“I am of the opinion that we will find our conventional military back in Afghanistan [within] 18 months.”In this episode of Kash’s Corner, Kash Patel and Jan Jekielek turn to national security and dive into the mounting debacle in Afghanistan, the push for a new Iran deal amid sanctions and death threats from Iran, and Russia’s recent maneuverings around Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
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| Hey everybody and welcome back to Cash's Corner. | |
| So Cash, I think we need to go back to talking a little bit about some important national security issues that basically are kind of not being talked about much now because of Omicron, because of, you know, a lot of things that are taking, I guess, the forefront in the news cycle. | |
| So, you know, we we've talked about this before. | |
| We've talked about the you know withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban taking over. | |
| Now we've been hearing about the Taliban's intent to put what was it, 2,000 suicide bombers at the you know, Afghani embassy in in Washington, D.C. in response to a contingent of 2,000 soldiers. | |
| Um we also have the Iran talks, which have have been ongoing, you know, Iran doesn't seem to have been holding uh fast to the sort of the the terms of the deal, so to speak. | |
| Well let's jump into this. | |
| What what are things looking like in the world? | |
| Yeah, I think generally speaking, I'm glad we're back on foreign policy. | |
| Um it's uh probably more of my bread and butter than the than the norm. | |
| But um, you know, a year into the Biden administration basically we're almost exactly at a year. | |
| And you have to look back and evaluate has America gotten stronger, gotten weaker, and it's diplomatic and relationships with Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and things like that. | |
| Those are the big relationships that you monitor and spend time and energy in. | |
| At least we did when when I was in the administration under President Trump. | |
| And I think unfortunately the answer for us is that across the board uh from a national security perspective, our relationships with those countries are weaker. | |
| Um they are taking more advantage of us as Americans, generally speaking, for and when we do engage in these quote unquote diplomatic negotiations or talks or what have you, it's almost just theater. | |
| Um and there's no substance to it. | |
| And that doesn't, and I understand in foreign diplomacy you have to have a certain stage of theater, but you also have to have to have a certain stage of action. | |
| And I haven't seen the action. | |
| So I think we're gonna talk about Iran. | |
| I think Russia's another good example, and I think what the Taliban and it just recently came out with is a third example, so we can sort of hop around the world and talk about our relationships because the Biden administration has recently directly engaged um Iran, directly engaged Russia directly or indirectly gain engaging the Taliban and Afghanistan. | |
| Well, so let why don't we start with Iran actually? | |
| Because uh from what I understand, the um Iran intends to basically give retribution for the killing of Soleimani. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And they're sanctioning people, and that sanctioning means something different for them than it does for Americans. | |
| Yeah, so yes, let's take on Kasim Solomon first, and then we'll get back into the whole JCPOA Iran nuclear program deal. | |
| Uh quick reminder, Kassan Solomon was ahead of the Kutz Force. | |
| What is the Kutz Force? | |
| It is basically the elite special forces unit for Iran's IRGC, their revolutionary guard corps. | |
| Who do they work for? | |
| The Ayatollah. | |
| And so Kassan Solomon over the years had built up quite the um arsenal of terrorists that he would deploy through either Iran or Iran's proxies around the world against Americans. | |
| And just a reminder, Kasim Solomani was responsible for more casualties for US soldiers than any one person in US history. | |
| That's how bad he was. | |
| And President Trump decided to take, I thought, the courageous action and taking him out almost two years ago, um, almost two years ago to the day or the week. | |
| And if you recall, when that happened, obviously it was a massive global event. | |
| And what I remember um, I was at the White House at the time was we were getting calls from across the globe. | |
| Our partners across the globe were cheering that action because they agreed with our position on who Solomon was and how big of a threat he was, not just to America, but to England, to France, to Paris, uh, to everybody. | |
| And so we also have to remind people that this was on the heels of we had killed Baghdadi three months before that, Right. | |
