Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast #244

the following is a conversation with. robert cruz a historian at stanford. specializing in the history of. afghanistan russia and islam. this is the lex friedman podcast to. support it please check out our sponsors. in the description and now here's my. conversation with robert cruz. was it a mistake for the united states. to invade afghanistan in 2001 20 years. ago. yes. as simple as yes why was it a mistake.

i'm a historian so i say this with you. know some humility about what we can. though i think you know i'd still like. to know much more about what was going. on in the white house you know in the. hours days weeks you know after 9 11 but. i think. the george w bush administration acted. in a state of panic. and i think they wanted to show kind of. toughness they wanted to show. some kind of resolve you know this was a. horrific act. that played out you know on everyone's. television screens and i think it was. really uh. fundamentally a crisis legitimacy within.

the white house the level offs and i. think they felt like they had to do. something and something dramatic. i think they didn't really think through. you know who they were fighting you know. who the enemy was what this geography. had to do with 911 i think looking back. at it i mean some of us not to say i was. you know clairvoyant or i could see in. the future but i think many of us were. from that morning skeptical about the. connections that people were drawing. between afghanistan as a state. as a place and the actions of al qaeda. in washington and.

new york and pennsylvania. so as you watch the events of 9 11. the things that. our leaders were saying in the in the. minutes hours days weeks that followed. maybe you can give a little bit of a. timeline in. of what was being said when was the. actual invasion of afghanistan and also. what were your feelings in the minutes. weeks. after 9 11. i was in dc i was you know.

on the way to american university uh. hearing on npr. what happened. and i thought of the. american university logo which is red. white and blue it's an eagle and i. thought you know washington is under. attack and. symbols of american power are under. attack. and so um yeah i was quite concerned and. at the time lived yeah just a few miles. from the capitol. and so um you know i i felt it you know. it was it was real so i appreciate the. you know the sense of anxiety and fear.

and panic and for. two three years later in dc we were. constantly getting. reports you know mostly rumors and. unconfirmed about all kinds of attacks. before the city so i definitely. um appreciate the sense of being under. salt. but in watching television including. russian television that day because i. just. just installed a satellite thing so i. was trying to watch world news and get. different points of view and. that was quite useful to have an. alternative you know a set of eyes in. russian yeah in russian yeah okay so. your russians is good enough to.

understand uh russian television the. news yeah the news and the visuals that. were coming that were not shown on. american television. i don't know how they had it but they. had they were not filtering anything. in the way that the major networks and. cable televisions were doing here so it. was. a very unvarnished view of the violence. of the moment you know new york city if. people. diving from the towers are being just. you know it was really. they didn't hold back on that which was. quite you know fascinating i think much. of the world saw much more than actually. the american public saw. but to your question you know amid that.

feeling of imminent doom. i watch commentators start to talk about. al qaeda and then talk about afghanistan. and. one of the experts was um was barnett. rubin who's at nyu he's a you know kind. of long. very learned um afghanistan hand. and he's brought on peter jennings on. abc news to. to kind of lay this out for everyone um. and i thought you know he did a fine job. but i think it it was formative in. cementing the view that. somehow al-qaeda was synonymous with the.

space afghanistan. um i think. again. i was no al-qaeda expert then and i'm. not now. but i think my immediate thought went to. war. and because my background had been with. at that point mostly afghans who had. been displaced from decades of war. whom i encountered in uzbekistan who. were refugees and so on. i thought immediately my mind went to. the suffering. of afghan people that this war was going. to. sweep. sweep up of course the the defenseless. people who have nothing to do with these.

politics so we should give maybe a. little bit of context yeah you can speak. too yeah. so assume nobody's an expert at anything. yeah so let's just say yeah um. you and i are not experts in anything. right. what. as a historian were you studying at the. time and thinking about see. uh is it is it the full global history. of afghanistan is it the region. were you thinking about. the muji hadin and al qaeda and taliban.

were you thinking about the soviet union. the proxy war through afghanistan were. you thinking about iraq and oil like. what what's the full space of things in. your heart in your mind at the time i. mean just the moment of course it was. you know there's the sense of. you know the suffering and the tragedy. of the moment of you know what the death. that was i think i was preoccupied by by. the violence at the moment. um but as the conversation turned to. afghanistan as a kind of theater does. not respond to this moment i think.

immediately what came to mind was that. little i knew about al-qaeda the times. tested that the geography was was. inaccurate that this was a global. network a global threat. that this was a kind of you know. a movement that went beyond borders and. i think that. it felt early on that. afghanistan was going to be used as a. scapegoat and it's intellectually at the. time you know i was teaching at american. university my courses. you know touched on a range of subjects. but i was trying to complete a book on. um islam in the russian empire actually.

but in doing that research which took me. across russia and central asia purely by. accident. i had developed an interest in. afghanistan because. uh just again a series of coincidences. i found myself in tashkent the capital. of jupiter without housing. through an american friend who was like. the king of the market in tashkent he. knew everyone he run into some afghan. merchants there. they found out i didn't have a place to. live. i didn't know where afghanistan was. honestly this was 1997. i had a big idea. it was next door well you lived in.

uzbekistan yeah in tashkent doing doing. distinction research yeah because it was. you know hub of the russian empire in. central asia yeah so just by accident i. ended up with these young afghans who. took me in. as roommates. and that i think that the sense of that. community. shaped my idea of what afghanistan is it. was my. first exposure to them. they're part of a trading diaspora they. brought. they had brought matches from riga. latvia. they somehow brought um. flour and some agricultural products.

from from egypt and they were sitting in. enclosed containers in tashkent waiting. for. these pakistani state to permit them to. trade so these guys are mostly hanging. out during the day they'll get dressed. up they put on suits and ties like. you're wearing they'd polish their shoes. and they would sit around offices. drink tea. pistachios. then they'd feast at lunch. and then at night we would go out so. part of my research because i also had a. bottleneck in my research i was going to. the state archives in tashken.

and because of the state of uzbekistan. you know that was a very kind of. suspicious thing to do so it took a. while to get in so. i had down time in touchkin just like. these guys so i got to know them pretty. well and it was really just a an. accidental kind of thing but. grew quite close to them and i developed. an appreciation of um. which now i think again thinking of the. seeds of all this um these people had. already lived. young guys you know in the 20s they'd. already lived in 67 countries. they all spoke half a dozen languages.

one of my best friends there had been a. um a kickboxer. and breakdancer trained in tehran his. father was a theater person in. afghanistan. he told stories of escaping death in. afghanistan during the civil war. going to his pakistan escaping death. there. and these were very you know real. stories. can you also just briefly mention yeah. geographically speaking yes afghanistan. uzbekistan tajikistan you mentioned iran. right what uh who are the neighbors of.

all this what are we supposed to be. thinking about for people i i was always. terrible at geography and spatial. information so can you lay it off yeah. i'm sure sure so tashkent you know it's. a it's the capital of uzbekistan. it was um. a hub of russian imperial power in the. 19th century the russians take the city. from a local. kind of muslim dynasty in 1865. it becomes the city the kind of hub of. um soviet power in central asia after.

1917 it becomes the. center of. the soviet republic of uzbekistan. which becomes independent finally in. 1991 when the soviet union collapses so. these are all like these uh republics. are the fingertips of soviet power in. central asia that's right. and. they've been independent since 1991 but. they have struggled to. disentangle themselves from moscow from. one another. and now they face very serious pressure.

from china. to form a kind of periphery of. you know the great machine that is the. chinese economy and its. ambitions to stretch across asia. um for afghanistan where my roommates my. friends hailed from um. afghanistan had fallen. into. civil war in the late 1970s. when leftists tried to cease power there. in 1978. the soviet union then extended from. uzbekistan you know crossing the border. with its forces in 1979 to try to shore.

up this leftist government that has. ceased power in 1978. um and so. for central asians in the wider region. you know their their fate had for some. decades been tied to afghanistan in a. variety of ways but it became much more. connected in 1980s when the soviet red. army occupied. afghanistan for 10 years. and here i refer your listeners and. viewers to um rainbow three as the guide. to. the historically accurate historically.

accurate the bible the bible of african. history and rainbow three yeah yeah as. as a fantastic um window onto the. american view of the war right but for. us afghans you know there are people who. fought against the soviet army. um but of a certain generation. the guys i knew. you know. their mission was to survive and so they. fled in waves you know by the millions. to pakistan. to iran some went north into south. central asia later in the 1990s.

and some were displaced across the. planet so california where we're sitting. today has a large community that came. in the 80s and 90s. in the east bay. um can i ask a quick question that's a. little bit of a tangent yep what is the. correct or the respectful way to. pronounce. afghanistan afghanistan. i. iran iran. so as a russian speaker afghanistan yeah. are the on versus the and yeah is it a.

different country by country as an. english speaker in america. is it pretentious and disrespectful to. say afghanistan. or is it the opposite respectful to say. it that way what what are your thoughts. on that that's a fascinating question um. i defer to the. people from those countries to of course. sort out those politics i think. you know i think one of the fascinating. things about the region broadly is that. it is a place of so many cultures and. really quite cosmopolitan. so i think people are mostly quite.

forgiving about how you say. afghanistan afghanistan it's not like. paris. yeah yeah right right the french are not. forgiving. exactly and i think people are very very. forgiving and i think that you know. iranians are a bit. you know. more instructive in suggesting iran. rather than iran right. iraq. iraq you know i i think there's this. there's come to be a fit between. certain ways of pronouncing these places. and. the position that americans take about.

them right so. it's more jarring when. people say. iraq. and it comes with you know a claim that. a certain kind of person you know should. be the victim of violence or yeah right. so yeah it's kind of like talking about. the democratic party or the democrat. party it's sometimes using certain kind. of terminology. to make a little bit of a. sort of uh. implied statement about your beliefs. that's fascinating yeah i mean i think.

when i hear iraq and iran i mean i think. it yeah is it intentional in the case of. a democrat or is it just a. you know innocent whatever i think again. i think most iranians and afghans people. i know have have been. very cool about that. what. annoys afghans now i can say i think. it's fair to say i don't mean to speak. for. maine's people. but i can just share with our our. non-afghan friends um. the term afghani. uh is is a kind of term of offense. because that's the name of the currency. and so.

a lot of people ask you know why. having especially again it's more. addictive to americans because you know. we've been so deeply involved in that. country obviously for the last 20 years. right so. afghans ask why after 20 years are you. still calling us the wrong name. what is the right name this is somebody. they prefer afghans afghans yeah and and. afghani is the name of the currency and. so i just dodged the book because i was. going to say yeah i don't know yeah. that's really great to know yeah and. it's it's again i think but i would. emphasize that.

people are quite open and and you know. it's a it's a whole region of incredible. diversity and. and respect for linguistic pluralism. actually so i think that. you know but i also appreciate that. during in this context um when there's a. lot of pain you know in the afghan. diaspora community in particular. you know being called the wrong name. after 20 years when they already feel. so betrayed at this moment you know just. kind of. if one follows us on social media. that is one. kind of.

hot wire right yeah so the reason i ask. about pronunciation. is because yes it is true that there are. certain things where mispronounced. kind of reveal that you don't care. enough to pronounce correctly that's. right you don't know enough to pronounce. correctly right and you dismiss. the culture and the people which i think. that's right as per your writing is. something that. if it's okay i'll go with afghanistan. just because i'm used to i say iraq iran.

but i say afghanistan yeah that's great. is as you do in your writing uh. afghanistan suffers from much. misunderstanding from the rest of the. world but back yeah to our discussion of. uzbekistan tajikistan the whole region. that. gives us context for the events of 9 11. right right. so yeah if we go back to that day in the. weeks you know that followed um in my. mind went to the community i knew in. tashkent. which was interesting it was i mean they. were. so islam was the focal point of our.

conversation in the u.s about 9 11 right. everyone to know. was relationship between. the terrific violence and that religious. tradition with its. you know. one billion plus followers across the. globe right. that became the issue of course for. american security institutions. for you know. local state and police institutions. right i mean it became the i think it. was the question that most americans had. on their mind so. again i didn't imagine myself as someone. who had all the answers of course but.

given my background and coming at this. from russian history coming at this from. studying empire and trying to think. about the region broadly. you know i was very alarmed at the way. that the conversation went can i ask you. a question what was your feeling. on that morning. uh of 9 11. who did this isn't that it's not a. natural feeling there's a it's coupled. with fear yeah of. what's next especially when you're in dc. yeah but also who is this is this an. accident yeah is this a deliberate.

terrorist attack is this uh domestic. like what were your thoughts of the. options and the internal ranking given. your uh expertise i mean i suppose i i. was taken by. the narrative that this was. international. i mean i'd also lived in new york during. one of the first bombings in 94 of the. world trade center. so it was clear to me that a radical. community had. really fixed new york as part of their. imagination of. and i immediately you know thought it. was a it was a.

kind of. blow to american power and. you know i was drawn. by the symbolism of about you know if. you think of it as an act it was a kind. of. um an act of speech if you will kind of. a way of speaking to. from a position of relative weakness. speaking to a you know. an imperial power and that i saw. i saw it as a kind of symbolic you know. speech act of that with horrific you. know real world. um consequences for. all his innocent victims for the firing.

of the police and just the. you know the horror of the moment um. so i i did see it as as transcending. the united states but i did not see it. as really having anything necessarily to. do fundamentally about. afghanistan and the history. of the region that i've been studying. and the community people that i knew. who were optically religious right that. the the guys i hung out with actually. wore me out because they wanted to go. out every night. they wanted to party every night we had. drinking yep we had discussions about. alcohol i mean uzbekistan is famous for.

its. drinking it's drinking you know it's. that's something to look forward to so i. i do want to travel to that part of it. when was the last time you were in that. part of the world. early 2000s well then mid-2000s. so by the way we're drinking vodka what. what's the pur yeah i mean that kind of. choice. uzbekistan has incorporated vodka as as. the um the choice um. and that and it informs you know and. it's but but the fascinating thing you. know as a student is what you're.

observing is a non-muslim. you know i'm a non-russian i'm this is. all. you know. culturally. new to me and i'm you know a student of. all that right as a graduate student. doing my work there so you're like jane. goodall of vodka and russia that's right. just observing that's right yeah and. then you you get you get the summagon. the grass vodka you get you know i have. i've had some long nights on the. kazakhstani frontier yeah that i'm not. proud of um. you know but you got to know the people.

and some of them from from yeah but. intellectually so the thing i mean the. the fascinating thing there was it and. just as a. i mean there's a whole you know i'm. historian right but there there are. great contributions by. you know anthropologists and biographers. who who've gone across the planet and. try to understand how muslims understand. the tradition. at different contexts. so. many uzbeks will say you know. this is part of our national culture to. drink and eat as we please right. and yet i'm a very devout muslim and so.

of course you can encounter other muslim. communities who. won't touch alcohol right but it's. become kind of i think it's very much um. you know soviet culture left a deep. impression in each of these places and. so their ways of thinking. ways of. performing ways of you know enjoying. oneself. that are shared across. soviet and former soviet space to this. day right and you've written also about. muslims in the soviet union that's right. uh. there's an article.

