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Aug. 20, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
30:38
Afghanistan Was Not Lost
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All right, news roundup and information overload on a Friday, 800-941 Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, I I am still in a state of utter anger, shock, and dismay at all of the absolute lies told by Biden at at his statement four or five question press conference, if even want to call it that.
Um this is Biden.
Um we haven't heard of anybody, you know, not being able to get to the airport.
We we we have secured the airport.
We haven't secured the perimeter, Joe.
We haven't heard of any cases at all of people not being able to make it to the airport.
Well, that's the exact opposite of what your State Department is sending out to people, Americans in Afghanistan, about we can't help you get to the airport.
Oh, and the airport gates may open or close without notice.
Oh, and use your best judgment about going, and we cannot ensure your safe passage.
That's what they're telling him on the other side of this.
We, you know, we played the questions earlier.
But Biden just didn't complete denial.
We've not we've not heard of any case of anybody not being able to get to the airport.
A complete and utter lie with all the video tape evidence to prove it.
Listen.
The military has secured the airport, as you mentioned, but will you sign off on sending U.S. troops into Kabul to evacuate Americans who haven't been able to get to the airport safely.
We have no indication that they haven't been able to get in Kabul through the airport.
We've made an agreement with the with the Taliban thus far.
They've allowed them to go through, it's in their interests in to go through.
So we know of no circumstance where American citizens are carrying an American passport or trying to get through to the airport.
But we will do whatever needs to be done to see to it they get to the airport.
We will see whatever needs to be done.
Meaning there's no control.
We have control of the airport, but we don't have control of one road to get to the airport, not one.
That is controlled by the Taliban.
And and they said they're gonna let Americans with passports through.
Any American that wants to come home, we will get you home.
I want you to hear me.
Now I can't promise any outcome on all of this.
I I mean, he's contradicting himself all over the place.
We made clear to the Taliban that if they get in the way and in any way that there's going to be a forceful response.
No, there's not, Joe.
Because they've got 15,000 Americans they'll use as human shields and hostages, Joe.
They're terrorists.
No indication of any people having difficulties getting to the airport.
Well, the Taliban secures the perimeter, and there's tons of personal stories, images on the ground that contradict everything he's saying.
You know, I i it's it's unbelievable.
No question.
Uh I've not heard anything about our credibility being um uh in any way uh that we've been criticized from from anyone around the world, nobody.
We they don't have any partners.
They've all been highly critical.
And this is the mess that they left.
Uh, we bring in Jason Chaffetz, Fox News contributor, now a distinguished fellow at the Government Accountability Institute, and Peter Schweitzer, the president of the Government Accountability Institute, host of drilldown.com, um, which by the way is extremely successful.
You know, originally we we had him booked for today to talk specifically about the 20-year war and this crushing defeat and you know everything else in between.
And the idea that the president of the United States is lying about the situation on the ground, but more importantly, Jason Chaffetz, I'll start with you.
Well, I guess I probably should start with Peter considering he's your boss, but I'll start with you.
Um but in all seriousness, the the they've had days.
They saw an advancing Taliban take over 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 percent of the country in record time.
This was happening.
They had all the time to prepare for extracting every American, the 60 to 75,000 estimated Afghanis that if they're left behind that will be killed, they did nothing.
Now it's completely out of our our hands.
The control, the fate of our our fellow Americans and our allies is in the hands of the Taliban with reports that go in door to door to identify any Afghani who Supported and helped and assisted America in any way in the last 20 years, and then they're brutally murdering them right on the streets for the world to see.
So it's not exactly as Joe portrayed it today.
We have no leverage at all because he gave that up.
He did.
We have the biggest, baddest military on the face of the planet.
We have an intelligence community that has satellite imagery and technology that nobody else has.
But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made a conscious decision months ago to do it this way.
And remember, there's they're on tape.
They're on audio saying, yeah, we have planned for every contingency.
This chaos was built into the plan that we had put forward.