| So the number one terrorist in the world was killed in October, October 31st, and then fast forward to January, a few months later, and Kasim Solomon was taking out. | |
| The head of the state, the largest state sponsor of terror. | |
| So that's the landscape, you know, back then. | |
| And of course they Iran came out and publicly said there was going to be retribution against America. | |
| But I think highlighting this shows the difference in security posture that we have, right? | |
| Back then Iran voiced their outrage. | |
| And if you recall, they launched a couple of what we call indirect fire rockets near and around a U.S. army position, a U.S. military position, that thankfully didn't strike actual soldiers, but hit some structures and caused a few people to have some very mild head injuries. | |
| And um, and that was it. | |
| They knew, I think Iran knew that if they actually killed or caused an actual casualty to an American soldier, the President Trump would have unleashed the rest of the capability we have against Iran immediately. | |
| And I think Iran knew that. | |
| And so Iran wanted to save face for us taking out the head of their terrorism program. | |
| And so they use their propaganda machine to say, oh, look, we launched rockets against an American position. | |
| Fast forward to this past week. | |
| Um what happened? | |
| Jake Sullivan, um, the current National Security Advisor did go out on the record and say if there's any retribution, we will protect against any retribution uh for those who did serve in in a prior administration and those who are serving, which is the right thing to say, I have to admit. | |
| The problem that we have is why is Iran all of a sudden, two years after the death of Soleimani, issuing 51 new sanctions against Americans who were supposedly involved, involved in the Iran in the strike against Soleimani. | |
| Not just that, they issued um effectively a kill order for all those same people. | |
| And they said publicly, not only are we gonna just do it if you come near Iran, they said we're gonna come to American soil and take out those individuals responsible for Soleimani's death. | |
| That is a drastic escalation against American uh America by I would say our biggest enemy when it comes to terrorism. | |
| And we don't really have a response to that. | |
| Like I I just don't think the way we've handled it, a message saying we're gonna protect Americans who served and are currently serving is a step in that direction. | |
| But this sort of takes us into I think the next thing we're gonna talk about with Iran was the whole nuclear deal and all that stuff. | |
| I think it's all intertwined. | |
| Well, it's it's deeply connected because from what we can see, the the Biden administration is deeply committed to enacting the JCPOA in some form, right? | |
| Even as it was kind of, you know, it was canceled under the administration you were part of. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Um so quick history, JCPOA, commonly referred to as the Iran Agreement, right, or the Iran nuclear agreement, uh executed and signed off under the uh Obama administration, and I at the time and since then I've deeply disagreed with us entering that agreement. | |
| The goal of the agreement, I will say, was to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which is the goal every Democrat and Republican shares when it comes to Iran. | |
| It's the how do we get them to do that, was the was the disagreement. | |
| Obama thought that by giving them billions in cash that we had seized from them and frozen from them would I don't know, muster some goodwill. | |
| I I didn't think it was a good approach. | |
| It proved not to be a good approach. | |
| And what they said in that agreement was not just America signed on to it, but I think England and a couple other of our biggest allies all signed on to it with Iran, France and a couple other people. | |
| And they said, you Iran cannot go past X in terms of weapons grade production of nuclear material. | |
| So you have to get like a physical material that's 90% to hit the weapons grade mark, and back then they were at like 20. | |
| And then they couldn't hit um certain amount of other percentages as it relates to their nuclear weapons program without getting into details. | |
| But we now know looking back that they never abided by those agreements anyway, even when they entered the JCPOA. | |
| So that's why I think President Trump came in and said, You're not, you Iran are not letting the UN and the global community of inspectors for nuclear weapons come in to a four-do and look and examine that facility to see is it active? | |
| If it's not active, what's there, what kind of nuclear weapons are there, what kind of nuclear materials there? | |
