Western counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel over the past decade have failed, which contributed to governance collapse and the rise of military juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger that have exacerbated the regional insurgency. Western troops have
called the darkness upon them back before we were attacked in 2001, we should not expect it will be any different. we ve heard it discussed by the biden administration it was basically a choice, it was either withdrawal or increased troop levels in afghanistan. i think there was another alternative. general joseph dunford, nicknamed fighting joe for his leadership in iraq, took command in afghanistan in 2013 and went on to serve as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under presidents obama and trump. with a capable kind of terrorism force, around 4,000 u.s. forces, obviously accompanied by nato allies as well, that we could for a period of time continue to address our counterterrorism interests. the argument against that is that that s just managing a stalemate in perpetuity. what would you say to that criticism? well, it depends on how you view our presence in
and need more aggressive military action in afghanistan? we don t know that yet. the taliban will have to watch that in the coming weeks and months to determine whether or not obviously the taliban poses a risk to the american people but whether or not they pose a threat. but i think the last 20 years, trillions of dollars in nation building and presence in these countries where they re having civil wars is not making us safer, is not allocating resources, and someone had to turn a page on this era. there are a lot of afghans, as well as americans, who still need to get out of that country if they re going to be safe. but on the core issue of america s interests, i think he s quite competent in the long run he ll be able to demonstrate that we need to move beyond this period of war and that we can defend our counterterrorism
could have been made i think it s a real failure of leadership in this instance. would you start at the release of the bagram airbase? i think we had arrived at a sustainable policy with 2500 troops we had enabling the afghan military to keep the taliban and al qaeda and other forces of terrorism at bay in a critical part of the world that borders iran, central asia, china. this was an outpost that was directly serving america s counterterrorism interests and stopping another 9/11 from happening. the real original sin here is the decision traceable back to the trump administration to go
yeah. blowback for pakistan which has had well, through its intelligence service, the isi, has had its fingers in the taliban for some time. it s clear the u.s. had intelligence forewarning of this attack. how much harder will it be to get that kind of intelligence once the u.s. military leaves kabul? and what s the path forward for u.s. in dealing with terror in the region? what what effective capability will it have, versus what it has had? so, yeah, with the withdrawal of u.s. forces, u.s. intelligence capabilities will be severely diminished. we won t have eyes on the target. we won t be able to get to those targets as quickly. so we we ve really lost a serious capability. and that s why um some people are had argued for peopling at least a small presence to be able to protect our counterterrorism interests. but that will no longer be possible. president biden talks about an