that uh there's a paywall so i couldn't. read it and i really want to read it is. uh happy to share with you yeah moscow. and the mosque or yeah something like. that right right um. by the way just another tangent on a. tangent yeah uh so i bought all your. books i love them very much. one of the reasons i bought them and. read many parts is uh because they're. easy to buy. unlike articles. every single website has a payload yeah. yeah so it's it's very here i'm sorry.

very frustrating to read brilliant. scholars such as yourself no no no um. i wish there was one fee i could pay. everywhere i don't care what that fee is. that's what it. allows me to read some of your brilliant. writing i don't think i hear you no i. think. moving toward. more kind of open source. formatting stuff i think is what a lot. of journals are thinking about now and i. think it's. definitely for the kind of. democratization of knowledge and. scholarship that's definitely an. important thing that we should all think. about and. i think um. you know we need to exert pressure on.

these publishers to do that so i. appreciate this is what i'm doing here. yeah yeah good good yeah i appreciate it. so uh yeah so your thought was. afghanistan is not. it's not going to be. the center this is the source exactly. where it's not the center of this and. invading that country isn't going to fix. isn't going to fix the. you know toxic milestone of politics. that produced. 911 right. against thinking of some of the. personalities just thinking about going. back to the touchdown story which i'll. end with i mean just observing you know.

real muslims doing. doing things and then asking questions. about it and and. trying to understand. through their eyes what tradition means. to them. and then you have a we had we had a very. narrow conversation about what islam is. that you know generated immediately. exploded in you know on the day of 9 11. right. and then of course um. i think the antipathy toward islam and. muslims. it was informed by. by racism and formed by xenophobia so it.

became a perfect storm i think of. demonization. that. didn't sit with you know what i knew. about the tradition and with the actual. people that i had known because then. going back to i mean there were other. friends and encounters and so on but. just thinking about afghanistan and and. tashkent from what i mean. just that. thought about my friends who had been. who had suffered a great deal in their. short lives who've been. you know cast aside. from country to country but had found a. place in tashkent with some relative. stability. and you know they wanted to go out every. night.

and you know they explained you know one. friend we talked about the alcohol and. all that and he he didn't get crazy but. he was like. you can drink but just don't get drunk. that's that's permissible within islam. right. um. and he's. you know i think pashtun i think uzbek's. had a different view you know. often the more vodka the better you know. and it doesn't violate as i understand. islam so even yeah it's kind of a silly. example but it's just an illustration of. the ways in which. different communities different. generations different people can come at. this very complex tradition.

in so many different ways so. obviously. if whatever kind of scholar you are any. kind of expert whatever you're you know. it's always. disconcerting to see your field of. specialization be flattened right and. then be flattened and then be turned to. arguments for for violence right mixed. up with the natural human right feelings. of hate yeah and uh and hurt depression. and pain so i you know i mean that day i. vividly remember i sat with um.

other phd historians in different fields. we you know we oddly enough had lunch. that day and it kind of deserted. washington's place was open we went. um and we just thought you know this is. gonna kind of. open up like. a great mall of destruction. and you know the american state is going. to destroy and it's going to destroy in. this geography. and i thought that was. misplaced for lots of reasons and then i. think. if when you know. i'd.

been doing some research on afghanistan. then i was kind of shifting to the south. and i had. been looking at the talbot on um from. afar for some years and you know i think. it's clear now that in respect there. were opportunities for alternative. policies at that moment. so what should. the conversation have been like what. should we have done. differently because. you know. from a perspective of the time the. united states was invaded by a foreign.

force. what is the proper response or what is. the proper conversation about the proper. response at the time what do you think. you know i know my colleague at stanford. con lisa rice would tell me this is. above my pay grade. and um you know she makes a point in her. classes to talk about. how difficult decision making is under. such intense pressure. and i appreciate that um you know i am. an historian who sits safely in my. office. i don't like battlefields i don't like. taking risks um.

so i can see all those limits you know. i'm not a military expert. i've been accused of being a spy. wherever i've gone because the way i. look and because of my nationality and. so on but i'm not a spy so i defer. you know i respect the expertise of all. those communities but i think. they acted out of ignorance. they acted i think because i mean if you. think of the. in a way there was. a compensatory aspect of this. decision-making i mean. the bush administration failed this was. an extraordinary failure right so if we.

start way if we're going to break down. the fear of intelligence i mean if they. if you follow the story of richard clark. um. who's richard clark he was a. national security expert who was tasked. with following al qaeda. who had. produced a dossier. under the clinton administration that he. passed on to the george w bush. administration. and if you look at. the work of conor lisa rice she wrote a. very famous. i think unpaywalled foreign affairs. article that you can read. announcing the george w bush foreign.

policy kind of outlook. and it was all about great powers it's. about the rise of china is about russia. i mean there's definitely a kind. of hangover of. those who missed having russia as the. boogeyman. who spoke you know the clinton's mission. repeated again again the idea of making. sure the bear stayed in his cage. which is why the united states. threw a lifeline to the central asian. states. hoping to have pipelines.

hoping to shore up their. national sovereignty as a way of. containing. russia initially but also iran yeah. which sits to the south and west. and then peripherally looking down the. road to china to the east so the the. bear is. what like russia. or is is it kind of like some weird. combination of russia iran and china but. the bears russia and and russia is. this um i think i'm trying to.

characterize the imagination of some of. these yeah bachelor figures. um this is an image formed in the cold. war. i mean it has deeper seeds and. european and western intellectual. thought that go. back at least to. the 1850s in the reign of zarnickels the. first when we first get this language. about um the russian empire is this kind. of evil. uh polity. obviously this was. a kind of pillar of reaganism. um but the clinton folks kept that a lot.

alive they wanted to make sure that. you know american power would be. you know unmatched and they. being creatures of the cold war. themselves they looked to. russia as. a resurgent power well before putin was. even thought of yeah i mean this is you. mentioned one. deep uh profound historical piece in. rambo it's probably uh the this this. conflict has to do with another. celestial stone movie iraqi iv which is. also historically accurate and based on.

uh. it's basically a documentary so um. there is something about the american. power even. at the level of condoleezza rice these. respected uh deep. kind of uh. leaders and thinkers about history in. the future. where they like to have competition with. other super powers right and almost. conjure up. super powers even when. those. countries don't maybe.

at the time at least deserve the label. superpower that's right a great point. yeah they're all allow some points so. yeah i mean russia was i think many many. experts i mean my my mentor at princeton. um stephen kawkin you know. was then writing great things about how. you know. if you look at russia's economy the. scale of its gdp. you know its capacity to actually act. globally it's all quite limited. um but kanye rice and the people around. you know came into power with george w. bush thinking that you know.

the foreign policy challenges of her era. would be. those of the past right richard clark. and others within the administration. warn that in fact there is this group. that has declared war against the united. states and they are coming for us. the fbi had been following these people. around for many months and so. you know by the time george w bush comes. to power. lots of al-qaeda activists are well not. lost but you know. perhaps a dozen or so are already you. know training in the united states right. i mean what we knew immediately from the.

biographies of some of the characters of. the attackers of 9 11. it was a hodgepodge of people from. across the planet but most of they were. saudi right and that was known very. early on or presumed very long so again. if we go back to your big question about. the geography why afghanistan. it didn't add up right it seemed to me. that afghanistan was a kind of. soft target it was a place to. have explosions to. seemingly recapture american supremacy. um and also i think there was in many.

quarters there was a deep urge for. revenge and this was the place to. have some casualties have some. explosions. and then i think you know restore the. legitimacy of the bush administration by. showing that we are in charge we'll pay. i think there's a very old-fashioned. punitive dimension which. rests upon the presumption that if we. intimidate these people. they'll know not to try this again right. all these i would suggest are all. misreadings of a. of an organization that was always. global it had no real center i mean. called itself the center that's one way.

to translate al qaeda. but that center was really in the. imagination um. bin laden bounced around from country to. country. um and crucially i think. a dimension that i don't claim to know. anything new about but has endured as a. kind of doubt is the role of saudi. arabia and the fact that you know the. muscle in that operation of 9 11. was saudi right i mean this was a saudi. operation with. if one thing so again just on the basis. of nationalities saudis you know an.

egyptian or two a lebanese guy and. the. egyptian guy you know had been studying. in germany he was an urban planner right. um so if one thinks of the imagination. of this i mean. and in fact if you look at the kind of. typology of. the figures who have led this radical. movement i mean if you think of the the. global jihadists. they are. mostly not religious scholars right but. london was not a political scholar. his training was an engineer you know. some biographers claim that he was a.

playboy for much of his youth. but really the the these ideas i think. that's probably why they chose the twin. towers i mean. this is uh. an imagination fueled by. training and engineering i mean a lot of. the. you know the sociology if you do a kind. of post pornography of a lot of these. leading jihadists. their backgrounds are not in islamic. scholarship but actually in engineering. and kind of practical sciences and. professions. medical doctors are among their ranks um.

and so there's long been a tension. between islamic scholars who devote. their whole lives to study of texts and. commentary and interpretation. and then what some scholars call kind of. new intellectuals new muslim authorities. who actually have secular university. educations. often in the natural sciences or. engineering and technical fields who. then bring that kind of. mindset if you will. to. what muslims college called the. religious sciences. which are you know a field of. kind of ambiguity and of gradation.

and of subtlety and nuance and. really of decades of training before one. becomes authoritative to speak about. issues like whether or not it's. legitimate to take someone else's life. with the relation to afghanistan who was. bin laden. milan was a a visitor um. if you look at his whole life course. part of it is an enigma still you know. he. is from a saudi elite family but a.

family that kind of has a yemeni. arabian sea kind of. genealogy. so the family has no relationship to. afghanistan pastor president except. at some point in 1980s when he went like. thousands of other young saudis. first to pakistan to places like. peshawar on the border. where. they wanted to aid the jihad in some. capacity. and for the most part. the. arabs who went opened up hospitals some.

opened up schools. the bin laden family. had long been. based in engineering construction. so it's thought that he used some of. those skills and resources and. connections to. build things um. you know we have images of him firing a. gun. uh for show right it's not clear that he. ever actually fired a gun in what we. would call combat. um. again i could be corrected by this and i. think you know. they're competing accounts of who he was. so he's kind of a. i mean these figures that he said at the.

pinnacle of this world are. you know fictive heroes that people you. know map their aspirations onto right. and so. people like mueller omar who was then. head of the taliban. was rarely seen in public. the current head held on. is almost never seen in public i mean. this kind of studied air of um mystery. that they've cultivated. to make themselves available for. all kinds of fantasies right do you. think he believed so his religious.

beliefs you think he believed. some of the more extreme things. that enable him. to commit terrorist acts maybe put. another way. what makes a man want to become a. terrorist and what aspect of bin laden. made him want to be a terrorist. great um i mean let me offer some. observations i think you know there are. others who know more about bin laden and. and have far more expertise in al qaeda. so.

i'm coming this. in an adjacent way kind of from. afghanistan and from my historical. training so. this is my two cents so you know bear. with me um i'm i don't have the. authoritative account which in itself is. fascinating because you're a historian. of afghanistan and the fact that. bin laden isn't a huge part of your. focus of study. just means that bin laden is not a keem. part. of the history of afghanistan except. that america made him a key part of the.

history of afghanistan i would endorse. that definitely that's it i mean you put. it in a very pity pity way um. yeah so listen he was he was a so he was. an engineer. he was said to be a playboy um he spent. a lot of cash from his family. you know like many young saudis. and from some other countries he was. inspired by this idea. that that was jihad in afghanistan. it was going to take down. one of the two superpowers the soviet. union. who you know the red army did murder.

hundreds of thousands perhaps as many as. two million. um. afghan civilians during that conflict. it's very. you know. plausible and very you know completely. understandable that many young people. would see. that cause as. you know the righteous pious. fighters for jihad who call themselves. mujahideen. arrayed against this evil empire right. of a godless soviet empire that. when there's even confusion about what.

soviets wanted right now now we know. much more about like what the kremlin. wanted what brezhnev wanted. and how they elite thought about it. because we have many more of their. records but from the outside you know. for jimmy carter. and then for reagan it looked like. the soviets were making a move on. on south asia because they wanted to get. to the warm water ports you know which. russians always want supposedly right. and it was kind of a move to take over. our oil. and you know to assert world domination. right so there are lots of ways in which.

this looked like. good resival in congress it looked like. um. you know kind of vietnam again but this. time this is our chance to get them and. there are lots of great quotes uh i mean. disturbing but. really revealing quotes that american. possibilities made about wanting to give. the soviets their vietnam. so the cia. funneled you know. hundreds of millions of dollars into. this project to back the mujahideen you. know who reagan called freedom fighters. and so milan was part of that universe. he's part of that you know he's swimming.

in the ocean of these afghan mujahideen. who out in size you know did 95 of the. fighting they're the ones who died. they're the ones who defeated the red. army right the arabs that were there did. a little fighting a lot of it was for. you know their purposes it was to get. experience it was to. kind of create their reputations like. bin laden began to forge for himself. of being spokesman for a global project. because by the late 80s. when bin laden i think was more active. and began. conspiring with people from other arab.

countries the idea that you know. gorbachev power in 85 he's like let's. get out of here this is this is draining. the soviet budget it's an embarrassment. uh we didn't think about this properly. let's focus on restoring. um the party. and strengthening the soviet union. let's get out of this costly war you. know it's it's it's a waste um it's not. worth it. we don't lose anything by getting out of. afghanistan. um and so their retreat was quite.

uh effective and successful from the. soviet point of view right it's not what. we're seeing now. what year was the retreat um i mean it. began. so michael gorbachev kind of found out. 85 you know he was a generation younger. than the other guys. he was a critic of the system he didn't. want to abolish it he wanted to reform. it. he was a true believer in in soviet. socialism and in the in the party as a. you know. a monopolist right. um but he's critical of the old guard. and recognized that. the party had to change and the whole.

system had changed to continue to. compete. and so afghanistan was one element of. this. and so he. pushed. the afghan elites that moscow was. backing. to basically say listen we're going to. share power. and so. a figure named najibola. who was a soviet trained. intelligence specialist sitting in kabul. agreed and he said we need to have a. more kind of pluralistic.

accommodations approach to our enemies. who are. backed by the us mainly sitting in. pakistan stated in iran. backed by these arabs to agree getting. money from saudi and he said let's draw. some of them into the government and. basically have a kind of unity. government. that makes some space the opposition. and for the most part with u.s backing. with pakistani backing with iranian. backing and with saudi backing the. opposition said no we're not going to. reconcile.

we're going to push you off the cliff. and so that story goes on from at least. 1987. the last soviet red army troops leave. early 1989. um but the nigeria government. holds on for three more years. it is the um i mean they're still. getting some help from the soviet union. its enemies are still getting help from. the us mainly. and um it's not 1992 that that um that. they lose. and then the mujahideen come to power. they immediately.

