Combat veterans Wes Moore and Jason Kander, who both served in Afghanistan, joined Stephanie Ruhle to share their perspective on the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban this week. They discuss their experience while abroad, the need to evacuate U.S. allies and their message to other veterans grappling with the Taliban takeover. "What most people don't know is that you can get better … PTSD is not a terminal illness," Kander says.
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Combat Veterans React To Taliban Takeover In Afghanistan
The soldiers on the ground did their job. It is the people that thought that a western culture could convert all those different Afghan tribes to a western culture type country that made the error.
The Taliban are heavily influenced by foreign ideologies. Why do people insist on saying that the “Afghan tribes” are the problem?
Brilliant reporting! Now we know that losing sucks.
I missed the part where they talked about the Commanders direlection of duty and literally left everyone and everything behind…. And needs to be impeached and tried for treason,….
My neighbor and I are both medically retired and we still address eachother as “Battle Buddy”…..
So you two have been sharing your bottles since you were babies to be bottle buddies.
Trump signed the peace treaty with the Taliban in Feb 2020, since then what did he do until February 2021. I demand to know what arrangements were made. He cared more about the election than he did anything else.
That’s actually a really good point. He must have done that because he knew he was going to lose. However Biden needed to get out of there more strategically he failed because he didn’t pay attention to what he was doing he thought he could blame Trump. That’s why he failed
Trump had a withdrawal order in place for May 1st. Biden violating the terms of the peace agreement and pushing back the withdraw is why the exit has been a complete mess.
100% cheating Joe’s Fault for the withdrawal ! If The democraps did not cheat this would not be happening. FACT! 🤮🤮Trump won! Joe Cheated!
@N 827 okay homie so check it out biden did not cheat. Trump simply lost the election because of his mishandling of covid it’s pretty simple. However this withdrawal from Afghanistan. Is a complete and utter disgusting failure now maybe the Trump administration has some different plans and that’s why they negotiated with the Taliban but what Trump understood that Biden doesn’t is that you can do whatever you want because you’re the boss. Biden didn’t have to allow this humanitarian disaster this was a calculated decision and he thought he could blame Trump it’s pretty f****** stupid and overall in general I’m tired of politicians and they’re lying b*******. Above all this you sir are a sheep
Then there’s this loser… well we can relate to a regime sweeping into power and the elected officials just watch it happen and do nothing
We all know the Taliban is already digging mass graves for collaborators and defectives.
This is so sad 😭 what those Afghans has to go to at the airport
Seems like the Afghanistan “soldiers” had the better idea all along, from the very beginning, how this would end. Why did this mission creep into leading anyone to think that the US would be there for ever and against all odds and for all time? Very similar to Vietnam. I know, first hand. Hopefully next time – and there will be another Republican led one – the US war volunteers will do a little historical research before running down to the enlistment office.
As a combat vet, I have to say I don’t like the way things ended but it was inevitable. 20 years is a long time to fight a war you can’t win. Afghanistan is a tribal country, each tribe with their own culture and ideology…we had already lost before we even started.
Thanks for your service
I understood this would be messy. I am livid that we just left our Afghan allies to be slaughtered. We had months to get them out and the Biden administration did NOTHING. They were being asked over and over for months what is the plan to evacuate them?. Crickets. I voted for Biden but this is a major F-up because it was completely avoidable but his administration sat on their hands. BTW My husband was in the navy, he got out after 10 years. Couldn’t take it anymore. He went to college and is an engineer now. He was ALWAYS gone and we wanted (and now have) a kid. Military is not a life if you want a family.
@N K hopefully they wont be slaughtered if they follow sharia law the Taliban said they changed their ways
Thanks for your perspective. I hope, but not counting on it, that your words of experience will help bring closure.
*yeh. this makes more sense. understand it better now, it’s not just what Biden said.*
I missed the part where they talked about the Commanders direlection of duty and literally left everyone and everything behind…. And needs to be impeached and tried for treason,….
I missed the part where they talked about the Commanders direlection of duty and literally left everyone and everything behind…. And needs to be impeached and tried for treason,….
Biden extended the with draw by several months. Trump had it set earlier.
It would have ended in May with all our military equipment secured and everyone who wanted to leave out, plus the Taliban wouldn’t have taken over Kabul and all these other provincial capitals if Trump was still in charge because they knew Trump would hit them hard if they tried. Biden screwed everything up. Former defense secretary Gates said Biden has been wrong on almost every foreign policy and national security issue over the last 4 decades including his opposition to going after and killing Osama bin Laden.
True
And…? Did nothing, thought about it not a second, took something that was poorly thought up and made it far, far worse by not holding the Taliban accountable and by ZERO planning. You cannot blame Trump. He’s not the president – you can look it up.
In summary, the US set up Afghanistan for failure. The Afghani military was not trained to be independent rather they were trained to be dependent on the US and now that the US is gone, they can’t stand on their own and hold their own country. I support the withdrawal but the way we pulled out was a mess and a waste.
@delr merti I disagree, the US wasn’t actually fighting the Taliban. The IS was fighting AL Qaeda and AL Qaeda in Afghanistan was taken out.
@bchlovr and still couldn’t with unlimited resources…. Cut and run, left everyone and everything behind…. Cowardly and shows poorly for Western Values… Despicable.
@Dayo John So, it was only costing us 2,500 people there and had no US casualties there the last 18 months. Considering we have 30,000 in S. Korea for the last 70 years, I think it was a force was worth keeping there…. A place to collect Intelligence on terrorism, an excellent launching pad to the whole of Asia. Considering China just took Hong Kong, want Taiwan and is disputing free trade passage in the China Sea….. Not to mention the constant squabbles going on with Russia and Ukraine….. it was a no brainer to keep them there for ever….. You do know we have 250,000 deployed elsewhere as of this moment and 4 times that many on active duty? To me, it’s a very small price to keep the peace and hopefully help seed the Middle East with a new generation of morality and equal rights for all….. Liberals wouldn’t/couldn’t see it any other way.
@delr merti I hear you. In retrospect, we should have maintained a small presence there. The thing is Americans are tired of forever wars and about 77% of Americans wanted out of Afghanistan. It sucks for the Afghanis though, especially the women.
@Dayo John Ya, but the General Public wasn’t given the numbers in the way I just gave you…. If you said only .2% of our active duty military is there….. the numbers would of changed dramatically without even any of the argument I set forth above…. I say they were misled for political reasons and assuming Biden could have an easy exit…. and hopefully work well for the mid terms. As is, it can only hurt the dem’s now.
The Taliban and Mike Pompeo met in Qatar in 2020. They made a deal, for the USA to get out. What was the deal and what the heck would the Afghan Army fight for if the USA made deals with the Taliban?
Going hungry, without pay, sometimes no ammo but prepared to fight while at the same time golden toilets were built
Now you see the results of an administration that has spent more time on the LGBTQxyz agenda
and transgender access to the little girls room than they have on Afghanistan!
“the Military Industrial Complex essentially works as transfer mechanism, they transfer public tax revenue to the private sector” — Noam Chomsky
I’m glad the point about Afghan soldiers’ families at risk is getting coverage.
Stop referring to them just as afghan refugees. That term gives the impression these were normal afghan people. These were people who helped American soldiers and did a job for the American army for years and risked their lives in doing so.
The mission was never about nation building. It was always about keeping the fight as far away from America. And that’s what the “LEFT” can’t seem to understand.
Both men are heroes and brought an understanding I didn’t have.
No such thing as a perfect withdrawal. Thank God the troops are home.