| We just we were blocked out. | |
| So I think President Trump rightly so said, we're out. | |
| Why are we in an agreement that's supposed to prevent you from getting nuclear weapons and nuclear material when you're breaking the purpose of that agreement? | |
| And so that caused a big uproar, I think, in uh during in the public as to, you know, wow, we've withdrawn from JCPOA and Iran is now definitely going to get a nuclear weapon. | |
| And I I disagree with that because we actually, under Trump's administration, were extremely harsh on Iran. | |
| We levied more sanctions against them than any previous administration. | |
| We crippled their currency. | |
| Um literally to the point where they added a zero just as a number. | |
| This is how this is how bad it got. | |
| It got so devalued because of our sanctions during the Trump administration, they literally just took a zero and said, we'll just help our currency regrow by adding a zero, which is you and I know you can't do that, but that's how bad it got. | |
| And so we knew it was working. | |
| It was crippling their government. | |
| What else were we doing? | |
| We were wiping out the costumanis of the world, and we were wiping out um Iranian proxies and other terrorists related to Iran's IRGC in Yemen and around Somalia, in Iraq. | |
| So we were sort of taking them on around the world around the uh region, and that's what you have to do with in Iran. | |
| But they then said, okay, well, we're gonna march ahead with a nuclear program that gets us to a nuclear weapon. | |
| We just didn't let them. | |
| And they didn't succeed. | |
| So when you have a change in administration, then President Trump's out and President Biden has come in and said he wants, as you said, come in with a form of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement. | |
| I think that's catastrophic for U.S. national security, because they Iran already showed that even when they signed on to such an agreement, they broke it anyway. | |
| So what are we gonna do? | |
| Reward them by putting them, propping them back up on the world stage, giving their currency value again for continuing to produce nuclear material towards a nuclear weapon. | |
| I just don't see that as the appropriate national security approach for Iran. | |
| We're basically awarding them, uh rewarding them for their conduct. | |
| And I'm kind of personally offended that, you know, when when they issue these sanctions, they Iran against Americans, American citizens, and and and death orders, kill orders against these folks. | |
| In light of that, we're gonna continue to engage diplomatically with Iran and go to, I think the talks are in Vienna or wherever they are. | |
| I think that's absurd. | |
| I mean, we would we didn't do that under President Trump, and I think it highlights the weaker position that America is now in because Iran is just saying we're gonna do whatever we want. | |
| We're gonna issue these death threats, we're gonna sanction all these people, we're gonna publicly say we're coming after Americans on American soil, and we're gonna do whatever it takes to get a nuclear weapons program. | |
| So why would we offer them an out? | |
| Why would we offer them the ability to come come back into this so-called program? | |
| Um it's kind of mind-boggling to me. | |
| And that's um the only other thing we haven't talked about is the snapback provisions. | |
| But that's uh getting into the weeds, we can do it quickly. | |
| Well, no, but the the thing that strikes me here is again also that you know this is obviously this these sanctions, as I said, it's the sanctions seem to mean something very different for for the Iranian regime than the for Americans. | |
| But most Americans probably don't even know that that those orders were issued at this point. | |
| Yeah, right. | |
| Because we're well, we're so consumed with these other things, but but also uh not a ton of media coverage of this. | |
| No, no, almost none. | |
| That's why I wanted to focus on on our show today on that, because a lot of people on that list, everybody on that list is someone I serve with. | |
| Some of them are my friends, you know. | |
| I don't want kill orders out against them for doing the national security job of America. | |
| Nor and this administration shouldn't want that either. | |
| But we can't give Iran a leg up after they've taken such a posture against us. | |
| And that's what I was talking about earlier when I think we have been we have weakened our national security posture of this is one example with Iran. | |
| And I think the Biden administration has, and we'll do Snapback real quick. | |
| What is Snapback? | |
| Snapback sanctions meant when the JCPOA was signed, there was a United Nations provisions on sanctions against Iran that were withdrawn. | |