you know they're deeply fractured and. that's where bin laden is watching all. of this unroll that's right and he's. he's part of the me he's also mobile so. he he at one point you know goes um. you know he's in sudan you know he's. he's moving from place to place his. people are all over the world in fact. they i mean if you think of the. once the mujahideen take power. yeah they have difficulties with arab. fighters too and they don't want them. coming in and you know messing with. mujahideen regardless as like you know. this is an afghan national state that. we're going to build it's going to be. islamic it's going to be islamic state.

but. you can't interfere with us and so. there are always tensions and so the. arabs are always kind of i would say. they were. bear fighters were always interlopers. um yes the afghans are happy to take. their money. send patients their hospitals. take their weapons but. were never gonna let this be like a. saudi or egyptian or whatever project. um but then many of those fighters went. home. they went back to syria they were back. to egypt. some wanted to go back to saudi arabia.

the saudis was very careful i mean the. saudis always used afghanistan as a kind. of safety valve. in fact they had you know fundraisers on. television. they chartered jets they filled them. with people to fly to pakistan um. get out in the shower and say you know. go fight and it was one way that the. monarchy the saudi monarchy. very cleverly i think created a. kind of escape valve for would-be. dissidents in saudi arabia right just. send them abroad you want to fight jihad. go do that somewhere else don't don't. bother the kingdom.

but all this became dicier um. in the early 90s when some of these guys. came back home. and some of the scholars around them. said you know let's we've defeated the. soviet union which is a huge huge boost. i think part of the dynamic we see today. is that. the taliban victory is a renewed. inspiration for people who think look. we beat the soviets now we beat the. americans. and so already. watching the soviet retreat across this. bridge back into uzbekistan if you see. these dramatic images of the tanks you. know moving a lot of people interpreted.

this as like you know we are going to. change the world. and now we're turning to the americans. and our our local national governments. are backed by the americans. so let's start with some of those places. and then let's go strike let's go strike. you know the belly of the beast which is. america which is new york. and going back to bible you're. questioning about you know what. motivates him what motivated him. you know again he was not. a. rigorously trained islamic scholar. and that i think you know when i when. this when this comes up in our classes.

you know i think especially young people. i mean people weren't even born i mean. they're shocked they see they see his. appearance they see. him pictured. in front of a a giant bookshelf of. arabic books he's got the klashnikov. he's got what looks like a religious. scholars library behind him right. but if you look at his. words i mean one fascinating thing about. just our politics and just one thing. that kind of sums us up i mean. the fact that on 9 11 we had to have. a few people. a few experts. people like bernard rubin who was an.

afghanistan expert so that was one way. in which i think you know i'm not. faulting him personally but it's just. one way in which that relationship. appeared to be you know. formed right of linking afghanistan to. that moment. um. if one looks actually you know what bin. laden was saying and doing. people like richard clark were studying. this. there were arab leaders the arab press. was watching this because he gave some. of his first interviews to. a few arab newspaper outlets. but speaking of our american kind of you. know monolingualism a lot of what he was.

saying wasn't known and so i think. for several years. people weren't reading what bin laden. said i mean experts are reading reading. it in arabic. but there was great anxiety around. translating his works so you know we. have my conf we have all this other. stuff you can buy the collective works. of lin and stalin mao whatever you want. in whatever language you want. but bin laden was taboo for american. publishing so it was only a. verso in the uk. that published. a famous volume called messages to the. world.

which was the first combining compendium. of of banan's writings so he has a. mineconf he has a type does he have a. thing where he's kind of collected works. it's the collected works okay uh of his. like a like a blog. like yeah it's a collection of articles. versus yeah these are interviews these. are his his missives his his. declarations his um. his. decrees right um it would but i think. just in terms of if we zoom out for a. second about you know american policy. choices and so on the powers that be.

didn't trust us to know what he was. really about i put it that way and i. don't say that in a conspiratorial sense. i just think that it was. you know it was a. a taboo i think people. you know there were. a kind of consensus that um. you know trust us we know we know how to. fight al-qaeda. and you don't need to know what they're. about because they're they're crazy. they're they're fanatics they're. fundamentalists they hate us remember. that language yeah uh it's us versus. them. but if you read bin laden that's when it.

gets messy that's where the bin laden's. argumentation is not fundamentally. about islam. and if you were sitting here with an. islamic scholar he would say. you know depending on which islamic. scholar they would tend to go through. and dissect. and negate. you know 99 of the arguments that milan. claimed was in islam right but what. strikes me as an historian who's again. looking at this adjacently. um is read bin laden i mean the. arguments they make. are first of all they're sophisticated.

they reflect. a. mind that. is about geopolitics. he uses terms like imperialism. he knows something about world history. he knows something about geography so. imperialism is the enemy for him or. what's the nature of the enemy it's a. it's an amalgam and. he like a good politician which is what. i would call him. he. is adept at speaking. in different ways to different audiences. so if you look at. the context in which he speaks if you.

look at messages to the world. if you look at his writings. and it would zoom out now and we now. have compendia of the writings of. al-qaeda more broadly. you can purchase these. you know they're basically primary. source collections. um. we now have that for the taliban i mean. what's fascinating about. i think. if you like this culture acknowledging. it's very. you know diverse internally. is that. these people are. representatives of political movements. who seek followers they speak.

they often. are very. i'd say skilled at. visual imagery and especially now i mean. what's fascinating is that i mean the. taliban used to shoot televisions. they used to you know blow up. vcr um you know videotapes um. they used to string. audio and video cassettes from trees and. kind of ceremonial hangings right that. we're we're killing this nefarious. infidel technology that is doing the.

work of satan and yet today. and last i mean one of the keys to the. top on success is that they got really. good at using media. i mean brilliant at using. uh. the written word the spoken word music. actually. um and. you know hollywood hollywood is the gold. standard and these guys have studied how. to create drama how to speak to modern. users i mean islamic state did this i. mean the the role of media new media i. mean. i am i follow and i am followed by.

senior top on leaders which is. you know bizarre you know on twitter on. twitter i don't know why they care about. me i'm i'm nothing uh they they follow. they follow you on twitter i don't know. why this is no joke this is no joke so. it's. they are part of our modern world and. how they talk is how they recruit and. this is part of the this is why they are. you know so bin laden if you're bin. laden he. he speaks multiple languages i would say. it's uh. it's. environmentalism. you know the west is bad because we.

destroyed the planet the west is bad. because we abuse women. so in class you know. especially you know female students. are very surprised to learn and actually. say you know this this feminist argument. is not. you know we start with you know this is. a murder. this is a person who has taken human. life innocent life over and over again. and he is um. you know. aspirationally genocidal. but let's try to understand what he's. about so we walk through the text read. them and people are.

shocked to learn that. it's not just about. you know quotations in the quran strung. together in some irrational fashion. he knows um. i mean the core i'd say is the problem. of human suffering. and he has a geography of that that is. mostly muslim but he talks about the. suffering of kashmir all right so if you. have a student in your class. who's from south asia who knows about. kashmir. you know he or she will say. that's not entirely inaccurate you know. the indian state commits atrocities in. kashmir.

uh you know pakistanis from that too. you know palestine is an issue right so. you have. the american university setting people. across the spectrum who. get that you know palestinians have had. a raw deal. and so it's a. victimhood is essential and it's. muslim victimhood which is primary. but. as number scholars have written and i'm. you know i definitely think this is. a framework for what this useful i mean. in this kind of vocabulary and this is. framing this narrative um.

today in today's world if we think of. today's world being. post-cold war. 91 to the present. looking at the series of gulf wars and. seeing the visuals of that i think that. you know i think the american public has. been shielded from this but if you look. at just the the carnage of the iraqi. army. that. george h.w bush produced right or you. think of you know the images of the. suffering of. iraqi children under george h.w bush's.

sanctions u.s british airstrikes. then you have madeleine albright. answer a question on 60 minutes saying. do you think you know the deaths of. half a million iraqi kids is is worth it. he was that justified to contain saam. hussein. and she says on camera yes that it's. worth it to me. if you put that all together. i mean american kids and of course the. american public. they're not always aware of those those. facts of global history. but these guys are and they they very. capably.

use these images use these tropes. and use facts i mean in fact i mean so. many things are not are not deniable i. mean the. i mean these estimates about the number. of iraqi civilian children dead you know. that that came from i think the lancet. and it came from yeah those are those. are estimates but. looking at the point of view of. of oman of you know jaffa. of. nairobi you just think around the planet. um and if you see yourself as the victim. of this. great imperial power. you know you see why especially young.

men would be drawn to. a road of of. of self-sacrifice. and the idea is that. in in killing others. you are. making. them feel how you feel yeah because they. won't listen to your arguments. reasonably because they won't you know. recognize palestinian suffering. bosnian suffering right chechen. suffering. you go across the planet right because. they don't recognize our suffering. we're going to speak to you in the only.

language you understand and that's. violence and look at the violence of of. the post-1991. world right in which american air power. really. becomes a global you know kind of. fact in the lives of so many people. um and then the big mistake after 9 11. among many i mean fundamentally was. taking the war on terror. to some you know 30 or 40 countries. right so that you have a. more and more of the globe feel like. they're under attack right.

and then the logic is essentially it's. not it's not it's rebin law and it's not. we're going to. convert you and turn you into muslims. and that's why we're doing this that. that appears that claim does appear at. times. but it's if you look at any given bin. laden text i mean there are 40 claims in. each text i mean it's kind of it's. dizzying but. he's a modern politician he knows the. language of. of social equality you know that there's. a class dimension to it there is an. environmental dimension to it there's a. gender dimension to it.

and yes there are chronic quotes. sprinkled in. and when he wants to speak that language. he knew that you know he's not a scholar. so he would often get. a few recognized scholars to sign on so. some of his declarations of jihad. had his signature kind of sprinkled in. with like a dozen other other signatures. from. people who were somewhat known or at. least you know with titles right. so as a kind of intellectual exercise. it's fascinating to see that. he is.

throwing everything at the wall in one. level. um that's one way to see that it's a. it's a these are kind of testaments. toward recruitment. of people who. yes they're angry yes they're unhappy. and this is what you know i think. for a broader public it's hard to get. you're like well bin laden didn't suffer. he wasn't poor. like yeah i mean. lenin. pol pot i mean they're speaking to. they're empathetic to the suffering the. landscape the full landscape. it's interesting to think about.

suffering. you know america. the american public american politicians. and leaders. when they see what is good and evil. they are often not empathetic to the. suffering of others and. what you're saying is bin laden. perhaps accurately could speak to the. ignorance of america maybe the soviet. union to the suffering of their people. that's right and i mean if you look at.

the speeches and the ideas the republic. of hitler in the 1930s. he spoke quite. accurately to the. injustice and maybe the the suffering of. the german people. it i mean charismatic politicians are. good at telling accurate stories it's. not all fabricated. but they emphasize certain aspects right. and then the problem part is the actions. you should take based on that that's.

right right so the the narratives and. the stories may be grounded in. historical accuracy right the actions. then cross the line yeah the ethical. line yeah i find that too i mean it's a. again if you pick up just one of these. texts i mean it's it's a claudio scope. so the. hitler analogy is interesting because. it's. you know hitler spoke to. he could speak things like inflation. right which really existed. um but he also appealed to. the irrational emotions of germans right. he.

sought out scapegoats you know jews roma. um disabled people homosexuals and so on. right. and that's also. there in bin laden too i mean daddy of. um. you know a an anti-semitism. uh the constant flagging of zionists and. crusaders it's a kind of shotgun. approach to. a search for followers but i also hasten. to add that it's. for all of the. things that we could take off saying. well yes kashmiris have suffered. chechens have suffered and so on.

um. bin ladenism. never became a mass movement i mean it. never really. i think the. i mean this is the encouraging thing. right about. ideology i mean i think the. the blood on his hands. always limited his appeal. among muslims and others. um. but milan did have i mean he had a. there's a great book by um a great. scholar at uc san diego um. jeremy prestol who wrote a great book. about global icons in which.

he has bin laden. he has um. bob marley. he has. tupac you know he asked why. when he's doing research in east africa. why did he see young kids wearing bin. laden shirts. they're also wearing like tupac shirts. they're wearing. bob marley shirts and. bass it's a way of looking at um. a kind of partial. embrace. of some aspects of. the rebelliousness of.

some of these figures some of the time. by some people under certain conditions. well the terrifying thing to me so yeah. there is a longing in the human heart to. belong to a group. and a charismatic leader somehow. especially when you're young. just a catalyst for all of that and. i tend to think. that perhaps it's actually hard to be. hitler. so a leader so charismatic that he can. rile a nation to war. and bin laden perhaps were lucky.

was not sufficiently charismatic. i i feel like if his writing was better. if his speeches were better if his ideas. were stronger. uh better it's like uh more viral. and then there will be more people. kind of um yeah young people uniting. around him so in some sense. it's almost like accidents of history of. just how much charisma. how much charisma a particular evil. person has.

bin laden. i think it's fair. evil works i think do you think bin. laden is evil oh yeah yeah i mean he was. a mass murderer um. i'm just saying that you know his ideas. were. they're more complex than than we've. tended to acknowledge. they had. they have a wider potential resonance. than we would acknowledge i mean and. also i guess what i'm the just. one fundamental point is that. um. thinking about the complexity of bin.

laden is also a way of removing him from. islam. he is not an islamic thinker he is a. cosmopolitan thinker who. plays in all kinds of modern ideologies. which have proven to mobilize people in. the past right so. anti-semitism. populism. environmentalism and the kind of in the. the urging to like. you know do something about humanity do. something about suffering that's why i. think the actual you ask about like what. motivates people to do this kind of.

stuff i think that's why if one goes. below the level of leadership and this. is being reported if you look at the. trial ongoing now in paris of. uh the bataclan. murders i think um. the court allowed some discussion of the. backgrounds of the accused and they come. from. different backgrounds but if there's any. common bond it's kind of that they. had some background in petty crime. famously in the 7-7 bombings in london. the. metropolitan police you know uk.

authorities looked at all those guys. and. what people want is this idea that like. they must be very pious they must be you. know super islamic to do this kind of. stuff. they must be fanatical true believers. but. what they found with those guys was that. some were. nominally muslim. some went to mosques some didn't. um. some were single young guys with like. criminal backgrounds. some. you know we're like sorry they were.

you know kind of misfits who never. succeeded in anything. uh but others had you know at least one. thing had a wife and family who he you. know widowed and orphaned. and so there's no i mean for policing i. mean if you're looking at that lens. there is no kind of typology that will. predict. who will become violent that's why i. think we have to move beyond thinking. about. religious augmentation narrowly or by. itself. and think about things like geopolitics. think about. how people respond to inequality.

you know the the existential threat of. cri of a you know climate crisis. of um a whole host of matters of and and. think about th this is a mode of. political contestation i mean it's a. violent one it's one i condemn it is. evil right. but these are people that are they're. trying to be political they're trying to. change things in some way. it's not nearly about like i want to. impose sharia law on you. you must wear a veil. you must eat this kind of food it's it's. not that parochial but one another quick.

