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Aug. 27, 2021 - Bannon's War Room
48:49
Episode 1,207 – Extraction Under Fire: A WarRoom Special Cont.Episode 1,207 – Extraction Under Fire: A WarRoom Special Cont.
Participants
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steve bannon
12:46
Appearances
r
raheem kassam
01:32
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
I never used to give press conferences.
Their spokesman was in hiding.
I did an interview with the spokesman, a one-on-one.
The Taliban didn't do these kind of things.
We got a written statement from Mullah Baradar, which is posted online, in which he is talking about an openness, and they want to have understanding, and they want to reach out, and they want to build Afghanistan better.
They're using kind of similar mantra, build back better.
That's what they want to do.
That's what they're saying.
But a lot of Afghans don't trust them.
They don't take them at their words.
They saw what they did when they were in power 20 years ago and they're trying to escape the country.
The Taliban are making assurances that they're not going to go after people, they're not going to hunt people down and they want this air of panic.
to dissipate and they think it will dissipate once Americans leave.
Then Taliban leaders have made assurances to me and others that they want the civilian airport back open.
They want Afghans to get passports and they say if Afghans want to leave after US forces are gone, they can go.
And that's, they want to reclaim the airfield.
We want to get out by that day too if it's going to be possible to do so.
So we share a common purpose.
As long as we've kept that common purpose aligned, they've been useful to work with.
So we thought this would happen sooner or later.
It's tragic that it happened today.
It's tragic there was this much loss of life.
we are prepared to continue the mission.
Patriots, this is Chairman John Bennett and I'm sad to report that many Marines and Navy Corpsmen have lost their lives in Afghanistan today.
I just want to send my condolences to their family and thank them for their enormous sacrifice.
The loss of life is unnecessary and it falls squarely on Joe Biden and his failing administration's shoulders.
I have a message for Biden because no other other politician is going to say it.
So I'm just going to say it.
Biden, you're a coward and incompetent.
And so is everyone in your administration, every politician, every civilian and every general that has influence in your administration that hasn't told you to stop being a useless politician and start Being a Commander-in-Chief, the blood of U.S.
Marines and other service members is on your hands, and something needs to be done now.
You and those advising you who told you it's a good idea to work with the Taliban and to cower down in Afghanistan, all of you should be relieved of duty immediately.
You fellas, And the truth is, a Marine Lance Corporal could have done a lot better job of retrograding out of Afghanistan than you've done.
This is an utter disaster.
I mean, the retreat from Afghanistan is our worst foreign policy disaster in a generation.
As the Taliban marches into Kabul, they're murdering civilians, they're re-imposing barbaric Islamic law, and preparing to turn Afghanistan back into a cesspool of Islamic terrorist organizations that will, I mean, have you already forgotten how thousands of innocent Americans were murdered on September 11, 2001 by Islamic terrorists?
They conducted their planning in Afghanistan.
Biden, you and your administration have failed us.
And the families of those who have lost their lives for your blunders, you owe them everything.
You've left Americans behind, and now they're hiding and frantically calling their loved ones trying to get out.
And you've let them to die.
Now, because of your blunders, United States Marines and Navy Corpsmen have died.
And none of this had to happen.
This all lays on your shoulders, and your administration's shoulders.
Let me tell you something.
I've actually been on the ground in Afghanistan, and I have fought this enemy, and I know them very well.
The Taliban, Al Qaeda, they are all the same, and they only want to kill Americans.
They're commanded to do so by their god, Allah.
They don't understand compliance or peace.
They only understand force.
America is the world's greatest superpower.
I think it's about time we start acting like it.
So here's some advice for you.
Why don't you send in a surge of Marines and let slip the dogs of war?
Unchain our Marines and take the gloves off and let the ground commanders actually do their job.
Quit being a politician and telling them what to do.
That's not your job.
Our troops can retake the airports in a short amount of time.
Unfortunately, it may take more sacrifice and time than usual because you left the Taliban and Al Qaeda our weapons.
You left them air power.
You left them up armored vehicles and night vision goggles.
But our troops, they can still get hung up because they are warriors.
They can take the airports back.
They can push the safety perimeter and start screening, locating, and going on missions to retrieve our fellow Americans so they can be sent home safely.
Give the troops the right rules of engagement.
Now, you're politically correct.
Well, let's comply with the Taliban because they're our friend's rules of engagement.
We are at war, and they are our enemy, so stop working with them.
And if any group Whether it be the Taliban or Al Qaeda or any of our enemies, if any of them test us, how about you just let our troops kill every single enemy fighter out there?
Because we are at war with an enemy that needs America and everything that we stand for.
So stop cowering down on them.
Stop trusting them and stop working with them.
And how about you start just letting our war fighters do their job?
