THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Navy SEAL Insights On Taliban Takeover w/ Rob O'Neill & Rich Diviney

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Like you, I've been STUNNED and HEARTBROKEN over how events in Afghanistan have unfolded during the past several weeks. Our pullout remains an open wound, especially after 13 of our brave service members were killed in a suicide bombing on August 26 outside the Abbey gate of Kabul’s airport.   👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈  → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK  ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE   Like you, I WANT ANSWERS! So, I asked two men I respect and admire to help us make sense of what happened and what comes next. In a world that sometimes throws the HERO and PATRIOT label around too much, these men have not only earned those distinctions, they’ve also set the standard. I am honored to welcome Robert O’Neill and Rich Diviney to this week’s show. Rob was a Navy SEAL from 1996 to 2012, went on 400 missions (that he can admit to), and is the man who killed Osama bin Laden during Operation Neptune Spear in 2011. Rich is a retired Navy SEAL commander who served more than 20 years, including 13 overseas deployments—including 11 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without a doubt, both men are UNIQUELY QUALIFIED to talk about current Middle East events. They are not armchair experts. They LIVED it, and they have a lot to SHARE with us. In a sweeping, honest, and often unsettling talk, Rob and Rich PULL NO PUNCHES about their impressions on the current state of affairs in the Middle East and how poorly the evacuation was handled. We also get into our military’s long-term STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP direction over the past 20 years and how past and current decisions have impacted our troops on the ground. You’re going to hear how the CHAIN OF COMMAND works, and you may not be happy with the “why and how” involving our policy decisions. Many of us have also struggled to understand how and why we left behind so much equipment and weapons of war for the Taliban’s benefit. Of all the UNANSWERED QUESTIONS that remain, this could have the most far-reaching and negative implications for the entire world. Rob and Rich offer insights into GLOBAL POLITICS, including how China, Russia, and other actors will redefine their roles as military and economic powers in the near term and why that could impact how next conflicts will be waged in the future. I’ve heard from many of you about your concerns over the potential of increased terrorism threats in the United States with the fall of Afghanistan. Rob and Rich also discuss the role of the Taliban and other terror groups and speculate on what to be to watch for in the coming months and years. This is a FRANK interview by two men who are UNFILTERED in their honesty, insights, and opinions. If you want ANSWERS about what happened in Afghanistan and what comes next in the Middle East and in the United States, this is an hour of your time well spent. Finally, to Rob, Rich, and all the BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN who now serve or who have served our country in the armed forces, THANK YOU FOR YOUR VIGILANCE AND YOUR SERVICE.

This is the Ed Milach Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm honored today, today's special, and I think it's going to be a show that you'll never forget the rest of your life. That's my outcome for today, and I invited two friends of mine, two people that I'm proud to have any association with. And we're going to talk about Afghanistan today, we're going to talk about the Middle East, just and even our role in general in the world with the military. And then we're also going to talk

about why you should care. Why is it matter to you, right? With all the things you have going on in your life, it's easy to disregard these things. And I didn't want this to be one of these CNN Fox news, you know, filtered type stuff. I didn't want one of these generals on here. I wanted real warriors, people that have been on the ground that have operated that can give you real feedback. And it's the two people that I've had on my show that I respect the most of my life. And so I'm honored to have with me today. First, Rob O'Neill, Rob's at over 400 combat missions in his life that we know of.

You know, you've all heard Rob on my show before. He was part of the lone survivor rescue, first guy in the boat in Captain Phillips raid, and is probably best known for killing a guy named Osama Bin Laden. And when I talked to Rob, I said, Rob, I got a new friend named Rich DeVinny. He says, that's the finest seal I ever served with. So that's pretty high praise.

Rich 20 years, seal commander, 13 deployments, 11 of them in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he trained a, he was a trainer for a group that we're not supposed to name that rhymes with seal team six at rhymes with that. And so he's got some significant experience to share with us too. So gentlemen, thank you for being here today. Honored to have you. Hey, I had to be with you. Yeah, great to be here. And let me just give you a call out because, you know, I, Rob and I, you know, we lost contact. We lost touch and that happens just because, you know,

when you leave the military, it's kind of a natural progression. But, you know, you were the reason that Rob and I got to finally talk to each other after. I think it was five or six years It had been so yeah It was a long time and and Ed actually sent me a message saying that he interviewed you and and I said I wouldn't sure if I didn't mention you by name at the time rich But I had quoted you I think two or three times when I was on Ed's podcast first time and I didn't know if you were either gonna love me or hate me for doing that like I was stealing your material

But I know that a lot of stuff you said to me when we were working together, we can get into that, uh, has stuck with me not just in the Navy, not just the silky-ticks, but afterwards in the 10, 10, whatever years I've been in the private sector. Well, I appreciate that. I do. Yeah. It's good to be, it's good to be with the script and really it's the same. Yeah. It's certainly, and thank you both for your service. I didn't say that. So let's start out. How do you both feel about what's happened there? Rob, I'll start with you. So, you know, today I'm reading that, you know, the Taliban's taken over the last province that was remaining as of today, like maybe just within the

last hour. We're coming up. We're recording this before, but it'll come out right after. It's an anniversary of 9-11, 20-year anniversary. Just your overall thoughts of what you've seen take place there the last few weeks, Rob, you first. Well, what's sad to see is we're pretty much back where we were on September 10th, 2001, when Al-Qaeda actually sent operatives up into the Panger Valley where they were fighting what was the Northern Alliance and is again, and they killed a much ambassoud who was the line of the Panger who was fighting them. They killed him on 910. They attacked on 911.

And they were the reason up there why we were able to send some of our brave people in there with their support to fight the Taliban. They're up there right now. I'm getting, you know, because the Taliban took over, we knew they would cut off the cell towers, we knew they would cut off the internet. So we're getting spotty information out of there.

But what they're trying to say right now, they did attack and take over the place where Missodemselk was buried. They held it for five hours. I just found out that they had taken it back, but the Taliban flag was raised for about five hours. And they're going to keep fighting up there. That's where the vice president, who's probably the current president of the government that we left behind. He's up there. He's fighting with them, and then that's where we're recommending, if we can find Americans and Afghans who helped us get them there and then they can get them out to a different country.

But it's a big fight. We've even seen people Americans are up in Majerisha reef trying to get out, but that's where they're holding the how many airplanes. And you're going to hear the suits in Washington and the beltway say, well, no one's trapped. They're just on an airplane being held on the ground with people's guns. It's a complete mess. They did everything wrong. There are different reasons that we should have done. We're going to get out of it again, essentially.

But if you took some people on the ground and asked them, what's the worst way to do it, you couldn't have come up with a worst way that this has been handled so far. And Rich, I assume you feel likewise. I do. So I think it's important for us to, to almost separate the two, they're too facets to this. There's the, there's the decision to leave. That's one.

And then the, and then the actual withdrawal. Okay. I think, I think the, I know one, no one can debate that the actual withdrawal has been very, very poorly executed, executed to say the least, right? I mean, and Rob's gotten into it a little bit, and gosh, I mean, that's just so apparent. You know, in terms of the decision to withdraw, you know, there's arguments to be made on both fronts. And of course, the decision was, it was talked about during the Obama administration, was actually talked about more and even signed into action during the Trump administration and then of course ratified by the Biden administration.

The fact is we had about 2,500 US troops on the ground, about 7,500 coalitions, about 10,000 contractors. There is an argument that could be made and had been made, that just that small presence could have been maintained, and could have stayed there as just a presence to hold off the resurgence of the Taliban. And so there's an argument that we could have stayed. Obviously, that didn't happen. That's hindsight, the decision was made to withdraw. Now we have to figure out, okay, now that this has happened, what are the effects going to be on the region holistically, on the globe?

And then of course, how do we then reconcile our new position, both, I guess, politically and morally, with the Taliban, right? Because, because again, even Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and ISIS, they with the Taliban, right? Because again, even Taliban and Al Qaeda and ISIS, they're all different, right? And one of the problems I think in Rob will probably back me up on this is going in there at first. We were all very focused on a mission of getting bad guys.

And of course, you know, guys like Rob and I were at the lower end of the decision making cycle. So we had job to do and we said, hey, go find the bad guys. We're going to find the bad guys. But a lot of the issue from a larger political standpoint was because the groups were conflated quite a bit. I mean, the Taliban was not the same as the Akhada. Akhada is not the same.