thought about your interesting claim. about charisma in this i think that the. one self-limiting feature. of this subculture is that. definitely you know i mentioned the. enigma of not wanting to be seen and. that the. kind of. invisibility. is a productive force of power. you know which. a colleague of mine who knows ancient. history far better than i. you know said this is you know when she. looked at at. maloma initially or we come up bin laden.

i mean this kind of studied. posture of staying in the shadows. yeah is also a source of authority. potentially because it it um it invites. the idea and it's partly dictatorships. do as well i mean it advises the idea. that someone's working and maybe it's. the basis for a lot of q a or other. conspiracies today that someone's. working behind the scenes and things are. going to go the right way. you can't see it. that's almost preferable because. you can kind of feel it and so. not having someone out front.

can maybe maybe more effective than. having someone out in front constantly. then they. and then the whole bin laden you know. omar thing like you can't see me or if. you look at you know bin laden's. photographs and his video stuff. i mean he's. he's coy. uh some observers have noted he's kind. of effeminate he doesn't strike this. kind of masculine. he's not a mussolini he's not a hitler. macho i'm standing my thumb in my chest. he's not doing the theatrical chin you. know. the theater people tell us is so.

aggressive um. you know or chin what bringing your chin. up i saw a great uh bbc theater person. it was kind of a it was a makeover show. about how to become. a better creator oh no uh just a. powerful. uh yeah leader authoritarian figure no. just how to how to like get ahead in. life and then oh okay cool and just like. about acting like how you can act. differently right so it was it was a bbc. thing um. and this woman claimed that um. you know sticking your chin out like a.

wrestler does right is the most like. male-to-man i love this kind of mustache. hilarious analysis that people have. about. power but watch the chin watch the chin. it's the same as analyzing like in. wrestling. styles that win or fighting or so on. there's so many ways well the chan i. mean the chan is a could be. an interesting verbal gesture and i uh. i've watched enough mussolini footage. from my classes to try to pick the right. moment and the chin is misleading is all. about the chan so and i have watched.

human beings and human nature enough to. know that there's more to a man a. powerful man than a chin yeah no no i'm. saying no i'm saying it's an active. aggression i'm not saying it's it's one. of the many tools in the toolkit. deliberate enough. with the way he presents himself so he. what i'm saying about bin laden that. makes him different from these other. characters is it because he. played at being the scholar.

he played it being a figure of modesty. and humility and that meant that he was. often. again if you watch his visuals i mean. yes there's one video of him firing a. gun. but if you watch how he moved. how he wouldn't look at people directly. how his face was almost. i mean he appears to be incredibly shy. he saw spoken. you know his voice was low. he attempted to be poetic. right so it wasn't a warrior kind of. image that he tried to project of like a. tough guy.

it was i'm i'm demure i'm humble. i'm you know i'm i'm offering you this. message and that and that the appeal. that he was going for was. to see um. to protect himself as a scholar. his knowledge. and humility the whole package carried. with it an authenticity. and a valor. that would animate inspire people to. commit acts of violence right and so. it's a different kind of like logic of. like yes go and kill right so he he put.

he presented himself. in contrast to the imperialist. kind of. macho. whatever yeah yeah so that's just yet. another way of uh yeah and you have to. have facial hair or hair of different. kind that's recognized we had a very. recognizable look too or at least later. in life. yeah no he he tried to look apart. yeah yeah. but i'm saying we're fortunate that. whatever right calculation that he was. making he was not more.

um effective yet i mean. there's the the world is full of. terrorist organizations and we're. fortunate. to the degree any one of them does not. have an incredibly charismatic leader. that attains the kind of power that's. very difficult to to manage at the. geopolitical level yeah we and we credit. we credit the publics. you know who don't you don't bind to. that right you see through this we. credit the the critics you know um.

barely on. pretty much 9 11 itself. one of the problems was that. u.s government officials kept kind of. leaning on muslims to. to condemn this as if. all muslims shared some collective. responsibility or culpability. and in fact. dozens of scholars and organizations. hundreds condemn this. but their condemnations never quite made. it out but it created a tension where. you know if you wore a veil.

you must been one of them and you must. be on team bin laden so a lot of the. you know i think a lot of the popular. violence and discrimination and and. profiling came out of that urge to. see a oneness. which you know been like bin laden. projected right he wanted to say we are. one community you know if you are a. muslim you must be with me right. but i think the. that's where the the diversity of muslim. communities became important because. outside of small pockets i mean they. didn't accept his leadership right. people wore t-shirts in some countries i.

mean non-muslims were teachers because. he was like he stuck it to the americans. so. in latin america people were like yeah. that was sad but. you know finally i mean there was a kind. of shot in florida in that moment yeah. international it's like cheri guevara or. somebody like that yeah change the other. character in prison's book yeah yeah. that's right that's right yeah it's just. a symbol it's not exactly what he. believed exactly or the cruelty of. actions he took right it's more like he. stood for an idea of. revolution versus authority that's right. and that's and that's.

a great way to understand bin ladenism. and the whole phenomenon but i think. looking at the big picture it's also. you wonder. will that ever end right i mean is that. i mean that's the the risk of being a. kind of hyper power. um like the u.s were you. in insisting on a kind of unipolar world. in 2001 2002 2003. i think that created um. um an almost irresistible target. you know wherever the us wanted to exert. itself militarily before.

we go to the history of afghanistan the. people and i just want to talk to you. about just some fascinating. aspect of the culture. let's go to the end. withdrawal of u.s troops from. afghanistan. uh what are your thoughts on how that. was executed. how could it have been done better yeah. an important question. i mean i would. preface all this by saying. you know as i noted i think the war was.

a mistake um. i. had hoped the war would end sooner i. think there were. different exit routes all along the way. again i think there were. lots of policy choices. in september in october when the war. began. there were choices in december 2001. so we could look at almost every. six-month stopping point and say. we could have done differently. as it turns out though i mean the way it. played out um you know it's been.

catastrophic and i think um. the bride administration. [Music]. has remained unaccountable for the scale. of the strategic and humanitarian and. ethical failure that they're responsible. for. well okay let's lay out the full. there's george w bush there's. barack obama there's donald trump that's. right there is uh. biden yeah. uh so they're all driving this van and.

there's these exits and they keep not. taking the exits and they're running out. of gas yeah i do this all the time. thinking where am i going to pull off. i'll go to the perfect till it's empty. how could it have been done. better and what exactly. um. how much suffering. have. all the decisions along the way caused. what are the long-term consequences what. are the biggest things that concern you. about the decisions we've made in both. invading afghanistan and staying in.

afghanistan as long as we have. i mean if we start at the end as you. proposed um. yeah the horrific scenes of the airport. you know that was just one one dimension. um. i think in the weeks to come. [Music]. i mean we're going to see afghanistan. implode. um. there are lots of signs that. malnutrition hunger starvation. are going to claim. tens of thousands maybe hundreds of. thousands of lives this winter. and i think there is really.

nothing. there's no. framework in place to. force all that. what is the government. what is currently the system there. what's the role of the taliban. so there could be tens of thousands. hundreds of thousands that starve. uh. either just. almost the famine or starve to death. so this is economic implosion this is. political implosion what um. what's the system they're like and what.

could be the one you know some inkling. of hope right right. the taliban sit in control that's unique. when they were in power in 1990s from. 1996 2001. they controlled. some 85 to 90 of the country. now they own it all. but they have no budget. the afghan. banking system is. frozen. so the financial system is a mess and.

it's frozen by the u.s because the u.s. is trying to use that lever to exert. pressure on the taliban. and so the ethical quandaries are of. course legion right. do you release that money. to allow the taliban to shore up their. rule right. the body administration has said no. but. the banks aren't working. uh if you're in california you want to. send 100 to your cousin so. she can buy bread you can't do that now. it's almost impossible there are some.

informal networks they're moving some. stuff. but there are red lines the talbot. government is incapable. fundamentally just of ruling i mean they. they can discipline people on the street. they can force people into the mosque. they can shoot people they can beat. protesters. they can put out a newspaper. they can have they're great at diplomacy. it turns out. they can't rule this country so. essentially the hospitals. and. the kind of healthcare infrastructure.

is. being managed by ngos that are. international. um. but. these people had to leave. and and the taliban have impeded some of. that work. they've told. adult women essentially to stay home. right so. a bitch big part of the workforce isn't. there. so i mean the supply chain is. it you know is kind of crawling to a. halt. trade with pakistan and its neighbors i.

mean it's kind of a transit trade. economy. it exports fruits. pakistan has been closing the border. because they're anxious about refugees. they want to. exert pressure on the international. community to recognize the taliban. because the pakistan want the taliban to. succeed in power because i see that in. pakistan's national interest. especially the lens of rivalry with with. india. so the pakistan the pakistani security. institutions are playing a double game. essentially afghan people are being held.

hostage and so the taliban are also. saying you know if you don't recognize. us. you're gonna let tens of millions of. afghans starve. so to which degree is taliban like. who are the taliban what do they stand. for what do they want. obviously year by year this changes so. what is the nature. of this organization can they be a. legitimate peaceful kind respectful. uh government.

sort of holder of power or. or are they fundamentally not capable of. doing so yeah. i mean the briefest answer would be that. they are a. clerical. slash military organization. um. they have. this is kind of a. imperfect metaphor but. years ago a german scholar used the term. caravan to describe them and that that. has some attractive elements because.

different people joined the taliban for. different purposes at different times. but today. and people tell us you know scholars who. know more about the room than i have. said listen. the taliban is this kind of hodgepodge. of different actors and people and. competing interests. and i think. so we have a lot of scholars say listen. they're it's polycentric. it's got people in this city in that. city and so on i think actually. i was always very skeptical how do they.

know this i mean this is an organization. that doesn't. want you to know um where that money. comes from and so on. but i would say. now that we have a clear picture of what. has happened i'd say they are a. astoundingly well-organized. clerical military organization. that has. a. very cohesive. and enduring ideology. which is quite idiosyncratic if we zoom. out and continue the conversation we're. having about islam and how we think. about radicalism and.

you know who's drawn to what. um. people throw different terms. around to describe the taliban. some use a term. that links it to. a kind of school of thought born in the. 19th century in india the deobandi. school. but if you look at their teachings. it's very clear now i think that. these labels it's like saying you know. you're an mit guy well what does that. mean i mean mit is home to. dozens of different potentially. kinds of.

intellectual orientations right. i mean attaching the name of the school. doesn't quite. capture i mean. it's complicated i mean actually mit is. interesting because it's i would say mit. is different than stanford for example. yeah i think mit has a more kind of. narrow yeah um bad analogy in my part. maybe. well no it's interesting because i would. argue that there's some aspect of a. brand like taliban or mit yeah no. relation. that.

has a kind of uh interact like. the the brand results in the behavior of. the like enforces a kind of behavior on. the people and the people feed the brand. and like there's a loot i think yeah. stanford is a good example of something. that's more distributed there's. sufficient amount of diversity in like. all kinds of like centers and all that. kind of stuff that the. the the the brand doesn't become one. thing yeah mit is so engineering it's. yeah i think that okay so.

scratching my teeth scratching for two. because i think stanford's more like mit. than than. than you might imagine but uh but isn't. taliban isn't it pretty. i don't think there's a diversity so. yeah so like sorry so just a rephrase so. so people say oh the deobandi school i'm. like what is that i mean but the taliban. are. they're an ethnic movement. they represent. a vision of. pashtun power right questions are people. who. are quite internally diverse who.

actually. speak multiple dialects of pashto who. reside across the frontier of pakistan. and afghanistan. there are pashtuns who live all over the. planet right there's a community in. moscow california everywhere right so. it's a global diaspora of sorts. pashtuns have a kind of genealogical. imagination so that lots of passions can. tell you the names of their grandparents. great-grandparents and so on and that's. kind of a there's a sense of pride in. that. posture language is a kind of.

core element of that identity but it's. not universal so for example. you can meet people who say i am pashtun. but i don't know pashto. so as you as you claw away at this idea. it's amorphous it also means different. things different people at different. times so. saying the taliban our costume requires. lots of qualifiers because. lots of passions will say no no i i have. nothing to the taliban i hate those. people. you know so. the taliban tried to mobilize other posh.

students with limited success but their. core membership is almost exclusively. pashtun and they say. no no we represent afghans we represent. pious muslims and so in recent. two three years. they've gone further to say no we have. other ethnic groups we have uzbeks we. have tajiks. we have hazaras. and in the north of afghanistan in. recent years they did do a bit better. at drawing in people who were very. disappointed because of the government. and they were able to diversify their.

ranks somewhat but if you watch august. 15 and who they've appointed. what language they've used how they've. presented themselves it's clear that. you know they are pashtun they are male. and they. are extremely ideologically. cohesive. and. disciplined i'd say. right so i think that a lot of the. polycentrism blah blah some of that. stuff was a way to fight a war. um they are they are fundamentally you.

know. a guerrilla movement. they see themselves as kind of. robin hoods. the rhetoric is very much about taking. from the rich taking the privilege. giving to the poor. being outside of the underdog. fighting against evil. and so. i mean they're bad if you like their. thing they're their central theme their. brand is about public morality and so. their origin story going back to 1994 is. that. they interceded they broke up a gang of. criminals.

who were trying to rape people. and so there's a branching kind of like. emphasis on like sexuality and on on. public morality. and really being the core of like you. know we're going to restore order and. public morality. and how that translates into governance. is something they've never sorted out i. mean how do you run a banking system if. your. intellectual priorities are really about. you know the length of a beard. and then and then their path to power. in a kind of abstract sense i mean a lot. of that was very much driven by um.

if you like. propagating the problems of martyrdom. and that sounds i don't mean to say that. in a way that. to make it sound ridiculous it may sound. like it's um. you know a moral judgment it's simply i. think a fact it's a fact of their appeal. that. they promised young men who have known. nothing else but. studying in certain schools if at all. but they've known fighting and they've. known. they'd known victimization. and this isn't i'm not asking for like.

sympathy for them but i think the. reality is that a lot of. we know about the kind of foot soldiers. is that they. they lost families and bombings um. in air strikes in night raids you know. i mean orphans have always been a stream. um. living in in all male society. not knowing girls not knowing women. hearing things from outside about places. like kabul and so there's always been. this kind of urban rural. dimension it's not it's not just that.

but. i think there's a. there's a whole imagination. that being taliban. captures. and the whole marginal thing is really. it's um. yeah i think to any religious person i. mean it's not a it's not a bizarre idea. i mean it animates i mean. so many global traditions yeah but i. think the. but then you try to tell like an army. colonel right if you were to have a. conversation with you know u.s marine. about this. i mean some would get it from their own.

religious backgrounds but i think the. it. it's an alien idea but i think it it's. essential to kind of stretch our. imaginations understand that's. that's attractive and now one of the. dilemmas going forward is that. they've got a pivot from. martyrdom and some have been some have. told foreign journalists i mean. it's good that we're in charge now we're. going to build a proper state. but i it's kind of boring um i want to. keep fighting i want to maybe i'll do it. in pakistan yeah i mean it's nice that. they are expressing that thought.