I mean, if you want someone to take care of your blunder, Give me a call.
I'll take care of it.
Or I can call a real patriot and friend, General Michael Flynn.
I'm certain he can take care of it.
Biden, you and your entire useless national security team have failed to protect our troops and American citizens in Afghanistan.
And right now, the Taliban are humiliating you and all of America.
Our troops didn't lose this war.
Biden, you and your politicians, you chose defeat.
Instead of your generals turning our military into a test bed for the COVID vaccine or pushing the woke culture, how about they focus on war fighting?
We never had to let the Taliban win, but now we are humiliated and United States Marines and Corpsmen have lost their lives because of your weakness.
You and your decision makers should resign immediately.
We need a real Commander-in-Chief, not a weak buffoon that has humiliated the world's greatest superpower and handed Afghanistan over to all the Islamic terrorists.
If you think this won't cause another 9-11, you've lost your mind.
To all my fellow warfighters out there, Spiritus Invictus.
And for all the communist media that's out there that's supporting this buffoon, that calls himself the Commander-in-Chief.
I'm John Bennett, Chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party.
I'm a United States Marine and I approve this message.
God bless Oklahoma and God bless America.
Okay, we're live.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
This is War Room, our special extraction under fire.
It's 27 August, Year of Our Lord 2021, now with over 80 million downloads on the podcast.
We're live everywhere.
I want to thank our partners.
I want to thank particularly Real America's Voice Programming.
Note, we will be another two hours tonight, starting at five o'clock.
Let's slip the dogs of war.
Okay, we've got Raheem Kassam is back from his travels.
He's in studio today.
We also asked Patrick K. O'Donnell, the top combat historian, Of a generation.
It's the 245th anniversary of the American Thermopylae that took place in Brooklyn with that tremendous regiment from Maryland during the Revolution.
But we're here today to talk to him about extraction on the fire.
The first one ever happened with the Continental Army on the East River from Brooklyn Heights back to Manhattan.
We're going to talk about that later.
We've got Eric Prince, we have General Mike Flynn, we have General Bollick, we're also going to have Aaron Babbitt and Darren Beatty, so we've got a very packed show.
I want to turn first to First Sergeant John Bennett from Oklahoma, who's been gracious enough to change his schedule and join us today.
First Sergeant Bennett, I had to play General McKenzie, that briefing, and we could have played many more clips, but we were pressed for time.
I would like your observations on the first two clips we played.
One was the reporter talking about the Taliban's having a press conference, and they're using the phrase of the Party of Davos, the World Economic Forum.
They're saying, oh yeah, we're here to build back better.
And you have General McKenzie and this entire command turned over the perimeter.
First of all, turned over Bagram.
to the Taliban, which is a major strategic, this is basically telling India, hey, we're letting China and Iran gonna run this thing.
Then you've got General McKenzie, which I gotta tell you, the briefing yesterday, I was shocked, stunned by how it happened.
Can you give us your assessment of that first, and I wanna ask you about what we gotta do in Afghanistan.
So sir, your observations and analysis, please.
unidentified
Yeah, so hopefully you're not wanting a politically correct answer, because you're probably not gonna get one from me today.
But I'm just so curious.
When I watched the general on TV, I was ashamed.
For one, he was a four-star Marine general.
And I wanted to throw something at the TV.
But the first thought that come to mind is, one, he should be relieved of duty immediately, because he's a four-star general, and he's working with the enemy.
They give the enemy information about American citizens, about those Afghans that helped us in the war in Afghanistan.
And one of the reasons we've been fighting the war in Afghanistan or the war on terror for 20 years is because generals like him still cannot apply basic war fighting doctrine, which is know who the enemy is, who they say they are and how they operate.
And then only then can you have a counteraction to defeat them.
They won't even call it what it is.
It's Islamic terrorism.
And now we're allowing our enemy to dictate What we do and to dictate our security and safety.
I've been on the ground over there.
They don't understand and they don't comply with anything other than Islamic law and what they want to do.
The only thing they do understand is a enemy or someone that will come in and crush them.
We need to heavy hand them and we need to take that whole area back, which we can do and start bringing our folks back.
This whole strategy is just Unbelievable that they've come up with.
I mean, it's just the American people should be furious.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I think the American people are.
First Sergeant Bennett, just gotta ask you, I mean, you're not asking to stay in Afghanistan another 20 years.
We know how the Marines have suffered for that.
You're saying about this extraction, which is one of the most complicated military evolutions you could have, an extraction under fire.
It's like a forced river crossing or a fighting retreat.
These are incredibly difficult things to pull off.