But somehow the brilliant mind that is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris decided that they were going to close the Bagram Air Force base, where we did have total control of the airspace and the ability to move airplanes in and out.
They gave that up to protect the uh without extracting the Americans, the diplomats, the foreign service operators, the contractors, Americans with passports.
We gave all that up to go do something else, and now we gotta rely on the Taliban.
I have been to that Kabul Airport.
I have flown in and out of it.
It took a convoy, a literally of army in an MRAPS to get me in and out of it.
It is exceptionally dangerous.
And there is no way that Donald Trump would have ever allowed this to happen.
There is no way that that would be done under a different administration, except they made a conscious decision, Sean, to allow the Taliban to be in control of the fate of Americans who are doing America's bidding in the in Afghanistan.
It was a conditions based on the ground agreement, but it was started with a phone call with the leader of the Taliban and President Trump himself as part of this the deal that he had that Biden never followed up on.
And by the way, to get out before the quote war season, uh as war historically is more likely this time of year, which is why Trump had a much earlier date uh for a a drawdown withdrawal, but again, based on conditions on the ground, but also backed by this threat.
And I've talked to now numerous sources that were on the call that heard it, and that before we discuss anything, President Trump said, You saw what I did to the caliphate in Syria, did you not?
Yes.
Okay.
That will be nothing.
If nothing compared to if you do not abide by every comma and period in any agreement we might make that I will blow you into an entirely new century.
Do you understand me?
Apparently those words were spoken by Donald Trump.
He got back an affirmative.
We didn't lose an American in Afghanistan for what?
Almost 18 months, the last 18 months of Trump's presidency.
They weren't on the march or on the move because they feared and believed Donald Trump would do everything that he said.
That fear no longer exists clearly.
Well, this is uh th this is the peace through strength.
If the example to me is Ronald Reagan, some of the most peaceful times we have were with Ronald Reagan because he knew he had the biggest, baddest military, wasn't a file uh afraid of firing on it.
And Donald Trump took exactly the same philosophy.
Is there any doubt in anybody's mind that if somebody did something to even one American that Donald Trump wouldn't send every single asset in there to go take him out?
Compare that to uh Joe Biden and and Kamala Harris, and you got to include Barack Obama who had some of these people in Get Mo and let him get back out on the bat on the battlefield when when uh Benghazi was happy, no assets were sent in.
Does anybody believe that Joe Biden would actually pull the trigger?
He didn't even want to go after Osama bin Laden, for goodness sake.
Peter Schweitzer, your reaction.
Uh yeah, I mean, I I agree exactly with what Jason said.
Um, but you know, Sean, if you look over the the span of American history, I mean, we've had situations before where uh we've had American presidents, let's say, who uh uh were detached who were not completely there.
Um you think of Woodrow Wilson, you think of LBJ.
Um, but at least in those circumstances, we had people around the president um who had the capacity, the knowledge, and the will to do the right thing, to to sort of carry out and protect American interests.
What's troubling right now is you have uh Joe Biden who is detached either because uh because of age And because of a health condition that he has, or he's simply lying to the American people.
But there's no question he's detached from sort of the reality on the ground.
But the people around him, uh, the vice presidents, um, she is uh uh not involved in any way, and you look at the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, you get the same kind of detachment.
So this is this is a very troubling situation that I would say is somewhat unique in American history because nobody seems to be wanting to step up uh and actually fix the problem in the situation that we're in.
And as Jason said, and as you mentioned, Sean, look, the world watches these events.
Um, you know, it is a uh a a global uh society in the sense that if something happens in Afghanistan, people in Beijing, China are aware of what's going on, and weakness breeds aggression.
Uh, and we have seen nothing from Joe Biden on the international stage except for weakness since he became president.
Well, I mean, the the the fact that we saw them on the march, Peter.
We watched them, we witnessed this, we've seen this coming for weeks.
You know, at what point didn't anybody in our national security apparatus, intelligence apparatus, those around the president warn him.