some are not even honest sufficiently. with themselves to express that kind of. thought if you're. if you're a fighter. yeah it's a you see that with a bunch of. fighters or professional athletes once. they retire yeah they don't know it's. very it's boring. yeah. and so like the if the spirit of the. taliban yeah. even the the the best version of the. taliban is to fight is to be martyrs is. to yeah is to and the paint the world is. good and evil and you're fighting evil.

and all that kind of stuff that's. difficult to imagine how they can run an. education system a banking system. respect. all kinds of citizens with different. backgrounds and religious beliefs and. women and. all that kind of stuff so yeah and. they've they've walked into kabul and. other major cities um. if someone are young they never didn't. know those places but also. the very important. obstacle for them is that afghan society. has changed i mean it's. it's not with even for the older guys.

it's not what they knew in the 1990s. um some always had some ambulance about. you know the capital. but now it's totally different i mean. they've been shocked to see i think to. me one of the most striking. features of the last few weeks has been. that. you know women have come out on the. streets. and have stood in their faces and said. you know we demand rights we demand. education we demand employment. and um these foot soldiers are. are paralyzed they're not sure they. don't know what to do with women period. yeah yeah and they don't know what to do.

with being yelled at and having someone. stick their fingers in their faces i. mean this is not. not what they've imagined and so i think. and at this at this juncture there are. still foreign cameras around. so. they have committed active violence. against women against journalists. they've beaten people yeah they've. disappeared people even with cameras are. on even in this tense period yeah but i. think that when the cameras. you know retreat and that that's not. gonna happen it's gonna get much worse i. think. so the challenge now is you know can the.

taliban rule. and. and then this is where the diplomacy is. so important because. the top one can't rule in isolation and. they know that and. part of the success is due to the fact. that they were. they became very good at talking to. other people. in the last. i mean it's been building the last. decade but that's the last five years. and they always had pakistan's backing. and so the taliban are we we noted their. military force very effective gorilla. force they be they beat nato i mean this. is. still hasn't sunk in i mean the fact.

that they. with light arms. using suicide attacks. using mines. improvised explosive devices. machine guns. and some in recent years they got sniper. rifles. and you know from the summer they got. american equipment on a broad scale. right they have airplanes they have a. lot that they will be able to use. eventually um so but still basically. it's a story of. ak-47s.

some american small arms. and mines so it's very. ho chi minh. very old-school guerrilla fighting right. and they defeated the most powerful. military alliance in world history. probably so. that has not yet sunk in on what that. means for. american and global politics. um and now they're trying to rule right. they know they need. international support. and the most consistent backer has been. pakistan. who sees them as a extension of. pakistani power.

you know and this is very important for. a pakistani elite that of course is. looking toward india. they want to have their. rear covered right. they want to make sure that these. pashtuns don't cause trouble for. pakistan. and they like i mean for some of the. security forces they like this vision of. the islamic state that the taiwan are. building there because they. those are not citizens from their views. of what pakistan should be. but. the taliban have been. smart enough to kind of diversify their. potential international allies.

so. everyone in the neighborhood has wanted. the us to leave right if we got 2001. there were iranian and american special. forces in the north. working together against taliban to. displace them using. you know. iranian american and then afghan. resistance forces against the taliban. and that was a real moment of request. mall if we go back to the missed. exits um. the glacier with iran could be different. at that moment. but. the us under george w bush.

you know devised this axis of evil. language. put them together with their enemy iraq. and north korea. all that went south. that was the missed opportunity. but in recent years the taliban and iran. have. kind of papered over the differences. they allowed. the talbot to open some offices in on. iranian territory. likely shared some resources some. intelligence some sophisticated weaponry. um and then the taliban went to moscow.

and for the demonstration. you know they've long been worried that. you know they see the talbot as a kind. of. you know disease that will potentially. move north. in fact uzbekistan tajikistan kyrgyzstan. turkmenistan. and maybe creep into russia's sphere of. influence. maybe that's why they have you know. a bunch of troops sitting in tajikistan. i mean the one you know forward base. that russia as well has in central asia. is indigestion. and so the talmud were always.

you know a worrying point but also. useful because. they could say well you know. um in case it's how long it out control. we need to be here. and so tajikistan. said okay you know you're helping you're. helping secure us and yes it impinges. upon our sovereignty but it's okay you. know. so putin said you know. let's. you know give another black eye to the. americans. and let's. you know treat the taliban as if they're. the kind of government in waiting let's. have them come to moscow multiple times.

this summer you know. for the last year or two they've been. talking to the talking to china right so. the photographs of. senior top on figures. going from their office in qatar which. was a major major blow to the u.s back. government the fact that they were able. to open up. an office in qatar that at one point. began to fly a flag of the islamic. afghanistan. that basically said we're a state in. them in the waiting. and as the u.s backed afghan government. failed and failed and failed at at. ruling two right as they showed how.

corrupt they were. and as they really alienated more and. more afghans by committing backs of. violence against them. by stealing from them. by you know. basically creating a kind of kleptocracy. right. um. the taliban said we are pure. we are not corrupt. and look at us we're winning on the. battlefield and. look we're talking to china we're. talking to putin we're talking to china. yeah. we're a legitimate powerful center of.

central asia and also kind of you know. hinting that you know we oh we have a. website i mean the whole digital angle. is amazing because they. they began to and this is important. actually they they had a. a website which. grew more so skated again after having. you know shot televisions and these kind. of ceremonial killings of these infidel. devices right. they said. we have a government we have. commissions we have a complaint line. they. lifted all this technocratic language. that you get from any u.n document you.

know about good governance and all that. kind of you know generic language that. the ngo world has produced for us right. in english. they reproduced that in five languages. on their telephone website. and of course i'm not saying even. believe this but it was like. you know just put me in coach you know i. know the playbook i know how to run a. government and look we have a we have an. agricultural commission. we have um you know a taxation system. and again this id and then on the ground. they had their own law courts. and they would creep into a district.

assassinate some people the local. authority figures men of influence. talk to local clerics either get them on. board or kill them. and say you know this state is corrupt. but we're bringing you justice this is. our calling card we're bringing public. reality and justice. and then. to a broader world they said you know. yeah things didn't go perfectly the. whole al qaeda thing you know. you know wish we could have a do-over on. that. um we're not going to let anyone hurt. you from our territory we just want to. rule and.

people like us and and look. and so if you look at the neighborhood. iran even central asian states after a. while. recognizing they can make some money i. mean one of the one thing that spikes. down likes about the current arrangement. or they're not. they're not hostile to is that. they have all these contracts they can. potentially make some money from. you know the pipeline dream remains. alive running natural gas oil. to you know. the indian ocean. to markets you know beyond central asia.

it's sitting on a couple trillion. dollars probably in mineral resources. that china would love to have of course. and so people looking at afghanistan now. after 20 years saying. you know under american rule it was a. basket case. there was immense human suffering. incredibly violent the world did not. start counting civilian casualties in. afghanistan until 2009. everything about. that the war went on for eight years. the talbot were never really defeated. they just went to pakistan they went to. the mountains into the woods um and so. all these different american operations.

as you noted. under bush obama trump and so on. um. killed. countless civilians the u.s never. counted for that we never we never even. counted um. trump escalated the civilian casualties. by escalating the air war. but a lot of this was like very ugly on. the ground you know night raid stuff. where you drop into a hamlet. and and massacre people. and then you're not honest about what. happened right so. that dynamic continued to fuel the.

growth of taliban from below. so the foot soldiers they never they. never ran out of foot soldiers i mean. the us and its allies killed. tens of thousands maybe hundreds of. thousands of taiwan fighters over the. last 20 years. but they just sprouted up again and part. of that was kind of solidarity culture. the male bonding of. of of martyrology of you know of. martyrdom and enough. you know revenge and a sense of um. you know the foreign invader and i've. heard i mean i've you know i haven't. taught a ton of.

u.s military people but through the. hoover you know they put officers in our. classes sometimes and. met a few wonderful you know army and. marine officers who. i really enjoyed you know we came from. the south like me. always had great rapport with them and. and they expressed a range of opinions. about this i think that you know i. learned a lot from some of them who said. yeah i mean i get that i get why they. hate us i get why. they're still fighting because. you know last week. we just. killed 14 of their. you know fellow villagers.

so. the officers the guys on the ground you. know fighting this war we're not stupid. about that i mean they they got the. human dimension of that and yet no one. got off the exit as you said people. people kept driving. um but going forward now internationally. it's critical that they have. i mean they've had meetings. i mean what the top one have done since. august 15th is a lot of diplomacy. they've had meetings they've had people. they've had tashkent come they've had. beijing come they've had mosque.com.

i mean they've had. major visits from islamabad. from security people from diplomatic. circles. and they're counting on. things being different this time i mean. the first time around the only people. who backed the taliban by recognition. giving them automatic recognition. with the saudis pakistanis and the uae. and because of al qaeda. because of opium. because of some of the human rights. stuff you know the us pushed everyone to. like you know let's not recognize the. state even though the u.s did i mean.

colin powell famously. in the summer of 2001 you know we did. give a few grants and aid um. to the taliban. as a kind of like massaging negotiations. they kept talking about bin laden but. they also wanted them to stop um. opium production i mean afghanistan. throughout all this period we've talked. about is the global center of. opium production i mean over the years. more and more of the afghan economy. continue to today is devoted to the. opium trade.

which is. uh the thing that leads to heroin yep. uh some of the painkillers. and even if afghan poppies don't make it. to. you know hoboken you know that they are. not the. the source of american deaths you know. they are part of a. a universal market a global market which. you know i think any economist will tell. you is part of the story of our opium. you know problem. something i.

read. maybe a decade ago now and i just kind. of looked it up again to bring it up to. see your opinion on this is um there's a. 2010 report by the international council. on security development that showed that. 92 percent. of afghans in helmand and kandahar. province. know nothing of the 9 11 attacks on u.s. in 2001. is this. at all representative of what you know.

is this possible so basically put. another way yeah it. is it possible that a lot of afghans. don't even know the reason. why there may be troops or the sort of. american. provided narrative for why there's. troops. so american soldiers and american drones. overhead. in afghanistan right. i mean my gut response not knowing the. details of this actual poll is.

that that's a um. a very. unhelpful way to think about how afghans. relate to the world and i think um. you know it could be you know if you go. to my hometown. in north carolina. if you knock out some doors. you may meet people who don't know all. kinds of things i could probably walk. around this neighborhood here in. california and there'd be all kinds of. people who. don't know all kinds of things um. you know kyrie irving. apparently thinks the earth is flat i.

mean you know. so we could we could. make a lot of. certain kinds of ignorance i think but. i think what i would say and then and. there's also i mean a companion point. may be that. in thinking about the withdrawal the. collapse the return of the taliban. there's been. a big conversation about um you know. what advocates think of us really and. this famous piece in the new yorker was. about. how you know many people liked the. taliban. you know that many women.

interviewed. supposedly in this piece um. you know were sympathetic because they. lost family members and all the violence. and the idea kind of was that. you know we haven't thought about that. at all when in fact you know of course. we have and lots of people have but i. think if you're just dropping into the. conversation if you look at the media. arc of coverage of afghanistan the. united states i mean. the. arc went from lots of coverage during of. course 9 11 it's aftermath. lots of coverage during obama's surge.

and then quickly drop down the last. decade has been almost nothing. so if you ask the same question about. americans or other americans i'm not. sure what they would say to you what. percentage would actually know. why the u.s is in x y or z either right. but again the afghan side just to return. to that for a moment i think that. you know we can fetishize these. provinces they are kind of you know a. place where talbot support has been. greatest. also where there's been the most. violence where the americans have been. most committed to trying to. root out the top on movement where.

hellman and kind of exactly in the south. what are the other parts in the south of. the gas yeah it's mostly poshtune not. exclusively but mostly poshtun you know. mostly rural. whatever. that's the other group you know that. that the taliban claimed to represent. right. so they're this group what other groups. are there okay sorry yeah sorry so in. cities you'll find. everything right that is in afghanistan. you'll find uzbeks tajiks hazaras. um these are people who. you know is a turkey language right uh.

most uzbeks live in what is now. uzbekistan but they form majorities in. some northern parts of the city i'm. sorry of the country of afghanistan. but whatever size is that um. and you can you can find online an. ethographic map afghanistan and you'll. see. green where pashtuns live red where. hazaras live. orange islands live you know purple. where tajiks live. then there are a bunch of other smaller. groups of different kinds you know there. are. um. [Music]. there are baluch.

there are. different religious communities there. are sunni shia different kinds of shia. what are the key differences between. them is it a religious basis. from the origins of where they. immigrated from. and how different are they yeah so. they're all. i mean they're all indigenous i think i. mean there's a kind of mythology that. some groups have been there longer right. so they have a greater claim to power. but. historically. i mean it's like you know ethnic groups. anywhere people have different. narratives about themselves but many. many pashtuns would tell you not all but.

many would say. we are the kind of state builders of. afghanistan the dynasty that ruled much. of the space. that was born in the mid 18th century. that ruled until 1973 more or less. generalizing. you know it was a pakian dynasty the. taliban have definitely said. to some audiences we are the rightful. rulers because we are pashtun. um. the trick though is let me i don't mean. to be evasive but just to convince some. of the complexity um one quick answer as.

well the majority of minorities i mean. one finds out a lot along with those. maps. but i would say. suspend any firm belief in that because. that could be entirely wrong in fact. there's never been a modern sense of. census of afghanistan. so when journalists say. pashion's a majority whether the biggest. group. i would say not so fast. i'd say not so fast because of. migration is one major issue. no major. modern census. actually the soviets got pretty close.

but didn't quite you know find something. comprehensive and didn't publicize it. knowing that it was. um you know modern times ethnicity can. be the source of political mobilization. it's not it's not innately so but it's. been part of the story but then you have. mixed families right so a lot of people. you'll meet you'll encounter in the dash. run around i mean well. um i am you know my my one parent is. haji. one is one is posh soon right or i'm. pashtun as i mentioned before but i. don't speak pashto right. or i am hazara but.

you read about us is. ours in fact i'm a sunni zara or i'm a. secular hazara or i'm an atheist to zara. i mean everything's possible right. um. one of my friends. if you if he were here he'd say i'm. kabuli. you know i'm i'm from kabul so. if you think about the russian terms you. know it means a lot if you're a mosquito. you know if you're from bishop or yeah. i mean you know yeah well even here. there's bostonians yep that's right.

texans. californians. yeah east coast west coast all that. stuff. those are all part of the mix here so. you ask about kandahar and helmond then. i would say. yeah if you go to you know a pomegranate. you know field. you'll meet a guy who. may reckon time differently from you and. me. who. may not be literate he may not have ever. had a geography lesson. but if you go one door over you may meet.