But First Sergeant, I have to ask you, given your experience with the Taliban, and in Iraq and other places, fighting Islamic Jihad, Am I missing something, but I thought, and Rahim Kassam was one of the ones that taught me for many years, isn't one of the basic tenets that they fight under is that it is part of their religion when they're doing jihad to lie to the opposition, to tell the opposition anything they want to hear.
So when you see generals, and you see these politicians, you see these media types up there talking about the Taliban, we turned the perimeter over, we're working with them, We turned the list over of all the people because they're going to be the government.
We've got to work with them.
Isn't a basic tenet that they are supposed to lie to the enemy for their religion, sir?
unidentified
Absolutely.
And anyone can find it.
It's written in English.
This is their entire doctrine.
And yet within their doctrine, which our generals should be reading, but they're apparently not, they would have known that they are obliged to lie As long as the goal is obligatory, and the obligatory goal is to promote Islam and Islamic law, Allah's divine law.
And that's exactly what they're doing.
And if our generals actually picked this book up and read it, Allah's divine law or Islamic law in English, they would have known that the Taliban was lying to them.
And it also says they're not allowed to, Allah says you're not allowed to barter a truce deal unless You're weaker than your enemy, and you need time to rebuild your forces.
So we had them on the run under the Trump administration.
We were crushing them.
And Trump's plan to retrograde out of there was a good plan.
Biden's plan is a failed plan.
And if anyone, any general especially, I mean, this really is criminal negligence.
If the generals can't pick up the enemy's threat doctrine and read it, that's criminal negligence.
We throw doctors and lawyers in jail for criminal negligence.
So we should hold these accountable just the same.
So yes, the Taliban is lying to us.
And it showed just one day after all the news reporters saying, well, the Taliban said they're going to allow safe passage into the airports.
The very next day, they were killing people for coming to the airport.
I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure this out.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Sergeant Benneke, hold on for a second.
We're going to take a short commercial break.
By the way, Patrick, couldn't be a better day to have you here.
The first extraction under fire under General Washington from Brooklyn Heights back over to Manhattan after the American Thermopylae that took place in Brooklyn.
Remember, that's still an unmarked grave with all those great patriots that died 245 years ago today, August 27th.
unidentified
Yeah, Steve, at exactly this hour that took place.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Exactly this hour, 245 years ago, in Brooklyn.
American Thermopylae.
Okay, short commercial break.
We're back with First Sergeant John Bennett and General Baldick all next in the war room Okay, welcome back It's War Room Extraction Under Fire, a special.
We're going to be back tonight at 5 to 7.
Also, we're going to be getting you news that Jackson Hole, the Fed Chairman, is giving his discussion right now about the economy.
A major study out of Israel on herd immunity and basically having the disease 13 times more powerful than the vaccine.
We've got breaking news on the 3 November issue.
We've got so much to get to.
But this is the signal, not the noise today, by the distraction of the fire.
245 years ago, this very hour, in Brooklyn, New York, the American Thermopylae, a regiment from Maryland, held, brilliant militia, held for the Continental Army, and by the way, if they had not held, you wouldn't.
It was six weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
People forget, hey, the lawyers negotiated it, and the freedom fighters signed it, and we had this declaration.
It took eight years of combat to win Our independence.
People forget that.
Fourth of July is great.
That starts it.
But it was a long way from 400 ships of the greatest Navy on Earth showed up in New York Harbor a couple weeks afterwards and the British are going to have something to say.
The enemy always has a vote.
And by the way, American Thermopylae, we've got Patrick K. Dunn, we're going to talk later.
The first extraction under fire in American history took place a couple days from now in Brooklyn Heights across the East River to Manhattan to save the Continental Army.
In Afghanistan today, we have an extraction under fire that's going to take place, has to take place by the 31st.
We understand that the evacuation flights may be winding up and they're getting ready to do that extraction.
I want to go back to, we've got a packed show today, so I want to go back to First Sergeant Bennett had this very moving and powerful video he did from Oklahoma.
First Sergeant, so quickly, what would be your plan to do this extraction if you were in charge?
How would you do it?
unidentified
So, Tom Shell, without being on the ground right now to see everything going on there, I think at a minimum we need to surge troops into that entire area.
We need to take ballroom air base back immediately.
We need to secure the Airport they're at now.
They need to push out and have a strong perimeter and have checkpoints there.
American checkpoints, not Taliban.
We need to start figuring out where our American citizens are and then start setting up a plan and teams to go out and extract those Americans.
Of course, this is not going to be an easy thing because Biden has given up all of our armored vehicles.
He's given up all the weapons.
He's given up all these things that now our own enemy has the same type of weaponry we have.
So it won't be an easy thing, but it's something that needs to be done.
It needs to be done immediately.
And we need to completely annihilate the enemy.
That's what they understand.
They're not going to relent, and they're going to keep attacking us.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Mr. Sergeant, what's your sense of the morale of people right now, given this, let's just be blunt, a debacle in the chain of command?