| That is the UN had these pretty harsh sanctions on Iran from a number of different countries. | |
| And snapback was if Iran violated the JCPOA, it would automatically snap back to the prior landscape. | |
| That is all the sanctions that the UN had in place beforehand would automatically come back into place. | |
| I don't think that's realistic. | |
| So I think when people talk snap back now, they've already violated the JCPOA. | |
| So I just don't understand the logic. | |
| We're gonna put them back in the JCPOA and then have them violate it again and then try to do snap back. | |
| I mean, I I just think this is political theater when it comes to national security, especially as it relates to Iran. | |
| And we're giving them, and this goes back to what we were saying, the theme we were saying at the beginning of the show, their propaganda machine is going a hundred miles an hour. | |
| And they are out-messaging America when it comes to their position in the world. | |
| And I don't recall a time when we did that under the Trump administration. | |
| A quick comment on the, you know, the effectiveness of the sanctions. | |
| So, and this is a number of people have say this, and I think it's true, right? | |
| The sanctions can be really tough on the Iranian regime, but they're also incredibly tough on the Iranian people as well. | |
| And people take issues with Ish, right? | |
| I think that's a great point, and you know, I'm glad you brought this up, Jan, because what I should have led with is we under the Trump administration and we as America should not be out to get take out all of Iran. | |
| Because most of the people in Iran are citizens in Iran that disagree with the Ayatollah and the Kutz force. | |
| It's just so happens that the Kutz force and the Ayatollah run the country. | |
| So when you issue these crippling sanctions, yes, unfortunately, they have an impact on the everyday citizenry who doesn't necessarily agree with their leadership. | |
| Um and as we know, and as you know, in Iran, only a minority of that population actually agrees with what the Iatoll is doing and how Iran is run and the Kutz Force and the IRGC. | |
| And so that's the unfortunate reality is when you issue sanctions when you take when you devalue their currency or when you do something against Iran, you know, you're always cognizant of what are you doing to the everyday people there too. | |
| And um that becomes a very difficult balancing act because you have to weigh America's national security interest by the ruling faction versus how are you gonna impact the everyday citizens? | |
| And at least us under President Trump, we weighed those two every time we took action against Iran, but we we always, and I think rightly so, aired on the side of protecting American national security interests. | |
| And sometimes that was a actually every time that was a really difficult decision. | |
| You know, I I can't help thinking about this uh the Taliban saying we're gonna put 2,000, you know, suicide bombers basically. | |
| It feels like a very similar type of thing almost. | |
| I mean, in terms of messaging, if we're talking about propaganda, because of course this is very much, very much a lot about messaging. | |
| I don't think that those 2,000 are gonna show up there. | |
| Sure, no, you're totally right, right? | |
| 2,000 Bujahideen are not gonna show up in Washington, D.C. at the Afghan embassy. | |
| It's never gonna happen. | |
| But it is what we were talking about. | |
| It's a it's an easy propaganda win that the world will look at and say, is the Taliban really telling the Americans that these these soldiers are gonna c these mercenaries are gonna come in here and stand guard. | |
| They just didn't say those things under, you know, under the Trump administration because the posture we took against Afghanistan and the Taliban was so completely different. | |
| We made it a priority to wipe out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. | |
| We made it a priority to have the Taliban come to the negotiating table with the Afghan government. | |
| And this is one of the most important things that I don't think people have realized. | |
| Since the transfer of administrations from Trump to Biden, the people that are now leading the Taliban are five individuals that used to be in Guantanamo Bay. | |
| Known terrorists that we let out. | |
| So the leadership structure of the Taliban has changed. | |
| Putting aside the whole Afghan withdrawal and the catastrophe that that was. | |
| The the Taliban has come in and said, we the Taliban are the government of Afghanistan. | |
| Why are they saying that? | |
| The United States has bankrolled the Afghan, it's it's a it's a law passed by Congress. | |
