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Hour 2, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-SEAN.
Our number, you want to be a part of the program.
I want to play again.
The president holds his press conference today.
We don't know the exact number of people that are there, Americans.
And our goal is to get every American citizen, every Afghan that helped us, even women that are in the field of journalism, anybody's life who will be in jeopardy if, in fact, they are left behind.
Yeah, the only problem with this is he's obviously not paying attention to the fact that there is a ton of press already out there.
About the Taliban.
Their deplorable, despicable treatment of women.
How all these Afghani women are living in fear.
How they are going home to home.
That's right, Taliban brutality, house to house in Afghanistan, hanging people if they can identify them as having in any way worked with the United States in the last 20 years.
Afghan journalists attempts to flee, describing the efforts over the sound of gunfire.
Taliban fighters now they apparently have a Black Hawk helicopter, a military helicopter.
Now they're dressed as U.S. troops and mocking America with propaganda videos.
Pretty scary.
You got mothers taking their young children and throwing them over high walls with barbed wire, razor wire on top, begging British soldiers to take their children with them.
May sound cruel to some people.
Why?
Well ask yourself, why would a mother goes against every maternal paternal if it's a if it's a father instinct that any parent would have.
Why would they do that?
Because they know how bad it's going to be.
Because that's how bad it was.
And you know, Biden telling lie after lie after lie.
We had no idea to get here in such record time.
Well, that is until we actually look at the July 13th, nearly 23 diplomats using a very secure back channel telling uh Washington and Tony Blinken and others, yeah, they're gonna they're gonna topple cobble.
It's happening much faster.
But the world already knew that.
Well, we blame this was Bush's Trump's timetable.
No, it wasn't Trump's timetable.
Trump scared the hell out of him.
And said if if if one American gets hurt in any deal that we make before they ever negotiated anything, I will blow you into smithereens into the next some some other century.
Do you understand me?
Okay, now that you understand me, okay, let's talk about how we can make a deal.
That's how that negotiation went down.
And Joe Biden is just out there lying.
Now we want every any American that wants to come home, we will get you home.
But I can't promise the outcome, he says in the next sentence.
Oh, that's just like the State Department memo.
Yeah, you might want to consider making your way to the airport, but we need to warn you that um these gates uh, you know, these entry points open and closed at a moment's notice, and we cannot ensure you say passage to the airport where trying to get you out.
Then Biden said, we've heard no reports whatsoever.
None whatsoever of any inability of any American to get to the airport.
Even an incredulous extension of his press office and the media mob said, excuse me.
Our reporting on the ground shows nothing but chaos and violence and Americans turned away.
What are you talking about?
Listen to this this answer by Bud.
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 interest 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.
No indication.
It's reported everywhere.
Turn on a television.
And by the way, let me address it's in their interests.
Um Wow, because I couldn't disagree more.
Unfortunately, it's not in their interest.
They have all the power and all the leverage with as many Americans as they want behind enemy lines staying there.
I would argue they think that's their in their interests.
And now we have to get tacit approval, apparently, if we go beyond the August 31st deadline.
I told you earlier that both the French and the British have sent in paratroopers into Kabul to safely escort their citizens to Kabul, Hamed Karzai International Airport.
We have done no such thing.
Now earlier this week we had on the program retired.
Afghani Special Forces, been there was there 10 years.
Brigadier General Don Bulldock is is back with us.
Um we talked earlier in the week.
I don't see a lot of great military options.
You came up with a powerful one.
Um, but it would take a massive military presence to secure your plan, but still the fate of these Americans left there now in the thousands, it's still not in our hands at this moment at all.
Sir, yes, sir.
Uh thank you.
It's uh good to be on your show and the best to your listeners.
Um, yeah, sir.
If you haven't lost confidence uh in the president and his national security team after that briefing and the one going on in the Pentagon, then uh you're part of the problem.
This is ineffective and incompetent leadership.
And there is a unfortunately they forced our hand, right?
We have thousands of American citizens and thousands of Afghan uh people that we need to repatriate, and and this is gonna take a serious effort.
If they had done it before the withdrawal and had done it right, then we wouldn't be having this discussion right now, but they didn't.
So they forced a hand.
And and listen, what I want to do is my plan would set us up so that we could get all of our people out and we could do it systematically, and we could do it uh, you know, competently, and we could do it in you know very quickly, but it also leaves us options open because the Taliban and Al Qaeda aren't going anywhere.
They're one in the same, they're bad.
And the president said Al Qaeda's not even in Afghanistan anymore.
I don't know where he got that information because Al Qaeda and ISIS are still there, and the Taliban's there, and they have to be able to do that.
Well, they've been released from prison.
He did acknowledge it finally today.
Yeah.
Yes, so here we are, sir.
You know, we're we're we we need to go back in there, and we need to take each one of those airheads, each one of those airports, secure it, go out and secure a corridor of safety, receive everybody, stage them, move them to another place outside of Afghanistan, and then integrate them back.
We can do that.
And then stand by because I don't think the job's done.
Like I said before to you, sir.
We beat the Afghan, we beat the Taliban twice, right?
Once in 2001 to 2002, and once from 2010 to 2013.