I mean, Joe Biden's talk yesterday was more disturbing than even the activities on the ground.
That's how weak and feckless he looked.
And I think our enemies in Beijing and other places, in Persia and in China, have to be licking their chops right now.
What's your sense of where our morale is?
unidentified
Absolutely.
Well, the Marines that are in active duty today and the veterans that serve in Afghanistan, we're furious.
We are absolutely furious.
We're getting, uh, they look at us like cowards.
They look like we're retreating.
And that's, that's not who we are as an American fighting force.
Uh, so they're furious and they're confused because the chain of command at the highest levels are sitting down, confusing messages and telling us how to just relax, back off, back down.
Everything's going to be okay when it's not.
We are the finest fighting force in the world.
We need to do what we say we were going to do.
We need to get our people out.
We need to take a stand and then retrograde out of Afghanistan the right way.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
First Sergeant, for all the veterans out there of the Gulf War, the Iraq War, Afghan War, the Global War on Terror, Cold War, Vietnam, Korea, What would you tell them today, people that are back in civilian life?
How can they put their shoulder to the wheel to set this thing right?
unidentified
Well, first they need to get educated on the threat so they can talk about it and to it.
They can go to understandingthethreat.com and read all the facts about the threat we're facing.
Then they need to engage with their senators and their representatives all the way up to the highest office in the land and just tell them, You need to do something, do it now.
Let our military do their job.
Let's get these Americans out and let's do it with some dignity and some pride.
And let's just be the nation that we say we are.
They need to get engaged at the ground level and let their voices be heard.
Because right now, they're obviously not listening to us.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
First Sergeant, how do people get you?
How are you on social media, your website, all of that?
How do people track you?
unidentified
Well, they can find me on understandingthethreat.com.
All my information is out there.
They can go there and they can find me, or they can find me at the Oklahoma, or okgop.com website.
They can also go out to my Facebook page, the Oklahoma GOP Facebook page, and like it as well.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Okay, First Sergeant, thank you very much.
Look forward to having you back on.
Very powerful video put out there.
I really appreciate you changing your schedule around.
We're going to play another video here.
Thank you, sir.
Rahim, can you believe that 20 years into this thing, and you've spent, what, 10 or 12 years of your life, that we're having a discussion today about understanding the Taliban and about their... I mean, in this pablum I've seen the last 24 hours, I've got to be honest, General McKenzie, I've never seen as bad as Biden was to have a four-star Marine combatant commander give that press briefing yesterday.
And you see the media, I think the media was shocked too.
They asked some pretty sharp questions afterwards, but that is the combatant commander of what we've got in Afghanistan.
And the naivete on this media and at the White House, Raheem Kassam.
raheem kassam ▲ ● ▼
The answer to your question is no, I'm not shocked because there has been a relentless campaign over the last, I would say, five years to kind of reform radical Islam in the view of the political elites in this country, in my country, across Europe, and to shift the Emphasis of domestic violent extremism onto the political right and specifically onto white people.
We've seen that taking place, obviously, intensively over the last 12 to 18 months.
And the resourcing, I think, will be really interesting to look into how much money has gone into and how much money has shifted in that regard.
But let's take it back to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
I was reading your favorite paper the other day, the Financial Times, and it says on the front page of my app, the Taliban are now more worldly.
unidentified
Worldly.
raheem kassam ▲ ● ▼
Worldly.
Because that was always my concern with the Taliban, was they weren't wearing bright enough colors or suits from different countries.
Their Italian tailoring wasn't quite to my taste.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
LGBT.
They'll build back better.
You heard the guy at the beginning, they're going to build back better, right?
They're a party of devils.
raheem kassam ▲ ● ▼
So the question has to be, and I looked at some of Mike Pompeo's interviews from the last couple of years on this as well.
The question has to be this, because there's always a State Department line and there's always the truth, right?
Those two things very rarely marry up.
The State Department line is effectively what the State Department has to say because it's doing diplomacy every waking minute.
The truth is the things that get talked about on the Morton's Terrace, right?
And the little nuggets of information you pick up here and there.
The problem is, somewhere along this line, the State Department, the Institutional State Department, started to believe the Institutional State Department.
Yes.
And that's not how foreign policy and diplomacy can work.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
And also the world corporations.
How long is the Marines?
Let's play the next... 440.
It's 440?
So it's too long?
Let's bring in General Bolduc.
We get to that after the cold open.
General Bolduc, we're going to play the clip from the Marine Major.
General Bullitt, you're kind of a legendary figure in special forces, a special operator.
Can you walk through your assessment of the chain of command of this debacle and what needs to be done, sir?
unidentified
Well, thank you, Steve.
I appreciate it.