Well, ISIS, of course, came later and all that stuff. But these are different groups, similarities certainly. But I think that's part of the analysis that needs to now be considered. Let's talk about that for a minute. So by the way, you might have been at the low end of the decision making, but you were the highest end of the execution part of it. And that's the part that I think is why the two of you are so valuable.

So let's talk about these two points first. First let's talk about the 2500 that were there, then we'll talk about the mess. So a 2500 there, and I've even heard Rob say, hey, we probably didn't need to get out of there. And even Rob, so I've heard made Rob say, hey, we probably didn't need to get out of there. And even Rob, so I've heard made the case, we've probably should've got a there like back in 04 before all these IUDs started destroying all of our guys, right? Or so many of our brave guys over there and women.

But I want to go back to that 2500 thing because people say, well, Obama wanted to do it, Trump wanted to do it. And this has become sort of like a consensus that hey, we shouldn't be there at all. And I just want to understand that from it because I look at it Rob, we go to you first because I know you've said this, but there's 2500 of us over there. We haven't had a death, a combat death in a year and a half. Yeah, most of the money we've spent that we talk about, wow, it was a fortune to be over there.

Is in the past, that's the rear view mirror. So the expense of being there, the threat of being there for us, seemed nominal to me. And it's not like we're not anywhere else in the world We've got troops in Germany, right? We've got them in Japan. We've got troops in Italy So we have them in lots of different places around the world. Why is it so important that we leave when it seemed like we were sort of holding it together With what we had? Well, you mentioned my first appointment. I lived actually in downtown jolalabat, Afghanistan, a 2005 it was at a point where we're on the ground thinking that so the hearts and minds and I've been told this by talabat

themselves face-to-face eating rights out of the same bowl that you're not we're believers and you're not going to get us with with tea and cookies. The hearts and minds things is we we were living with the locals I had Afghans on both sides we shopped in the bazaars. I brought a motorcycle around Afghanistan to daytime, which you couldn't do now in the airfield, was really built up. We could land. We'd land there by driving our motorbikes out there, setting up strobe lights of the SEMA 30 combined. And we had enough people there where we're saying we're protected from the Taliban by the locals because they love that we're pumping up the economy. They love that we're given

stuff to their kids and all this stuff. But for some reason, people in Washington, a lot of general officers live by the, this is the way we've always done it. So the surge worked. Rich and I were in Iraq, the surge worked, and they decided, hey, let's just surge in Afghanistan. And we were telling them it's a bad idea because here's probably what's going to happen. You're going to build up that airfield, you're going to move us out of our house onto the airfield, take five shop owners from out in town where we shop, move them onto the base, then we can only buy from them. They're going to jack their prices up 800 percent. They're going to get rich people outside,

aren't, are going to get poor. What do you think is going to happen? And if we just left that small footprint there with a few airfields to do the cross-border ups, because we knew Dan Well that Al-Qaeda is now not in Pakistan so we sort of did that part of the mission and we can do cross border ups to the so keep a sort of that keep um... boggum all you gotta do is bond the conduits um...

they're afraid of boggum and I think everyone it's one of those things where it and you know people you you do something long enough you're going to make mistakes and that's fine um... and I I talk to pro football team and i'll say look it doesn't matter why it's second and fifteen it just is right what do we do now right stop warrant we can talk

about that in the debris but i think we all were in agreement that whatever we do do not ever give up boggling right because program right boggling is a spot spot where there's so many layers of security. It's a huge area. It's four air strips. Trauma one hospital, barracks that are like hotels. There's a prison there and it protects itself. The pilots would be back and I'm not making this up in time for fast food and green bean coffee.

We actually would make fun of it on the ground. We would call Bogram the self-licking ice cream cone because it supports itself. And it really is not that, I mean, flying in, you know, if you fly from the stage, you fly to Germany into Bogrum, it's not that bad of a deployment. Yes, it's a combat deployment.

Yes, you're there to support yourself, it's a support the people on the ground, the Intel assets. Someone's got to do it, but eventually if you want to keep this place stable, this is it. If you're slowly going to let the Athgans take over,

you need Bogrum. That's it. If you take Bogra away, this is going to, this, you're going to fall in 10 days. So how do you do that, Rob, if everyone's gone? So you're saying everyone shouldn't have been gone. If you're going to protect Bogra, because I heard you say this before, and also how plush it is, the karaoke nights, all this other stuff that went on. I'm not making that up, which I was the blows my mind. But how do you do that? And you've got to have boots on the ground

to do that, right? You do need boots on the ground. But again, again, we made mistakes, but how do you do that? And you've got to have boots on the ground to do that. Right. You do need boots on the ground, but again, again, we made mistakes with trying to build schools and insert Jeffersonian democracy into place that doesn't know what time it is. You don't need to do that. Marines were not meant to build schools. They're meant to crush people, put a finger in their chest and say, no, don't do it again. But this is a result now of the chain of command only working one way.

And subordinates are basically coach to tell their bosses only what they want to hear. Light of them to let the norwegers go and find them. And that slowly goes up to the general officer level and then that's on the politicians. And the generals are going to tell the politicians what they want because they make, you know, they're a one-star. They're going to make two-star because Congress approved it. But if you listen to someone on the ground, they don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear the truth.

Right. It didn't interrupt you. But this idea that, you know, I've been worried, I have such respect for anybody who's served. But the more I'm looking at, you know, Miley and, you know, I'm wondering where all the accountability is for some of these generals. But these, you're telling me that the way it works, this is stuff that the audience would never hear anywhere else. It doesn't come up. So So everyone starts to tell each other what they want to hear. And then these generals, they kind of get in a spot. Don't they rich? Were there, and I don't, I'm can I?

Can I interject for one second before rich talks? Yeah. I want to give an example of Ritz Divini, because he was my boss. We were, there's a good segue. He and I were doing some mission. We were fighting on Iraq in 2007, which is the busiest summer I've ever been a part of. And we were planning something. I remember looking at him and he said, Hey, what do you think, sir? You're in charge and he said, oh, make no mistake. I'm not in charge.

I'm just responsible. Wow. Wow. So that is, so Rich, that is true. These guys get to the, I gotta say this respectfully because what do I know? But it seems to me sometimes these generals almost get to this point where they're playing politics because they're one step away from sitting on Chevron's board someday or something like that, right? So they're not going to rock the boat. Everyone starts sort of telling them everybody what they want to hear. Is that how you end up having a mess like this that's taken place because no one's able to talk to

chain a command above them and say, no, this is wrong. Maybe we should protect a few of our helicopters. Well, yeah, I mean, it's part of the way. And again, I want to make sure we recognize the fact that they're, you know, and Rob and I know this. So there were some very, very outstanding general officers of senior people we worked with. Oh, no doubt about it. Yeah, so yeah, so now this idea that that sometimes the lines are blurred because good news really sometimes needs to be heard is 100% true. Does it happen all the time? No, is it part of the problem? Certainly, but let me just give you another optic here because I think we can, you know,

it can take a little bit of the pressure off of the military. I think one of the problems that we have faced historically is that terrorism is looked at as a military problem. Terrorism is not a military problem. Saying terrorism is a military problem is the same thing as saying obesity is a fitness problem. Terrorism is the result of a bunch of different things and certainly there are military aspects that can help with the raw end of terrorism. But terrorism is ultimately it's an ideological problem. It's a poverty frustration problem. It's a socio economic problem. It's an isolation problem. There's a lot of factors that go into this environment. You know, give you a quick example. And this is where, gosh, if I could, if I could give advice

to anybody right now, I'd just say anybody, whether we think about Afghanistan or think about the nation right now, is try to practice some empathy, right? And let me give you an example of this just in, in, in Rob in my world, because I remember us having this conversation, it was Rob and a few of other, other, other of us, and I can't remember which country it was in. We were in so many, but, but it was either Iraq or Afghanistan. And it was one of these times we saw it was there was a one of the kids out there. It had to be 15 or 16. And he had he had fired a or attempted to fire a rocket propeller grenade at one of the convoy's US or whatever.

And of course, it didn't go well. Okay. He got he got addressed by the by the coalition. And it was unfortunate. I remember us sitting and seeing this and we began a discussion. It was really interesting. We we started to think and say to ourselves, you know, just just walk that back for a second. You know, think about that kid. Okay.

That kid is probably from a family whose dad is gone. Okay. It's probably just him and his mom and maybe his sisters. There's no school for this teenager. There's no alcohol. There's no sports. There's no release for all of his testosterone. There's no pathway forward for this kid and his family is suffering.