| They have funded the government of Afghanistan every year for the last at least a decade. | |
| The Taliban are now coming in on the world stage and saying, we the Taliban are the government. | |
| You, the U.S., per your law, have to give us those billions of dollars. | |
| Now, thankfully, to date, that Taliban has not been recognized as the government of Afghanistan. | |
| And I'm not sure where it's going to go, but if we do end up giving them the billions that by law we have to give the Afghan government, um, we're gonna be funding terrorism. | |
| Because what look at what the Taliban's doing in Afghanistan, and again, this is not getting coverage either. | |
| They're going back, they're reverting back to the old ways of how they treat women, of how they treat people who are not in the Taliban. | |
| Um quick vignette, you know, bath houses. | |
| Who cares? | |
| Why is that important? | |
| Well, in Afghanistan, if you don't allow the women to use the bathhouses in the country, that's one of the only ways you stay warm in Afghanistan during the winter. | |
| And people don't realize this, but Afghanistan gets really cold. | |
| It has nasty winters and snow. | |
| Um it is people don't realize it's not just a desert, it's very far north in terms of the geography of the earth, and it has some harsh winters. | |
| And that's just one example. | |
| They have also lately the Taliban has been implementing a string of s of bombings killing people. | |
| And to me, the most important thing as an American is we still have American citizens on the ground in Afghanistan that can't get out, that haven't gotten out. | |
| And you have you have these great programs like Project Dynamo and others that have gone in and done the work of what I believe the government should have done. | |
| And the roadblocks they've run into are kind of um shocking. | |
| The U.S. government has told some of these private groups that you you're not allowed to go in and get these individuals, these American citizens out. | |
| If you do, we're gonna we're gonna interfere or we're gonna look at you and your operation. | |
| And the Department of Justice has gone so far as to say that if you move American citizens across a border, technically that's human trafficking, um, we might prosecute you. | |
| I mean, can you imagine this? | |
| Like these groups are charitable organizations, former military guys uh in the DOD that I served with that are just trying to get American citizens out. | |
| That's all they're trying to do. | |
| And they're trying to get other people out, not just Americans, just people who are now targets of the Taliban and move them to a third country. | |
| And it's been almost impossible. | |
| And the fact that we still have American citizens there, I think is tragic. | |
| So this goes back to our point. | |
| How's a Taliban gained so much at least posture power on the world stage? | |
| Doing the same thing Iran's doing. | |
| They're using their propaganda machine. | |
| They're dictating to America for the first time in a long time what their position is versus what ours is. | |
| And I don't see a response. | |
| I'm not saying we should go back into Afghanistan, but we should at least get our people out. | |
| And we should also at least prevent some of these atrocities that are happening from happening. | |
| And no one's covering them. | |
| It's like, again, to your point, no one's covering Iran. | |
| No one's covering the Taliban going out there and slaughtering Afghans. | |
| It's not like since we left, Afghanistan is just this peaceful place. | |
| In my opinion, I think it's gotten worse. | |
| And what happens when you let the Taliban that is now run by terrorists, who comes back? | |
| Al Qaeda. | |
| That's their homeland. | |
| We reached out to the Department of Defense for comment, but they did not immediately respond. | |
| And so when you you said something we should at least prevent some of these atrocities from happening, how would you do that? | |
| Because it does sound that does sound like saying like we need you we we do you do want America to go back in there somehow. | |
| Or is there some other method you're imagining? | |
| No, I I think there it's a combination. | |
| Unfortunately, I I am of the opinion that we will find our conventional military back at Afghanistan inside 18 months. | |
| Um, just because it's it's not gonna go it's not gonna go well with the Taliban increasing in power. | |
| What you could do, so you know, especially if we're supposedly taking on these diplomatic negotiations that this administration is supposedly entertaining with the Taliban is you could say, okay, we know you the Taliban need money. | |
| I mean, we do this the world over. | |
| If you want our American dollars, it comes with all of these attachments, all of these strings. | |