Well, first of all, I called it last week when I started getting interviewed, unmitigated failure of geopolitical consequences.
I'm not surprised by These actions because in 2014, the same individuals, the same senior leaders in the military, the same senior leaders in the Obama administration made a bad decision to go from non-combat operations to combat operations.
So it doesn't surprise me that they came up with this type of broken strategy.
Failure to understand themselves, failure to understand the enemy.
And that doesn't mean that you do things to give the enemy a vote.
I mean, that's what they did.
They did so many things to give the enemy a vote.
And you just don't do that.
Um, and they, this is all 85% common sense.
And from what I've seen in Washington DC, from my time working there over four different assignments, my time at the senior levels is they lack common sense.
They completely abandoned common sense.
Uh, and then they, they default to their 5% brilliance, which never works.
And then they go into, then they forget that, you know, a lot of this is 10% luck.
And that's that's the magic formula.
And you can't look at what you saw on television and with common sense lens on and say that was the right thing to do it.
I said, we got to go in and we got to seize right away all the airfields that we gave up.
And that's eight of them.
And then we have to do the proper force protection, which we violated in Kabul to this type of consequence yesterday.
I said it was going to come.
It came.
You can't trust the Taliban, you can't trust Al Qaeda, you can't trust ISIS, and to think that you're going to work with them?
Are you freaking kidding me?
I just can't believe what I heard from, well, I can't believe what I heard from General McKenzie, because they all come from that ilk.
They all come from that ilk of political generals, and they're not going to go against it.
He should have stood up and said, I saw this coming a mile away.
This was wrong.
We're going to make it right, and I have just ordered a surge, and we're going in there, and we're going to take over.
We're going to take over these air bases that we gave up.
We're going to shorten the lines of operation.
We're going to create safe corridors.
We're going to put air assets in the air.
We're going to be able to watch them.
We're going to be able to hear them.
When they pop their head up, we're going to zing them, and we're going to take our people out of there, and then we're going to say, hmm, what do we do now?
We have a branch and a sequel.
I say, I say today because of what they did yesterday, I say we go back in there and we beat them again.
I was part of beating them twice.
First rotation and then between 2010 and 2013.
There are those of us that know how to do it.
The guys in charge now don't and they're not going to come to the realization because nobody stood up yesterday, took their stars off, threw them on the table and said, ah, I can't do this.
This is a violation of my oath, my character, my integrity, my organization, the people in You have put them in danger.
I tried to be the good soldier, but guess what?
That only goes so far.
Have some balls and tell people in Congress, where the hell are you?
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
General Bolduc, hang on one second.
We're going to take a short break.
We're returning with General Don Bolduc.
We're going to turn to Eric Prince-Moore on the extraction under fire on the war room.
unidentified
My name is Lieutenant Colonel Stu Scheller, United States Marine Corps.
I'm the current Battalion Commander for Advanced Infantry Training Battalion.
I've been in the Marine Infantry for 17 years.
Started my tour with Victor 1-8.
It's the current unit that's doing perimeter security, dealing with the mess that's going on there.
You can see open source reporting that there was an explosion and some people were killed.
I know through my inside channels that one of those people that were killed was someone that I have a personal relationship with.
Won't go into more details because the families are still being notified.
Not making this video because it's potentially an emotional time, making it because I have a growing discontent and contempt for my perceived ineptitude at the foreign policy level, and I want to specifically ask some questions to some of my senior leaders.
And I'll say as a person that's not at 20 years, I feel like I have a lot to lose.
If you play chess, you can only see two to three moves out because there's too many variables.
I thought through if I post this video, what might happen to me, especially if the video picks up traction, if I have the courage to post it.
But I think what you believe in can only be defined by what you're willing to risk.
So if I'm willing to risk my current battalion commander seat, my retirement, my family's stability to say some of the things that I want to say, I think it gives me some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, accountability from my senior leaders.
And so I want to start with, we'll just use the Marine Corps, my, we'll just stick with the Marine Corps.
So in the current fallout of Afghanistan, a lot of Marines were posting on social media, and in response to that, the Commandant published a letter, which is the Service Chief of the Marine Corps, and I want to read from it.
You know, I get it.
August, so only a week ago, the commandant, sir, you wrote, some of you may be struggling with a simple question, was it all worth it?
We want you to know that your service is meaningful, powerful, and important.
You fought for the Marine to your left and the Marine to your right, you never let them down.
Then you go on to say that if we're struggling, we should seek counseling, which, you know, I get it.
People have killed people.
I've killed people and I seek counseling, and that's fine.
There's a time and place for that.
But the reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield let someone down.
That service member has always rose to the occasion and done extraordinary things.
People are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, we messed this up.
