the military, the afghan military we spent all these years building did not want to fight in the end. they walked away. the taliban takeover of the country was not a military takeover. the taliban walked into kabul without firing a shot. the military and the government and all the provincial capitals all surrendered to the taliban or just walked away. in kabul the central government there and the security forces supposedly defending kabul, they did the same just as they did out in all the provinces. the washington post reported in detail on how that came to be over the weekend. you see the headline there. afghanistan s military collapse. illicit deals and mass desertions. the spectacular collapse of afghanistan s military that allowed taliban fighters to walk into the afghan capital sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in american aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages. the deals were initially offered starting early last year.
needed to talk to somebody and i needed to hear from somebody inside taliban territory to hear what it was like for myself. i talked to him the night the taliban took over the city. he told me the next day, i told he said, matt, i told my wife matt zeller called me, and now we have hope because maybe you can help get us out. they have hope in the american people. i told him, brother, i don t know what s going to happen, i can t advise you, i only know that we have one airport in kabul that doesn t seem to be functioning at this point. it is now but wasn t then. i said i can t tell what you to do. he said, i m going to have to think on it, but i don t he said he still loved us, he was still proud of the service he did with us and he wouldn t change it and he thanked us for a good life. that guy is worth fighting for. those are our people. we can go in and get them. he s still alive. they haven t killed these people yet. the places they re going door to
that tells you something about what the benefit is of the expenditure. i mean, what were the results of our massive expenditure, our massive effort in afghanistan? i mean, the u.s. effort and expenditure in that country did definitely build some stuff. roads and roundabouts and schools and water projects. absolutely it did. but part of the reason even that scale of investment over 20 years didn t materially change more about what it is like to live in afghanistan is because so much of what we put into afghanistan was shoveled off and diverted by the boatload by a fantastically corrupt elite. from the very beginning, and, you know, this was ten years ago this footage of me and richard looking at this neighborhood in kabul. it was true from the very beginning and is still true to this day. you might have seen the taliban footage of them lounging around inside the home of an afghan
you know, from the very beginning. richard let me just ask, how you are right now, what s these last few days has been like for you with all that you ve seen in kabul, over the years. and what you are expecting over the day that is newly-dawning right now where you stand. so the taliban are spreading their wings. they are establishing more and more of their control. they re trying to establish a government, the first two days in power, they were coming out of the woodwork so to speak. they were battling looters, because that happened here. there was a collapse of law in order, when the president fled. when all the police, flood even local security guards fled. anyone who wore a uniform or had a gun, was free and that the taliban would come in and think they were soldier and attacked them. so that created a power vacuum, the couple is not a small city. there s millions of people here. so the taliban have slowly been
door in cities where we are not, they re just taking them away. in kabul, they re just telling them, we re putting you on a list and we ll come back when the americans are gone. we need to use the military that we have to take i know it s controversial, it s not popular but what is more popular, the mass death you re about to see on tv or knowing we could solve this problem? i think we still can. we need to keep this beach head open for as long as possible. and the only person in the world who can order that is the president of the united states. i m asking please, sir, we have a solution in place, we can tell you how to do it, our team wants to be of help. we re trying our best. we just wanted to solve this this whole time. this is a disaster that still hasn t fully unfolded yet. we can still save these people. matt zeller, the co-founder of no one left behind, veteran of the war in afghanistan. thank you for being here for your clarity and for your commitment on this. thanks, man