The Ben Shapiro Show | Daily Wire Backstage: The Fall of the West

Who speaks in this episode?

• Peter Doocy (Guest)
• Ben Shapiro (Host) · 32 min speaking
• Jeremy Boreing (Host) · 18 min speaking
• Andrew Klavan (Guest) · 17 min speaking
• Matt Walsh (Host) · 16 min speaking
• Michael Knowles (Guest) · 15 min speaking
• Joe Biden (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Kamala Harris (Guest)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Daily Wire Backstage, Matt Walsh, Big Tech, Dan Crenshaw
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Taliban, Afghan Army, ExpressVPN, Big Tech
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Taliban, South Korea, Barbary Pirates, Department of Homeland Security
4. 30:00 – 40:00: Taliban, South Korea, Bravo Company Manufacturing, Bravo Company MFG
5. 40:00 – 50:00: Taliban, Afghan Army, Al-Qaeda, South Korea
6. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Taliban, Policygenius, Colin Powell, Pride Flag
7. 1:00:00 – 1:10:00: Taliban, Afghan Army, Al-Qaeda, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
8. 1:10:00 – 1:20:00: Pride Flag, Taliban, Afghan Army, Critical Race Theory
9. 1:20:00 – 1:30:00: Slavery, Taliban, France, Nikki Fuentes
10. 1:30:00 – 1:40:00: Russia, Fahrenheit 451, Israel, Social Credit System

Notable quotes from "The Ben Shapiro Show | Daily Wire Backstage: The Fall of the West"

• By Michael Knowles Matt Walsh Andrew Clavin and Ben Shapiro our show today is sponsored by expressvpn it's time to stand up to Big Tech protect your data at expressvpn.com Backstage let's get right to the show foreign.

  about ExpressVPN · at 0:37

• Hundreds of thousands of people who will immediately be slaughtered by the Taliban and as it turns out the United States government handed a list to the Taliban of all the…

  about Taliban · at 3:25

• To do although executed in a horribly incompetent way but when I think about you know a pride flag hanging in Kabul these are people who even if I agreed that having an Empire…

  about Pride Flag · at 7:24

• United States that was a lie in July he said this would not be like South like South Vietnam they're like Saigon that was not only a lie it was a lie by multiples because when…

  about Vietnam · at 10:32

• Just acid I would have to I agree with most of what you said but when it comes to the Afghan Army and this is really almost irrelevant to what happened today because as you point out I mean this is just a total tactical failure in.

  about Afghan Army · at 13:35

• A pretty big question before we do it I owe our friends over at expressvpn a little bit of endorsement big Tech is more powerful than most countries are and they profit by…

  about Big Tech · at 18:45

• Stability that is a very long-term process I mean we currently have 26 000 troops in South Korea still and where we pull our troops they would immediately be that country would…

  about South Korea · at 20:34

• Earth to continue a blight that future Generations will look back on not the way we look at slavery the way we would look at slavery if slavery involved murdering every black…

  about Slavery · at 1:20:59

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Matt Walsh — Person · 2 mentions · first at 0:05
  Our latest episode of daily wire backstage join me Jeremy boring Andrew Cleveland Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh as we discuss everything in Afghanistan ranging from the lack…
• Dan Crenshaw — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:37
  Trending political and cultural topics penned by everyone from Candace Owens to Ben Shapiro to special guest like Dan Crenshaw and Andrew Clayman I consider him a guest unless…
• Colin Powell — Person · 1 mention · first at 51:18
  Bin Laden and left if we had used airstrikes and left I don't buy the Colin Powell if you break it we bought it if you but if you break it create it hold it let a generation of…
• Shah of Iran — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:05:54
  Than if you've been we have been there after all your if you withdraw your support for a tyrant like the Shah of Iran and another Tyrant an islamist Tyrant comes in and takes…
• Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:06:00
  Iran and another Tyrant an islamist Tyrant comes in and takes over like the Ayatollah Khomeini essentially do you have an obligation there do you think like oh we do we should…
• Nikki Fuentes — Person · 1 mention · first at 1:20:10
  Particular ways that we need to fight but when you see like Nikki Fuentes Little Nikki Fuentes saying on the only social channels he's still welcome on what of course he should…
• Andrew Klavan — Person · 1 mention
• Emanuel Macron — Person · 1 mention
• Francis Fukuyama — Person · 1 mention
• Niall Ferguson — Person · 1 mention
• Peter Doocy — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

• Fahrenheit 451 — Book · 1 mention · first at 1:34:47
  Hound on Montage I agree you're the only person who got the reference but I was like the end of Fahrenheit 451 he's running for the river and you've got the Hound following him…
• The Authoritarian Moment — Book · 1 mention · first at 1:34:58
  Unbelievable it is the fall of the West right now and it is the Chinese moment I mean you wrote your book The authoritarian moment and really what you mean in some ways is that…

Companies & orgs

• Taliban — Company · 31 mentions · first at 3:27
• Afghan Army — Company · 9 mentions · first at 13:39
• Al-Qaeda — Company · 3 mentions · first at 13:14
  In contempt and then on the same moral level Joe Biden keeps saying that we went there to stop Al Qaeda and prevent this from becoming a terror Haven I've noticed a few…
• Bravo Company Manufacturing — Company · 2 mentions · first at 30:33
  Awesome responsibility but building rifles is no different which is why I'm so impressed with Bravo Company manufacturing Bravo Company manufacturing is not a Sporting Arms…
• United States Government — Company · 1 mention · first at 3:27
  Hundreds of thousands of people who will immediately be slaughtered by the Taliban and as it turns out the United States government handed a list to the Taliban of all the…
• Pakistan's Secret Service — Company · 1 mention · first at 15:11
  Taliban they will welcome them back they're also fighting Pakistan's Secret Service which is mostly islamist is backing them as and has been backing them to their health I…
• Department of Homeland Security — Company · 1 mention · first at 28:28
  That were not even illegal to bring on airplanes at the time why do we have a Department of Homeland Security why can't we deal with these things without having an on the…
• Planned Parenthood — Company · 1 mention · first at 1:28:08
  Thought just the other day when I was we were going out to eat or something and we passed by a Planned Parenthood and which we all do all the time we pass by Planned Parenthood and I didn't even think much of it I just went to eat.
• Haqqani Network — Company · 1 mention
• IMF — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

• Daily Wire Backstage — Product · 2 mentions · first at 0:02
  Hey folks Ben Shapiro here don't miss our latest episode of daily wire backstage join me Jeremy boring Andrew Cleveland Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh as we discuss everything in Afghanistan ranging from the lack of a president of.
• Morning Wire Newsletter — Product · 1 mention · first at 1:49
  Comes in to do this show when you sign up with readers pass you also get access to the morning wire newsletter a Monday through Saturday email covering the top stories you need…
• Daily Wire Reader's Pass — Product · 1 mention
• YouTube.com/bravocompanyUSA — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

