being given birth on live tv these days. last night on this network an unnamed american military source in afghanistan was quoted as saying what we are seeing now in the american evacuation of afghanistan is worse, much worse than what we saw in 1975 in the american evacuation from vietnam after we lost the war there. the problem with that kind of quote is that any unnamed military source in afghanistan tonight is too young to remember the vietnam war and was probably not born yet. when we evacuated vietnam in 1975 and so that source literally does not know what he or she is talking about, so, too republican senator ben sass who said this today on television what is happening at the karzai is a more shameful, lower moment in u.s. history than 1975 in
critical moment. if the united states had said we are going to take this little group of people and maybe a few hundred to a few thousand allied troops and contractors and leave them there, then that would have posed the taliban with the question of whether to escalate. and i think we would have gotten trapped into a whole series of the kinds of dilemmas president obama faced in 2008, 2009 when the situation was moving in the wrong direction and we had to either escalate and surge or accept that we were on a trajectory to losing. so no, i really don t believe that there is some sort of minimal permanent war making that you can do and also, for a lot of the reasons you were bringing out which is that war is the fundamental choice of state craft and this is something that u.s. military troops are taught that, you know, in good terms, war is a different kind of act of state from other sorts of acts of state and when you start treating it as this little paint
well, but it s when we try to play a halfway game with warfare that it s wrong, and i think there s a certain immorality to it as well. phyllis bennis, one of the things we re gonna be talking about for the next several days, weeks possibly, is this tragedy of people left behind, and for a lot of people who s never seen this before this is gonna be the first time the wrestle with the moral issues involved here, but the idea that this is not what it s going to happen every single time that you have any kind of exit that is shaped like this from a losing war just doesn t comprehend reality. this is what has always happened in these situations. that s absolutely true, it doesn t make it any less tragic, and it doesn t mean that there s nothing that could ve been done to mitigate it, it doesn t eliminate the problem.
brush you can go around the world and dab into places to the degree that you want, that s when you get into serious trouble. when the united states has done well, we have had vital interest at stake in large scale issues. we have fully committed as a nation to fighting and winning a war and in those cases in the modern context we ve done well but it s when we try to play a half way game with warfare that it s wrong and i think there is a certain i m morality to it, as well. philis, the one of the things we ll talk about for the next several days, weeks possibly is this tragedy of people left behind and for a lot of people who never seen this before, this is going to be the first time they wrestle with the moral issues involved here, but the idea that this is not what is going to happen every single time that you have any kind of exit that is shaped like this from a losing war is just
doesn t comprehend reality. this is what has always happened in these situations. that s absolutely true. it doesn t make it any less tragic. and it doesn t mean there is nothing that could have been done to mitigate it. it doesn t eliminate the problem. but there are things that could and in my view should have been done much earlier. you know, we heard jake sullivan up there saying well, we notified americans that we re leaving there and they should leave and even offered them money to buy a plane ticket. that s not a realistic answer. the realistic answer is you start flying in planes and putting them on the ground and calling people and saying there is a flight waiting in three hours be on it. you start making clear that you know what is coming and that you re warning people who may not know that this kind of reality is or has been inevitable in every war.