Now, we're discovering that apparently the Pentagon did warn him that that intelligence agencies did warn him.
The State Department did warn him.
And now the question is why didn't he take their advice and admonition seriously?
You have any answer to that?
Because I can I can't figure it out.
No, it's hard to figure out.
Um, you know, what what I liked to Sean is imagine if you have a natural disaster like an earthquake.
An earthquake happens suddenly, nobody's prepared, you're kind of in reaction mode.
This was the equivalent of in 2018 we signed the peace agreement with the Taliban.
This is basically saying three years from now, on this date, there may be an earthquake.
And Joe Biden extended actually the uh the withdrawal that uh that Joe that uh Donald Trump had scheduled for the spring.
So the point is they there's basically been three years of preparation, meaning the bureaucracies, but you have a new administration that comes in, they've got eight months.
They've got eight months to prepare for an earthquake that the State Department in some of the cables.
We now know the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2020 was warning about this.
We know that the CIA was concerned about it.
They were all warning about this earthquake that was going to engulf with the uh uh withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan, and nobody prepared for it.
Nobody secured uh anything.
Um, and it is it is precisely the sort of terrible response from leadership um that is very, very hard to recover from.
Because remember, Sean, Joe Biden said two things to the world.
He said, first of all, well, you know, Donald Trump is unpredictable.
I'm gonna be the adult in the room.
I'm the guy that knows what he's doing.
The second thing that he said was I'm going to be the one that that that has better relations with our allies that Donald Trump with.
They're going to respect me more.
Both of those things were never true.
They are now both definitely not true because it's been demonstrated that the Emperor has no clothes.
Uh that Joe Biden does not have the competency to run uh uh the free world, uh, and he has lost the respect of allies that that really had been built up in the Trump administration and is now basically completely gone.
From the Wall Street Journal, uh Jason Chaffetz, about two dozen State Department officials serving at the embassy in Kabul sent an internal memo to Secretary of State uh Blinken, Anthony and Anthony Blinken, and another and other top State Department officials last month warning of the potential collapse of Kabul.
Now, this was sent on July 13th.
That is five weeks ago, that the Taliban was rapidly gaining ground, and the city was vulnerable to collapse.
They didn't listen, they didn't prepare, they didn't act, and this is now the result.
Basically, Americans held hostage, their lives hanging in the balance uh on the whim of the feelings of a terrorist organization.
Yet the warnings couldn't be any more clear.
Damning evidence the Biden administration was warned by its own officials of this disaster coming.
I I think we're going to continue to see more of that.
I think you're going to see State Department uh cables.
I think you're going to see intelligence reports that continue to stream out to show uh that the Taliban was gaining strength, there was movement.
Uh and And just the very basics of what a leader should have been doing in securing the uh Americans that had passports and getting them out.
I I just I'm absolutely stunned that we would close our Air Force base there at Bagram.
I've flown in and out of Bagram.
I've flown in and out of the Kabul um Karzai Airport.
I have been to all of those places, and I'm gonna tell you one was secure, at least as secure as you could get it.
The other one, not so much.
And they saw this march happening.
But this is exactly the time.
If you match it up, that Joe Biden was going out answering questions saying, oh, the likelihood, oh, near zero.
This isn't gonna happen.
We plan for every contingency.
They have this huge massive uh security force in Afghanistan.
Anyone who's been to Afghanistan knows that with all due respect, most of those people were illiterate.
And yet somehow we left tens of billions of dollars of American assets, military equipment, all back in the hands of terrorists.
We're worse off now than we were before we went in to take out the terrorist threat.
And if you look at the way Joe.
If we get if we get them out, and I I'm just short on time, but if we do get them out, Jason, it's not gonna be because of anything that Joe Biden and his administration did.
It'll be in spite of it.
But it will be basically the terms will be dictated completely by the Taliban.
And and to put Americans in that situation is just unforgivable.