• Pride Flag — Concept · 5 mentions · first at 7:28
• Big Tech — Concept · 3 mentions · first at 0:43
• Slavery — Concept · 3 mentions · first at 1:21:03
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights — Concept · 2 mentions
• Barbary Pirates — Concept · 1 mention · first at 28:42
  So I think we need to answer that the founding fathers went and killed all the Barbary Pirates no he Knowles is right about this part the thing is this was before the invention…
• Critical Race Theory — Concept · 1 mention · first at 1:17:28
  The right which is look at all the bad stuff we're pushing over here you know the gender ideology and critical race Theory and that makes it inappropriate for us to quote…
• Social Credit System — Concept · 1 mention · first at 1:34:29
  The in the guise of the Taliban than it does with regard to China considering Chinese social credit system considering how Australia is currently locking its citizens down like…
• Kurds — Concept · 1 mention
• Progress Pride Flag — Concept · 1 mention
• The End of History — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• South Korea — Place · 8 mentions · first at 20:38
• Russia — Place · 5 mentions · first at 12:54
  At us and say you know what I think I'm going to triangulate a little bit here and see what I can get out of Russia and China you left out the one lie you left out by the way…
• Vietnam — Place · 4 mentions · first at 10:37
• Israel — Place · 2 mentions · first at 13:05
  Yeah parliament of Britain of Great Britain our only real friend in the world besides maybe Israel they're they're actually holding our president in contempt and then on the…
• France — Place · 2 mentions · first at 1:18:34
  Waver in their determination to overthrow the you know macron the leader of France came out and this was about a month or so ago and he addressed woke ideology you know…
• Saigon — Place · 1 mention · first at 10:38
  Said this would not be like South like South Vietnam they're like Saigon that was not only a lie it was a lie by multiples because when we pulled out you can at least say that…
• Kabul International Airport — Place · 1 mention · first at 11:34
  Don't give up the air base before the airplane you don't evacuate bathroom air base and restrict yourself to Kabul International Airport which is one Runway with no actual…
• North Korea — Place · 1 mention · first at 20:42
  Pull our troops they would immediately be that country would immediately be under threat from North Korea and China sponsoring it we still have some 30 34 000 troops 32 000…
• World War II Memorial — Place · 1 mention · first at 46:52
  The British Empire turned us into British citizens it was into the World War II Memorial in Washington DC it says we came to liberate not to conquer and that's been basically our idea with all that's why our troops have been there for seven.
• Bagram Air Base — Place · 1 mention
• Iran — Place · 1 mention
• Kabul — Place · 1 mention
• Syria — Place · 1 mention
• U.S. Embassy in Jamaica — Place · 1 mention
• Yemen — Place · 1 mention

Sponsors

• ExpressVPN — Sponsor · 4 mentions · first at 0:41
• Policygenius — Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at 56:42
  Five-star reviews across trustpilot and Google getting started couldn't be easier first head to policygenius.com in minutes you can work out how much life insurance coverage…
• Bravo Company MFG — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 31:25
  You can discover more about their products special offers and upcoming news that's Bravo Company mfg.com if you need more convincing you can find out more about BCM and their…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 hey folks Ben Shapiro here don't miss our latest episode of daily wire backstage join me Jeremy boring Andrew Cleveland Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh as we discuss everything in Afghanistan ranging from the lack of a president of the United States at this point to the deaths of American Service members to what American foreign policy really should look like in the long term should it be moral should it be reality-based should it be about pullouts should it be about maintaining true presence we get into all those issues it was really heated and really interesting make sure to take a listen some days you can't even muster up a good fake laugh welcome to the Daily wire backstage to the fall of the West I'm Jeremy boring joined today of course by Michael Knowles Matt Walsh Andrew Clavin and Ben Shapiro our show today is sponsored by expressvpn it's time to stand up to Big Tech protect your data

0:45 at expressvpn.com Backstage let's get right to the show foreign for tonight's show Daily wire members can enter your questions into the chat box over at dailywire.com and we'll answer them throughout the night if you want to go a little deeper into the cultural and political issues of today I highly recommend you check out our readers Pass Program because it's the best way to keep up with a world that never stops spinning it's easy to sign up you just head over to dailywire.com for four bucks a month you will get a reader's pass and unlock all kinds of exclusive editorial content that unpacks trending political and cultural topics penned by everyone from Candace Owens to Ben Shapiro to special guest like Dan Crenshaw and Andrew Clayman I consider him a guest unless we never see him anymore except once a month when he comes in to do this show when you sign up with readers pass you also get access

1:49 to the morning wire newsletter a Monday through Saturday email covering the top stories you need to know available only to daily wire members all of this can be yours for just four bucks a month so do it right now you will get a free four-week trial if you go to dailywired.com subscribe and get your readers pass today guys only a short time ago the president of the United States came out and spoke about the horrific bombing which happened today in Kabul we don't know of course the exact uh death toll at the moment but it seems like they're already 13 uh American servicemen killed and the president's speech I thought was one of the more bizarre speeches I've ever seen by a president and I'm saying this in the year 2021 so I want to get quick reaction I'm assuming everyone had the opportunity to review the president's speech Ben he is not sentient he is not capable he is not competent he came out

2:40 he looked like a mental patient I mean he really did he he looked like he was barely awake he stumbled his way through a bizarre seven or eight minute speech that contradicted itself about seven different times he tried to rely very heavily on the I'm empathetic Joe routine but the minute that the questions began all that went out the window and he became combative Joe um he had nothing of merits to say he has no defense for his policies because his policies are garbage and most of all if you're American enemy watching the President of the United States on the same day that 13 American soldiers are killed 12 of the Marines and you're watching as the United States turns tail and runs leaving a thousand plus American citizens behind in Kabul plus an unspecified number of thousands of American green card holders plus hundreds of thousands of people who will immediately be slaughtered by the

3:27 Taliban and as it turns out the United States government handed a list to the Taliban of all the people we wanted to evacuate so they know precisely who to kill by the way this is Justin Cobble there are Americans all throughout the country we aren't even talking yeah that's right if you're watching this as an enemy of the United States and then you watch this adult old feeble-minded man walk out and barely make it through a sentence you're thinking you're like Homer Simpson with a hamburger right now Osama Bin Laden said in 98-99 after bombing Kenya and Tanzania the embassy's there and after the mild response from the Clinton Administration she said America's a paper tiger I don't know how if you're an enemy of the United States watching what has happened over the course of the last month you can't look at the United States and say that is a nation that I can do anything I want to this is a

4:07 nation that is ripe for a fall and this President is ready to let it happen sure not unfair what Ben's saying I mean the president literally said twice at least in the speech that some Americans would be left behind after the August 31st you know I've been struck all of this I agree with everything Ben just said I mean the absolute disability of the guy the guys are walking uh dementia you know case and it's it's very painful it's painful to watch I I can't I wish I could even feel some schadenfreude because he's in the opposite party to mine but I don't know he's still our president he's still our president and that really is disturbing me but all throughout this I have been deeply struck by his emotional Detachment from the tragedy that he has and he alone has brought upon this country because it doesn't matter what you think of the foreign policy where you think we should stay where you think we should go this

4:54 was a one of the deepest active I can't even use the word incompetent that's too too kind uh it was a criminally uh Cavalier Cavalier and incompetent and the and the Detachment from responsibility that he evokes the jokes that he makes when people say how are you going to get other people out and he says well you'll be the first person I call hahaha and what really bothers me about this more than anything is is not what it says about him I feel that he actually represents a large swath of the democratic political class uh that they don't care about what's happening in overseas they don't care about our foreign policy they don't care about the way we look to other people they are so deeply concerned with transforming us into a woke uh socialist you know European style democracy that they really don't think that we should be meddling anywhere in the world because meddling in the world is what great

5:49 Nations do uh war is what great Nations do Imperial uh placements in various places is what great Nations do they have to do it they have to to do it because they become responsible for the rest of the world and they just don't care and I think that in that sense at least he is the head of his party he does represent what his party thinks when you have Nancy Pelosi making speeches about how proud she is of a budget busting 3.5 trillion dollar plan to transform our uh economy uh and she's making those speeches while people are throwing their babies over the barbed wire and she's saying this is a proud day for America while they're throwing the babies I have to say that the one thing you have to say about Joe Biden is he does represent the party that he leads yeah I think uh as far as Joe Biden himself goes I thought the most the most profound moment of that press conference profound in all the wrong

