security and our law enforcement professionals and our military professionals and those in the intelligence community are working. working tirelessly with our allies and partners to ensure that we remain safe here in the homeland.

Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation's director for the Center for Foreign Policy. Luke, thank you so much for our time today. We really appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. And please encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we will be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

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