If an 05 Battalion Commander has the simplest live fire incident, EO complaint, boom, fire.
But we have a Secretary of Defense that testified to Congress in May that the Afghan National Security Force could withstand the Taliban advance.
We have Chairmans of Joint Chiefs, who the Commandant is a member of that.
We're supposed to advise on military policy.
We have a Marine Combatant Commander.
All of these people are supposed to advise.
And I'm not saying we've got to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, hey, it's a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield and Strategic Air Barriers before we evacuate everyone?
Did anyone do that?
And when you didn't think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, we completely messed this up?
I've got Battalion Commander friends right now that are posting similar things, and they're saying, you know, wondering if all the lives were lost and if it was in vain, all those people that we've lost over the last, I don't know, 20 years.
And he goes on to say that we're all part of a chain, while every link may not be tested, the strength of the chain is only as strong as each link, and you gotta be a good link, something like that.
And what I'll say is, from my position, potentially all those people did die in vain if we don't have senior leaders that own up and raise their hand and say, we did not do this well in the end.
Without that we just keep repeating the same mistakes.
This amalgamation of the economic slash corporate slash political slash higher military ranks are not holding up their end of the bargain.
I want to say this very strongly.
I have been fighting for 17 years.
I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders I demand accountability.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, right there. By the way, I want to thank Eric Prince. He's going to join us here momentarily for making me aware of that video. I want to go back to General Bolduc. General Bolduc, Colonel Scheller said, nobody's throwing their stars on the table.
You mentioned that in your last piece. What is he talking about? And when you and Colonel Scheller demand accountability, tell our civilian audience what you mean by that.
unidentified
So what he means by taking their stars off and throwing them on the table is going beyond their responsibilities to be subordinate to the civilian leadership.
When the civilian leadership makes decisions that are absolutely wrong, I mean wrong, it is your legal and moral obligation that you take to tell that.
And if they did tell them, and they continue to pursue that course of action, you must stand up and put your career on the line.
And that's what it's all about.
And that's what you don't see.
And that's what our guys have needed for a very, very long time.
I did it when they changed strategy in 2014.
I did it again to support our guys with post-traumatic stress and TBI.
And I did it again in the Africa strategy.
Not because I'm smart, but because I listened Uh, or smarter than anyone else.
It's because I listened to the men and women on the ground and I carried their water for them.
And that's my job.
I work for them.
See, they don't understand that they work for the people.
They work for the organization.
They work for the people in the military, uh, not the senior leaders.
That's a chain of command.
That's different.
And so they get this mixed up and then they forget.
And because they're part of this club and they're politicized and they're nepotistic And, you know, they create those in their own image, and they get rid of the contrarians and the people that will absolutely say, hey, enough is enough, right?
And that's what he's talking about.
And that's what he needs.
And when a lieutenant colonel comes online to say that, this is the problem.
And it's been a problem in the military for a very long time.
I started seeing it as a lieutenant colonel in 2005.
And I happen to be lucky enough to make it to the general officer ranks, but as everyone said, it was a huge accident.
And as some of my seniors said, that's the last start he's going to make.
Why?
Because I don't play those games.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
And we can't play those.
General, just hang on one second.
I want to bring in Eric Prince.
Eric, when you got me this video overnight, I know you're in the region.
You told me, Steve, we've got to get this guy four stars right away.
What do you mean?
Give me your assessment of what Colonel Scheller's talking about, the importance of it.
And why would you give him four stars today?
unidentified
Look, that guy has more balls than all the four stars we have now.
Because at least he took great moral hazard risk to say this is wrong, and there needs to change, and there needs to be accountability.
God bless him, okay?
Because no colonel did that.
No one-star, no two-star, no three-star, and not even the four-stars did it.
It was the catalyst of an 05 Marine Corps battalion commander that stood up and said enough, and I've I've already sent the guy a text.
I tracked down his phone number, and if the Marine Corps screws him, I will make sure he gets a private sector job to keep him more than whole, because we need more people like this to stand up and say we demand better.
For the American people to say, oh, thank you for your service, and we love the military, then if you really do believe that, then make sure they get the best leadership at the very top that they deserve, because otherwise your sacrifice is squandered.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I don't know if you've heard General McKenzie's, I don't know, debacle of a press briefing yesterday, but what would you say is the problem?
He kind of said, you know, we started the show with it.
Oh, you know, we're working with the Taliban.
They guard the perimeter.
You know, they're our partners in this.
We got to work with them.
And then he said, oh yeah, we kind of knew there'd be a possibility of having an attack like this.
We knew eventually this would happen.
And people are outraged by that.
Plus Biden's pathetic thing.
But what do you think the basic problem with the chain of command is?
And what's the basic problem we've got as we try to do an extraction under fire in Kabul?
unidentified
Look, it starts with the utter cluelessness, right?