6:36 ways uh was the visual a lot of times with Joe Biden now there's the visual first it's just not to make too much of the of the of the body language part of it but just looking into his eyes you see a sort of emptiness there like he doesn't exactly know what's going on but there was one moment where he's clutching on to his folder and then he Ducks his head down in just exasperation like he's giving up in the middle of the press conference uh because he's getting a little bit of pushback from Peter Ducey and I thought that was that perfectly exemplifies Joe Biden's presidency and then in the broader question not to jump right into a debate here but pick it up what Drew said that these are you know our leaders are awoke and leftist and that's why they don't want a metal in the world I also think I agree with you but that's also why it's one of the big reasons why I don't want them to be meddling in the world it's one of the

7:21 big reasons why I actually think that leaving Afghanistan was the right thing to do although executed in a horribly incompetent way but when I think about you know a pride flag hanging in Kabul these These are people who even if I agreed that having an Empire overseas and being an Empire and pursuing our Imperial Ambitions was a good idea in principle what I know is that these people are not capable of doing it and and what they want to export is not what I want to see exported by the United States of America I find it shameful and embarrassing I have been I think as charitable as I can be to Joe Biden I think I've been as charitable as anybody on the center or the right of the political aisle I haven't I have not blamed him for problems that I think were many years in the making that were not his I have not even blamed him that there was some chaos or that there would even be some violence in in a withdrawal

8:11 from Afghanistan that both parties have been campaigning on for a long time now however there needs to be a basic level of competence there needs to be a basic level of Engagement it is simply if I think even if you're a leftist even if you're a Democrat you have to acknowledge that there were really basic things that Biden could have done that would have greatly mitigated the risk that would have greatly mitigated the violence and what is happening now in Afghanistan is largely on him I am sympathetic as Matt says I am sympathetic to the arguments for withdrawing and actually I'm sympathetic to those specific arguments as I outlined in a long column which I thought was fair-minded about this whole thing watching that speech tonight I think it may have been the worst presidential address I've ever seen he just wasn't there he was Cavalier he was was showing the world that America is is inviting aggression from everyone else

9:10 it was it was it was pathetic it was pathetic we should note that the president uh didn't come on stage for almost 25 minutes 25 minutes uh late which this isn't an appointment you want to miss right when you when the president of the United States addresses the nation about the loss of our service members overseas in the middle of a crisis he was boastful about the size of the airlifts and how many Americans have been withdrawn which is a classic thing that happens with incompetence is that they create crises and then they want credit for the heroic actions that they take to mitigate the crisis that they themselves uh created a dynamite below the water line of the Titanic blew it open and then he's like look how many people we put on the lifeboats Guinness Book of World Records unbelievable uh and and then the president had uh this bizarre moment which I think we can play these three things rarely stand by your

10:03 decisions to pull out yes I do because look at it this way folks and I'm gonna I have another meeting for real president had another meeting for real for real you're not lying this time no no no not like all the other times when he says I looked at a timeline of what this Administration has been saying since April yeah and they have not said a true word since April no in April the president of the United States said that we would pull out in a considered fashion that we would do so in a rational fashion that would not pose a danger to the Afghan people or to the United States that was a lie in July he said this would not be like like South like uh South Vietnam they're like Saigon that was not only a lie it was a lie by multiples because when we pulled out you can at least say that the Viet Cong for all of their evils and there were many of them had not actually attacked the United States

10:49 Homeland and uh and killed 3 000 Americans in the process but he said that the he said in on the 18th that nobody had died knock on wood he said that the airport was safe he said that the Taliban were working with us he's just a damn liar they have lied all the way through this process and and so when I look at the failures here I think there's three levels of failure I think that most of us in the room will grant two of them will probably disagree on the third the the first level of failure is the Tactical I think it is impossible to disagree that the Tactical failure here is epic and immense and the fact here is that every single person in the know knows you do not Evacuate the troops before you evacuate the citizenry you cannot do that that is idiotic that is defund the police except on a global scale right that's getting that's leaving the place to the criminals you don't give up the air base before the

11:32 airplane you don't evacuate bathroom air base and restrict yourself to Kabul International Airport which is one Runway with no actual buffer zone like you have to be a complete and utter ass to do this Joe Biden doesn't care so he doesn't care I mean that's that's really what this comes down to there's no empathy from Joe Biden and his empathy extends to he does not care about what happens here he's made his decision and Damned the consequences so the Tactical nature of this is idiotic the notion that the Afghan military collapsed because they were all cowards they they took on 50 000 casualties fifty thousand dead between 2015 and 2000 121 the United States in that same period took on less than 100 dead so they were feel they were shouldering the burden the reason they collapsed is because Joe Biden decided that not only were going to withdraw our troops which can make an argument about we were also going to

12:13 withdraw our close air support we're going to withdraw all of the civilian contractors who maintain their own Air Force so they could not even fly missions in the air which was their Chief tactical advantage against the Taliban in outlying areas so immediately the USS were gone we're taking everything with us and they disband they're gone okay so all the Tactical failures I think are pretty obvious and easy to spot then there's the moral failure when you make promises to people and then you botch the promises no Ally in the future has any business trusting us I do not know why our allies would trust us I don't know why if you make promises to people we screwed the Kurds we've screwed the people of Hong Kong we've screwed the people of Afghanistan like we've screwed the people of Vietnam like how many more people can we screw before all of our allies start to look at us and say you know what I think I'm

12:53 going to triangulate a little bit here and see what I can get out of Russia and China you left out the one lie you left out by the way is the lie that this that somehow our allies are all on board oh yeah parliament of Britain of Great Britain our only real friend in the world besides maybe Israel they're they're actually holding our president in contempt and then and then on the same moral level Joe Biden keeps saying that we went there to stop Al Qaeda and prevent this from becoming a terror Haven I've noticed a few terrorists in Kabul lately I don't know about you guys but I've noticed like a few like the akani network that's actually running Security in Kabul which is Al Qaeda and Isis which is there and the Taliban who like last time we trusted the Taliban to stop Terror it ended with a couple of buildings falling down in New York working Miracle so like on that level is just acid I I would have to uh I agree

13:38 with most of what you said but when it comes to the Afghan Army and this is really almost irrelevant to what happened today because as you point out I mean this is just a total tactical failure in terms of getting people out and I mean the fact that we have our troops there facilitating the evacuation of just masses of of Afghans many of them citizens and we don't know if they helped us or not I mean it's hard to believe that they're all interpreters or or whatever so there's just no plan in place which is disgraceful and insane but as far as the Afghan army goes I mean but I understand the point that the air support was taken away I mean the Taliban didn't have any air support what we're told anyway is that the Afghan troops outnumbered the Taliban by three to one they supposedly had 300 000 strong versus less than a hundred thousand uh now I can understand when they're when they're training to have

14:23 the air support they don't have it that that's a huge disadvantage that they have to accommodate but you would think that as a military Defending Your Nation you would try to accommodate it rather than just give up in two days which is exactly what they seem to do I don't I don't think we could put all the blame on The Afghan Army like Joe Biden wants to do but to absolve them of all blame I think isn't fair it's pretty hard to think the the one thing the afghanis are good at is fighting and I really don't think that this is a failure of the Afghan Army I think it's a failure you have to remember the Taliban blend in with the people they terrify the people the Warlords who the armies were hoping would fight for them in the Villages immediately surrendered because their people are you know basically in the Villages the people are afraid of the Taliban they will welcome them back they're also fighting Pakistan

15:11 Pakistan's Secret Service which is mostly islamist is backing them as and has been backing them to their health I I don't really believe I've never seen the Afghan The Afghani Fighters give up on anything if you talk to the people that have been over there in our military training the Afghan Army uh almost everything I've heard from people that have been in that position and I've heard I'm sure we all have talked to quite a few they'll tell you that it's very difficult because you know very often they're there sort of on a mercenary basis if they don't get paid they don't want to show up there's a big problem with with drugs huge problem uh and it just talking to people that have that have been in the opposition of training what I've been told is that a lot of the soldiers are training just don't seem all that interesting medical radical radical religiously based Guerrilla armies tend to do pretty well in

