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March 3, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
08:05
George Friedman: End to War in Afghanistan?
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Time Text
The storm before the calm.
So, my first question to you is the breaking news item of the last week, and that is the deal the U.S. signed with the Taliban.
What is George Friedman's take?
Well, this war has gone on a long time.
The original purpose was to hunt down Tal Qaeda, which is collaborating with the Afghan government, disrupt it.
That was achieved.
Once we did that, we decided to stay.
And the mission crept up to making Afghanistan a democracy, which was fairly insane.
There was no real path to anything comparing to victory.
So I would say that what has happened here is that as part of the Trump doctrine to reduce our troops in the world...
We had decided to fold our cards, win what we could, and leave.
And unless we're planning to spend the next century there, that was a very good move.
So if we leave and it provides echoes of our leaving South Vietnam, And there's a massacre of Afghans.
Women are removed from the public sphere.
Girls who go to school are shot.
You would still hold it was the right thing to do?
Well, given that we're there, and that's when the girls are shot, and women are oppressed, yes.
An army is not a police force, and a police force is not a social worker or someone going for conversion.
This is a heavily primitive...
It's an Islamic country.
It is a country that fought the British, fought the Russians, and wore them down.
And as much as we would like to make this a better world, we need to face the fact that some places are quite happy the way they are.
And even if they're not, no amount of American blood is going to change them.
We got rid of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
They fretted, planted a price called Tora Bora.
And we weren't going to do better than that, even if we wanted to.
So, look, in retrospect, I think a lot of people believe we should have simply deposed the Taliban at the time and left.
But, of course, the—well, not of course.
Let me ask you this.
Do you believe that once we leave, the Taliban will stay peaceful?
I don't think so.
The Taliban is heavily fragmented.
They fought civil wars with various groups before they took power.
They fight with themselves.
This is a violent country.
So there is no path to stability in Afghanistan.
And there can be simply using our troops to show our commitment to building a democratic society.
Well, I have two children in the military, and I'm not particularly happy with them having that mission.
They're not symbols.
They're human beings.
Okay.
I was very interested to get your response.
Turkey has now opened its border, another late-breaking development, to allow Syrian refugees out into Europe.
Do I have that correct?
Pretty much, yeah.
And the reason Turkey is doing this is?
Well, there was a deal between the Europeans and the Turks.
The Syrians were swarming into Europe.
There was all sorts of internal fighting over this.
And the Europeans agreed that if the Turks would house them in Turkey, the Europeans would pay the price, pay the cost.
Okay?
Well, the Europeans never came through with the money.
And at this moment in history, where the Turks are fighting the Syrians, As well as the Russians.
And the Europeans are refusing to give them any help.
Erdogan did something that was not unexpected.
He said, okay, deal's off.
You take care of the Syrian refugees and we won't.
And proceeded to release them.
Now the Europeans have to decide either pay up or live with the problem.
What will they do?
They'll hold a meeting.
The Europeans don't have any consensus as to what they should do.
There are countries like Hungary that simply say, we're a Christian country, we're not going to let in Muslims to change their character.
There are countries like Germany that are divided between those who don't think national character matters and those who believe that it does intensely.
Europe is a divided, fragmented continent who's lost its second largest economy, the British.
We've had enough.
So they're not in a position to do anything.
What the Turks really want is to see the Americans do something.
And what they've asked for from the Americans are Patriot missiles.
Now, the U.S. has a serious decision to make.
They're asking for Patriot missiles so that we put our skin in the game on their side, their historic enemies.
But doing that would also put us in a position of confronting the Russians.
So we have to make a decision.
Why do missiles, forgive me, why do missiles to Turkey confront Russians?
Because those missiles, there's a fight going on.
The Turks bought S-400 Russian missiles.
We didn't want them to.
We said they should buy Patriot missiles.
They bought them anyway.
Now that they have problems with the Russians, they want the Patriot missiles because they're not sure the Russian missiles will work against Russian aircraft.
Oh, so it's an economic confrontation with Russia, not a military.
Well, the Russians struck at Turkish positions, killing 30 last week.
Why did they do that?
Why did they do that?
Well, they were warning the Turks not to come in and threaten the Syrian regime.
The Turks are historic enemies of the Assad regime.
They are...
Oh, okay.
All right.
So that answers my question.
The issue is Syria.
I get it.
So strengthening Turkey is weakening Syria.
Syria is Russia's client.
Well, Syria also is linked to Russia.
And Russia and Syria are pressing on the Turkish border.
Where we still have troops, by the way.
All that weren't taken out.
So we're in a position here where they're pressing on the Turkish border.
The Turkish...
Turks, who have a pretty impressive army, struck back.
The Russians came in with airstrikes, and Turkey, not to make a joke, went ballistic.
They turned to the European, to NATO, and NATO basically made no commitment to help their members of NATO. They then turned to the United States.
Today there was a meeting between the Defense Department and the State Department.
The State Department wanted to give them the defensive missiles.
The Defense Department, according to the press, refused.
The Defense Department does not want to commit without knowing what the endgame is and how many forces they have.
All right, hold it there if you would, because I want to tell people again.
This is George Friedman, my go-to person on foreign affairs.
Clarity and knowledge.
The storm before the calm.
is his latest book.
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