And one day the bad guys come and say, hey, we will pay you 100 DR to go fire this rocket at this US convoy. And every single one of us to a man said, we would be that kid. Okay. If we were in that country, we would be that kid. Okay. So, so this starts to explain some of the ways this starts to to to bubble up. It's just so much more than a military problem. I think, I think, you know, one of the things I've talked to you now, a couple, certainly my buddies and some folks who have, we've all lost, but some widows as well. And I've told them in the recent days, I said, we can't ever think that what we did was in vain.

We did the job we were asked to do. We, listen, we were asked to go plug holes in the ship. Okay. That's what I always think of ourselves. There's a bunch of holes in the ship. We go down, we start plugging it, but we can only plug those holes for so long until someone is up top side taking that ship into port to be fixed. Okay? We were going, we were, we were, we were asked to go find bad guys. We did our job. We did it well in some cases too well, but we did it. And so we should feel proud about that. That it was not buttressed by a larger but we did it. And so we should feel proud about that. That it was not buttressed by a larger strategy

on how to kind of secure this place. And this goes for both Iraq and Afghanistan, because both were difficult, because we're not that good at nation-building, is not, is, well, it's unfortunate, but it's also historically typical. And so, when we talk about the military's mistakes of which we had many, we also have to address

the fact that the military is asked to do something that the military isn't supposed to be doing by itself. I mean, you know, and so it was a huge mission. It was a huge mission in two different countries. Oftentimes the other mistake and Robin and I having certain both places will probably agree with this. The countries, the strategies were conflated. People thought we could do the same thing and have to understand that we could do in Iraq. And you just can't. Whole different structures. And so I think there's a there was a larger issue going on here

in terms of seeing the problem holistically and seeing how many elements of power the US and the coalition and the world really was willing to throw at the problem. You think that, by the way, I really appreciate you sharing that perspective and for all the former and current military listening because I am getting messages from so many thinking what they did do there wasn't vain. And I know you guys are too.

I mean, that's the prevailing messages that I get from people that serve that they just feel like, gosh, what was my time there for? And then Rob says earlier in the conversation, hey, I think we're back to September 10th. And that concerns me listening because you're discussing these admissions as past tense because those are over. But this feels like, in my own heart, I feel the reason I want to do this show today, I feel like there's an inevitability to what took place after September 10th. Yeah.

In the place after that. Except Rob, let's talk about this. Except I want some solutions from you as well. But except when we leave, we leave $90 billion roughly in equipment there. We've lost the base. The prisons have been opened. The unbelievable things that are already happening to women that are at a report today about a pregnant woman, she's a police officer and them executing the Taliban, executing her in front of her family. And I get a motion I think about this because it's not just the money that was left there Rob, but what do we do because these are patches, these tanks, I have to think China and Russia would like

to get a good look at these, you know, some of our. Of course, of course, of course, the bottom earlier, like, is there a chance ever that China tries to take a base over like that inevitably someday? I'm just curious to your thoughts

and what do we do? Because all this crap is still there and they have it now. Well, I mean, the proofs right in the video, they showed. One of our helicopters being flown I think over can to hard and

that dude was hanging from it. I don't think that was an execution. I think that was a fighter trying to try to fix a situation that they were going to So one of our helicopters being flown, I think over Cana Har, and that dude was hanging from it. I don't think that was an execution. I think that was a fight or trying to fix a situation on a flag or something. But the point is the helicopter was flying, and there's no way the Taliban learned how

to fly it in four or five days. That's someone that was either US trained or Russian or someone from China or Iran. It's in there. But it's flying. And if you notice, the Chinese embassy never closed, and they just said that that's their biggest part in rebuilding, which means China is going to move in for sure. And they're trying to get that pathway from China and Afghanistan actually border through there, through Pakistan to get into the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Gulf so they can get there into there with reach into Europe. And then

just bringing China, the big picture thing you got to think about Taiwan, because China wants Taiwan back. You got celebrities like John Cena speaking in Mandarin, and I apologize to the Chinese people for calling Taiwan a country. The issue is now, what's going to stop China from taking Taiwan, but I wouldn't trust us. They got to rely on Australia and Japan, our allies over there. And we do have the most power from maybe, but we used to rely on C power. We used to rely on a lion's solidarity deterrence, a forward defense, and who's going to trust us? It's a bigger issue with China trying to become the only superpower in the world. And if you think about it, the problem is we've taken our eye off the ball because this is a direct

result of political correctness gone wild. I've had veterans hitting me up today, DM on social media saying, do you think we're diverse enough as a military to fight China and Russia? Diversity has nothing, I mean, diversity is great, but no one in the military really cares about it. Like, you know, don't ask don't tell was huge, the repealing of it when I was getting out. I'm in Afghanistan after the Bin Laden raid, talking to seals, and I said, do honestly, any of you really care if anyone in this room is gay? No, absolutely not. I don't care if they're gay, black, white, straight, whatever. It's equal opportunity, meaning if you can get to the standards, welcome aboard. I don't care if you're a woman or a man, if you can do it, let's all do it together. No one cared, but just as hype

for some reason, the media likes to hype stuff up because bad news gets great ratings. And it's the flavor of the day, it's 24 hour news cycle. We've got General Millie, the chairman of the joint chiefs talking about, he wants to hear about white rage. It's, nobody, it's not even a thing. And they're talking about that. Well, China just got rid of beta male boy bands because they don't want to,

they want to put alpha males out there. Not these, you know, not the harmonization is great I love do as you can sing that's cool but um the military doesn't need to be concentrating on that and that's where rat and and again it just comes back to telling the truth is right now we're in a time we're telling the truth can get you fire right right well the other part the other part is it's not just the bad new cells nowadays the the worst part is that hate sells nowadays. It's gone beyond just bad news. It's become so kind of visceral and hateful.

I mean, it's targeted, which is tough. But you know, let me, you know, a quick thing about, you know, just a quick taste of optimism here, I think, in terms of this equipment. You know, first of all, most of the equipment was disabled or destroyed, especially the higher tech stuff. Certainly there's some leftover. However, I would say not a lot of preventant PMs, which is preventant

is a preventant maintenance servicing going on over there. So I think a lot of that equipment will and I might eat my words of course, but we'll be used for a little while and and not be used anymore. I don't think China and Russia are necessarily interested in our equipment over there. We do have to be concerned because, like Rob mentioned, there's a vacuum now, and China and Russia are filling that vacuum.

But there, I think that what we have to be worried about is the fact that Afghanistan's sitting on quite a bit of resources that China and Russia could get their hands on or probably have interesting getting their hands on. The other thing, so I guess the optimism is that I think- You agree with Rob that maybe their hands are on them, for example, the example he gave with the appa- what I love this is you're not here and this anywhere else about, you know, CNN's already moved off of this because I want to protect their guy, right?

They're on to another story. And if it would be reversed, if this was Trump and Fox would have moved off of it, and CNN would be covering it agonizing, I get all that. I'm just saying, do you tend to agree with Rob? It sounds to me like you're a little bit more bullish than Rob is, but do you, do you agree that, you know, who was flying that Apache? I mean, well, yeah, I mean, again, we trained a lot of people over there. I mean, there's a, you know, so, you know, who was flying that Apache? Well, well, yeah, I mean, again, we trained a lot of people over there. I mean, there's a, you know, so, so who knows?

But, you know, again, I think, um, is it concerning? Sure. Is it, is it keeping me awake at night? No, I mean, it's not real. That, that, that piece is not keeping awake at night. I think the piece that keeps me awake at night is, uh, is the fact that there's a vacuum there, um, that we have to, as a nation figure out how to, how to fill, uh, the vacuum as necessary. Okay, we're not going to at least in the immediate near term.