16:03 organizations against organizations that don't have a great hierarchical structure for sure no question about that the question as to whether they just sort of gave up and ran away when you structured an entire military around a certain style of warfare and then you just remove that style of warfare and you say we're leaving I I agree with this but the second point is also very important which is the one thing that they understand in cultures like this is power dynamics and it's not short-term power dynamics it's long-term power dynamics people who I know who were there in 2015 when Barack Obama first gave his were leaving speech said that almost to the day within 24 hours uh all of the the green on Blue the The Friendly Fire attacks started happening immediately all the village elders and any rural part of Afghanistan stopped cooperating with the United States military and what they would say yeah we we've given you

16:52 money we've been we've been fighting on your behalf for years why not you won't even talk to us you won't take our money you won't say anything you know some of some of the soldiers have started shooting at us why and and the Afghan answer was because you're leaving and when you are gone it is only a matter of time before the long-term power dynamics of Iran on our border of Pakistan on our border there's no question where this goes once you're gone and if if you're not going to be the power center the people who are going to be the power center are people who will chop our heads off and rape our daughters like you can't leave us in a position of a power vacuum that we cannot ourselves fill there the the Afghan Army of course it's not a westernized army of course it's not a sophisticated Army of course it's not uh tremendously lethal Army apart from American close air support American Logistics American

17:43 intelligence which is a huge uh part of it of course that's all true since it's true since we're not talking about people who only kill combatants since if you're an Afghan Soldier fighting the Taliban and your village Falls you may be fine but they're going to to rape your daughters and kill your sons in that situation you've left them very little given the realities of the society in which they live you've given them very few the point that they're a mercenary forces is fair enough but it is part of the failure of our strategy there it's not the Afghani Army's failure and I don't mean listen I'm not a big fan of the Afghan culture but still still when you create we created a mercenary Force because they had to be loyal to us instead of loyal to what they are they also have their tribal uh identities right and they don't they don't there is no real national identity right which brings us to the sort of geostrategic

18:36 point which is where I think the the real conversation lies which is what were we doing there and I think there are points of agreement here too well let's get back to uh why we were there what were we doing there because that's a pretty big question before we do it I owe our friends over at expressvpn uh a little bit of endorsement big Tech is more powerful than most countries are and they profit by exploiting your personal data it's time to put a layer of protection between your online activity and these Tech Juggernauts and that's why all of us here at the daily wire including me use extra svpn think about how much of your life is on the internet I mean the sad truth is almost every site you'd visit almost every video you watch almost every message you send it gets tracked it gets data mined and when you run expressvpn on your device it doesn't because the software hides your IP address expressvpn also

19:21 encrypts 100 of your internet data to keep you safe from hackers and eavesdroppers on your network what I like most about expressvpn is how easy it is to use you download the app on your phone or on your computer you tap one button just like that you're protected this couldn't be more important to us here at the daily wire I mean obviously we live in a very polarized world and there's a lot of people who don't love what we do for a living when I'm on an airplane I'm very conscious of the fact that you know well somebody will recognize Michael Knowles because I'm probably sitting right next to him and then they may want to know what I'm doing on my phone they may want to hack my personal information they may want to look for business information so I use expressvpn I think you should to stop handing over your personal data to Big Tech they're a monopoly they mine your activity they sell your information

20:01 protect yourself with the VPN I trust to keep me safe safe online visit expressvpn.com backstage that's expresbpn.com backstage to get three extra months free go to expressvpn.com Backstage right now and learn more Ben you were just about to open a can of one I was so so on the geostrategic plan I feel like there's places where we're all going to agree here too and that is number one it's not the job of the United States to build democracies out of places that are not right for democracy like I think we're all on the same page there and I think that if you are going to seek to build regime stability that is a very very long-term process I mean we currently have 26 000 troops in South Korea still and where we pull our troops they would immediately be that country would immediately be under threat from North Korea and China sponsoring it we still have some 30 34 000 troops 32 000 troops in Japan we

20:50 still have some ten thousand troops in Italy so we can have air power over Northern Africa in fact by the time we left Afghanistan the number of troops that we had on the ground official it was 2500 that ranked at number nine in places on Earth where we had troops so the question is what exactly were we there for and if the answer which I think we all agree was to kill terrorists and make sure this doesn't become another Haven for terrorists then the question becomes so what was the dramatic urgency in pulling out considering that we had been experiencing year on year fewer than 20 combat casualties and zero since February of 2020. well I think the the question of why we were there we all might agree on why we would like to have been there or why we wish what we wish the reason were but I don't think that America was clear on that because the the argument that we were given in the early days of that war was we're going

21:35 in there to kill Osama Bin Laden and the people who were harboring the terrorists that took down the towers then in 2005 at George Bush's second inaugural the mission was redefined that was the freedom speech the word liberty or Freedom or liberal was used 49 times in that speech and he made it an audacious claim and I think a ridiculous claim which is that tyranny anywhere on Earth is an existential threat to the American Homeland this was a a radical uh extreme of ways that we thought of adventurism and spreading our ideas abroad it was obviously untrue by the way because not only do we tolerate certain authoritarian regimes we've actually installed many authoritarian regimes that have never threatened us with so much as an insulting look this redefines the mission as building not only a madisonian democracy in Afghanistan but ever talk about a forever worry now he said we will abolish tyranny on Earth which so long

22:31 as man's Nature has fallen I don't think is going to happen and it will commit us to war forever so he he redefined that then I think the American people got pretty sick of that in the years that followed Barack Obama famously campaigned actually to beef up troops in Afghanistan and to take troops out of Iraq to sort of restart the war there but then he wanted to pull the troops out there as well then the mission Donald Trump runs on pulling the troops home which was popular in both parties at the time then Joe Biden obviously maintains that that that view now we're told we have to stay there for the Afghan women who suffer a terrible plight nobody is denying that but women suffer a terrible plight in Pakistan as well and this is not fair saying that women suffer in other parts of the world is true enough the women suffering today in Afghanistan are suffering specifically because of an action that

23:16 we've taken there's the withdrawal I think that's off his point though that's his his point which is really fair is that we live in a place where people vote and part of running a war is political you are dealing with people who have other things to do like raise their children do their jobs and you have to be able to convince them that you're there for a reason and the reason in Afghanistan has repeatedly changed it has grown it's shrunk it has it's been different than it was when we first went in there and then to turn to the people and say how dare you abandon this Mission so I know what the mission was first of all I agree with the political failures of our leadership class and of the media in redefining the mission I mean again I think we all mainly agree on the idea that we didn't go into Afghanistan to create a thriving democracy and originally protect women that was a good byproduct of the fact

24:01 that wherever the United States Boot Steps things tend to get better but that wasn't the original Mission we didn't go in there because we were going to free women we freed women as a consequence of going in there right so and as Joe Biden correctly but oddly and non-sequitur fashion pointed out if the attack had been launched from Yemen we wouldn't have been in Afghanistan for women right of course that's true the the the problem is this whether or not the American people are properly informed about what they think the mission is the rest of Life exists just because we create a vacuum does not mean that no one is going to fill it just because people in the United States and in our leadership class misunderstand what the mission is does not mean that when we remove troops that does not become a terror hotbed again and China doesn't take advantage of that Terror hotbed to grab for example all of the 85 billion dollars in

24:45 military technology we just left there including high-tech crap including drone technology which they're going to immediately reverse engineer none of that means that China doesn't look at what we just did to the Afghans and say okay well taiwan's right there and all we have here is move right across the strait and you ain't going to do nothing right I mean it doesn't take much of a mind to discover this all the terrorist groups on earth look at this and they think that we are weak so regardless of how this was pitched and this is my problem with how the Afghan war has been pitched I think for the past several years the the first pitch that was wrong was this is about a war for you know establishing democracy in Afghanistan you're right then there was a second Pitch and it was equally stupid and the pitch was the war of 2017 is exactly the same as the war of 2010 yes which is a lie it is not true the United States had