| Wipe out some of the leadership that has direct ties to terrorism and our terrorists themselves, tell them to stop killing people that are not on their side or their team for lack of a better word, and give us access so that we can get our citizens and our allies citizens out of Afghanistan, should they want to leave. | |
| That's an option. | |
| Because Afghanistan, their number one money maker, unfortunately, is the opiate trade, which is illegal. | |
| So they have that funding coming in, but they don't have any other capital. | |
| They don't have a bank reserve. | |
| They don't have another, they don't have trade going out of the country that's bringing billions of dollars. | |
| They don't have a tourism industry, they don't have anything like that. | |
| So they solely rely on the West for funds. | |
| And at a certain point, they're gonna run out of money. | |
| And so you could you could do it that way on a diplomatic front. | |
| But I just don't see us posturing against the Taliban. | |
| I don't see this administration taking a hard stance against them. | |
| I don't see us going to Britain, going to France, going to wherever, pick a country, and saying we cannot have you the Taliban act like this. | |
| I haven't seen it. | |
| It's it's not even talked about in this administration. | |
| Since the catastrophic withdrawal, or the evacuation, as I call it, with Biden, we've almost stopped talking about Afghanistan and what's going on. | |
| Yeah, so speaking of these, you know, strong postures, you mentioned Russia, you mentioned China earlier, and which are likewise taking very uh our aggressive postures, whether it's to Taiwan, and of course that's intimately connected by law with the United States, and and of course, Russia, um, which is you know making all sorts of uh very disturbing moves. | |
| Let's just talk about Russia, because they've actually been engaging in diplomatic talks with the US just last week. | |
| We had the dep our deputy secretary of state meet with their deputy foreign minister in I want to say Geneva or you know, one of the fancy European countries. | |
| And that's good. | |
| I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, we should do that. | |
| But Putin, unfortunately, I think has taken advantage of this administration to the detriment of the American people. | |
| He knows he can expend minimal amounts of money, use his propaganda machine, and posture a position that makes him look like he's uh in a superior position to the United States. | |
| So he's doing this troop movements in Crimea, and now he's talking about the whole situation in Kazakhstan, which real quick for people that don't know Kazakhstan is basically sits under Russia geographically, massive country, lots of uh gas um and uh production there. | |
| Former Soviet Soviet, uh yeah, former Soviet Republic. | |
| And so Putin's now saying he's gonna move troops over to Kazakhstan. | |
| The Premier there just got either resigned or kicked out, I can't remember, but their government's having some serious problems in Kazakhstan. | |
| Well, why does that matter? | |
| Who cares? | |
| Because Putin's taking the region and basically showing the rest of the world with it doesn't cost him a lot of money, him Putin to move a few thousand troops here or to put out some propaganda against Kazakhstan that makes Russia look good and doesn't make us look good. | |
| Well, and and I mean, and frankly, support there they were legitimate protests against the Kazakh government, and you know, Putin's involvement essentially prevents those from taking their course. | |
| And of course, you know, there's a lot of discussion about what that's all about. | |
| But but Putin's basically made it taking his position. | |
| I I'm I'm the guy in charge here. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And look, these talks that the Deputy Secretary of State was having with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia involved troop movements from Russia to the Ukraine. | |
| And what the Deputy Secretary of State rightly said Was the United States will not allow like a quote unquote invasion of Russian forces into the Ukraine. | |
| Now, that's the right position to take. | |
| You don't want Russia invading the Ukraine. | |
| But I think the Russians are sitting there saying, if we do it, what are you guys gonna do? | |
| You, the US. | |
| And I don't think we're postured to do much of anything. | |
| What are we gonna do? | |
| Send troops over to the Ukraine, American soldiers. | |
| Um I think Putin, I don't think he's gonna invade the Ukraine, but I think he's using the situation again to his advantage. | |
| He's saying he might. | |
| He's putting troops around the Ukraine, and what are we doing? | |