And I say that maybe five, maybe five, 10 years. We're not the first people who are going to be affected by a destabilized Afghanistan. Okay, that's really going to be people who are more close to the problem. That does not mean we need to, we need not be concerned. We have to think about the concerns and we have to think about our true, some of our trueer competitors because again the other thing that I'll say, and again Rob correct me if you disagree, but I think one of the things, one of the side effects of this 20-year war that is the negative side effect is is we lost our, we lost the bubble, we took our eye off some of our

bigger threats, some of our near-pierre threats. And so coming out of this now, I think it's going to provide us some focus on some near-pierre threats that we've lost, we had to kind of get back in our hands in terms of understanding what they're doing because I just don't think our next war is going to be won with muscles and guns. I think it's going to be won with nerds and cyber technology and things like that. We have to really start. This is where Rob speaks about diversity. It's a very diverse institution. It shouldn't be overly focused upon,

because guess what, whether you are wherever you're from, there are certain aspects, certain attributes that you're looking for in the military personnel. In some case, it's the muscles and guns guys. It's guys like, I guess Rob and I, all the Rob's a lot stronger than me, but the guys who tote this stuff and go fight the wars are fight the battles and shoot the guns

But but it's also we need that we need the thinkers We need the the intellect the people who are thinking beyond The you know being on the ground. I mean the the level of ground engagements in in this kind of new technology Technological world is only going to get smaller, you know We're gonna we're gonna start seeing wars fought in ways that are different than muscles and guns. And so I think we have to start thinking through a larger term strategy as a nation. And our military is, as far as I know,

and the limited stuff I hear, we're starting to, we're starting to shift that a little bit and start to say, how can we actually begin to win again? What's up with the thinking thing Rich? I want to ask you that by the way, I'm so proud of being able to share both of you and in not the stereotypical way, you know, that, that, you know, millions of people are going to expose to the, frankly, the intellect and brilliance of the two of you guys. I know you're both a really humble, but I just, I'm really proud the way both of you think through these things and what you can share. And just this is what

should be being talked about on television right now. And it's not. But I, the thinking part, you seem to have a little bit more confidence rich. And by the way, it makes me feel good that you have more confidence in some of the decision making because I've been going through, you know, the last few weeks, perplexed. And I want to understand, and let me tell you, I want to, we'll put a bow around Afghanistan in a minute, but I want to understand this. I want the, I want my audience to understand this. I,

by the way, your point of that they have destroyed some of the equipment. I had not heard that. So that's the first time I've heard that some of the equipment has been destroyed. So that's, that's wonderful. If that's accurate, that makes me feel somewhat better. But I just think about a few things. Why was this so abrupt? And I mean, it's my little skeptical hat goes off. I go, why was this so abrupt? I know there was a plan, but how would we leave civilians there? How would we, like you mentioned Taiwan earlier, what this looks like to our allies is horrible

to people that are in these other vulnerable places? Why did we do this? Why didn't we destroy all of the equipment? Why wasn't everybody out sooner? I just, I'm trying to understand this, because there's a photo op for 9-11. Is this a diversion? Because you're trying to stick through a $3 trillion or 45th stimulus package? Or was there an ineptitude that took place?

Just real significant mistakes with, you know, Millie, Biden, I guess he's the ultimate decision maker, Blinken, Austin, all of them. Like Rob, why did this happen the way it did in your opinion? I, in my opinion, I think it was for the photo op, and again, I want to revert back to what I said about yes, men telling him, if someone tells the president, look, the Afghan army has us, they're twice the size of the Taliban, the halibut, the year they have 20 years of training, we can get the 20 year anniversary of 9-11, which in my opinion should just be observed and not celebrated.

But I think that, you know, I'm also, I'm not as negative as I may sound, I'd like to be positive. I really don't think anyone there in there being in power is trying to do the wrong thing. They're trying to do the right thing, they just sometimes get bad advice, or they're going about it the wrong way. If they're making it for political decisions, that's, you know, that's a bad thing, they're trying to do the right thing, they just sometimes get bad advice, or they're going about it the wrong way. If they're making it for political decisions, that's a bad thing, but I think this was just a really bad advice taken very, very quickly, where I mean, the first, one of the first rules, even my wife said this to me, and she has no military background, she said, why

did they give them a timeline, a date we're going to be gone, and why did we give up a problem? Just bad decisions, and again, it goes back to the generals. If I was a general that said, don't give up the program and they did, I'd resign. If I said, do give up the program, I should be fired. When Rich and I run the ground, if each stood up, that would be dead or court martial. It's just the way it should work. Again, I think it was a shiny object, great political photo op, and then the midterms are in a year. I don't only think President Biden made this decision to try to just destroy us.

It's just a really bad decision making, bad advice and trying to hurry it. You can't hurry this. So situation on the ground there, by the way, just thank you both for being so willing to share. I want to have everyone understand the situation that happens on the ground there, by the way, just thank you both for being so willing to share. I want to have everyone understand the situation that happens on the ground because you've both been there a lot. How does, you get roughly 300,000 people in the Afghan army, right? I mean, what do I know? But that's what I've been told. They've been trained for years and years. They've got the better equipment. The Taliban's got 80,000 people in three days, they're toast. So how does that happen, Rich? Is that because these guys never intended to fight for their own freedom, their own

country, because they've been paid? What's the dynamic on the ground that allows the Taliban, which is a third the size, right, with crappier equipment, and less than a week to basically dominate these guys? How does that happen? And did that surprise you? Yeah, I mean, it, well, I guess I surprised everybody that happened so fast. I think, you know, again, these are, you know,

most of these people are good people and they want to do what's right. And I think what Rob said is true. I think the way it happens is, again, it's a failure in decision making, or excuse me, it's a bad decision making. And that stretch is, it starts to stretch, you know, way back beyond, beyond any one administration. It's a series of decisions that lead you down a pathway. And so as soon as we began the,

the insistence and really kind of the, when we signed the documents back in, I think, was February 2020, I think is when the Trump administration signed the documents back in, I think, it was February 2020, I think, is when the Trump administration signed the documents to leave Afghanistan. Okay. They made a truth with the Taliban and signed the documents. All right. That set into motion a series of events that we're going to be inevitable, which were then carried out in really upsettingly We bad fashion, right? Because we had failures all along. Three big, I think failures in the, in the, in the extraction that happened.

One was intelligence failure. I mean, and we, you know, there's a lot of people say, well, it was bad intel. We didn't know it was going to, okay, it was either bad intel or it was because, kind of like Rob said, people were not telling people what they wanted to hear, okay? Or they were hearing stuff, they didn't want to hear and they were disagreeing.

So there's bad until there. It was a failure of coordination, which is actually one of the most atrocious problems here. We fought in Afghanistan with several, several other nations, and they fought with us and they blood with us and they served with us and they spent capital and blood and treasure with us. And the decision to leave was largely unilateral in terms of the US saying, hey, we're gone, right? And a lot of our coalition allies were saying, hey, could you please stay or stay longer? And we kind of gave them the hand and said, no, we're leaving, right?

So, I think one of the worst kind of marks on us as a nation was our kind of the way we made the decision without coordinated with anybody. That lack of coordination and then the third failure was failure of planning. The decisions to move so rapidly, listen, when Rob talks about Kabul, Kabul being a centerpiece and a stability factor

is huge. Kabul airport being one of the primary symbols of that stability, right? Kabul being a centerpiece and a stability factor is huge. Kabul airport being one of the primary symbols of that stability, right? When the military begins to extract from Kabul so rapidly, almost overnight, I mean, it doesn't give the forces out in the other regions of Afghanistan. The Afghan forces, a lot of confidence that they're going to be supported as the Taliban rolls through. And you have to understand, Afghanistan is a very interesting, very fractured environment country. I mean, mostly tribal, mostly survival. People are going to do for themselves and their family, what the best is to do for themselves and their family. And I think ultimately, it was not necessarily

what people might think a bunch of people dropping their guns and running away screaming. These were some decisions made by people who said, listen, I can play with the winning side or I can play with the losing side. And based on what I see in terms of who's going to be there to have my back at the end of the day, I think I may not want to play with the side that's getting out of here. And so some of these decisions, I think, were in effect sped up because of a, unfortunately, a sense of, or a loss of trust in us and our ability to have their backs. So I know I can hear people going, all right, I got it. So now what's going to happen there?

What do we do? And why does this matter? And it matters because what Rob said We started the interview if we truly are back at a September 10th type time and I don't mean to be an alarmist It's just it doesn't feel right to me What happened there doesn't feel it does not agenda a bunch of confidence from me and I'm not talking about the president Look, I'm not listening if people say to me all the time well, well, Biden's not prepared to be the commander-in-chief. Well, what background did any of these guys have before Bush's dad, right?

I mean, George Bush didn't have a background that would make a commander-in-chief or Clinton or Obama or Trump or Biden, right? And none of them did. So I think that's sort of a hilarious political statement. Bush's father, he did, he did Reagan, right? So that's stuff, you know, whatever. That's political stuff, at least in my mind but And by the way both these guys have called out both parties and both administrations for different things over time

But but I do feel like this is just an absolute show And I don't feel good about it and it doesn't agenda so Rob in your opinion You got a little crystal ball there what should we do now and? And what's going to happen? Because you got ISIS can now, are they going to eventually take over the Taliban? There's going to be, there's a civil war. Someone said they're, there's going to be a civil war. There is a civil war there already. So what's going to happen and ultimately, are we going back? Well, this is, this is happening every time an empire has failed in Afghanistan.