25:28 taken down its true presence in Afghanistan from six figures down to about ten thousand by the time Trump left office down to 2500 and so when people said this is an endless war and I said what war do you have 2500 people stationed in a place with zero casualties for 18 months you're safer you were safer up until Barack until Joe Biden took office you were safer being a soldier in Afghanistan than you were being a cop in Chicago and it wasn't particularly close Okay that the the notion that this was an endless war that had to end right now it had to end right now and if we don't end it right now we're going to be putting thousands of troops back in it is a lie but it is untrue we've again we've been losing on average before the supposed wonderful deal that Trump made with the Taliban which I opposed and I was clear about this when Trump was in office I perfectly consistent on this before that

26:09 deal we were losing 10 12 guys a year that is horrible every Soldier lost is terrible that does not constitute a full-scale war a full-scale war is what was happening in the beginning of the war when we were losing hundreds of guys per year thousands of guys in some cases but I think you have to Grant I agree with your point on the losses and the difference in the nature of the war but it would still be endless and and that that is so should we remove all of our troops from South Korea is that an endless war well the guys I mean there was an act of civil war going on right now in Afghanistan while our troops were there and as we learned today or yeah interesting the civil war in Afghanistan is between the people we went there to depose and the people who we know it's been supporting no it's been it's it's also between Isis right as as Joe Biden actually rightly said but the Taliban are bad guys but right now they are our

26:52 allies against Isis in this particular battle that we had to deal with today so all I'm saying is it's complicated it's not just the Taliban versus the good guy Afghans and us it's Isis it's other Islamic groups it's unaffiliated group right so our goal was not to but our goal was to destroy all of those Associated Terror groups that you just mentioned they they do have a common interest against us now the Taliban have a common interest to a certain extent by the way by the way I'm still not convinced that the Taliban didn't let these guys through to bomb I mean even even the even uh the head of centcom said that today that he was asked directly did the Taliban just let these people through they were the ones screening everybody at The Outpost but but I think this is the bigger political problem here so sure you say well we have endless true presence in Korea literally everywhere or wherever we have

27:37 troops in dozens and dozens and dozens and I I do think they're a bit different than Afghanistan but I grant the 900 troops on the ground in Syria but I think but I think this is and I think the same people who want to pull out of Afghanistan want to pull out of Syria my point is this our founding fathers warned repeatedly against continual Warfare to you said James Madison said there's no greater threat to Liberty than continual Warfare Washington Jefferson reiterates Washington and many other founding fathers too and you might say well things are different now than they were then fair enough my point is this and it's to the political point the American people are looking at this war in Afghanistan they're not seeing any particular reason to stay there they're even looking at the argument that you have to prevent another 911 and saying yes Saudi Nationals were welcomed into Afghanistan but they then came to

28:21 America they trained in America they were welcomed onto airplanes with tools that were not even illegal to bring on airplanes at the time why do we have a Department of Homeland Security why can't we deal with these things without having an on the ground presence in Afghanistan and all I'm saying is whether that is true or not they have the founding fathers on their side and so I think we need to answer that the founding fathers went and killed all the Barbary Pirates no no no he Knowles is right about this part the thing is this was before the invention of the airplane the world very different place they were talking about a country that was protected by two oceans and and they really did if you take that I use the example of the Barbarian Pirates I mean but still the Barbary Pirates were a threat to our trade and our Commerce that the there is a tradition in America of isolationism and I as far as I'm

29:06 concerned I would be okay with either being an isolationist Nation or being an imperial Nation what I can't stand is doing both I cannot stand the promises I can't stand the uh changing motivations I cannot stand an uninformed public a public who doesn't know rightly rightly they do not know who we are we they do not know what we're what what kind of country we're supposed to be in the world personally personally I think that Empire is unavoidable and I think the Chinese are about to prove this to us by taking Taiwan and then we're going to have a much easier time defining who we are but just remember just remember that these wars were never paid for when when George W Bush was asked by the leftist Press what sacrifices are you demanding of America his answer was essentially oh we don't have to sacrifice to pay for what well no Wars are expensive you do have to pay for them we never paid for

29:54 this war in the same way we never pay for the kinds of things that the Democrats or anything so we never pay for anything so that's the question so the question becomes the question becomes where are we going to put our treasure and I think that that's the argument that we have and the problem that we have is the Democrats no they know where they want to put our treasure and we on the on the Republican side or the conservative side are really confused about this right having a a argument about this that I think we have to settle before the next presidential election we live in a time of declining Liberty and ascendant authoritarianism you need to own a rifle owning a rifle is an awesome responsibility but building rifles is no different which is why I'm so impressed with Bravo Company manufacturing Bravo Company manufacturing is not a Sporting Arms Company they design engineer and manufacture life-saving equipment every

30:42 single component of a Bravo Company rifle is hand assembled and tested by Americans in the Heartland in Wisconsin to uphold Bravo's life-saving standard if your life in Liberty ever come under direct threat Firearms are first and foremost a means to preserve the lives and Liberties of ourselves and others I when I first got to Tennessee and realized that I suddenly was free again and I could own a firearm the first thing I did was bought eight eight AR-15s from Bravo Company manufacturing it may have been a little bit of Overkill I was very happy to be out of California you should do the same thing maybe with some moderation go over and learn more about Bravo Company manufacturing at bravocompany mfg.com you can discover more about their products special offers and upcoming news that's Bravo Company mfg.com if you need more convincing you can find out more about BCM and their awesome products and the amazing people who make

31:33 those products at youtube.com bravocompany USA a couple of points are first of all on the uh this idea that Afghanistan turns into a hotbed of Terror if we're not there well I I don't find that terribly persuasive because the entire Middle East much of Africa I mean there are many places that that become hotbeds of Terror currently are so are we supposed to invade and occupy all of those places I would also say well I don't know this but I'll let you okay argument of bad things happened everywhere are we supposed to go invade and occupy those places is provisionist no one's making an argument here that we need to go invade Afghanistan and occupy it we went to Afghanistan and we did occupy it you can't it it's the equivalent of saying uh you know I shouldn't have had sex with Maggie Johnson back in junior year uh and uh so therefore now on my child's 10th birthday I'm going to walk away from my

32:28 child and Maggie whom I married and the mortgage which we took out together because I've realized I never should have gone there and when you say hey but no no no if you marry Afghan you actually went there you actually did something there are consequences that goes to my that goes to my next point and actually that analogy I think is is important because uh I don't in a marriage you make an undying Eternal commitment to a person at an altar before God um I I don't believe that the United States of America has made that kind of commitment to any foreign Nation or can and in fact if any government if any if any politician tries to make that kind of commitment to another foreign Nation it's not legitimate and there's no reason why it should be respected I mean you you you're talking about million people don't get killed in rapes well but you talk about uh well we're in South Korea we're in we're in uh Japan

33:11 in Germany we're in all these places well well there's a an obvious response to that is maybe we shouldn't be there either I mean it's their country can I take that person I just want to ask you a question on that specific point so it's 1953. we signed the I mean since we're doing revisionist history now it's 1953 we signed the the Armistice agreement off on the 49th parallel in Korea and we say now you're president of the United States is the answer okay we're done out we have no interest here well that is how you lose cold Wars yeah no because but it's not 1953 I'm talking about in in the year 20. I know and I'm talking about 2021 do you sign an agreement to say the Taliban gets to take over this country and bring in exactly the same people who did 911 which is exactly what's happening right now yeah and in 2021 I would take our troops out of Afghanistan I would do it a lot different than Joe Biden did I