a guy. who. [Music]. you know his life path has taken him to. live in you know six countries. he may speak five languages. and this is all things i'm not saying. they're all these are just because. people have money can go fly around i. mean they're people who are displaced by. war. from late 1970s right even already in. the early 70s people were traveling by. the tens of thousands to iran. you know as labor migrants and once you. get to iran once you get to pakistan. once you get to uzbekistan. you then connect to all kinds of.

cosmopolitan cultures in fact i think. one of the themes of of the book you. know that you may or may not have read. and they put you to sleep um. you know afghan modern was about you. know conceptualizing afghanistan as a. cosmopolitan place where. for centuries people put on the move. and trade in this area you think of you. know i think this mischaracterization of. places like hellmann. and kandahar you fly in. or you're part of the marine battalion. and you see people there and they look. different and i think in our imagination. if i can generalize.

you know they look like they've been. there for millennia right the dress the. whatever right you think of technology. think of the. the mud compounds and so on you think of. you know. animal drawn. transportation that kind of stuff right. or the motorbike right at most is what. they have. but in fact if you buy those families um. their trade is taking them to northern. india for centuries right the trade has. connected them to. cosplaton centers you say they have a. scholar in the family that scholar may. have studied all of the middle east.

south asia right. you know the ancestors may have been. horse traders who went all the way to. moscow right i mean we we have historic. records of all these people traveling. across eurasia. pursuing all kinds of livelihoods. and so afghanistan is this paradox of. visually looking. remote and looking like it's kind of. stuck in time but the family. trajectories and the current. contradictories are astoundingly. cosmopolitan and mobile. and so um and a conception of being a. world center is also quite strong so.

you know another way to frame that. question about like do they know about. 911 would be like. why should we know about 911 because we. are at the center of something important. right we are the center of asia we are. the heart of asia. we have a kind of historic greatness we. are. you know. a proud culture of our own achievements. right so. we're not worried about that right. that said i mean sure there are. different narratives about why americans. are there why people are being killed. you know. of course you'd find you know they want.

to convert us you know they want our. gold they want our opium they want x y. and z right. there was a recent story about a taliban. official. sitting in office in kabul and a. journalist asked him can you find in. this rotating globe. find your country find where we're. sitting right now. and he was filmed not being able to do. it and so a lot of you know race was. good afghans with asperger were saying. you know ha ha look at this and if that. exists i mean i think. i could go to my stanford classroom and. there'd be a lot of kids who wouldn't.

know where afghanistan is too right but. but i i wouldn't i wouldn't use those. metrics to suggest that this is a. a place that doesn't have a sense of its. place in the world and of. geopolitics i think if anything being a. relatively small country in a very. complicated neighborhood. i mean everybody every cab driver i mean. people have a i mean. you know this is where america is. different because i don't think. americans have this sense you know we. we're talking about moscow and stuff i. think you know. moscow cab drivers. i think a lot of them are going to tell.

you like what's happening in the world. and why right it's just part of it's. part of their thing right you can find. that in ghana you find that mexico city. right you find that lots of places so i. think. afghans are part of. a very sophisticated kind of. mapping of the world and where they fit. in. and a lot of them remarkably had done it. firsthand which is what struck me so. much and you know relating my. experiences from the 1990s and tashkent. places that these guys had already lived. in more countries than i've ever been. they already knew half those languages i.

mean. this one friend's russian was impeccable. um and of course it helped they had. russian girlfriends. they had you know they they mixed with. the police they had run-ins i mean they. this wasn't something you got from a. book right this was like hard knock life. i mean one one friend what's my wealthy. family. uh in this trading diaspora. and he was imprisoned i mean they sent. him to prison uh in pakistan and he. talks about how he started like running. running in the jail you know. taking cigarettes to people doing little.

things and. kind of you know it's. these are not stories of like oh i went. to i went to harvard and so i'm so. learning because. i mean it's a whole range of experiences. the interesting thing is a survey is a. survey and. it doesn't. reflect ignorance as you're saying. perhaps. but it may reflect a different. geopolitical view of the world than the. west has. yeah so if. you know for a lot of the world 9 11.

was one of the most important moments of. recent human history. and for afghanistan not to know that. especially when they're part of that. story yeah. it means they have a very different like. uh. there could be a lot of things said. one is the spread of information. is different the channels of the way. information is spread. and uh to the things they care about. maybe they see themselves. in uh as part of a longer arc of history.

with the bickering of these. superpowers that seem to want to go to. the moon. uh are not as important as the big sort. of arc that's been the story of. afghanistan. it is you know that that's an. interesting idea but um it's still a bit. if at all representative of the truth. right it's heartbreaking. that they're not. do not see themselves as a. active player. in this.

game between the united states and the. the in central asia because they're such. a critical player and they feel and. obviously. um in many ways get the short end of the. stick in this whole interaction with uh. uh you know invasion of afghanistan for. many years and then uh this uh rushed. with withdrawal of troops and and now. the economic uh collapse and that yeah. it's um.

it's it's sad in some ways no it's very. it's true i mean you know another way to. put it is this um. i mean there's a range of knowledge and. and you're right the information flows. are. are. peculiar to particular geographies and. histories and stuff i think that. you know plucking out one sample from. some fairly remote area. from one like follow the follow the. agricultural products i mean. and this is where you know i think. urban rural divides sure used to mean a. lot more. in the 19th century right so a lot of.

like nuts and bolts of history is about. conceiving of these kinds of. distinctions you know but i think that. if one has the privilege of traveling a. bit you see that like. urban areas are fed by rural interlands. and if you look think of who actually. you know brings the bread the milk you. know the pomegranates and so on it. creates these networks and then. you know mobility. channels information and so on. but yeah that but your broader point. about like the tragedy of this man i. guess if i can quote a brain student of.

mine an afghan american woman who just. received her phd who's now you know. doctor. um he's a great scholar. you know we've done. several events now trying to just think. through what's happened and. of course she's very emotionally. affected by it and she continues to ask. a really great question if i can get her. phrasing right. you know if you think of the cycle of. like the top one being in power in 2001. in the way in which that affected women. in particular you know half african half. half of the society right. then you think of this 20-year period of.

violence and. and you know missed exits right and. repeat a tragedy. but also it created a space i mean it. created a space for a whole i'd say. generationally it created a sense a. space for. people to realize something new and i. think so we have to attend to the the. dynamism of the society right so. yeah this happened mostly in kabul other. big cities mazar sharif herat and. kandahar. but you can't limit your analysis to. that because things like radio. television.

everyone got a tv channel there's a. wonderful documentary called afghan star. that i recommend to your listeners and. viewers that it's about a singing show a. scene contest show. but you see just just personal things. about like connections i mean. it's a it's a show by an independent. you know television network that did. drama it did it did kind of infomercials. for the government and. huge american investment in it so it. wasn't politically neutral but it did. talk shows did all this kind of stuff i. did the singing show that became you. know incredibly popular.

modeled upon the british american you. know american idol kind of stuff you. know and you could vote so had a kind of. democratic practice element. but it's fascinating to see that you. know. people hooked up generators to. televisions and watch this you know you. think of like. literacy rates literacy rates are. imperfect and you know people who study. you know. medieval modern europe talk about how. yeah no one could read. and there weren't many books but if. someone had a book it'd be read aloud to. a whole village potentially or gathering.

so there wasn't much you know some of. these metrics don't get what people. actually. perceive as information or exposure. because. there's a magnifying power of. open spaces and. hearing radio in group settings seeing. television group settings. having telephone. you know cheap telephones which then. become an access point to the world and. social media right so. all the stuff swept across afghan. society as it did elsewhere you know um. in the last decade or more. so african society became you know in.

important ways really connected to. everything going on and so you see that. reflected politically and what people. wanted so you had some people obviously. back to return to the taliban. some people wanted sasquatch. but increasingly many more people wanted. something else. um and one of the great failures was to. expose people to democracy. but only give them the rigged version. and so the us and state department in. particular continue to double down on. faked elections for the parliament and. for the presidency in afghanistan what. kind of elections faked.

fraudulent elections for parliament and. and for. president. and afghanistan again and again from the. very beginning. and those these elections. were partly theater for the us right for. remaining on the road that you're. describing right for not deviating for. not exiting because we were building. democracy there. in reality the us government knew it was. never really building democracy there it. was establishing control. and elections were one means to gather. control right but then you had on the. ground especially when young people.

going to university. yeah having experiences that were denied. to them before. you know they took these promises. seriously so part of the disenlargement. that we see today is that you know. they believe what the us told them that. they're constructing democracy and of. course you know cynics like us maybe. thinking well you know you're not really. doing that you're backing fraud they. believed it when they were younger and. now they're actually smart enough to. understand that it's a farce yeah but. and so indirectly had the consequence of. actually working.

yeah and that it taught the young. over a period of 20 years young folks to. believe. that democracy is possible and then to. realize what democracy is not exactly. the currency that's due for beautifully. said and so. but now but i look at us now it's you. know it's. now november. and so. this whole. period and i wouldn't say like you know. i wouldn't cast the last 20 years if. you're looking at all the achievements. you know. i wouldn't. put them in an american tally sheet like.

oh this something we should pat. ourselves on the back for i think that. much just happened actually against what. the americans wanted i mean that the. kind of. free thinking. democracy wanting. i mean even like yeah we could point out. on the religious religious sphere i mean. the. the. african religious landscape became very. pluralistic lots of young people wanted. a different kind of secular politics. but the old the old guard who wanted the. status quo and wanted something that. they'd fought for in 1980s.

tended to still get american backing as. the political leads who still tend to. monopolize political power. um so all stuff was happening in. different ways. i mean the americans established this. american university of afghanistan which. is i think one of the best things the. u.s did there and i regret that the us. didn't fund 20 more you know sprinkling. them across the country making them. accessible people because it was. it was you know again it wasn't an. engine of americanization. it was just opportunity and so that the. thirst for higher education was really. extraordinary there was never never.

really met the u.s tended to put money. in. primary education which much of that too. was was fraudulent. but so you have all this interesting. dynamism you have you know the arts you. have. a critical space i mean i call it a. public sphere in the classic. european sense you know the afghans made. of their own and. again it wasn't americanization it. wasn't. imposed. it was something that afghans built. across generations but really with a. firm foundation among youth. who wanted importantly a multi-ethnic.

afghan society you asked about pashtuns. and that kind of stuff and a lot of that. language in recent years was um. they were aware that the us-backed. government was playing ethnic politics. and trying to kind of put people in the. blocks and mobilize people based on. their ethnic identity. and there was a younger cohort of people. who said you know we are afghan. and there's interesting social media. stuff where. people would say i am hazara but i'm. also tajik i'm also uzbek i mean. it was a way of creating a multi-ethnic.

afghan national identity. that embraced everything i mean very. utopian you know super utopian right. but symbolically it's very important. that they rejected. being mobilized politically. you know voting as a hazara or voting is. whatever and of course there were there. were communities who wanted to you know. vote as that ethnic community but there. are also people who said you know let's. put a kind of civic nationalism first. one that accommodates i think pluralism. in a way that rejected a kind of. majoritarian politics of.

one ethnic group dominating the thing. so all this stuff was quite interesting. i mean women were sorting themselves. in across you know multiple spheres. of course it remained patriarchal of. course there's struggles of course. there's violence of course you know. there's no utopia. um but the door and all that shut. in on august 15. so to go back to the quote that i wanted. to. offer from. the student now professor. was it you know trying to make sense of. this. and you mentioned the tragic.

arc here um. you take the 20 years like. she asked you why did you go to war in. our country basically why did you do. this to us for 20 years when. this was never about us you never asked. us if you wanted to come. you never asked us what you wanted to. build here. you asked us when you were coming and. you didn't ask us when when you're. leaving you just did this all on your. own. and we tried to make the most of it. and then you pulled the rug out from. under us you know at the 11th hour. in return returned to power.

partly by diplomacy. it wasn't at the end just a military. loss i mean it was a. series of diplomatic decisions i mean. the idea you asked about alternatives i. mean. giving up bagram i mean holding the. timeline. i mean the biden people did not need to. hold to. the doha agreement that trump had signed. i mean every american president writes. his or her own foreign policy right so. the body administration acted as if they. tried to convince us that their hands. were tied. um and that it was either this or 21.

years of war or some absurd kind of you. know. false. alternative. and so but i think that's important for. american audiences to hear that you know. they're like you came to here to. experiment. you came here to. punish you came here to kind of. you reassert. your dominance the world stage. you know to work out the the fear and. and hurt of 911 that we talked about. which was so real you know and palpable. um and it's important for american. politics since then like you did you. worked out your problems you know on us.

on our territory. and. now what do we have for it you know and. then the people who. who had a stake in in that system. imperfect as it was. have been desperate to leave. and so this i don't know how much people. wear this but. you know i'm a scholar i work in. california you know. i have friends i. edit a journal on afghanistan and. you know but i'm not a politician i'm. not a soldier. but people assume that. you know afghans have been desperately.

trying to reach me and anyone who is. kind of on the radar as an american. to help get them out you know that's the. kind of like. you know the symbol of voting with your. feet you know is quite powerful i mean. they. there's a huge swath of society that. doesn't want the system and is. literally living in terror about it. naturally women you know i mean. especially women of certain age i mean. they feel like their lives are over i. mean there is an epidemic of suicide. um they feel betrayed and.

and some people have done some good. things and getting people out you know i. mean some. you know the u.s military vets have been. you know at the forefront of. working to get out people you know that. that they. they know they owe. but um the us government doesn't want. these people i mean they have created. all these obstacles to. to allowing a safety valve for people to. leave. looking forward from a perspective of. leadership how do we avoid these kinds. of mistakes.

so. obviously some interests some aspects of. human nature led to this war yeah how do. we resist that in the future. i think that's beyond my. moral and intellectual capacity i'll say. this i mean looking at again looking at. it from you know my home ground is the. university and. i think of the. the intellectual um. you yeah ways of ways of thinking that. that i think students. should develop themselves. as citizens right maybe that's where to. start is like historical thinking.

i mean these are all. and i try to tell people you know. if you want to do robotics computer. science you'd be a doctor whatever you. should study history yeah i mean you. don't being destroying like me and it's. you know my job isn't perfect my. profession is deeply flawed right but. as i get older i'm like. there are fewer historians actually like. yeah i want to hang out with and stuff. so it's like i'm not offering my myself. as like a model for anything but. you know whether you're a. you know you carry the male or you're a. brain surgeon whatever i mean i think. it's not it's a way of civic engagement.

in the way of like. you know ethical being in the world that. we need to familiarize also because. if you're an american or if you're from. a rich country. you know you need to be aware of your. effect um on a on an energy effect world. um you can't. you can't say anymore that you don't. know or care what's happening in. afghanistan or really circle the globe. and point of place i mean. we're all connected and we're all we. have ethical obligations um. that's one place to start i would just. say this and this is a i'll offer a. self-critique and that is um.