The battling tribe, Richard mentioned mentioning how tribal they are. The battling tribes are surrounding Kabul. They're going to take it. They're going to be infighting. It's happening now with, I mean, yeah, there's the Syrians, there's Saudis in there, the foreign fighters, but there's a lot of Afghans there. Always been battling with each other. No matter if it takes it over, they're probably going to, they're pretty much standing

glove again without Kaida. Who are the foreigners? They're generally not from Afghanistan. There will be the camps again. I doubt they're going to do it the same way. But the problem that we're going to have now is how easy it is to get into the United States to its act as again. And it's not that they never forget, you know, we always say never forget, but our problem is we always forget to never forget. They're not going to try to hijack plans again and jam them into buildings and have another 9-11 like we did 20 years ago. What they're going to be to hijack planes again and jam them into buildings and have another

9-11 like we did 20 years ago. What they're going to be looking at now, if you noticed on a lot of those C-17 flights out, not a lot of women and children on there, but a whole bunch of fighting age males, a lot of military age males. And they're not dumb. They think about 1993. They bond the World Trade Center. They want to once out of the following of the other.

It didn't happen. They didn't forget. They came back on 9-11. They have not forgotten about us. They know our borders are wide open. This time they're going to look at something else. These are very creative people. Who knows?

They didn't rush up. They took over an elementary school to suicide bombers. They put all the kids in the basketball court and they can start executing. Who's to say they wouldn't do that? Our borders are wide open because we make everything political that we can't have a protected border, it's somehow racist. There's that big fight about that.

We know Dan Willis is easy to cross. So if I don't want to put an idea in anyone's head, but if I'm looking there, I'm thinking, hey, there's schools in Arizona. Oh, boy, yeah. I worry about that, too. The border part of it. Um, you know, I everyone asked me, what's your politics?

I don't know because I'm super socially liberal and extremely fiscally conservative and I really do belong and believe in a strong military and I believe in forward deployment. I would rather us be in some of these places than waiting for them all to come here. I just believe that theoretically, you know, not having a military background, but theoretically that seems to make some sense to me. The border's been an interesting issue for me

because I hate the demonization of the people who have tried to come across here to do better lives. I know you do too. These are other than California. These have become our friends. They've raised our children. They've picked our crops. They've cleaned our homes.

Their sons have died in our military. I hate that demonization thing because I think it's terrible and it makes me sick to my son. Yes, it is, it is, it is. I know you have that way too. And by the way, those people have now done more than that. They now are real estate agents and mortgage brokers and doctors here and are, they've elevated their status here.

How they got here, we were complicit with them in my opinion, right? So we're part of that whole equation. We didn't really want them coming. They wouldn't have been coming. So I don't like that conversation. However, my friends that are high up in both parties, and I mean really high up that I work with, worry about exactly what you just said. And I'm talking, even the ones who publicly, Kevin said they're for a real border wall,

their worry is exactly what you just described, which is that people we don't know coming here not to get on a social program, but to really do damage to our country. And we probably ought to know who's coming in the country. And that they're not stupid that that is a open place to come in. And there are schools in Arizona and there are places in Texas. And so that is a word. I agree with you completely, too. I'm on the same way, officially conservative, socially liberal. And you know, I mean, you completely, too. I'm on the same way, a physically conservative, socially liberal. And again, crossing the border is sort of like in a war zone, 99% of the people are just trying to get on with their lives, get better lives.

If I was in Central America and for I would do the same thing, I'm not blaming these people, I'm just saying you have to have the honest conversation about what's going on. And the people high up to powers the beer so political, they don't want to get in the same, this is why we need to get a different subject. This is why we need more veterans in Congress because they'll at least get the same room, Democrat Republican independent. We're getting the same room and just talk about it.

I mean, you got to just be realistic about. It's really not in your brain. But, I agree with you on several things. First of all, I would say I wouldn't even I wouldn't even be able to class myself. I classify myself as politically homeless. I'm part of the homeless problem. Right. So and I'm and I think this is a by the way, this is a great example of and yeah, there's a lot of things Robin, I agree with. There's a lot of things we disagree on. This is a great example of how people can sit down and have a conversation with each other about things we disagree with.

You can have empathy for another human being without agreeing with that person, right? You can feel with it. I didn't, Robin, I did not agree and our bodies did not agree with the guy who was shooting the rocket propeller grenade at the US convoy, but we certainly empathize with him, right? So you can you can have empathy without agreement. Um, and so I think this is why we are in the state We're in it because we can't have these conversations, right? Why can't I have a conversation about the fact that I do believe that we should be able to own guns, but I also believe we should try to keep the guns out of the hands of idiots. I do believe that I do believe I do believe I'm the that. I'm the same way, I'm pro-QA, but you don't need a flame thrower. That's right, you don't. And I do believe we're founded, our country's founded on the melting pot of the United States. But we need to understand and have a process by which we understand who's coming through our borders.

When it comes to threats, I think, though, one of the things that's a little bit more scary, I think, is not necessarily the people who are physically coming across a border. I think we've seen the terror networks actually proliferates through the internet, a little bit, a lot more since 9-11. I mean, when we first went out there, we kind of knew where they were and where to get them.

Since then, we've seen this proliferation of online content, the radicalization that happens that occurs that goes global very quickly because it goes through the lines of the internet. This is where I think our intelligence agencies have to be more concerned about these lone wolf threats and things like that. The people are getting radicalized because they're watching things online. There's environmental cues that are killing them and then to that. And I think that's where our intelligence agencies need to also start focusing. Certainly, we have to have a consolidated effort. I think one of the great things, I say, you know, great is a weird word, but one of the

great things that came from 9-11 is that it fused our agencies in ways that had never been fused before. Even in the military, we started working with the other services like we never worked. Our intelligence agencies started to talk to each other and things became a lot less siloed, and I think that was a positive. Let me just go back one thing, because I do have a little bit of optimism about the Taliban, okay, because I don't think the Taliban, I don't think we're not, I don't think we're necessarily from a Taliban perspective in the same position we were on September 10th.

At Taliban, it seems at this point are looking for some legitimacy globally, right? And through that search, they're reaching out, they're having conversations. A lot of people don't remember, but even before 9-11, in the late 90s, the Taliban, after establishing themselves and taking control of Kabul, began to, and they were recognized as a legitimate government by, I think, UAE and Saudi. They sent delegates to the United States, and they visited United States and sent delegates to the United States and they visited United States and sent delegates.

This is before 9-11. So even then they were trying to establish themselves. Now they have, it seems like they're trying to do the same thing and there's a little bit more of a stake. They're talking to people. They are facilitating things that previously didn't seem facilitatable. I mean, we are still getting people out through

kind of conversations we're having with the Taliban. So I'm not saying this is a great place to be because again, the overarching ideology and sheer a law is kind of antithetical to the United States, our kind of moral system. And it's atrocious and it's great with great sadness that we're going to see, especially the women are our kind of moral system. And it's it's atrocious and it's great, with great sadness that we're gonna see though, especially the women of Afghanistan kind of plunged back in that system. But I think there's a,

there's a real difference in what we're seeing in terms of the Taliban's overarching goals right now. And they do have to contend with, you know, ISIS-K, so the remnants of al-Qaeda, things like that, that are not congruent with their overall strategy. So it will remain to be seen in terms of how that works out. The other actors in the game, China, Russia, specifically, they're also concerned about

extremist behavior, too. So it's not just the US that's on the fight. Can I ask you about that? By the way, both of you have been around to zoom. So I forgive me for interruptions towards the end of your sentences in person that wouldn't happen. But basically what you're saying to me is that we're in business with the Taliban now, which is just unbelievable to hear you say out loud. And that, you know, no, no, I didn't just, I didn't say that. It seems to me like maybe what we're saying

here is that eventually when the dust settles here we have to bet on one team ourselves. You know, yeah, and we have the rumour. I mean, so a couple of things happened in February 2020 when the Trump administration signed the deal with the Taliban. Okay, first thing that happened was the Taliban immediately gained legitimacy. Okay. Okay, I'm not, I'm saying this without judging whether it's right or wrong. It's true. The second thing that happened. Thousands of

prisoners were released upon that signature. Okay. Thousands of prisoners that we that in some cases Robin I probably put in put in jail. Okay. Yeah. Thousands of right. That's the second thing. I mean. Third thing that happens. Not one American died in Afghanistan. As soon as that pen hit the paper, not one American, but okay. That that shows us that the Taliban has a lot more power than we actually thought it did. But it also shows that they actually are a little bit more serious than we thought they might be, okay. I interject a question on that.