33:58 wouldn't what strategic interest is served by pulling our yeah that's the question from Afghanistan well it's first of all it's not only a strategic interest but what is the Strategic interest there's there's two points here okay I mean this is a strategic point I guess as well the idea that the United States of America should be perpetually holding Nations foreign Nations into existence which cannot exist on their own without our help I just reject that strategically and I reject it philosophically and I just don't think that that should be our role unless as Drew says we're going to embrace it and say you know what we are an Empire and this is what we do we build Empires we take over you know what we're going to take over Afghanistan it's ours now it's our property and if if that's the argument then okay let's make that argument but our Empire is a uniquely American Empire so the government admit

34:49 to it West Germany would not have survived as a nation if America hadn't left its troops there it would have fallen to the Soviet Union in minutes if the Americans had pulled out we we think that like Berlin is in West uh Germany by the way it's in East Germany and we had you know we were cut off from access we flew the the Berlin airlifts to keep that City free um and it's not just that if we had left the next day if we if we had left five years later if we left 10 years later if we had left 20 years later uh similarly back to the South Korea example it took first of all a World War to drive the Japanese empire out of South Korea than a Korean War to keep the North and the Chinese and Russians from taking South Korea 33 000 American Dead just in that war and then occupation by our troops not not in the old Imperial sense because we didn't run their government just like we didn't in Afghanistan but

35:38 in this uniquely American way where our troops provide the the opportunity for that Nation to form we had to do that for 42 years before South Korea became a functioning democracy and after they became a functioning democracy we've continued to have our troops there for 35 more years so that that democracy could think that it is do you do you think that it is America's Duty to actually perpetually hold other countries into existence to keep them in existence is that if we're if we're the ones who broke the country in the case of Afghanistan whatever whatever the political argument for why we went there we went should we have stayed for a week and then left that's a conversation that we can prescriptively apply some of those lessons to Future problems if you can't retroactive would you really say we broke Afghanistan it wasn't exactly a thriving place it was not a thriving place but the problems faced by the

36:32 current listen the the the median age in Afghanistan is like 18 years we've been there 20. the people in especially Urban Kabul the people in these cities that are falling right now they're not like the guys who were there when we went in this isn't people who ever lived under the Taliban this isn't people this isn't women these arguments these arguments do not the reason these arguments don't hold water is because they're all really about the Cold War and the cold war was in a fight between two my argument is about Afghanistan listen we went into Afghanistan wherever you think that's the second part I think we should have got the second part of Europe we held it for 20 years and now in leaving we are the cause of the Terrible Things I don't agree with this at all I didn't Knowles was right about this it was the place was a mess it was it's going to be a mess unless we stay and it was a mess before we got there but the

37:24 thing about this it was a mess before we got there but we went to Germany the thing about Italy is all of these places were places we occupied to keep the Soviets and the Chinese out right and the thing is no what I'm and what I'm what I'm saying is we are about to be enter a new cold war that I think there's no question about it we're already halfway in it however however the the Taliban never and even islamism never constituted the existential threat to our way of life that we basically sold it as having and that's that's the key thing here that's the key difference and so in other words if now you're going back 20 years and saying that the arguments were wrong I'm saying right now today as we understand that but an actual thing is occurring I'm sorry you we we do not have a responsibility to every country even even if this thing to every country we have a responsibility to the country we are in

38:14 and have occupied for the last 20 years let's put aside for a second the quote unquote we have a responsibility to Puerto Rico that doesn't mean that we also have a responsibility to Costa Rica Puerto Rico is our protectorate no no I don't agree with this well I mean here's the reason hold on one so we're not responsible this is a legitimate question we're not responsible for what's happening right now well wait a minute wait a minute so much of what's happened this is what's a little confusing about about the conversation is so much of what's happening is a matter of this incredible I mean this is Criminal incompetence we're talking about this is not just like oh I left my shirt at home you know I forgot to bring my tie to work this is because Biden's argument like this yeah that's completely insane yeah so there are a few things that I think we're also conflating one is the the morality of

38:59 the situation whether we owe it to the people of Afghanistan to stay there forever because they're the people of Afghanistan and they came to rely upon us and I think there there's an argument to say that the answer is no not in perpetuity we're still America we have our own interest then there's the question that I actually want to ask which is why is it in our interest you turn this back over to the Taliban have it be a terrorist hotbed intensifies China to go and get all the rare Earth's minerals incentivize China to invade Taiwan and why is all of that worth it to take 2500 troops out of a position where no one was dying that's the thing nobody seems to be able to do I think they're not talking about a hundred thousand troops there yeah I'm not talking about tens of that so Joe Biden's excuse for this is that if we didn't then tomorrow there'll be a vast wall of Taliban fighters coming over

39:38 that wall there is zero evidence of this none okay we had had a stasis situation in Afghanistan effectively since 2014. that pretty much nothing had changed so what we are talking about we talk about ending endless Wars I think that that I think that's a bumper sticker slogan because it does not count as an endless war when you station a baseline force of 2500 people there with zero casualties for a year and a half is there any reason to think that that would maintain though given that yes and it's not South Korea it has maintained it's maintained for the last six to seven years I think that there is I think that there is very little evidence that the Taliban and we're on the verge of radically overrunning the country I've yet to see Joe Biden present to any of that intelligence evidence do you think if fat we stayed exactly as we were 10 years from now do you think we've now gone 16 years without

40:20 it I think I think what you would see is what we have typically seen in situations like this when it gets a little hotter we put in a few more troops when it gets a little colder we take out a lot more troops I don't think there's a situation in Afghanistan we're dumping another hundred thousand troops in there because we had forces on the ground constantly constantly degrading the Taliban because the Afghan Army at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives a year we're going and killing the town so this is so my question again is not we can go back to the fundamental principles of you know when do we owe things to people I think also but but I think that you know Drew you mentioned the cold war the world is filled with threats on a consistent basis this is where you and I agree notion that the defense department exists mainly as a make work program for people to sit on a base in Alabama is

41:01 silly okay this has become the Democratic talking point which is that our soldiers should never be put in the line of combat in favor of American interests unless those interests are existential to the United States this has never been the perspective of Any Nation that has been worth its salt well this is the part where you and I agree I mean this is this is something and what I'm saying is it seems like a fairly cheap deal to me to have been stationing 2500 troops yes in country providing air support close air support with some military contractors at the cost of like 0.5 of the United States budget every year to keep the Taliban from taking back over the country and rebringing an Al-Qaeda and rebringing in Isis and turning I mean we spend how much money we had to spend and how many troops we had to put back into Iraq just this is all based on the assumption that the situation right now would maintain

41:48 in this tribalistic hellhole country in the middle of a civil war between all these various different factions I just I don't think first of all there's any reason to think that that's true we're going through six to seven years in the grand scheme of history is nothing at all so they're going through a period of relative 20 years in the grand scheme of history is hardly anything at all agreed but so we're they're going through a period of relative calm if we can call it that in Afghanistan I don't think there's any reason to think that would they would maintain that way and there was always this threat when you send our our guys over to Afghanistan they're still at least at a serious threat of being killed in service to this relatively they really were not they really were not you have 2500 troops there and zero combat deaths since February 2020. well but that exactly seven years prior but I'm saying that

42:29 that could change at any moment there's no reason to think that's true at the moment that's true that's true literally anywhere on Earth that's true literally anywhere on Earth no tomorrow I mean Japan I think China get militaristic with Japan and they have fired some missiles into the Sea of Japan you could get military there and everyone knows in South Korea is the biggest hot spot right we've got 26 000 troops there as a tripwire but you would agree that Japan and Germany are not nearly as volatile as Afghanistan right yes and the volatility is the reason to keep the American presence the volatility is the reason to have when we when we invaded Afghanistan we had to use hand-drawn Russian era Maps we had no intelligence we knew nothing about Afghanistan we knew very little about border Pakistan we had very little uh eyes into Iran Pakistan by the way a nuclear power with 75 nuclear weapons

