The Philip DeFranco Show - MS 12.13 The War In Afghanistan, 17 Years Later Here's Why It Might Never End...

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, I hope you're having a fantastic Thursday morning. Although I know with these extra morning news videos a lot of the audience is actually initially overseas. So hello to whoever, wherever, whenever you are watching this. But main point, what we're gonna be talking about today is the longest war in American history. It has been more than 17 years since the US and its NATO allies launched a war in Afghanistan in response to the attacks by Al-Qaeda on 9-11. And the mission seemed clear, eradicate Al-Qaeda and dismantle the Taliban, which was the ruling leadership of the country that was providing a safe haven for Osama Bin Laden. But the pursuit of that mission has come at an enormous cost. Nearly two decades later, more than 2,200 US soldiers and 40,000 Afghan civilians have lost their lives.

Which, I mean, that doesn't even include the 28,500 Afghan security forces that have been killed just since 2015. Also beyond the loss of life, the US has now spent more than $1 trillion in Afghanistan and currently has 14,000 troops still in the country. And with 2018 seeing record levels of violence, the push for a peace agreement between the warring sides has become more and more urgent. In fact, so urgent that the United States is now engaged in direct talks

with the very enemy it once sought to destroy. And to dive in deep on this story and its developments, we had Cody Snow, one of the writer researchers on the team, jump into it. Thanks to our military and our allies and the brave fighters of Afghanistan, the Taliban regime is coming to an end. That was in 2001, two months after the start of the war in Afghanistan that would shape the course of events in the Middle East for the next two decades. 17 years later, and the Taliban is believed to be stronger today than at nearly any point since the start of the war. The Taliban and other insurgent groups control or contest 44% of the country's districts, while the Afghan

government controls a little over half the nation. As the Taliban has regained more and more territory, the level of violence since 2014 has skyrocketed. And this year is on pace to be one of Afghanistan's bloodiest since 2001. Nearly a third of civilian casualties this year have come from suicide bombings carried out by the Taliban and Afghanistan's ISIS affiliate, the Islamic State in Khorasan province. Meanwhile, the U.S. coalition has also increased its military activity, dropping a record number of bombs on the country this year with more than 5,200 as of September. And in October, the UN reported that civilian casualties caused by aerial strikes have risen 39% from the same period last year.

Despite the increased bombing campaign, most policy experts don't believe any lasting stability in Afghanistan will come from fights waged on the battlefield. James Cunningham, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan under the Obama administration, had this to say on the battlefield. James Cunningham, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan under the Obama administration, had this to say on the subject. There's not a military outcome available to the Taliban or to us, particularly as long as the Taliban continue to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. As a result, Cunningham told us that the best chance at peace involves the once unthinkable,

negotiating directly with the Taliban. He believes these negotiations must convince Taliban leadership that there is no option to achieve legitimacy other than a political settlement. There are a number of Taliban leaders that understand that that is the situation. There are others that don't. And we need to find a way to energize the diplomatic effort that's required to get them focused on a negotiation. Stephen Tinkle, a professor at American University's School of International Service, says that the U.S. also has no other option but to negotiate with the enemy because of bad policy decisions that were made in the early days of the

war. The hard fact of the matter is that the U.S. had an opportunity to integrate the Taliban back into Afghan society back in 2002 after they were defeated in a way that really would have kept them out of power. We missed that chance. We didn't take that opportunity. Negotiations have been tried before. The Obama administration attempted to diplomatically engage with Taliban leaders during the height of the troop surge in 2011 and 2012. But talks between the two sides quickly collapsed under a barrage

of leaks and reported infighting between diplomats and military leadership, not to mention the Taliban's willingness to drag out the talks, knowing that President Obama had set a firm timeline for the end of U.S. combat operations. We had announced that we were withdrawing by a date certain. That both encouraged the Taliban to sit out the process and to avoid any serious discussions about a political solution. In 2013, the Taliban opened a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar, which many believed would once again jumpstart peace talks. But that effort also fell flat after Taliban officials decided to raise a flag outside the office representing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban's name for the country during its rule. This was seen by then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai as an effort

by the Taliban to establish an illegitimate government in exile. Since President Trump has taken office, his attitude towards negotiations with the group has been less than enthusiastic. When we see what they're doing and the atrocities that they're committing and killing their own people, and those people are women and children, many, many women and children that are totally innocent, it is horrible. So there's no talking to the Taliban. But despite Trump's reservations, communications between two former U.S. diplomats and senior Taliban members

