president to speak? to keep my thoughts are certainly this has been a nightmare in an absolute horror for the afghan people, abandoning them the way they did . that is president biden s decision in he has spoken to it more than once. i hope today that the focus is not so much on the blame game, his advisors have been blaming the previous administration, blaming the afghan security forces, for not standing up to the tallow band without airpowe this would been the first time they ever done that great and really focus on what is happening right before our eyes. we have tens of thousands of people whose lives are now in jeopardy because this withdrawa operation that has been planned is ill-conceived in we never established any conditions for it.
us as we await the president. benjamin. i do not think it is a surprise to anyone. we have been speaking to people for the last year who has said that al qaeda will work along with the tallow band. the fact that the threat will increase as no surprise. what people are looking at is what comes next. what kind of a government can they set up in the country? they have been doing everything they can on the messaging front. they insisted that they will be able to govern. they will be able to provide a functioning government for the rest of the afghan people. they want an islamic emirate. they also say they want an inclusive afghan government. they want members who are not on the tallow band. not many people believe them there. they have been insisting that schools for girls will remain open, but elsewhere in the country, outside of kabul, some of those schools are already burned down.
let s get out of berea. you think asia would look like it does today. what would ve happened if we would ve withdrawn from those areas in the same thing here. the combat role was ended, the last american casualty was february of 2020. we had a small group of people, but they were powerful, they provided intelligence gathering leadership, and most important, they had airpower. the one thing that was keeping the tallow band in check was th realization that if they ever presented themselves to america airpower, they have the support of the afghan ground fighters, they were going to be dead. for us to take the shortsighted view that the united states should walk away and that we wouldn t suffer any ramifications, no fallout from this thing is just astonishing to me. better to escape to kept this commitment to the afghan people in kept americans safe. we went over there so we didn t have to fight them here. do you think the regime they gave safe harbor to al qaeda is going to be interested
and their reality on the ground, you are not convincing anyone. in fact, whatever the message is, it is unsettling. we feel like who is in charge? who is running things? i think there s a couple big things to look for going forward. most importantly, our intelligence collection capabilities. we had a lot of capabilities collectively in afghanistan, but we have pulled away from those. all of the areas, places where we could house those. how are we now going to collect intelligence whenever we are moving the embassy, removing most of the military. how are we going to collect intelligence on al qaeda as they reconstitute? best thing that we have been hearing from military leaders, i have seen pictures unfold in front of us. what are we doing about our military equipment? we know that the tallow band will have these helicopters and
past 20 actually been doing there in these past 20 years. i was just actually been doing there in these past 20 years. i wasjust reading a bbc report past 20 years. i wasjust reading a bbc report from a tele band court session bbc report from a tele band court session that was saying the people there session that was saying the people there feared the new punishments that would be imposed by the tallow band, that would be imposed by the tallow hand. but that would be imposed by the tallow band, but they were saying that at least band, but they were saying that at least the band, but they were saying that at least the government corruption is on its least the government corruption is on its way least the government corruption is on its way out. there is such a horrific on its way out. there is such a horrific extent of government corruption that cases would take so long. corruption that cases would take so long. and corruption that cases would take so long, and t