Dennis Prager Show - George Friedman: End to War in Afghanistan?
Aired: 2020-03-03
Duration: 08:05


=== Turkish Border Tensions (08:03) ===

[00:00:00]  The storm before the calm.
[00:00:02]  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.
[00:00:13]  What is George Friedman's take?
[00:00:17]  Well, this war has gone on a long time.
[00:00:19]  The original purpose was to hunt down Tal Qaeda, which is collaborating with the Afghan government, disrupt it.
[00:00:29]  That was achieved.
[00:00:30]  Once we did that, we decided to stay.
[00:00:33]  And the mission crept up to making Afghanistan a democracy, which was fairly insane.
[00:00:41]  There was no real path to anything comparing to victory.
[00:00:47]  So I would say that what has happened here is that as part of the Trump doctrine to reduce our troops in the world...
[00:00:58]  We had decided to fold our cards, win what we could, and leave.
[00:01:06]  And unless we're planning to spend the next century there, that was a very good move.
[00:01:12]  So if we leave and it provides echoes of our leaving South Vietnam, And there's a massacre of Afghans.
[00:01:27]  Women are removed from the public sphere.
[00:01:32]  Girls who go to school are shot.
[00:01:34]  You would still hold it was the right thing to do?
[00:01:37]  Well, given that we're there, and that's when the girls are shot, and women are oppressed, yes.
[00:01:44]  An army is not a police force, and a police force is not a social worker or someone going for conversion.
[00:01:50]  This is a heavily primitive...
[00:01:53]  It's an Islamic country.
[00:01:55]  It is a country that fought the British, fought the Russians, and wore them down.
[00:02:02]  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.
[00:02:10]  And even if they're not, no amount of American blood is going to change them.
[00:02:15]  We got rid of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
[00:02:18]  They fretted, planted a price called Tora Bora.
[00:02:21]  And we weren't going to do better than that, even if we wanted to.
[00:02:26]  So, look, in retrospect, I think a lot of people believe we should have simply deposed the Taliban at the time and left.
[00:02:35]  But, of course, the—well, not of course.
[00:02:39]  Let me ask you this.
[00:02:40]  Do you believe that once we leave, the Taliban will stay peaceful?
[00:02:46]  I don't think so.
[00:02:47]  The Taliban is heavily fragmented.
[00:02:50]  They fought civil wars with various groups before they took power.
[00:02:54]  They fight with themselves.
[00:02:56]  This is a violent country.
[00:02:58]  So there is no path to stability in Afghanistan.
[00:03:03]  And there can be simply using our troops to show our commitment to building a democratic society.
[00:03:12]  Well, I have two children in the military, and I'm not particularly happy with them having that mission.
[00:03:17]  They're not symbols.
[00:03:18]  They're human beings.
[00:03:21]  Okay.
[00:03:22]  I was very interested to get your response.
[00:03:25]  Turkey has now opened its border, another late-breaking development, to allow Syrian refugees out into Europe.
[00:03:35]  Do I have that correct?
[00:03:37]  Pretty much, yeah.
[00:03:39]  And the reason Turkey is doing this is?
[00:03:42]  Well, there was a deal between the Europeans and the Turks.
[00:03:48]  The Syrians were swarming into Europe.
[00:03:51]  There was all sorts of internal fighting over this.
[00:03:55]  And the Europeans agreed that if the Turks would house them in Turkey, the Europeans would pay the price, pay the cost.
[00:04:05]  Okay?
[00:04:06]  Well, the Europeans never came through with the money.
[00:04:10]  And at this moment in history, where the Turks are fighting the Syrians, As well as the Russians.
[00:04:18]  And the Europeans are refusing to give them any help.
[00:04:23]  Erdogan did something that was not unexpected.
[00:04:27]  He said, okay, deal's off.
[00:04:29]  You take care of the Syrian refugees and we won't.
[00:04:32]  And proceeded to release them.
[00:04:34]  Now the Europeans have to decide either pay up or live with the problem.
[00:04:40]  What will they do?
[00:04:43]  They'll hold a meeting.
[00:04:45]  The Europeans don't have any consensus as to what they should do.
[00:04:51]  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.
[00:04:58]  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.
[00:05:07]  Europe is a divided, fragmented continent who's lost its second largest economy, the British.
[00:05:14]  We've had enough.
[00:05:16]  So they're not in a position to do anything.
[00:05:19]  What the Turks really want is to see the Americans do something.
[00:05:23]  And what they've asked for from the Americans are Patriot missiles.
[00:05:27]  Now, the U.S. has a serious decision to make.
[00:05:32]  They're asking for Patriot missiles so that we put our skin in the game on their side, their historic enemies.
[00:05:39]  But doing that would also put us in a position of confronting the Russians.
[00:05:45]  So we have to make a decision.
[00:05:47]  Why do missiles, forgive me, why do missiles to Turkey confront Russians?
[00:05:52]  Because those missiles, there's a fight going on.
[00:05:55]  The Turks bought S-400 Russian missiles.
[00:06:00]  We didn't want them to.
[00:06:02]  We said they should buy Patriot missiles.
[00:06:04]  They bought them anyway.
[00:06:06]  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.
[00:06:13]  Oh, so it's an economic confrontation with Russia, not a military.
[00:06:19]  Well, the Russians struck at Turkish positions, killing 30 last week.
[00:06:26]  Why did they do that?
[00:06:27]  Why did they do that?
[00:06:29]  Well, they were warning the Turks not to come in and threaten the Syrian regime.
[00:06:35]  The Turks are historic enemies of the Assad regime.
[00:06:40]  They are...
[00:06:41]  Oh, okay.
[00:06:42]  All right.
[00:06:42]  So that answers my question.
[00:06:44]  The issue is Syria.
[00:06:45]  I get it.
[00:06:47]  So strengthening Turkey is weakening Syria.
[00:06:50]  Syria is Russia's client.
[00:06:52]  Well, Syria also is linked to Russia.
[00:06:55]  And Russia and Syria are pressing on the Turkish border.
[00:06:59]  Where we still have troops, by the way.
[00:07:01]  All that weren't taken out.
[00:07:04]  So we're in a position here where they're pressing on the Turkish border.
[00:07:08]  The Turkish...
[00:07:09]  Turks, who have a pretty impressive army, struck back.
[00:07:13]  The Russians came in with airstrikes, and Turkey, not to make a joke, went ballistic.
[00:07:21]  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.
[00:07:32]  Today there was a meeting between the Defense Department and the State Department.
[00:07:36]  The State Department wanted to give them the defensive missiles.
[00:07:40]  The Defense Department, according to the press, refused.
[00:07:45]  The Defense Department does not want to commit without knowing what the endgame is and how many forces they have.

=== George Friedman's Latest (00:17) ===

[00:07:52]  All right, hold it there if you would, because I want to tell people again.
[00:07:55]  This is George Friedman, my go-to person on foreign affairs.
[00:08:01]  Clarity and knowledge.
[00:08:02]  The storm before the calm.
[00:08:04]  is his latest book.