continued outside of official government channels through 2017 and 2018 in an attempt to lay the groundwork for official negotiations. One of these diplomats, Chris Kalenda, who served as a U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and was involved with talks with the Taliban during the Obama administration, spoke with us about why his discussions with the group this time around were different. I found a much higher level of seriousness about bringing the war to a successful conclusion than I ever had in the past. And what they said were a couple of things. The first one is they recognize that they're in a stalemate, that they are not going to militarily overthrow the Afghan government while the U.S. support remains. And they also

recognize that the Afghan government's not in a position to force them to surrender because the Taliban has plenty of support inside of Afghanistan as well as sanctuary in Pakistan and other neighboring countries. In the midst of these unofficial talks in February, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate political group, even saying it could participate in upcoming parliamentary elections. We are making this offer without any preconditions in order to lead to a peace agreement. Although the offer was rejected, in June, both the Taliban and the Afghan government honored a ceasefire for the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, resulting in astonishing photos and videos of Taliban members and Afghan security forces embracing and hugging. While the Taliban was quick to break the ceasefire after just three days, the world saw a glimpse of what peace could look like.

And in July, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stood alongside Ghani and encouraged both sides to come to the table. The United States will support, facilitate, and participate in these peace discussions. But peace must be decided by the Afghans and settled among them. By the end of the month, reports emerged that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells had met with the Taliban to open an official dialogue. Since then, the U.S.'s Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, has held two rounds of peace talks with Taliban leaders in the last five months, most recently in November.

And not just any Taliban leaders. Two of the five participants are former Guantanamo Bay detainees, released in 2014 in exchange for U.S. soldier Beau Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban after abandoning his base in Afghanistan in 2009, an event that Tinkle says may have helped fuel the current talks.

It showed, if nothing else, that the Taliban could be negotiated with and could deliver on its side of an agreement in terms of getting Bo Bergdahl released in exchange for the release of the people from Guantanamo Bay. Now, that is a big step from there to a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan. But nevertheless, whatever one thinks about that deal, it may have served as a confidence-building measure for both sides. But other policy experts say that all the Bergdahl exchange showed was that the Taliban was able to take advantage of the U.S. Take the Bo Bergdahl, they got five senior commanders out of Guantanamo and the U.S. got a deserter back. That's not exactly a good faith negotiation or exchange.

It's a pretty lopsided deal and shows that the Taliban, even as insurgents, were out willing to out-negotiate the U.S. Jocelyn warns that the Taliban will similarly have the upper hand during this current round of negotiations, given President Trump's desire to pull troops out of the country. He also says that today's talks with the Taliban are pointless because the group has no intention of ever living in peace under the Afghan government. I think that this is all theater. I think this is all basically trying to pretend that we can leave without losing.

The point of a negotiated settlement is to get the Taliban to reconcile with the Afghan government. But the Taliban has been unequivocal in its claims and its denials that it would ever be willing to consider that. They say over and over again that the Afghan government is illegitimate, a puppet of the West, and they will never sort of come to terms with this quote-unquote corrupt regime. The deeper issue here is that the Taliban firmly believes that they're going to resurrect and are resurrecting their totalitarian Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This is what they're fighting for. This is what they've been fighting for for years, to resurrect this Islamic Emirate, which will rule according to their very

draconian-style Sharia law. But Kalenda says while there's no doubt the Taliban wants all U.S. forces out of the country, the group is not interested in reviving its former state. They recognize that, look, they were incompetent. They know that they were incompetent as rulers in the 1990s. They don't want to turn back the clock any more than Afghans want the clock turned back. Kalenda also believes that the Taliban is willing to negotiate with the Afghan government, but only if it can first reach an understanding

with the United States. From their point of view, they look at the Afghan government as a product of the occupation and therefore is not fully legitimate in their eyes. And so their thought process is, we have to make an agreement with the Americans first about the occupation, and then we can talk with the Afghan government about how we as Afghans live together amongst one another. Only time will tell if the Taliban is truly committed to peace or is just running out the clock until the U.S. exits the country.

But for the Afghan people, that time continues to come at an enormous cost. So now that you've heard more about the current state of US negotiations with the Taliban, I do want to pass the question off to you. Do you think these peace talks are worth the effort and give the Afghan people the best chance at peace? Or do you think the US government shouldn't even entertain the idea of negotiating with this group, a group that continues to commit horrific acts of violence against both Afghans and Americans? I'd really love to know your thoughts down below. Also, if you like this video, getting some extra news, you want more in-depth coverage like this,

be sure to hit that like button. That's how you let us know. Also, if you want this and much, much more, be sure to hit that subscribe button. But with all of that said, I want to say thank you for watching, and I'll see you later today on today's brand new Philip DeFranco show.