We can do it again.
They cannot stand up.
So what do we want to do?
We want to do it the right way.
Well, we have people that know how to do that.
Currently, those people aren't in charge.
That is unfortunate.
And and that, of course, the hand wringers and the risk averse people, the people that say, oh, we don't have the capability and capacity.
That's a bunch of baloney, and we all know it.
Our service members can go in there and do it.
They can do it uh in a very safe manner.
Yes, there may be casualties, and maybe there won't be casualties.
But we've upped the ante on casualties because the Taliban Al Qaeda and ISIS think we're weak now.
The world thinks we're weak now.
This is this is not right.
We need to get our reputation back, our strength back, and the only way to do it is to show our military strength and muscle and go in there and do the right thing.
Help me out with this hard question.
And nothing uh we are now left because of this dereliction of duty, I argue of the president.
We're now left with nothing but bad options.
Let's walk through your plan a little bit.
If you're the enemy, and you always gotta try and you know, this military outmaneuvering the enemy is a big part strategically planning, etc.
If you're the Taliban and you begin to see a huge United States military presence descending on Kabul and descending on other areas of Afghanistan, and you're the Taliban, what is your next most likely move?
Wouldn't it be to take American?
No, they're gonna flee.
They're not they're not gonna they're not gonna stand and fight with us because they they don't they can't do that.
It it's a no-win.
You don't think they take American hostages?
Well, oh yes.
Oh, yeah, they may take American hostages.
Yep, that is that is a tough question, right?
That's a tough thing.
But you know, um, we're gonna have to be prepared for that.
We have we have um, you know, especially trained people that can work with that.
We have special we have all kinds of uh predators and drones and all kinds of uh, you know, signal intelligence, all kinds of stuff that work to our to uh to our favor.
I would suggest before we do that, we put our intelligence people uh together and we uh target uh their leadership.
And you know, general there are so many thousands though of Americans, and we don't know where they all are.
We don't even know how many there are.
And and we're not even discussing the certain death that would uh will await those that are identified as having worked with Americans for the last 20 years or in any part of that 20-year period.
Right.
Well, we got a choice to make, right?
We can either do it the way we're doing it now, and they get killed in route, uh, and beaten and killed and tortured in route.
You know, the the uh the uh remain in place order is only helping the Taliban as they go from house to house to house to find people because now we've told them to be stationary.
Uh and so, you know, we we gotta be bold.
This is this is this is bold action.
This is something that has to be done.
Uh the Taliban will do what the Taliban does, but that should not prevent us from going in there and getting control of this situation uh and holding them accountable.
Uh we're gonna have to do that.
If they kill Americans, then they get the same fate.
I mean, we can't deal with them uh with uh with kid gloves.
Um and I know it.
I've been there.
I've I've I've seen it, I've had to do it myself.
I've had many, many, many uh of my service members do it.
Uh, you know, uh, yep, they get a vote.
You're absolutely right.
But uh the longer we wait to do decisive action against them, the more of a vote they're gonna get, the more dicey the situation is, even though it's dicey now.
We gotta do it.
We got to do it.
And it's a combination of I want to secure the airheads because we can get people out.
There are people out in Harat, there are people out in Marjar Sharif and Conduz and and you know, Kandahar, and you know, Kandahar's 484 kilometers from Kabul.
I mean, that's a long way to go for an American citizen and an Afghan to get out of that country without the Taliban uh, you know, intercepting them and killing them.
We got to shortly.
You know, General, I I I don't envy you know, I I have such deep respect for you and for the military, and and you were there for I think you have five bronze stars, numerous purple hearts.
I know you you've served this country with such great honor and distinction and military strategy that I I can't even begin to to you know understand the depth and the complicated uh aspects of all this.
I just don't see a good option any either way.
I don't see any good options here.
I I agree, sir.
There's not a good option, but I believe in bold action.
I don't believe in hand wringing.
I don't believe in being risk risk averse.
I know we got the people to do it.
Uh we're gonna have to assume some risk here.
Uh and we we're gonna have to do it.
And I just don't sit here on the outside and say that and point my finger.
Uh, and yeah, that's easy for someone that doesn't have to do it.
I will go back in there with them.
I will put on, I I will go back there as Private Noron Baldock and take orders from people and go in there and help.
I I feel so committed to this right now because it it it is just it we put the United States in peril.
We put our allies across the world in peril.
We've lost our reputation.
We have denigrated what we stand for freedom, liberty.
We have we have uh, you know, forsaken.
It's an general, it's an unmitigated disaster on every level.
Um thank you for serving your country to the extent you have, and and we we truly respect and appreciate your opinion and and you know our thoughts and prayers are with every American, and our great hope is that we get everybody home safely.
Um thank you, sir, for being with us for just short on time.
Otherwise, we'd we could talk to you all day.
Uh that's bright retired Afghanistan special forces brigadier general uh Don uh Bulduck with us.
We'll continue on the other side.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
We got you.
And I'm Carol Markovich.
And I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.
Normally is about real conversations, thoughtful, try to be funny, grounded, and no panic.
We'll keep you informed and entertained without ruining your day.
Join us every Tuesday and Thursday normally on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.