| The world is fixated on that dance between Russia and the US in foreign policy, and it's another scenario where we're unfortunately, I think, losing our global power position. | |
| Because Putin's like, I'm gonna do whatever I want, whether it's Ukraine or Kazakhstan or what have you. | |
| I'm gonna do whatever I want. | |
| And you mentioned China. | |
| So I don't think we'll get into the we then to China stuff, right? | |
| But just a couple months ago, China putting aside Taiwan. | |
| China was in the South China Sea taking target practice at American dummy ships that they had built. | |
| They were literally shooting at not our actual ships, want to be clear, but the Chinese government, the CCP, had made dummy ships with U.S. flags and U.S. insignia on them and were shooting them. | |
| Because I think Xi Jinping has taken a similar approach to Putin. | |
| It's great propaganda from their perspective. | |
| It costs them almost nothing. | |
| And it makes the American position in the world look weakened. | |
| We didn't do anything in response to it. | |
| We haven't done anything in response to, and I know we talked about this on the previous show, the the the winter Olympics being in a country where there's three levels of genocide there. | |
| And so it's almost as if we're just like looking the other way at some of these and going to the microphone every now and then and saying, that's bad, don't do it. | |
| That has a purpose, but if there's no teeth behind it, that's what I think is the difference between this administration and the prior administration under Trump. | |
| When we said stuff, it was backed by action that we took. | |
| For example, in Afghanistan, when Trump when President Trump said, you the Taliban have to eliminate um your your ties with Al Qaeda, they knew he meant it because we went on a serious manhunt to wipe out Al Qaeda and ISIS. | |
| Um and they knew that if they tied themselves to Al Qaeda, they would be at the receiving end of that um action. | |
| And similarly, in Iran, President Trump was very harsh on Iran between economic sanctions and actions we took again, the IRGC and the Kutz force, not just around Iran, but in Iraq, in Yemen, places where Iran operates against American interests. | |
| Most people don't know that, but they move outside of Iran with their proxy forces and attack our interests there. | |
| But we ended up killing, for example, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Amir, um, because he was he was one of the number one targets on our terrorism list, and um just couldn't allow the guy's name was Qasim uh Kasim Elimi, and we knew that if we took him out, that would show the world and Iran that we're gonna come after you. | |
| So that's the difference in you know, saying we're gonna do X and backing it up with actual action versus just taking this quote-unquote diplomatic posture, putting it in the media, and then Xi Jinping, Putin, the Ayatollah, the new head of the Kutz Force are all just, I don't think they're taking us that seriously, and for the first time they're dictating um their positions to America. | |
| You know, I I think I get a sense of what you would do, but what is Cash Patel's prescription here? | |
| Uh I think in short, one, we have to educate the American public that these things were happening. | |
| We have to talk about what's happening with Iran, with Russia, with China, um, and things like that. | |
| Uh and then once you do that and you actually get the news out there of the facts about how and and the Taliban, then you start encouraging your government to act appropriately, um, or at least what I think is appropriate, which is not what we're doing right now. | |
| So it takes time. | |
| It's a it's a plan you have To put together and you roll it out over the course of you know 12, 18 months. | |
| I just don't think we have any of those plans in place under this administration. | |
| So step one, hopefully people start paying more attention to how the Taliban is treating people in Afghanistan, uh what Xi Jinping's doing in China against American interests, what Putin's doing for very little money against American interests, and what Iran has just recently done very publicly against American citizens in America. | |
| And that's how you that's how you have to move the needle. | |
| You have to educate enough people, get them to pay attention to and talk about it so that it starts becoming an issue in not just Congress, but over in the executive branch where they can take action. | |
| Well, Cash, I think it's time for the shout-out. | |
| Yep. | |
| So today's shout-out, Jan, goes to Andy Ostertag. | |
| Thanks so much for your comments on our board at Cash's Corner, and thank you everybody else for submitting your comments. | |
| Uh Jan and I read them every week and we really enjoy it. |