A dereliction of duty that at a level I can't even imagine that we're even talking about.
Uh, thank you both.
Peter Schweitzer, Jason Chaffetz, uh 800-941 Shauna's on number.
We'll have a lot more on all of this tonight on Hannity.
Well, I forgot to bring this up 25 till the top of the hour, 800 941 Sean.
I got to tip my hat to the British military.
They sent in paratroopers to save British citizens successfully, and they even helped step up and and helped evacuate some American citizens left behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.
Of course, following this this disastrous non-plan of Joe Biden missing every single sign and warning.
It was in writing.
They were told in writing specifically that Kabul is going to fall.
Five weeks ago, they were told by over two dozen diplomats what was going on around the country, and which, by the way, you could have looked at the news and just watched the map on a daily basis and see how much ground and territory the Taliban was gaining,
and there's this great, you know, well-trained army, one of the best trained in the world, army of of Afghanistan, with 300,000 uh uh military fighters uh that even have an Air Force, some of the best trained in the world that were gonna be easily be easy for them to defeat the Taliban.
Wow, I didn't know they were gonna collapse.
They were collapsing weeks ago.
The Taliban was advancing for weeks, and nobody you know well, the people on the ground had the urgency, the more than what, two dozen or so State Department officials, their memo, you know, serving in the embassy of Kabul.
They sent it to the Secretary of State.
I assume he had to share that with with Joe Biden, right?
Just have to assume that because you know they send this memo, and over five weeks ago, it's July the 13th.
The Taliban is rapidly gaining ground, and the city of Kabul is vulnerable to collapse.
That was five weeks ago.
This is right after Joe Biden had said it's highly unlikely the Taliban would take control of Afghanistan.
We're already taking control of almost the rest of the country.
I mean, it is it is unbelievable.
It is a tragedy of uh it is by far the biggest strategic military foreign policy disaster we've ever had.
Um now every American life is in the hands of the Taliban.
I see no signs at all uh Joe Biden saying I don't see any indication.
We've not seen have you seen any indication?
No indication whatsoever that you know no, we've secured the the airport.
We have full full we've secured the entire airport.
It's secure.
Six thousand troops on the ground.
We have six thousand.
Only problem is the Taliban's secured the perimeter around the airport, and they are deciding who does and does not get to go to Kabul Airport, and then even when you get there, it's not nothing but utter chaos that has ensued where even Taliban fighters are are firing tear gas to disperse crowds at the airport.
Unbelievable.
We successfully got out New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal reporters.
I'm glad.
I mean that with all sincerity.
But we have what, according to Joe, 15,000.
We don't even have an exact number.
I want every American that wants to know that if you you want to come home, we'll get you home.
But look, I can't really promise any outcome.
It's you know very, very different.
One of the most difficult challenges ever in history created by you, self-inflicted by you.
Never mind those sixty to seventy-five thousand estimated Afghanis that will be identified, they will be murdered.
The Taliban's already going door to door, identifying anybody that may have or did work with Americans.
Apparently they got a hold of a cache of intelligence that that has their names on it.
They're walking dead in Afghanistan.
How will you ever get them out?
We promised them we'd get them out.
The interpreters and others assisting our military for long periods, in some cases, one guy that actually said, I spent a third of my life.
This guy was on TV with me last night.
This guy by the name of Saber.
I won't mention his last name.
Said I spent a third of my life.
My family's stuck over there.
We were promised that you would get us out if this if this moment ever came.
All right, let's get to our phones on this Friday.
I know a lot of you want to weigh in.
Uh let's say hi, it's uh Georgia's in North Carolina.
Hey, Georgia, how are you?
I would say happy Friday, but I'm not exactly happy.
I'm not in the the best mood today, and neither is anybody I know.
Hello, Sean.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
Um I'll just get right to it.
Um after 911, I started sending military care packages and through those projects I met the most amazing men and women in our military, as you know.