When they sit before Congress and say, oh yeah, the Afghan military is all they need.
But the people that are in charge, that we the taxpayers have empowered to be responsible for this, ignored the fact that the Afghan military wasn't getting paid, they weren't getting the resupply, because of the corruption in many ways enabled by U.S.
government lethargy, by U.S.
military lethargy, by not holding anyone accountable.
On the ground in Afghanistan.
I haven't heard of any Afghans being court-martialed or punished for this kind of corruption.
So when you firehose trillions of dollars of U.S.
cash into Afghanistan for 20 years and then you don't prosecute anybody, of course this is going to happen.
And we have officers that sit and talk the party line and never Speak truth to power, even to the President, to say, ah, I'm willing to risk my career to say, this is wrong.
I say, God bless this Lieutenant Colonel for having the spinal fortitude to stand up and say, we demand better and it needs to get better right now.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Eric, can you give us your current assessment of what's happening?
Because I know we're passing on a message to you.
I know you're inundated with people.
What's the current status of actually getting folks out of Afghanistan as you currently see it?
unidentified
As far as I know, there's still 500 Americans in the greater Kabul area, most of whom very much want to come home to America, and for various reasons are still unable to get to marshalling points or places where they can get exfil.
And that's in Kabul, and some of those could be even farther afield.
But remember, as of a few days ago even, there was U.S.
forces, or U.S.
personnel, uh... contractor personnel us government personnel that were trapped and and and and had to be rescued held at that the british sas had to do a daring russert desert rescue to get uh... an essay s team out of canada are uh... had to fly a c one thirty all the way from uh... the middle east up there night vision goggle landing in the middle of nowhere to pull the fsl because the whole thing collapsed so quickly
Again, because the generals forgot the basics that a military has to be paid and fed and supplied with ammunition or it will stop fighting.
And the U.S.
military replicated itself in Afghanistan with all the expensive doodads and toys.
And then when they pulled the contractor support away and the corruption Eric, how do you think this extraction is going to go?
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I understand the evacuation flights may be ending even as we speak or sometime today.
They're going to start the extraction.
What's your recommendation of how they actually get this extraction done?
unidentified
I'm very worried that the aircraft are extremely vulnerable while they're in takeoff.
I really hope they have a Spectre parked overhead and will annihilate anybody that points even a weapon at one of our aircraft.
Okay, the Air Force has a policy of not flying the C-130 in broad daylight.
I hope they violate their policy and will park one right overhead and smoke anything that comes near to endangering one of the C-17s.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You believe that one of the most dangerous parts is actually the takeoff of the C-17s with our troops?
unidentified
Well, remember, even if you agree with the premise that the Taliban, as General McKenzie says, are our partners in this, I'm not willing to agree to that, because they're not.
The Haqqanis are part of that, the Haqqanis are al-Qaeda, and it's...
Okita is not our partner and never will be, nor these ISIS guys.
They cranked off a bunch of car bombs, there's more threats of car bombs and suicide vests.
It's pretty easy with the hundreds of thousands of weapons the U.S.
has left behind for a few bad guys with a 50-cal machine gun, a Dishka, or an 82-millimeter mortar to park up on one of these hills and rain down all kinds of hell onto Kabul Airport while the aircrafts are trying to depart.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Eric, hang on for one second.
He's, uh, Eric's in the region.
We're gonna hold him, General Bolick, all next.
Short commercial break.
Extraction under fire in the war room.
Okay, extraction under fire. We're live 27 August year of our Lord 2021 245 years ago Today, the American Thermopylae took place in Brooklyn, New York, and you know what we got to show for it?
There's an unmarked grave with what, 50, 75, 100?
unidentified
We don't even know, Steve, of these American patriots that sacrificed everything.
Walt Whitman said, the flower of the South.
Put to Adams by a British cannon.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Patrick A. O'Donnell is going to be with us.
Two-hour special this afternoon.
Five to seven on extraction under fire.
Patrick A. O'Donnell, the great combat historian, is going to be there.
We'll have more time to go through.
The first extraction under fire in American history took place over the next couple days from Brooklyn Heights across the East River back to Manhattan.
Saved the Continental Army from a massive British expeditionary force.
Want to go back to Eric Prince.
Now, by the way, go to MyPillow.com.
Promo code War Room.
Support the fight for freedom.
Support this show.
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Support the great apparatus up there at MyPillow.
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We'll explain more of it later, but just go there to our square is what they call it on their site.
Eric Prince, you're in region.