so much my teaching and like the themes. my research have been about empire you. know how big states work. not only on big territories like the. russian empire and soviet union stuff. but the way in which power often. is projected beyond those boundaries in. ways that we don't see so this is where. things like neoliberalism or just you. know if you want to take capitalism or. just things that. you know the idea of humanity or. liberalism or of humanitarianism ideas. that move beyond state boundaries are. all things that we think about. as affecting power in some ways that.

that often harm people right so i think. part of as i've seen my job so far is i. think about. you know building upon the work of my. people in grad school and you know. scholars have affected me i mean. you know we're all concerned with how. power works and its effects and trying. to be attuned to. understanding. [Music]. things that aren't visible right that we. should be thinking about that should be. known to us and as scholars we can. hopefully play some useful role in. showing. effects that. aren't you know. obvious initially.

um so empire is a framework to think. about this and so you think about. invading foreign countries obviously if. you're a scholar of empire. you've seen what what that looks like. and. that's horrific right you look at things. like racism as one of the ideological. pillars of empire you know that's. horrific it must be critiqued it must be. you know we must be educated against um. some of the you know gender exploitation. of empire is also something to highlight. you know to rectify and so on. um you have to be moral beings when you. think about.

past inequality and in the legacies of. legacies of violence and destruction. that live on i mean living in the. americas i mean look at you know we're. all on. stone land we're all in the sense. living with the fruits of genocide and. slavery and all those things that are. hard to come to terms with right. but the last few months in afghanistan. and thinking about empire i think. made me more humble. when i read. people who say. to put it simply have taken some joy in. this moment saying like well.

the americans got kicked out of. afghanistan. you know if you're against empire. this is a good thing this is the kind of. victory of of anti-colonial. you could see from the perspective of. afghanistan. that america is not some kind of place. that has an ideal of freedom and all the. kind of things that we american tell. ourselves yeah but it's more. america has the idea of empire that. there's one place that has the truth and. everybody else must follow this truth.

and so from a perspective afghanistan it. could be a victory against this idea of. centralized truth of empire. that's another way to tell this story. and then in that sense it's a victory. and yeah in in that sense also i mean. you push back against this somewhat. this. idea of afghanistan as the graveyard of. empires right right. and i'll say this i'd say you know i. mean it's i mean. i'm a critic of empire i mean you know.

colonialism is a. a political phenomenon that stays with. us and i think you know we need scholars. to point to the way in which it still. works and still does harm. um. but it's part of being an empire that. you can just get up and leave a place. right that you can. remake its politics on one day. and then because it. fails to advance your agenda at one. moment. you simply. walk away i mean you know we can point. to other moments i mean 1947 on the. subcontinent.

you know the way that the british. withdrew. um. played a significant role in. mass violence you know that the company. partition. it wasn't all the actions of the british. that you know. dictated that right there were lots of. actors who. chose to pick up you know the knife to. kill their neighbor and so on i mean. there's lots of agency in that moment as. there's now in what's happening in. afghanistan. but i think the. the capriciousness i mean the the. ability to act as if your.

your political decisions. about people's lives. you know are something that can be made. you know in secret. um that can be made willingly. they really are beyond the. accountability you know of. of those who are actually going to live. with the consequences of. shifting the cards on a deck in a way. that decides who rules and who doesn't i. would love to hear your conversation. with somebody i just talked to which is. neil ferguson who argues on the topic of. empire yeah that you can also.

zoom out even farther. and say weigh the good and the bad of. empire. and he argues i think he gets a lot of. flack for this from other historians. that like the british empire. did more good than bad. in uh certain moments of history and. that's an uncomfortable truth yeah. there's like levels it's a cake with. layers of uncomfortable truths and it's. not a cake at all because none of it. tastes good right i mean i would.

continue to disagree with without. persons i'm still i'm still working out. you know where i am and and what this. moment does to kind of i think qualify. qualify my understanding of the past and. to i think in a moment of humility. you know i i do. and i'm probably i'm probably reacting. to the kind of. you know as you put it i mean. the idea this is like a good thing that. american power has been defeated here i. mean i do think american power should. contract and i i don't think. and again if i if i had to create a. tally sheet of what the americans did in.

the us i mean i mentioned the. american university afghanistan right it. could have done that without invading. the country and killing people could. have you know i'm not i've not now. become an apologist for empire i'm not. i'm not now. a mini now person but. you know ending empire is. i mean that's. how you. those decisions you make are. in some ways a continuation of imperial. hubris right. um so you're not really out of empire. yet you're not really contracting empire.

for those who are living it you know. um but i think it's also i mean maybe. put this way it's. be careful what you asked for you know i. mean i i wanted i wanted the us out of. afghanistan. um. but i wanted there to be a political. settlement. i wanted. you know i wanted my cake and i wanted. to eat it too right i wanted all kinds. of things to be different right but why. is going afghanistan even needed for. that you can play all those games. of geopolitics without ever invading and. taking ownership of the place.

it feels like the war yeah. if it feels like i mean i'm not exactly. sure. what military force is necessary for. except for targeted intense attacks it. feels like to me. the right thing to do after 9 11. was to show. what was a display of force unlike. anything the world has ever seen for a. very short amount of time. targeted at sure a terrorist at certain. strongholds and so on and then in and.

out and then focused on education on uh. empowering women to uh. into the education system. all those kinds of things that have to. do with supporting the culture the. education the flourishing. of the place that's nothing to do with. military. policing essentially right now i think. yeah if you look at it through that. lens i mean if any afghanistan and then. invading iraq didn't end. al-qaeda.

it didn't end terrorism right it didn't. really. deflate these ideologies entirely um. there were if you like you could say. there were. you know some. limited discrediting of certain kinds of. ideas um but in fact i mean look at the. phenomena of suicide bonding bombing um. i mean it spread i mean it was never an. islamic thing it was never you know a. muslim thing. um some muslims adopted it in some. places but. you know the circus of knowledge about.

how to do these kind of things only. expanded um with the insurgencies that. emerged in afghanistan and iraq and then. they kind of became connected and then. they came to the president i mean. islamic state is. it's the best thing that happened to the. taliban. ever because. it's on the basis of its. supposed. new stance as a counterterrorism outfit. that it will get recognition from all. its neighbors it will get recognition. russia. i mean already with the evacuation. airport the united states was. collaborating with taliban. against against islamic state and openly.

talking about the taliban as if they. were partners in the security operation. so. and then al qaeda remains present in. afghanistan so. trillions of dollars spent yeah. the drones up above. bombing. places that result in civilian death the. death of children the death of fathers. and mothers and those stories even at. the individual level propagate virally. across the land creating potentially. more terrorists.

and. a cynical view of the trillions of. dollars is the. military-industrial complex. where there's just a momentum. where after 9 11. the feeling like we should do something. led to us doing something and then a lot. of people realizing they can make money. from doing more of that something and. then it's just the momentum where no one. person is. sitting there petting a cat in an evil.

way. saying we're going to spend all of this. money and create more suffering and. create more terrorism right but it's. just something about the momentum that. leads to that and it to me honestly i. just i'm still a sucker i believe in. leadership i i believe in. great charismatic leaders. and the power of that one to do evil and. to do good yeah and it felt like. i honestly put the blame on. george bush. obama trump and biden sure for the lack.

of leadership yeah definitely definitely. i agree and yeah there is the. multi-industrial complex component which. is huge. and there's also i mean speaking of. government leadership it's also. i'd say the imbalance of power within. washington i mean. the pentagon. used this moment. um well beginning in 2001 i think to. assert this authority. at the expense of other institutions of. national government yeah i mean the. state department diplomacy.

you know. has become a shadow of what it was once. capable of doing. and of course i mean other historians us. historians you know which i'm not. foreign in the united states but. you know we can go back to talk about. vietnam we talk about lots of um cold. war and post-cold war engagements um. and i think you know we need a reckoning. about how the united states uses. military power. you know why we devote so much to our. military budget and what could be. available to us if we. had a more sensible view of the value of.

military power of its effectiveness. and i think we're willing to hammer home. that this is a defeat i mean i think. there should be accountability and if. you and this could be a kind of opening. for a kind of bipartisan conversation. because if you are. a kind of um. american militarist i mean you have to. look at the leadership that got you to a. place where you're defeated by. men wearing sandals. firing ak-47s right yeah there should be. a humility with that yeah. i mean yeah we should actually say that.

we like literally. the oh we lost you lost it wasn't just. you know um. the american military. lost yeah and i i feel i have very mixed. feelings and you know it's. i don't know a ton of veterans but you. know i've mentioned i've taught my share. and um have a student now and. you know they are. they're suffering because they look at. the sacrifices that they made that i. didn't make i mean american society. didn't make the sacrifices i mean. men and women lost limbs they lost eyes. they lost lives you know.

uh there's been this of course quiet. epidemic of suicide. among. among veterans and i. i've heard. some stories affected the state. department is seeing a similar surge of. suicides because. they see their. adult life's work. collapse they've seen their. relationships i mean they've seen. they've received phone calls in the. middle of night from people who they. entrusted with their lives who they know. are going to be targeted i mean some. have already been killed um.

they've seen the i mean i think just i'd. imagine just ideologically and. professionally. what they believed in and what they. what they sacrificed for you know has. vanished. and i think that's a that's. that's bad i mean historically thinking. of some of the presence you were. thinking of i mean if you think of. you know first of all you know at a. human level i feel horrible for those. people who you know may not have agreed. with. everything they'd done and their choices. in life but i respect the fact that many. good people went out of.

you know the best intentions as young. people to. to do the right thing and make things. right and i respect that. and i've met enough to know that. there were people who. saw the gray and complexity and that. that's. you know all you can hope for um. but we don't want a generation of. disillusioned veterans um. you know if we look at the other. post-war moments and this is kind of a. possible moment where. you know i think we need a conversation. with american veterans about about what. they've gone through and what they're.

feeling and they have they solve skin in. the game you know because their personal. connections and their in the end of. their histories and they're also going. to be future leaders i mean. uh yeah veterans already yeah people who. are served are often great men and women. that's that's true and. you know throughout history whether you. sacrifice you served in fighting world. war ii. in fighting vietnam that's going to mold. you in different ways. that's going to mold.

how you are as the leader that leads. this country forward and uh so you have. to have an honest conversation about um. what was um. the role of. the war in afghanistan the war in the. middle east the war on terror. in the history of america if we just. look at the full context at the end of. this 21st century how we're going to. remember this. and how that's going to result. in our future interactions with small. and large countries with china or some.

proxy war with china with russia or some. proxy war with uh. russia what's the role of oil and. natural resources and opium and all. those kinds of things what's the role of. military power. in the world and now with kovid. you know it it's like um. it's almost like. the because of the. many failures of the us government. and many leaders.

in in science and politics to respond. effectively and quickly. to uh to covid we kind of forget that we. fumbled this other thing too yeah and. it's hard to know which is going to be. more expensive yeah. uh yeah they they seem to be symptoms of. something. of us of a same kind of source. problem um. of leadership of bureaucracy of of uh.

the way information and intelligence. flows throughout the u.s government all. those kinds of things and that hopefully. motivates young leaders to fix things. right. definitely i mean i think if there's one. theme that jumps out to me and think. about this moment i mean. if we recognize that we live in a kind. of crisis of democracy um. in the united states and in other. countries that have long been part of. their democratic traditions if we see. them being under assault from certain. quarters i think. military defeat is yet another addition. to all the. the aspects of this that you mentioned i. mean the fact of military defeat is.

a giant match that you're throwing on. this fire potentially if we think of. its legacies and other post-war. environments when. you know the veteran angle you know is. one when you have. people who feel betrayed i mean they. have been. fodder for the far right in other. settings i mean interwar europe is very. much about. mobilizing disillusioned veterans the. name of right-wing fascist politics. um if one thinks two of this moment. of really increasing xenophobia you know.

our immigration debate is now talking. about whether or not afghans should be. permitted at all in the united states. you know after 20 years. and i think immediately the response in. europe which i followed to some extent. you know focusing on germany. uh because it it was. really ramping up deportations of. afghans leading up this collapse. and now they have been. you know a lot of. right-wing center-right politicians in. in germany have been watching all this. with an eye to.

using it to their advantage for a. domestic german audience. to say you know in the context of like. recent elections that you know we are. the party who will defend you against. these afghans are going to be coming. from this so. you know what i've tried to emphasize in. talking to different groups about this. moment is that it won't be confined to. afghanistan or even the region i mean. obviously malnutrition hunger will send. afghans to neighboring states. but. where the european right is resurgent. this has been a gift right to say that. the africans are coming.

they're brown skinned they're muslim. they're uneducated they're going to want. your women. um and they'll take you know the odd. sexual assault case or the odd whatever. um dramatic. act of violence that. you know happens numerically in any. population. and they'll magnify that to say that you. know. our far right group is going to save the. nation. and sorry that the main point i wanted. to. to be a leadership was that. i think the serial well there are many. many. um carnal sins if you like but if you go.

back to our analogy of all the exits i. mean. what blocked some of those exits was um. an absence of truth and transparency. and the lying and so i mean that the. this is no secret anyone who's followed. this but the. we've allowed. and you think of the general mistrust of. government mistrust of of authoritative. of authority across the board. of professors of economists of. scientists scientists uh doctor doctors. right well i actually think that's the. hopeful thing to me about the internet. yeah because.

the internet hates. inauthenticity they can smell bullshit. much better and i think that motivates. young leaders to be transparent and. authentic. so like that's. the very problems we've been seeing. with this kind of attitude of like uh of. authority where oh the populists they're. too busy with their own lies they're not. smart enough to understand the full. complexities of the things we're dealing. with so we're not going to even. communicate to them the full.

complexities yeah we're just going to. decide and then. tell them what we decided and conceive. some kind of narrative. that that. makes it easy for them to consume this. decision right. as opposed to that i have. i really believe i see there's a hunger. for authenticity of of uh when you're. making decisions when you're looking at. the rest of the world and trying to. decide. uh untangle this complexity yeah the. internet the public.

the world wants to see you as a leader. struggle with the tension of these ideas. to uh change your mind. to see you know to recognize your own. flaws in your own thinking from a month. ago all that the full complexity of it. also acknowledged the uncertainty as. with kovid also with the wars. you know uh i think there's a hunger for. that and i think that's just going to. change the nature of leadership in the. 21st century i hope so i think you know. all the things you highlighted i mean. accountability is part of that right i.

mean we need you know. honesty openness uh and then you know. acknowledgement of mistakes and humility. is the key to all learning right but. also i mean you think just the headline. from yesterday the. the horrible drone strike which was. really the last kind of american. military action. on the day that the us was i think. mostly departing from kabul. wiped out an entire family mostly. children. you know the u.s acknowledged that yes. this was not the isis bombing outfit. that they thought it was.

but yesterday the they did a quick. review um. i'm not an expert on undrone strikes in. their aftermath but those who looking. more closely said it was basically um. whole cloth taken from what the u.s. government has been saying. after all these strikes. you know reproducing the same language. and. basically pointing to technical errors. but denying that there were. any. procedural. mistakes. or flaws or is this kind of. they found little ways of acknowledging.