Um Sean, more often than not, these military men and women would not just at would not ask me for things for themselves.
They would tell me about their humanitarian missions, the villages that they were adopting, the refugee camps that they were sending supplies to, the schools they were building, most of which were accepting girls for the very, very first time.
And so of course it was wonderful sending supplies for these things.
Um one of my favorite stories is uh a vendor at an FOB, uh told my military contact that he had a group of developmentally delayed children that was a very underserved uh population and at that time, and um they built a school for this developmentally delayed uh children and asked for school supplies.
It's one of my fa those pictures are some of my favorites.
Sean, after last weekend, um it took me a while, but I got those I have large scrapbooks that are just filled with I'm sorry, I'm a little emotional, but that are just filled with letter after letter and pictures, oh, the pictures and certificates of appreciation from all kinds of organizations that say things like your humanitarian efforts have greatly improved the quality of life for the people of Afghanistan and the future of their nation.
That last part screws me.
So I've had trouble reconciling the countless stories of heroism and selflessness and and the relationship with what I'm seeing on the news, and it's been gut-wrenching.
But you know what, Sean?
I will not be defeated in thank in thinking that this is a waste.
And here's why.
No act of kindness, no act of bravery, and no act of integrity is ever wasted.
Even if something evil ones, in this world, wiped out our effort.
The kindness and the courage are forever.
And so if I can just make three points before I let you go.
Um first of all, listeners out there, if you know anyone who is involved in Afghanistan, please reach out to them because they're not feeling okay.
And um, if I'm as affected for my small part, I cannot even imagine the pain of a veteran, a disabled veteran or a gold star family.
Um and second, I touched on it a little earlier, but I know without a doubt that there is more kindness in this world than there is evil.
Now, evil deceit.
We'll try to convince us that it's too much, it's too overwhelming.
Your little bit won't matter.
Your little bit didn't matter.
What you did didn't count.
You know, it's why do you even try?
Don't believe it.
Don't be fooled.
Don't be defeated.
And I don't know what has become of those villages and the schools and the medical centers or the recipients.
You're not gonna like it.
I don't even need to tell you because you already know the answer.
But the effort and the kindness, it meant something then, and it means something now.
And um Well, I gotta let me just say this to you.
I I I'm listening to you and I hear the passion and emotion behind these words of yours, and they're resonating.
Trust me.
People are hearing you.
Okay.
But the reality is is we lost.
The reality is that we botched the withdrawal.
The reality is this is what happens when you have a a weak, frail cognitive mess as a president of the United States.
This is this is when the left wing and their lies and their spin is so so easily proven false that it's a layup in terms of, oh, let me let me debunk this lie and that lie, but that doesn't advance the cause, the immediate concern, which is getting Americans home.
And then that would mean getting those that we know will be killed if we leave them behind home or out of there, get the hell out of there.
But that doesn't do anything for the situation for the people that will remain, which is the majority of people, and that's women and children.
Their lives were ever transformed.
That's right.
I have so many wonderful.
They will no longer be in school.
I promise you, by the time this is all said and done, the Taliban is not changed.
And the last thing I'll say is this Linda and I were talking about this off air today, is that what it must take for a mother to go to the British embassy, go to an embassy, ho uh uh a high wall on top of the wall, out of razor wire, and to take an infant child and throw that child over the razor wire to a British soldier in the hopes that that child will be taken away from you forever, but at least have a chance at a life.
That pretty much speaks volumes.
You might say, well, Hannity, that's cruel.
Who would ever take a baby?
Because they they realize and recognize that which we may not understand.
Life for women is over.
It will be over now in Afghanistan.
They return back to the stone age where they were 20 years ago.
It's like Barney Rubble and Fled Fred Flintstone and Dino the Dinosaur.
And I'm I'm not saying this to be clever.
But it is women were not allowed to go to school.
They were not allowed to go to work, only certain medical care was offered, not most.
Women were taken routinely, raped, they were taken as child brides.