43:17 who already their intelligence service for this whole time has been sympathetic to the Taliban and now and now they have ejected all Americans but since Biden's withdrawal as the last two weeks are you guys making two different arguments because you're saying on one hand we should stay there because it's peaceful and nobody's dying on the other hand we should stay there because it's volatile so I'm saying that Americans and we were keeping a lid on it now you remove the lid a negative and it's in America's strategic interest to have not have a issue there but this is this goes back to the political failure and it's a political failure that has gone on since the Bush Administration it you can't you can't say to people we're going in there to get Bin Laden I mean this is still a democracy of some sort you can't say we're going in there to get Bin Laden oh no we're going in there to build a a

44:01 civilized uh country oh no we're going in there because we need Bagram in order to fight the Chinese uh interest no you can't do that and and succeed unless unless we understand ourselves to be in a conflict of great powers and this is where you and I I agree I think this great the conflict of great Powers is inevitable and we should start we're already in a conflict it's always there it's always here correct and we and we should start and we should start to talk like that I never want to fight a selfless War ever again I never want to hear you broke it you fix it ever again I want to be when when my fellow Americans send their sons and daughters into Harm's Way I want to know that they are there for them in this country and and for our interests and part of our interests are is fending off China I wish most of our major corporations knew this I will say you better have a damned compelling reason for pulling out 2 500

44:55 troops from a place where they are the lid and they're the cork in the bottle especially when that is now going to subject 19 million women to rape you better have a very good reason and better not be a slogan like no endless war that is not good you know you guys keep saying these things slogans all of Democrats all of democratic politics no no it might be your deconstructionist I'm talking about the reality of political um I have a question when does this become about whether I like just because the American people like a thing does not mean that they are correct to like the thing but the American people like their nation's course doesn't it I mean I think they still I I know that especially for recent decades there is this idea that on foreign policy they 100 do not how what's the last congressionally approved War what's the last congressionally approved the war well this wasn't a war I mean that's the

45:42 other problem this was this a war was this an occupation Michael if we're talking about the realities on the ground when was the last time the American people approved a war but this gets this gets to Jeremy's point I actually think Jeremy made a very good point here which is when you said yes America is an Empire but it's a special kind of Empire and I jokingly but not so jokingly said yeah it's special because we don't admit that we're an Empire the reason that we don't admit it by the way is because our nation is founded not to be an Empire and all of our most revered founding fathers said don't do this don't have Perpetual War don't have entangling alliances don't go overseas then they proceeded endless directly from one Coast all the way across to the other way down the whole way but they but they didn't occupy it as some Imperial territory they would bring it into the neighborhood wait hold up

46:28 until they became states are we going to make Afghanistan a state I don't think if you go if you go to the world making Afghanistan hold on which we were talking about Empire wait wait you're saying that it is not imperialistic you're saying it's less imperialistic to make a thing a state yes by definition because then becomes a nation yeah because it's part of the nation but if you hold it anymore the British Empire turned us into British citizens it was into the World War II Memorial in Washington DC it says we came to liberate not to conquer and that's been basically our idea with all that's why our troops have been there for seven with everywhere else well okay then what Knowles are saying is right that the problem with our Empires we don't admit it's an Empire now Ferguson makes this uh argument all the time and I think he's got a point and and I think if you don't make the argument if you don't

47:17 tell the truth the American people who still do vote for the president of the United States who still is the guy who runs most of our foreign policy are not going to be convinced and you can't you can't accuse them of bumper sticker slogans when you're back here pretty much everything else politically you're basically selling themselves I still think just we're operating with this assumption that because the situation was a certain way it's going to maintain that way and that denies the risk that our military was in over there I know that it's been a certain way for a few years but I don't think we could do I don't think it's fair to do because part of this is we're sending you know our sons and daughters are actually going over there and there's a there's many of them have died in the last few years not as many but there's always that threat of something terrible happening to them as we've just discovered uh and on top

48:02 of that as well I mean there are other things too that we haven't brought up like one of them again talking to the veterans that served over there even in the peacetime they'll talk about things like um you know I don't know if they come home traumatized because they have to overlook child rape which is which is utterly within the widespread in the Afghan Army and in the Afghan leadership and they they're just over there and they have to just deal with it and they're told and not to mention the threat of being killed by our supposed allies uh but even even that alone like look just that piece alone to me means send our guys home because I'm not they got to go over there and and look the other way while children are raped left and right and it was as widespread as that um wait hold on you're gonna be a realist you're gonna be a moralist here I mean I need one or the other well you're answering you're answering the

48:47 moralism with a sort of moralistic argument on the other side it's not a moral answer though to say ex people do bad things therefore let's create a vacuum in which people who didn't do those things separately I'm trying to I'm trying to bring it back around to focusing on the actual human beings our countrymen and our service members who we are sending into these situations uh so when we say that there hasn't been a combat death in six or seven years I think that that overlooks you know in 18 months in 18 months and few for you know relatively there has been relatively few for six or seven years uh when we say that that overlooks some some realities that they were living with that I think we have to at least if we're going to have this conversation putting the military in places always is a question of cost versus benefit and so you're lining up costs and I'm saying that there were actual benefits and and I

49:35 think one of the things that's happened here is that what has happened in the wake of the United States pulling out is being labeled a potential cost to the United States when it is an actual cost to the United States meaning that what Joe Biden has done is in the aftermath of us pulling out and as they bomb American troops and as Taliban takes over the country again and as Isis comes back in as I'll take it comes back in my argument is pretty simple if we hadn't left this wouldn't have happened and my evidence for this is that if we hadn't have left this wouldn't have happened Joe Biden's argument is if we had stayed this would have happened he's going to have to prove that case stronger than I think this would have happened because the counter factual is already here it's happening it's happened the Taliban have taken over the country so I already know that if a then B he is saying if not a then B he's

50:19 gonna that doesn't exist that's an alternative history and the last data point that I had was that it wasn't happening until he pulled out the troops so unless he can show me extreme which he has not done extremely compelling data that leaving 2500 troops in place was going to result in this straw man argument where we have 50 000 troops back in there fighting close hand to hand combat in Missouri Sharif I'm going to need some actual evidence of that not some from Joe Biden that's Justified the fact that he wanted to pull out in 2010 and can't get his head out of his ass this is also why that I don't want any more selfless Wars I don't want any more selfless Wars okay you can prescriptively take that wisdom into the future this wasn't a selfless War it is a unanimity about going in it oh yeah it is a selfish withdrawal we actually do bear we don't bear America is not responsible for every humanitarian crisis in the

51:08 world we're just responsible for the ones that we create we are creating this crisis if we had gone in tried to kill Bin Laden and left if we had used airstrikes and left I don't buy the Colin Powell if you break it uh we bought it if you but if you break it create it hold it let a generation of people come of age under American protection and then just decide on a whim for no strategic upside that you're just going to bail on them and leave them all day upside just for a minute I I think that argument is is basically saying we have to throw good money after bad if we go into a place and we have a uh American interest and we cannot find we cannot serve that American interest and we withdraw because we can't serve that American interest and there is and the country reverts to what it was before we got there you know I'm not sure I can hold us responsible for that we're responsible for the two million people

52:02 who died in Southeast Asia after we abandoned uh the South Vietnamese of course of course we bear we bear responsibility we are not wholly responsible that's the context the question is are the people who are pushing defund the police responsible for an increase in crime to my mind sure yeah yeah sure okay well this is the exact same thing internationally if you remove the cops and then people go around killing other people yeah but but the World Police sir yeah but we are the cops we went over and we're over we're in the position you can make the case that if you had to redeploy the people like to take the domestic context if you had the police in one area right and you had to make the decision we need to redeploy the police from here to here because it's more important to have them over here or the costs that we are undergoing in this city you know for the police too many cops are dying and we're moving them and