Please, yeah. Or does it suggest that there was a fear of who the commander in chief was and that fear may not exist now? I'm just asking openly, I'm not, it's not a political question, but was there a part of it that they knew this crazy SOB who was the commander in chief, if anything happened, they're going to be drones raining down on your head real quickly. Or is that not an impact at all? Well, I mean, again, I can't, I can't hypothesize as to what they were thinking. I think if we were to look at the historics of, of how much

rain was held, how much hell was rained down upon them and our enemies throughout the administrations. I think there was an equilibrium there because there was a lot of it. From both sides. From both sides. We did a lot. Again, I didn't serve under the Trump administration. I was basically retired by the time he got it, but just understanding what I did.

So I'm not sure about that. I think, again, Taliban, we have to remember, Taliban's focus is Afghanistan. That's what it's always been their focus, is back to Afghanistan. They actually have never really cared about anything other than Afghanistan. Ben Laden came over there because he wanted

to help fight with the Russians. And of course, he formed this group of Haida, which is more global. I mean, it's kind of like, the Al-Qaeda jihad is like, I'm a, you know, it's kind of the environmentalist who thinks that, hey, everything, we have to look at everything is a, you know, everything's a problem, right? You know, that's like the al-Qaeda view. Whereas the Taliban is like, hey, we're focused on Afghanistan. All we want is our country. That's all we want. And maybe a little bit

of Pakistan, whatever it is. And so we have to think about those two different polarities because it does, it should at least factor into our thought about the whole issue. So right, maybe they're too, with as far as the Taliban goes, they even told us after we invaded that if they thought we were serious, they would have given us been live.

Because they, I don't think the Taliban is a threat to the country. It's a problem is where they let in and serious, they would have given us been a lot. Because I don't think the Taliban's it's right to the country. It's the problem is who they let in and how are they gonna train there? And that's what the kind of ISIS who I think are one of the same al-Qaeda and ISIS, this is the same ideology based out of Saudi Arabia type the solid-faced brand of Sunni Islam.

But yeah, the Taliban and they're smarter too. And there's even been special operators from different Muslim countries, Qataris or Jordanians that have told a lot of these people, you can have both. I mean, look at Dubai, they would say. You can have Islam and you can have a good life. And I mean, being optimistic, maybe that'll open their eyes a little bit, but based on what they're doing now, not the case. But I mean, there's so much going to happen in Afghanistan.

A lot of it, too, that no one seems to bring up Pakistan. Because Pakistan is the center of the universe over there. Pakistan is where that's where the Connie Network is. That's where we knew I'm in Al-Zabahiri, that's where Bin Laden was. The ISI, new bin Laden was there. And Pakistan, like I said, is the center of the universe. We're the ones that funneled Singer missiles to the Mujahideen through Pakistan to fight the Russians. And then they do the same thing without kindness to us.

So, but yeah, I'm just agreeing with Rich, that the Taliban is pretty much only interested in Afghanistan. Yeah, and again, it remains to be seen. I mean, these types of evolutionary maturation don't happen in one generation. These are generations worth of timeframe. I mean, Saudi did not become what it is over the course of just 20 years. Dubai did not become what it is over the course of 20 years. It will be up to, I think, the Taliban and you know, honestly, you know, one of the key

factors is the youth. If the youth is allowed to write, I mean, look at Iran. Iran is a great example. I mean, there are disco texts in Iran that rival Vegas in terms of the youth of Tehran, right? And those young people want nothing to do with the radical ideas of the Iatol and things like that. They are the key. They are the key. They are the key.

Capitalism in that sense is the key. This is the problem with sheer law, right? It doesn't really allow that type of education. This is what we were hoping to help STEM and actually help proliferate throughout the Afghanistan was education and getting people to learn this. I think this is a responsibility,

at least something we should keep our eye on in terms of empowering. No, that's right, too, with proven Albert 20 years, you're really not going to win the long game with brute force bombs and bullets. It is going to be through education. It's everything from it's, you know, it's what's being taught to the young minds in the mattresses on the board in Pakistan. Again, look at, like I ran, I ran a shurela, but it's the young

liberals that happen to like music that I like Hollywood. I don't have a problem with this dude just because he was born in a different country. And that's the, you know, that's the hard nut to crack is how do you, I mean, we're gonna, we're gonna, as far as jihad goes, we're gonna make peace with Muslims because of Muslims, not because of what we try to force on the roads. I also agree with you on that, but I just think sometimes you all don't give yourself enough credit as well.

It's, you know, yeah, things there aren't the way we would like them to be speaking again of Afghanistan and Iraq didn't go the way we wanted it to either, but you know what, we don't know what would have happened had you not done what you did. And we don't know that these hearts and minds would have necessarily been transformed. If they didn't see some consequence

for some of this extreme behavior and some of these countries that you guys put the rest to some extent. Well, just to say, this is why what we did was not in vain. I mean, Bidlon's goal, okay, Bidlon's goal in the 9 level attacks was to create such

distress in the western hearts and minds that we left the Middle East, okay. The exact opposite happened where we got more proliferated than he ever thought we would. So in many ways, he failed that goal. And really, I mean, the United States military and all of those who went out there and fought, we found and got and captured or killed

a lot of bad guys, right? Again, though, you can't just plug holes. You can't just plug holes in the ship and just expect that to be the solution, right? There had to have been a larger overarching strategy that was supporting and buttressing the efforts, because even in the conduct of our jobs, that's still created a vacuum. And those vacuums are always filled, right? And if there isn't a plan to address the vacuum when it's created, i.e. when Saddam gets removed or, you know, the Taliban gets removed if there's

not a plan and not a overarching long-term strategy that's supported with all elements of power of the United States, not just military, then we're in trouble. Yeah, and it comes back to the endgame too. The prime example is in the invasion of Iraq, but it's bad decisions and no contingencies. Like, what we're going to do is we're going to take Baghdad and Saddam Hussein will be gone and then everyone will rise up and it'll be great and the question is, okay, well, what if they don't? Oh, they will.

I get it, sir, but what if they don't? Oh, they will. I know, but what if they don't? Right, I just can't be the chaos. And then they get to begin contingencies. And an understanding of the cultural aspects, right? You go into Iraq and you have the Sunnis, the Kurds, and the Shia, right? And you have to consider, okay, how is this all going to play out?

And that wasn't considered, okay? You go into Afghanistan. As now it's the postions, it's the Taliban, it's the al-Qaeda folks, it's the, it just have all of these little, these facets that make the problem more complex. And I think for those of us in the military, I think, and maybe even me, who is in some cases, sometimes sitting in briefings that Rob didn't want to be in. And here we have some extra blocks of leg. And hearing some stuff, I even remember thinking,

I just don't feel like we're appropriately just addressing some of these larger issues. And that was not a demonishment of how we as the military was addressing. It felt like to me, it wasn't being thought of at the national levels. Because again, the military, you've heard it before. I mean, when you have it, when you're using a hammer,

just a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Okay, the military in many ways is the hammer, right? And for us, everything's going to look like a nail. We do very well and did very well at nuance ourselves and doing a lot more than maybe we had planned to or modifying and adapting in ways that we hadn't perceived. But at the same time, it's just one element of five national elements of power.

I'm so glad we talked today because and I've got some more stuff and I won't keep you guys much longer, but I have some stuff I really want to ask you, but one of the things that surprised me over time getting to know both of you and other, you know, real operators, real warriors is they're the ones who least want war, at least want combat if they don't have to. And I'm always surprised by that and it's usually somebody like me that never did any of that. That's like, well, wait a minute. And you guys know better than I do, but I do feel like it's both. And I do, I feel I'm the Mr. positive guy, right? That's what my show's supposed to be about. But I do

just feel like I've seen this movie before. We pulled out. They've got equipment there still. They're going to fight it out now. And I just feel like there's an inevitability. We're going to have to go back. We're going to do something again. And there's just this part of there's like it didn't seem that bad to me with the 2500 non-combatts there. No one's dying. It wasn't costing a lot of money. I just don't get why we. It was almost like, they have that notion of the elephant with the little rope tied behind it with a stake at any time, they probably could have ripped it.

