ammunition and combat aircraft. so we all agree it s bad right now. but did you know there was a good chance we could have maybe avoided all of this? that s because in december 2001 the taliban seemed to be on the verge of striking a deal with the afghan government to surrender. this was when they said they were finished but donald rumsfeld rejected the idea. when asked about the possibility of such a deal said, quote, the answer is no. he wanted an unconditional surrender. how did that work out? just to be clear, no one is saying that afghanistan would have become peaceful or violence-free, only that we wouldn t have spent the next 19 years fighting an unwinnable war. more than 2,400 u.s. service members were killed in afghanistan. so were an estimated 66,000 afghan military and police and 47,000 afghan civilians, over 400 aid workers and more than 70 journalists. all at a u.s. price tag of $2
health policy, just who could get a covid booster shot and when. plus the latest push for congress to save voting rights even though the senate keeps killing the bill. top house democrats hakeem jeffries joins me to discuss that when all in starts right now. good evening from washington d.c. i m mehdi hasan, in for chris hayes. no matter whether you are for or against the war in afghanistan, i think those observers will agree that the way it s been brought to an and has been a disaster. the taliban is again in control of the country, and in addition to political power, they have their hands on u.s. supplied military equipment including guns, ammunition and combat aircrafts. so, we all agree that it s bad right now, but did you know that there is a good chance we could have maybe avoided all of this. that s because in december 2001 the taliban seem to be on the verge of striking a deal with the afghan government to surrender, this was at a time when the taliban itself said
al qaeda. we decided we needed to get rid of the taliban government, and here we are, 20 years later. what s the alternative way we could have proceeded? the alternative way is to separate al qaeda that attacked the united states than the al qaeda that harbored them. rather than simply attacking al qaeda after 9/11. remember that in december 2001, after the taliban gets driven from kabul, after the taliban loses control. the islamic emirate falls, what happens after that is the taliban sue for peace with the united states and its allies. a peace that hamid karzai was prepared to accept. donald rumsfeld instead refused that peace and demanded unconditional surrender. you can debate whether or not the taliban would have, in fact,
what s coming out of anyone s mouth at this point. it s a real crisis of confidence. and the division between the american people, what we expect from our political leadership and what we are getting is as great as it s been in recent memory. will: julie kelly of american greatness, always great to talk to you. thank you so much. thanks, will. will: also here tonight are glenn greenwald a pulitzer prize winning journalist. glen, it s stunning to see the turn around in statements from one month ago both from president biden and from general mark milley to the reality on the ground one month later. were these leaders wrong or were they lying to us about what they were seeing one month ago? we have been hearing a consistent message basically since the beginning of the war in afghanistan going all the way back to december 2001 when george w. bush essentially proclaimed that the taliban had been vanquished and defeated. the same message being that the united states was making great
intelligence support, and were unable and they were spread out so theme they were unable to operate and they did not have supplies and he did not have food and some of them have been unpaid for months in somewhat sold kayla reported the taliban gave them stipends as they surrendered. so in the face of this all, it was a surrender that ended up all, it was a surrender that ended up happening rather than a fight back. and this was not anticipated by many, especially in washington. we say it was not anticipated but george w. bush in december 2001 when 0sama george w. bush in december 2001 when osama bin laden was in the mountains of tora bora and i was there i saw the b 52 and that big huge bombing planes pounding the mountain side and the taliban were on the back