That's all that's all coming back.
Now we'll have plenty of time to discuss the ramifications of of what is going on for the people that will remain there that you tried to very, very generously help.
But I don't have any I don't I don't even have a sliver of hope I can offer you.
I'm not gonna lie to you.
I know.
It's not it, you know, there's a reason those those mothers are terribly discouraging.
I just terrible.
Even though the efforts the effort seems to have been wiped away, the effort mattered, the courage mattered, the kindness mattered.
Whenever you whenever you put kindness into the world, even if even if what you did gets wiped away, the kindness is forever.
It mattered then and it mattered now.
Um but it is very discouraging.
It took me it took me a very long time before I could go upstairs where I keep my scrapbooks and bring those down.
I couldn't even face it.
I spent 18 years uh sending packages.
I mean I I'm thousands and thousands, and the relationships um with the with the military men and women, I I wonder how they're doing.
If I am this upset and I am very upset, I I sent packages.
I didn't send my daughter, I didn't send my son, I didn't leave my legs or my my um you know, my my PTFD, my psyche.
I sent packages, and I am so affected and discouraged, and I was actually battling depression this week over it.
Um and that's why I want this message to r resonate loud and clear to anybody who did anything in this effort.
Like you said, Sean, it's it was defeated, but the effort mattered.
The effort mattered.
You never you never go wrong in in my view in life when you try to do the right thing and you try to assist innocent good people and the the innocent among us.
They're the ones that will suffer.
Our prayers are with all of them, Georgia, and um we could only now hope for the best.
But exp um I would say brace yourself for the worst.
Uh appreciate you checking in with us.
800 941 Shawn is our number.
Christina is in Ohio.
Hey Christina, how are you?
Hey, Sean, how are you?
Oh good, thank you.
Um, I'm mad.
I I am so mad.
If this happened under Trump's presidency, him and his whole administration, they would have been yelling in the streets and wanting his head on a platter.
Instead, we have Pelosi saying how brave he was and how this is like so valiant of him.
We have people that are dying.
We're putting our military up in front of these cameras all over the world, showing weakness like never before.
I mean, when we're asked how many Americans are over there and they don't know, when we are saying, hey, the the British and the French are paratrooping in and getting their people out.
How come we can't do that?
Oh no, no, no, we can't do that.
We don't have the we can't we don't have the capabilities of doing that.
How can we be doing this?
When we're asked our military whether or not they're buying gas from the Taliban and they can't give you a straight answer, that's sad.
The day that we what what is this world coming to?
Instead, we are now pulling our president out of his ice cream socials on vacation to update us sometimes and beat us lines of VS.
He was more worried about his administration looking good to the woke population that we have.
I've got to run, but I'm I'm hearing you loud and clear.
I really am.
And it's it is sad, everything that you're saying.
And yet, China is already prepared to recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan because they want all their natural resources.
800-941 Sean.
We'll continue.
Hannity tonight at nine.
All right, that's gonna wrap things up uh for today.
Hannity tonight on the Fox News channel.
Yeah, Americans hostage behind enemy lines.
We have exclusive uh footage, Sarah Carter and her sources on the ground.
She was in tears the other night on the show uh because she knows so many people.
Lara Logan also has been there many times on the ground.
We'll get some insight from her as well.
Uh the media, they're not even covering up for Biden anymore.
Even James Clapper warning that uh, yeah, Afghanistan, uh they're gonna become pre-9-11 another terror haven, which we already know they are because they released the prisoners.
Uh Dan Hoffman, Jason Chavitz on tonight, Larry Elder on tonight.
We're just loaded up.
Mike Pompeo on tonight.
News you won't get from the mob.
It's all happening tonight.
Please set your D VR.
Hannity 9 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
Pray for our Americans trapped behind enemy lines.
It's gonna take a miracle to get all of them out alive.
It's possible.
I believe in them, but we're all gonna pray hard.
Have a great weekend.
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