But we were kind of that little stick with the rope on it. It seemed just sort of kind of keeping it together. And it's just. Well, also, yeah, really empowering and bringing confidence to those 300,000 Afghans who were there too. I mean, these can, that's, you know, these can't be understated. The, just the, the small level of support from coalition and the United States can empower, uh, to a, to a great degree.

So, um, but let me just say something real quick, because I want to, I want to, you know, talk about Rob here and just, just because I, we haven't talked in a while, but guys like Rob and, and the operators who I was so lucky to serve with, I mean, you know, people have to understand that yes, we do not, we are actually pacifists, but we understand that, you know, sometimes bad people have to have to be addressed, right? But we were pacifists in the sense we understand that war and the conduct of war has to be taken into with with high consideration and high thought.

It can't be rushed into. And these are guys who it was so remarkable for me to work with and see because they were surgeons. And this is the other assumption that I think many people make. And maybe it's because of some movies and television. Maybe some people out there who were talking. But we don't do this with hate in our heart. Okay, surgeons don't cut out cancer because they hate the cancer. Surgeons look at cut out cancer because they hate the cancer. Surgeons look at the cancer as the job they have to do and they cut it out. This is how we did it overseas. We went and we did a job, but we did it with precision.

We did it with the right amount of emotion, the right amount of aggression. I've literally seen Rob and I've seen other guys who we served with go from in one moment executing lethal force to the next moment taking care of children, okay? This is the type of surgery that these guys were doing and they did it so well and they did the job and overall every single person you served

should feel like what they did had value because it did, okay? The cycle of life, the cycle of politics, the cycle of natural human history is what it is. But everybody should hold their, hold their heads up high. And I'm proud to have served with, with Rob and every single person I served with. You made me think where I wanted to go next, Rich. I appreciate you saying that about Rob and you, obviously, and so many others. A couple of things that Curtin me is talking, I wish this was the conversation that's been had in the country the last three weeks and is ongoing. You know, some disagreement, we say we're going to elevate the conversation, a real information,

real understanding of the dynamics and how things happen and how they work decisions that are made. And this is how it should be because Rich and Rob don't agree on everything, right? And I don't agree with both of them on everything. And I have no basis for half of the things that I believe. That's why I've been asking these guys these questions today. But what I, Rob, it made me think about, you know, the other thing with you guys that strikes me is the level of humility is so remarkable for the incredible things you've gone

through and protected our country for, protected the world for. And Rob, just for a minute, you've been on the show, we've covered it before, and I went on to go through the whole story. But I just think this stuff just sounds like a video game to even someone like me, right? These are just like, it's literally a video game. Then there's the real world men and women that are on the ground protecting the world, protecting the country. And I said this many times, Rob, since I've met you and people ask me about you, I said

that whatever you were doing the day that Osama bin Laden was killed, whatever you were worried about, whatever was your big problem that day. Imagine what O'Neil and his dudes were doing that day. What they were thinking, the bravery level of you and your partners there. I just want to take you through them. I want them just to feel this for a minute of what's gone on to give you the freedom to argue whether we should have an open closed border, to go protest if you want to, to argue over guns, argue over taxes, to vote in election. These things matter. And I don't think people understand this. This is

not promised forever. And there's guys like Rob and people like Rich, that ensure the fact that we get to have these arguments where we live in our freedoms. So Rob, just the thing that you said to me about the bin Laden raid, all of us remarkable, but you said to me, I knew I was dead. I already dead. I was tired of thinking about it. I'm just going over here. Let me just die. I want you all to imagine whatever you're worried about today, whatever you're doing today. So take us just for a minute, if you would, in brief, but just let them feel this for a

minute. Everything's let up. You now know that it's him. You now know you're going to get him and you're on the helicopter leaving Afghanistan coming over. What's going through? This is what has happened to protect us everybody. Well, I mean, it's it's the

human element because I mean, there's there's humanity involved with everything. I don't care who it is that you kill someone loved them and you get to a level where you're questioning. Are we killing each other just because we were born in different parts

of the world had it been different? Would we have gotten along weird stuff like that, but I even had a conversation with my father right before I launched on the bin Laden Raiden, he even always say to me, I wish I was going with you when I'd call him prior and I'd say,

yeah, I wish you were too dad, but this time he said I wish I was going with you and I said, don't worry dad, I'm with some really great people. And so I knew I was going there with my my brothers and we knew that this is what we're here for.

This is this is why we came this is why we joined and the, once the acceptance of giving your life for the greater good, you kind of lose the, you kind of lose the fear a little bit because the realization that I could, I could pull myself off this mission anytime, but I'm letting them down. And if I live to be 90 years old,

would I give every single day to have one shot at this? This is why I'm here. I'm here to fight for the men and women that died in the town. I'm here for the Americans. The first America's to fight Al Qaeda on flight 93. And before they fought Al Qaeda, they voted. And that's what America is. That's what the Western ideologies, that's freedom.

And there's just so much there. I'm with these guys. I might die, but I'm safe. I'm good. And just getting there, and it's kind of like taking everything, because these are real people that can barely afford their mortgage. Now we're in a bout about Pakistan. And I was in the back because of where we ended up, and I'm watching guys, we could blow

up in any second, but everyone's doing their jobs. Like we taught each other, slowest, smoothestest. But then like Rick said, shooting someone, but then running across the room to grab a child, because I don't want that kid to be more afraid than he needs to be and just Realizing these are the good guys and this is what we're fighting for is bet is bigger than this It's not just us here. This is for everyone and when we got up to the room I just followed a guy that was brave with me up the left to the stairs and he went one way and I went the other and after I even shot the Lund

His two-year-old son was standing there. And I remember as a father thinking, this poor kid has got nothing to do with this. So this is real human emotions. And you know, Billon, millions of people loved him. It's all because of different ideologies. That's all because of different educations. Was he an asshole yet?

Is he deserved to die? Absolutely. Do I feel bad about being a take him alive? No, f**king him. But, you know, this is what we're, this is it. I mean, these are the good guys. But then when you get away from it too, you know, this is a really big world, but it's a really small world.

And, you know, it's like, you know, yes, we need to meet force with force at the point of origin, and there needs to be people there willing to do it. But, you know, there's a, there's just, there seems to me to be a bigger, a bigger picture of that. And we mentioned people that have never been there and played the video games whenever I see someone walking down the street with a, I like to kick doors and shoot f**kers in the face. My reaction is, no, you don't, because you've never f**king done it. Yeah.

And you could, and you probably wouldn't be able to. It's funny. And let me just add one thing because it's interesting. And I was a conversation I had with another friend of mutual friend of ours Obviously I won't give his name, but I remember he and I were were at one point we came back and we were a little upset because we came back to a nation after You know, I don't know what tour it was And it just seemed like everyone was hyper focused on the Kardashians and American Idol and all this stuff and and we're kind of frustrated I remember a seven coffee and we're talking about and and came to a realization and the realization was this and again Rob will feel this one.

We used to leave for these deployments usually in the middle of the night because of the way the flights worked, right? So we'd have to go muster at like 11 p.m. and then get on the plane like midnight and fly out. And so my kids who were small, they were always in bed, you know, and I'd always go into their room and just watch them. And every parent probably does this, but I always, you know, watched my kids sleep, but especially on the nights that I was leaving, I'd go in and watch them, and I'd wonder what they were dreaming about.

And I would hope, I always, I hoped they were dreaming about like Disneyland and sugar plums and fairy, whatever it is, right? And I realized, and my buddy and I realized that that's why we do it. We do it because we don't want our kids to have to see the stuff we see. We don't want our kids to have to think about the stuff that we think about. We want to preserve a little bit of that blissful ignorance. And honestly, we do that happily. We do that with we do that you know with great pride and and that's cool

It really is and so and so I'm not mad at the Kardashians anymore. I Just I you're you're both we're supposed special men you just are and Takes my breath I I When you talk is a sense of emotion in me That's not just gratitude. I'm not sure what it is with both of you. Every time I've talked with each of you, I'm curious, I don't think I've ever asked you this Rob, and maybe you can't share it, maybe you don't know. How is this,

how is this journey of yours? You spend most of your life doing this. You were one guy when you were, you're not even sure which group of the military you were joining initially, right? And then you're another guy sitting there right now, having had experiences that are unconscionable, that almost no human being that's ever walked the earth to set up the experiences you've had, right? And you've had a life experience

in situations and environments that, the combination of which you may be the only one or one of the very few. Do you know how it's affected you? Do you can you can you describe it if you are even aware? Well, I'm just lucky because you know every day I used to, I was fortunate to go to work with people who are better than me, but I learned being a dude from Montana who joined the Navy basically because of Marine Recruit or wasn't the office. I couldn't swim and I ended up in Bidlant bedroom as a Navy seal. It proved to me that it doesn't matter what you look like or where you're from, you can

do anything as long as you keep a positive attitude. One of the things in seal training that an instructor said to me, the abridged version, was when you feel like quitting what you will, do not quit now, quit tomorrow. If you can keep quitting tomorrow, you can do anything, anything you want to do in life. Just wait till tomorrow. I was going to quit today, but I'll just quit tomorrow and quit tomorrow. And then as far as finding that was the best experience of my life. I missed a lot of time in the United States. I missed a lot of time away from my daughters, but I was over there. And it's when you get into the when you're the number two man, number three man

going through the door, you're no longer fighting for the political party in charge. You're fighting for the men and women next to you. And so it's very important for a lot of these veterans to realize what they did was not in vain because it comes to a point where someone needs to take a stand and you took the stand. And that's it. And there's people that don't have the platforms that I do. They need the recognition.

