for 20 years, presidents of both parties told us again and again that we were winning in afghanistan. that all the money we poured into the afghan military was worth it. that the 2300 american troops killed there since 2001 hadn t died in vain. george w. bush said it. barack obama said it. donald trump said it. joe biden said it. just in april. we have trained and equipped a standing force of over 300,000 afghan personnel to date and hundreds of thousands over the past two decades and they ll continue to fight valiantly on behalf of the afghans at great cost. and yet, here we are. because no one wanted to tell the simple truth that american ingenuity in dollars and weaponry cannot remake the world in our image. our leaders knew. the washington post 2019 investigation into the afghanistan papers, a trove of classified interviews with u.s.
security forces was his top priority, but today, ghani fled kabul and supposedly 300,000 strong u.s. funded afghan military has all but vanished. afghans in kabul are making a run on the nation s banks, and many more are contemplating their fate. you are looking at video by al jazeera of fighters milling about in the presidential palace in kabul. nbc news has verified the authenticity of this video. tonight, we re dedicating the entire show to the imminent and catastrophic end to america s longest war. i m deeply depressed this weekend watching the scenes and i ve been thinking about the big lie. we talk about that idea these days. a gross propaganda distortion of the truth to convince the world that he won an election that he lost soundly and fairly, but there have been other big lies in america s history.
security personnel left at the embassy. burning what s left of sensitive paperwork. what impact is this transfer of power, if we can call it that, this takeover, going to have on countries in the region? afghanistan s neighbors. what is the view in iran, for example? iran hates the taliban. what s going to happen regionally? reporter: well, obviously, you re going to see a huge influx of refugees. people trying to get out of afghanistan. get away from the tyranny of the taliban and obviously one place that they will be coming into in large numbers is iran because it shares a very long porous border with afghanistan. there s already about two and a half million afghans living in iran. most of them undocumented and that number is set to go up dramatically now. but mehdi, it s a very, very tough life for afghans here in
tightens around kabul, the number is growing. yet the big lie of america s unstoppable greatness, our military power persists. you can hear it tonight in the voices of experts who argue this were was winnable for a little more time or that it would have been handled better by donald trump, yeah, the self-absorbed wrecking ball who invited the taliban to camp david for negotiations and canceled the meeting after a backlash. that idea of american greatness has led to a failed test of american goodness. let s be clear. we killed a lot of innocent people in afghanistan over two decades and now, even more innocent people are being killed as we leave. later on the show, we ll talk to political military and diplomatic experts about how this all happened. we ll discuss the latest developments in afghanistan and in washington, d.c. but for now, what about the plight of those afghans? especially women who are now
just your personal view. did you see this coming? did you say this is going to be a disaster when we leave? the collapse of the afghan army happened faster than i anticipated. i m going to want questions as to why the intelligence i was receiving, the information i was receiving so misread a lot of this and i do want to know that. after 20 years, how did we not have a better understanding as to the will of that force to fight? i will say this. i think you have to be really careful about what we say when we talk about the afghan army. certainly the leadership, and there are afghans who pocketed millions and billions of dollars, are getting on private planes and leaving the country and leaving the rank and file soldiers behind. tens of thousands of afghan soldiers have died in this fight. tens of thousands. and i served along folks who fought honorably. you can t paint a broad stroke. there are those who fought very