things not go as planned but. you know we follow policies essentially. and that's it it's not a crime. it's a way of not even saying. you know we screwed up. and it's kind of the legalese that that. suddenly makes a war crime not a war. crime you know and that. that is reflects i think or feasible to. take accountability. i think people are really sick of that. yeah in a way where the opposite is true. which is.

they get excited for people who are not. for leaders who are not that right and. so there's they're not going to punish. you for saying. i made a mistake yeah that i i. i just had a conversation with francis. collins the director of nih and part of. my criticism towards anthony fauci has. been that um. it's like such subtle. but such crucial. communication of mistakes made. if you make a small mistake it is so.

powerful. to communicate. i think we messed up we thought this was. true yeah and it wasn't so the the. obvious thing there was with masks early. in the pandemic. there's so much uncertainty it's so. understandable to make mistakes or to. to also be concerned about what kind of. hysteria different statements you make. lead to just being transparent about. that and saying we were not correct in. saying the thing you said before that's. so powerful to communicate.

to uh gain. trust and the opposite is true when you. do this legalese type of talk yeah yeah. it's it uh destroys trust and i again i. really. think the lessons of recent history yeah. teach us what it. what how to be a leader and teach young. leaders how to be leaders and i so i. have a lot of hope yeah good partially. thanks for the internet yeah yeah that's. great yeah. no humility i mean we you know we need.

humility accountability honesty um. and yeah studying the past is an. important way to do that i mean to to. learn from past mistakes and obviously. there's a source of inspiration and. courage and you know we can take. some kind of assessments from that too. but um. but also learning from learning how not. to do things right and then. you know analogies are never like one to. one i mean we talk about vietnam i mean. i think. many vietnam veterans would say. yeah this is like deja vu you know i. mean there's the story the the the.

visuals of the kabul airport and of. of the saigon embassy were not the same. but close enough that people would. juxtapose them all let's run up but i. would just ask people that you know. overanalogizing is also you know a kind. of. path down like making errors of judgment. and in comparison. and then. sameness um. but it's stretch you mean like 9 11. itself i think the idea that um. people lack the imagination within our. security apparatus to think this is even. possible right.

and you think of the simplicity of. having a 10 lock on a cockpit door you. know could have wanted all this and. you know again i'm not saying. either the time or in hindsight that i. am on mission about all this but. you know i just been living in germany. the year before and. there was a plot there this guy was. hatching from germany to blow up the. mausoleum of ottawa and ankara with an. airplane. and so if you kind of dig. you know it wasn't unimaginable that you. would use an airplane as a weapon. and the bush was association kept saying.

no one had ever heard of this who would. do this like well. not a lot of people do this and then you. know at that very moment my wife was. teaching the joseph conrad novel secret. agent. which was about a conspiratorial. organization that wanted to bomb. actually in respect it was kind of. suicide bombing because i think they. tricked this guy into doing it but they. want to. bomb the greenwich observatory for some. obscure political purpose. um. so. that's an instance in which you know the. novel right to go back to our kind of.

humanities bitch right that it's my. point was that um. you know as you mentioned we need. humanity transparency but also. imagination right i think part of. expanding imagination is by you know i. mean obviously delving into your fields. you know of engineering and the sciences. and robotics and artificial intelligence. and all that rich landscape and then. but also we find this in film poetry. literature i mean just the kind of. stretching that. that we need to do. to. really educate ourselves more fully.

right across the. across the spectrum of everything humans. need to imagine. do we imagine security you know so much. what we talked about today i mean. it's much of you know. our security is affected by others. perception of their insecurity right. um which unleashes a whole. web of emotions can you. tell me about the afghan people. uh what they love what they fear. what they dream of for themselves and. for their nation is there something to.

say to speak to to the spirit of the. people. that may humanize. them and maybe speak to the concerns and. the hopes they. have yeah i think i you know as an. outsider i hesitate to to make any grand. statement but i would say listen i mean. um. there are a number of documentary films. that that. are incredibly rich that will offer your. listeners and viewers at snapshots so. there is. um afghan star. you know which really brings you to the.

homes of. a set of people who you know they won't. start them. they're artists they want to express. themselves. some want to push political boundaries. cultural boundaries there's a woman who. gets into hot water for dancing. but you realize it. i mean. people i mean they love art they love. music they love poetry they love. expression. you know people want to care for their. children they want safety to families. they want to enjoy. what everyone enjoys you know i think. it's a very. humanizing portrait.

there's another great documentary film. called um. love crimes of kabul. which is a great snapshot of of the post. 2000 world that the americans shaped a. lot of ways and it's about a women's. prison. and. it's incredibly revealing because it's. about. young girls and what they want um well. not not just young but young teenage and. then some middle-aged people who. who are accused of moral crimes ranging. from homicide which one woman admits to. to.

having such relations outside of. marriage. and. so it shows in a way continuity with. the previous telephone regime and that. women are imprisoned for things that you. wouldn't be in prison for elsewhere and. that islamic law operates as the the. kind of. judicial logic for these um. these punishments but lettings women. kind of speak themselves. i mean it's fascinating i mean they i. don't want to give too much away but. women make ranching choices in this film. that land them in this predicament so.

they don't all profess. innocence some are like i'm guilty but. they're guilty for reasons. in one case one woman is guilty she's in. prison because. it's a way to exert pressure on her. fiance to finally marry her. you know yeah so you get ethnicity you. get like you know kind of romeo and. juliet things or their families don't. like each other necessarily but they. find each other you have questions of. like love money. clothing furniture. um it's beautiful and like i mean the. parts with it i remember showing it in.

class there was a wonderful afghan. student who was a. i think a fulbright at the ed school at. stanford and she's a genius she's. amazing um. it was awkward for her because. talking about young women having sex and. stuff and it was just it wasn't. you know the snapshot of afghanistan. that she wanted and obviously there's so. much more they're great writers and. you know musicians and i mean you know. music is a huge thing i mean poetry all. these things are great. um. so she found it you know. i hear you i mean it's a kind of taboo. subject but i thought the american.

students sing it really identified with. these women. because they're just so real and so. you know young people trying to find. like i mean relationships that are. universal. um and circumstances that are. very difficult um love love is universal. yeah so it's i mean we do have resources. to humanize i mean you know you know. some of your people will know khao. husseini you know he's african-american. he's done his stuff but there are. there are a number of. novelists and short story writers who do. cool things i think that.

another tragic aspect of this moment is. that those people have now pretty much. had to leave the country so. um there's a visual artist i would. highlight for you named khadam ali. is a hazara based in australia. he does extraordinary work in blending. a tradition of persian miniatures. with contemporary political commentary. his work is between australia and. afghanistan but he also he had to flee i. mean he's doing some work in kabul.

but it's a. extraordinary um. kind of visual language that he's. adopted that has been shown all over the. planet now he's got some of his work is. in new york galleries is in europe. he's been shown in australia but he. talks about migration. in a way that puts afghans and hazaras. at the center but it's totally universal. about um. you know. our modern crisis of of. all the mains people who were displaced. across our planet and he attempts to. kind of speak for some size of them. in a way that like i think everyone can.

get um. i mean the visual imagery experts will. know that it's from you know like the. the chaname like an ancient persian you. know epic that iranians were attached to. that afghans are attached to that people. can quote you know at length um it has. mythical figures of good and evil that. kids grow up embodying. they're named the names of the. characters that are um it's called the. book of kings. uh the heroes and villains are the. staple of conversation and. and poetry and. you know. like russians i mean the kind of the.

the resort to literary references and. speak is something that you know. americans don't do most. west european countries don't do but the. fact that everyone's got to know this. character everyone has this reference. the word play the linguistic finesse um. in multiple languages is. you know a major value of. afghan storytelling um. as an outsider i'm. scratching it the surface of the surface. yeah but there's a depth to it just like. it is fascinating the layers yeah with. the layers of russian language that's.

exactly the the culture it's a i've been. struggling and this is kind of the. journey i'm. embarking on. convey to an american audience. uh what is lost in translation yeah. between russian and english and it's. it's very challenging and some of the. great translators of dusty yes gif. tolstoy. of russian literature struggle with this. deeply and yeah they work uh. it's it's a it's an art form just to.

convey that and right it's amazing to. hear that afghanistan with a full mix. of cultures that are there have the same. kind of uh wit and humor and depth of. intelligence i mean the humor thing is. that that's you know i'm so much our. visual imagery is about like this sad. place and dao or whatever but the. i mean socially again. i mean engage in some stereotypes about. generalization stuff but just the um. you know the afghan friends that i've. come to be close with they really love i. mean the. the humor there's so much there i have. common common stuff of like.

when i go to ireland it's one of my. favorite places and just like the. i feel a sense of pressure like the. humor all around me all the time i feel. like there's something between iron like. i learned in russia. with the humor stuff. where it's like you've you got to be on. your game if you want to be you know so. it's yeah it's not i feel like i mean. it's the intensity of conversation. in terms of yeah you have to be on your. game in terms of wit and so on i mean. you have to. there's certain people i have like when. i talked on this podcast they're like.

that uh certain people from the jewish. tradition have that totally like where. the where is just like okay i have to. oh yeah i really have to pay attention. yeah yeah it's a game it's like it's. like uh you know what it feels like it. feels like speed chess or something like. that and you really have to. uh focus and play and at the same time. there's body language in the and then. there's a melancholy nature to it at. least in the russian side yeah the whole. thing is just a beautiful moment yeah. there's a there's a funny two type video. that went around that that i got from. like some afghan acquaintances that was.

uh. he's an irish comedian. kind of. highlighting you know kind of irish and. german natural stereotypes around. hospitality. and um this afghan woman said you know i. didn't know that the. irish were just white afghans because. the whole like you know the hospitality. like politics of like of refusal you. know you you know you don't you don't. take. something that's offered to the first. time you don't i mean it's the. the culture of um. of receiving a guest you know that's you. know. americans aren't i mean that's not you. know that's not always i mean they're.

different the regional cultures or. that's the thing there's whatever but. it's i mean the. the kind of like generosity and the kind. of you know that that's that's real i. mean that's. and that's a cool thing and that's. amazing that's um you know the food i. mean going on just the sufficient things. about it with the. but all that the the warmth of. hospitality and um. of wit and and humanity i mean it's. that that that's what we don't see if. you're in the place just through war and. geopolitics and the moving pieces of the. map and stuff and that's.

and that's hard to see when the other. gaps in in language and in religious. tradition and all that stuff and then. you know being open to the fact that. people do. do things differently you know and it's. uh. and the gender did mention there's. important right they're they're kind of. you know. arguably each culture has a kind of. gender dynamic that's different and so i. think it's helpful to have humility in. thinking that. some afghans will do something something. different differently yeah but then. you'll also have afghans who say. every woman should be educated everyone.

should work and so on and so on so. there's no there's no single way of yeah. and there is a dynamic in russia too. they we need to be respectful that like. that's not that's not always what it. looks like at first yeah exactly there's. layers where power is i mean that's. definitely i don't know yeah uh yeah. that's a whole nother conversation where. the power is yeah uh rumi the 13th. century persian poet who was born in the. land that is now afghanistan is there. something in his words that speaks to. you about the spirit of the afghan. people.

i mean everyone owns rumi i guess i'd. say and that that's going to get me in. trouble with certain afghan fans of rumi. who. want to see him as as an afghan i would. say. are they proud of yeah did they see him. as an afghan do they yeah i mean so it. depends i mean some some people. will be militant and say. you know the irony is going to have him. he's ours. um. but they're also saying you know he's. i mean you could say. again he's like blood i mean he's he's a. sufi he's a muslim.

he's a central asian he's iranian he's. afghan. he's a turk i'm trying to think of. analogy but he's. he's something special to everyone so i. guess i would i would not walk into that. conversation and claim that he's one or. another but it's a cool thing i mean. it's the um. but i'm glad you brought that up because. that's a good way of seeing. [Music]. a seeing something that that afghans i. mean we love our country to afghanistan. and say okay roomies everyone you know. madonna helped make famous united states. you know for better for worse they used. to sell stuff at starbucks and that's. all complicated um.

and embarrassing and his his. translations are very much disputed. where you have people being like there's. some awful roomy translations and there. are. there's also a lot of. speaking of the internet there's lots of. uh fake roomie quotes yes. you know like roomie said always be your. best. like. we didn't say that you know that was you. know i mean this kind of stuff but yeah. but the cool thing is like the um. i mean i think. you can read roomie as a religious. thinker but you can also you know. read rumi as a um.

you know in an islamic sentence but you. know also as a kind of spiritualist. right someone who or an ethicist or. moralist and so i think that's. i i like the. the lens of roomie as a gateway to. afghan um ecumenicism and. cosmopolitanism you know the theme i. keep the sizing of. of. meeting actual afghans who were actually. you know fluent in russian fluent german. fluent turkish. they know diary they know pashto. um. they've gone to university or sometimes. they haven't. and yet i mean they are um i like the.

category of the uh. popular intellectual you know the. intellectual who isn't. isn't formally educated necessarily. although of course that's represented. too especially increasingly now at this. generation of going university all over. the world you know stanford mit. everywhere. um afghans are war reps into there. but just being. i don't have any kind of worldly. knowledge that is. not limited to a province to a village. to a hamlet but. sometimes it is but sometimes it's not. because of.

again not because of some fairy tale. story of. curiosity wanting the globe out of. you know some sense of of privilege but. out of necessity out of survival of. having to adapt and it's really um. extraordinary that i mean also when you. think about like professions so like. you know ask ask an afghan you know what. does he or she do for a living. and what have they done in the past i. mean the answer is one gets shoe. salesmen. task drivers. uh surgeons all in one guy yeah yeah.

i mean. i mean that's not just afghan but that's. you know that that's very common but. it's also russia is the same that's. right i think it's right whenever. there's complexities to the economic. system and that's right a short term and. the long term history of how the country. develops and it's basically the people. figuring out their way. around. a mess of a country politically yeah but. a uh beautiful flourishing culture and. humanity yeah and that that creates.

super interesting people yeah yeah so we. can often see okay there's taliban. there's war there's. uh economic malfunction. there's harboring of terrorists there's. opium trade all that kind of stuff but. there's humans there with deep. intellectual. lies. uh and uh like i love the movie love. crimes and the same kind of uh hopes. fears and desire to love. the the old romeo and juliet story and i. think roomie to me represents that.

the wit. the intelligence but also the. just eloquent and just beautiful. representation of humanity of love some. of the. some of the best quotes about love are. from him half of them fake. half of them real but the best ones are. real right the best ones are yeah yeah. the best ones are real uh robert this is. an incredible conversation thank you for. having me thank you for the. tour. of. afghanistan and making me making us.

realize that um. there's much more to this country. than um what we may think it's a it's a. beautiful country and it's full of. beautiful people you made me think about. a lot of new things too so it was. definitely definitely great for mine too. so thank you so much. thanks for listening to this. conversation with robert cruz to support. this podcast please check out our. sponsors in the description and now let. me leave you some words from winston. churchill. history will be kind to me.

for i intend to write it. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.