The Marines that were out there walking in a ridiculously hot sun through the minefield with the people next to them. We've seen their brothers and sisters killed in action. What they did was not in vain. And the message I would just tell them is is a lot of people are going through it. And the important thing is once and

while don't try to self-medicate, put the bottle down, call someone. Even if you're having a bad day, call someone because they might be having a good day and when you're having a great day and you get out of the gym and you have the adorfans going, call someone because they might be having a good day and when you're, you know, or you're having a great day to get out of the gym and you have the adorfans going call someone because they might be having a bad day. And we can get through this together, you know, it's nothing you do was in vain. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter who made a bad decision.

You made the right decision to be there. And again, we're the good guys. Yeah. I'll add something because I think this is, well, we, well, I lost to what, well, we lost several friends. I lost to one of my friends right before I got out of the, the Navy, well, I lost what while we lost several friends, I lost one of my friends right before I got out of the Navy actually and we were we were at Dover, we were receiving his remains and it was a bunch of us buddies who who did that and and one of our one of the guys pulled

us all into a room, he said, hey guys, let's just get in the room here for a second. And he said, hey, we need to tell each other, we love each other more often. We need to remember to do that. We're not doing it enough. That's what I would say to everybody out there. Tell the people that you care about that you love them more often. Because it only does good. It really does. I know you have a couple, well, we're not Navy Seals,

or we're former Navy Seals, but a couple former Navy Seals here. If we can sit here and tell people to tell them Tell people that you love them more often do it, right? This is what we need in this country We need to love each other more. We need to have empathy. It's okay to disagree with each other What's not okay is if we don't talk to each other So empathy love and discourse is what we need. Oh my god. You see why he was such a great leader That's another line. I'm gonna steal from Rich. Yeah, it's mine too. I got it too So last by the way you guys it goes such a great leader. That's another line I'm gonna steal from Rich. Yeah, it's mine too. I got it too. I have it. So last, by the way, you guys, it goes about saying thank you.

It's, I keep getting emotional is because I know how specialist conversations I know that so many people needed it. I kind of feel like, well, you guys need it too. Like all your world. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. I, I hold you both in such high regard that make me feel good about something.

And if you can't, I know you'll answer it honestly, but there's this part of me that as I've got the no both of you, by the way, these are two of the best speakers you'll ever bring into your organizations or your companies either. And they both got books that if you don't have them, most of you bought them on my show, but if you didn't Google them both get their books and have them come speak. I've had them come speak. I've had Rob come to speak to multiple different organizations and Rich just spoke to my RTA group and was just absolutely incredible. So if you want more of these two, you can certainly go get them, go to their Instagram,

go to their websites. But you know, both of you, I hold in such high regard. And there's this part of me as I learned about you, there's the military. And then there's sort of there's the special op, there's the seals, there's the Rangers and the other guys. And then there's, you know, And then there's someone like both of you that have just done your rich and training in Rob and all of his deployments too.

And then Rob and just had this remarkable career. And I watch sometimes lately, I feel like, are you guys a past generation? That's what I worry about. Is this a generation that doesn't exist anymore as maybe the militaries become, I'm all for being woke if you wanna be be woke, but I'm just, you know, some of this other stuff I've seen in the military assure me there are other use that exist that are coming up or do you worry about

that as well? And I mean, that would the highest degree of respect for both of you, but I know from being around in on Robbo Wow, I know now for no he rich like I know minus a handful of people's. The world could be very different. And most of them aren't famous, most of them aren't well known. And you take this select group of a very small group of people. And this world could look completely different. And I've got kids that are now almost turn in 20. I'm going to have grandkids. I want them to be in a world like I've been blessed enough to live in. And I know it's dudes like you two that afford that opportunity. I know that. Are you guys a past generation or are there other ones of you that are operating right now and that are coming

up behind them? I'm confident that we're going to be just fine. One of my favorite quotes, I think it was Babe Ruth, but he said the loudest booze come from the cheapest seats. And because so much negativity on social media and such, you can kind of get lulled into that. But a couple of things happened to me. I've got a cousin of mine who joined the army within the past year. And he said, yeah, some of this training we're doing is ridiculous, but everyone's positive about what we're doing.

And they're willing to get in the fight. And the other night, I walked on the street to a playground and I was playing basketball shooting hoops with my wife and I got invited by some of these young kids to get into a pickup game. And I just looked around and saw how many young kids were out there, no cell phones, out there playing basketball, do some of their scooters, running around the park, just doing stuff, you know, active stuff. They're not going to have the humpback because they're staring down at Instagram.

I'm very, very positive just, you know, if you're They're not going to have the humpback because they're staring down at Instagram. I'm very, very positive. Just, you know, if you're having a bad day, put the phone down for 24 hours to say, I'll Twitter. You'll be amazed how great life is. And I'm very, very positive about what's happened. And by the way, if you want to laugh, follow Makuya on Instagram. Yeah, and keep in mind most of that's talking. cheek. He was always are he was also one of our primary class clowns I talked about how powerful the class was Let me get a rug rich real quick as funny when we get down with the bin Laden raid too I noticed one question that every seal when they found a bin Laden was dead asked the other seal

Well, who got him and I heard the common responses. They said oh Neil God. I'm like oh shit. We're never gonna Yeah, that's and I'm like, oh, shit, we're never gonna hear the end of this. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that's, and my, my been loud in the story, my been loud in the story, by the way, is I was staining my deck at the time, and I said to myself, oh, I wonder how those guys are doing. And so I got my deck stand, which is good. Here's my, here's my answer. We are a past generation, and that's a good thing, okay?

Because if the folks who were the great ones 100 years ago, we're running the show now, we'd all be screwed. Evolution is a thing. You cannot stop it. And I think as we see the youth and the younger generations come up, we are seeing them evolve, we're seeing it change.

It's not gonna feel necessarily good to us as we get older because we're products of our generation. Listen, I love the 80s and I love the 90s and sometimes the 21s don't feel very as comfortable anymore, right? But I see my kids and they are they don't do some of the same things I do. Yeah, they might be on their phones and YouTube more than I was because I didn't have it, but they're watching they're watching the Mars lander more lands, all right? I mean they're glued to that shit, which is like oh my I mean they're watching the Mars lander land. All right, I mean, they're glued to that shit, which is like, oh my, I mean, they're, they're, their focus is different. So I think

we need to, I mean, part of our empathy, part of our open mind is, I think part of our staying young, I say this to the three old guys that are talking right now, part of our, our way to stay young is to embrace the youth. And because as soon as we become closed minded, as soon as we become unwilling to adapt, we become dinosaurs and we go extinct. And we have to be the frog, be the frog, not the dinosaur. And the youth guides us, the youth shows us.

We can help the youth with some of their, with guiding them some as well, but I'm optimistic. I think we're gonna be, I see some real goodness in people and in the youth and I'm proud to have them take care of me. That's not good. I'm proud of both of you.

I'm proud to call you both friends. And since you said to say, I love you both. And I appreciate today very much. This is what I hope we would do today. And it kind of went to notch past it because we got to discuss this stuff in depth, and then they got to feel what it's like to be the two of you. And how you think, I just wish this was the dialogue

and the conversations that were happening more regularly throughout the country. So thank you both, real pleasure to be with both of you. That has been great. I love you guys. Love you both. Thank you too. And yeah, we'll talk soon.

That has been great. I love you guys. Love you both. Thank you too. And yeah, we'll talk soon. This is The Edon Mylich Show.