Eric, once again, what would be your, because this is what we want to get ahead of, because we know the next 72 hours is going to be absolutely, our troops are already in harm's way, they're really going to be in harm's way, what would you recommend that the senior command focus on and tell the President has to happen?
unidentified
They should have multiple air assets, I think a couple B-52s overhead with pre-registering every possible firing point for a periphery around that airfield and let it be known to whatever Taliban leadership, whatever bad guys you're communicating with, that if they so much as blink, it will be vaporized and not let any, not a micron of deviation from that.
Washington's troops were aided in that exfil by a miraculous fog that showed up.
Wouldn't it be nice if we got a fog bank again to cover the troops' escape?
But it's a little too dry in Kabul these days.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Thank you.
Eric, real quickly, on the 20th anniversary that's going to be up on us in a couple weeks, instead of a commemoration at the tip of New York, which I know everybody wants to do, in Kabul, they're going to have a celebration of the creation of a new terrorist, a radical jihad terrorist super-state, Haqqani, ISIS-K, Al-Qaeda, Taliban holding the party.
How dangerous is this terrorist super-state going to be to the United States, our allies, and to the world?
unidentified
Look, when they have territory, they have the means for generating significant income, they have that sanctuary where they can operate, and they have that huge moral victory of them beating the United States.
It is a massive recruiting bell to recruit every suicide bomber wannabe, every shithead jihadi.
This is bad.
And so, exactly the opposite effect.
That's a very strong response we got after 9-11.
In the first six months, they were on the run.
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were scared because they felt the unbridled rage of the United States military intelligence community.
And then we've put the kid gloves on, we put the velvet glove on, and they've been forgetting and they kind of got their jihad on now.
I'm afraid the velvet's going to have to come off and it's going to have to go back to being blood and iron.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Eric Prince, thank you very much.
Look forward to getting back in touch with you.
Be safe.
Godspeed.
General Bolduc, your thoughts?
We got about three or four minutes here.
I'd like to have you, your legendary figure in special operations.
What would you be telling the senior commanders today, and particularly the president, of what has to happen to extract these troops and the American citizens with de minimis casualties?
unidentified
Well, yes, sir.
First of all, there has to be a surge of air and ground assets.
It's a landlocked country.
We're going to have to coordinate with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, like we did before, and shorten up those lines.
We've got to take more airfields to shorten up those lines so we get people out in the west, in the north, out in the east of Pakistan.
We need to search some naval assets in the waters off of Pakistan, those areas there, to shorten up the distance of our aircraft, close air support.
We need to bring in special operations, counterterrorism force, We have to control the air.
We have to suppress anything on the ground.
We have to tell the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS, you're not our partners.
And if you poke your head up, we're going to take you out.
And then we have to get safe corridors.
And we have to extend the 31 August date.
We cannot leave Americans behind.
Period.
Period.
And we have 13 of our own to account for, who are doing their job.
And doing it with honor and integrity and sacrificed with a bad plan.
They were still doing it.
And we have to account for that.
We cannot let that go unanswered.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
General, if today, I'm sure they're having those conversations.
I'm not so sure people are listening in the higher command.
Would you recommend to some of these three and four stars that they, if their true beliefs are not taken up as action, that they should resign under protest?
unidentified
I think they should.
I think they should have a news conference in the Pentagon and they should rally together and they should say enough is enough.
We believe in civilian control of the military.
We're not, this is not a coup.
This is Our best military advice, it's being ignored.
It's going to put people in danger.
We're going to leave Americans behind.
It's inconsistent with our character, integrity, and the oath that we took.
And we're no longer going to let this happen.
Do not let Lieutenant Colonel Scheller's video go unanswered.
He speaks the truth.
He's got the cojones enough to say it.
He is right.
And he is speaking, not only for Marines, but I believe for every service member And he's also speaking for guys like myself who are sitting on the outside looking in.
And oh, by the way, I'll raise my hand.
I'll sit on a gun truck.
I'll do whatever I need to do in a heartbeat, right, to contribute.
I'm not just going to sit here and make a lot of noise and say a lot of things without saying I'll put my own skin in the game.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
General Bolduc, how do people find out more information, particularly about your run in New Hampshire for the Senate?
unidentified
Go to www.donbaldick.com and you want bold leadership back in Washington, D.C.
that will serve you and stand up when I see this kind of nonsense going on early so that it's not too late.
Please go to that website and support my campaign.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
General Baldick, thank you very much.
Historic day, Patrick K. O'Donnell.
unidentified
Yes, indeed.
This is the American Thermopylae at exactly this hour.
Six companies of Marylanders charged a stone house occupied by Cornwallis that allowed the American Army, a portion of the American Army, to escape annihilation.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
A forced retreat.
They held it there.
unidentified
By the way, what we have today... I tell that story in The Indispensables.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
We're going to tell the two great books.
They were commemorated today, they're remembered today, with a plaque On a wall of a tavern in Brooklyn in an unmarked grave.
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