52:50 we're putting them here you're still responsible for what comes next over here because you remove the police but at least you can say the costs here were worth the benefits here the point that we're having in Afghanistan right now is that the costs here are accruing not only no benefit but negative benefits so I think the question that is coming up is what changed not only what changed in the last 10 20 years but what changed since 1950 what changed since the our our establishment of a sort of Empire overseas and I think we should we should Define the terms because we're using different terms for imperialism and nationalism when I say that Texas the acquisition of Texas is not imperialism I mean of course it's imperialism when you go and Lincoln thought it was imperialism but when you make it part of the nation that is a very different thing or even Hawaii for that matter maybe part of the nation that is a very

53:37 different thing than the British Nation the point well I'll show you the distinction uh when Great Britain holds India as an imperial territory it is not holding it as a part of the British Nation it is recognizing this is a distinct culture a distinct Country Part its own thing but we are holding it we are the British Empire we don't really do that with Texas as distinct as Texas is we say it's all part of the American issue now we hold Imperial territories like Puerto Rico we've held other Imperial territories that because of our national origin we gave up and we have always felt uncomfortable within the 19th and 20th Century but this brings us then to the question what changed between 1950 and today and the question and it gets back to your point Drew and it gets to your point also Matt which is we we in in the middle of the 20th century were a strong superpower with a lot of national cohesion that knew who

54:27 we were we knew what it meant to send truth justice and the American way overseas we can't even put that in Superman movies anymore they actually cut that line out to your point Matt you say what are we there for are we going to raise the pride flag on the embassy in Kabul which we actually did I don't think a lot of Americans are going to get behind behind that that has become a sort of Imperial flag but a lot of people don't support it so I think it's very important if you want to choose are we just a nation or are we just an Empire or is it inevitable to become an Empire which I think probably it is for great Nations what is the Empire what is it and I just think if you're in a situation where we can't agree on anything in this country we can't even agree on the definition of man and woman at this point you've got major political activists with the support of the democratic party Burning Down the

55:08 country for 2020 I'm just not sure that we have the ability to project that overseas they're not sure we know what we're projecting this I think is an enormous enormous strategic and ideological mistake if the notion is that the weaknesses and internal failures of the United States do not allow us to either pursue a strategic interest overseas or to say to the Taliban sorry whatever it is that we are pursuing is better than what you are pursuing then I think that their failure is on the right as well I'm not a fan of the program I just want to make this one point I I'm not making even a prescriptive argument here I'm I'm interested and the descriptive argument is this 70 of Americans want it out of Afghanistan and the majority of Americans both parties have wanted out for a long time I'm I'm not saying that's a good thing I'm just saying I think the reason for that is the collapse of our cohesion and we had a

55:55 lot more of it I don't think that I want to I want to speak to this but first I want to talk about our Palace over at policy genius and the reason is because they paid for this also because I personally have used policy genius to great effect my little daughter was born as I have told you before a year ago and I realized I essentially have done nothing to provide for the people that I love uh in the event of my untimely demise policy genius makes it so easy to do just that you can compare quotes from over a dozen top insurers all in one place why compare because you can save up to 50 or more on life insurance by comparing quotes with policy genius the licensed experts at policy genius work for you not the end insurance companies so you can trust them to help you navigate every step of the shopping and buying process that kind of service has earned policy genius thousands of five-star reviews across trustpilot and

56:41 Google getting started couldn't be easier first head to policygenius.com in minutes you can work out how much life insurance coverage you need and compare personalized quotes to find your best price when you're ready you just apply the policy genius team handles all the paperwork all the scheduling for absolutely free this is important a lot of the products that we promote on these shows are about bringing efficiency to your life you are busy you need people like policy genius to do the work for you and that's exactly what they do so head over to policygenius.com right now get started when it comes to insurance it's nice to get it right policygenius.com so I wanted to make a quick point on this which is that I totally listen you don't have to argue to me about the lack of cohesion and the moral decline of the United States right I think that as a nation one of the symptoms that we are so eager to get out

57:25 of Afghanistan I think that is a symptom of the fact that we are a nation that is ready to climb into a warm bath get fat and slit our wrists I think that is I think that where we are as a country I think that's why Joe Biden is President right now because he's effectively a senile president presiding over a nation in a tragic state of of Decay I think that that seems like what it is unless there's some sort of dramatic Resurgence with that said I think what happened in American foreign policy is pretty obvious we had a mission when the Soviet Union was around because we recognized there were existential threats to the United States in the form of the Soviet Union then the Soviet Union fell and we figured we have no idea what the hell we're doing right are we doing this for capitalism are we doing this for liberalism are we doing this for nothing should we should we do Pap Buchanan retrenchment should we Instead try and

58:04 spread the the message of the IMF like what exactly are we doing here yeah we failed to recognize is that once again nature and foreign policy abhor a vacuum and the notion that the United States was forever and always that we'd reached the Francis fukayam end of History which of course is slightly misinterpreted but that we had reached that that end of History where the United States was destined to be the Everlasting hegemon created the sense of so what do we do with all this stuff what do we do with all this power and what that failed to recognize is that there are always powers is on the move and that is what you're seeing in Afghanistan right now okay the fact is that when we leave it is not as though everything just goes back to a tribal state of warfare with no externalities there by the way the Taliban was in charge for a grand total of five years in Afghanistan everybody acts like the Taliban was in charge

58:45 since forever they were in a state of constant civil war with serious externalities particularly the Soviets and for surrounding republics for quite a long time and the United States was deeply involved in Afghanistan all the way back in the 50s right Eisenhower actually flew into Kabul Airport in 1959. so the so the the United States has always been involved all over the world the question is always one of costs and benefits which I keep coming back to this because I think that's a hard-headed way of viewing foreign policy and so I ask again I don't see the benefit in pulling out other than the Fulfillment of this muddle-headed idea that we have somehow sinned in being in Afghanistan or it's a continuing sins remain in Afghanistan at extraordinarily low cost to keep a lid on what was going on there and especially in the face of Chinese aggression the the notion in American foreign policy Contin we were able to

59:26 keep an Empire effectively during the Cold War because we were doing so as an anti-communist Empire not because we were doing so as an American Empire but because we were able to do all the stuff saying we were opposing the Soviets right yeah the reality is nature is going to force us back into that you can say we're out of Afghanistan not for a long weeks we're out of Iraq and then we were back what you just said what you just said is far more in keeping with my tragic view of these things than anything else that anybody's talking about but in the interim during this end of History phase we did fall apart and and Knowles is right about this it is very hard to project power without a um it's very hard to project the kind of power that is American power without an American set of values and we are no longer have an American set of values and I think listen it's a tragic it is a truly tragic thing that is China that is

1:00:12 about to force us back into the great game but in forcing us back into the great game it will help us redefine who we are because it's not true that everything we did against the Soviets was simply against the Soviets we were going against the Soviets because they stood for something that we didn't stand for it was only in in my horrific cursed generation that we lost the plot of what we what we stood for against this so I agree I agree with everything and by the way just one one more thing you know Vietnam gets a bad rap and in some ways it deserves a bad rap but the Chinese looked at us in Vietnam and thought those people are crazy and it kept them in line for 50 years and they didn't really start to stretch out their Imperial uh tentacles uh because they saw we were going to fight them on every level and they just didn't want any part of that yeah so I agree with what you just said and I agree with what you just

1:00:57 said the reason to remain in Afghanistan is America's strategic interest I do think that we're abstracting our way out of the Urgent moral question there is a moral question about whether or not in addition to pursuing our strategic interests we also create moral obligation along the way I agree that you don't have a moral obligation to go into every place that something bad happens I agree that you don't have a moral obligation to read to occupy I every country that you drop some bombs on or send special operators into I agree that you don't have a moral responsibility to build governments in countries even if you do occupy them for a brief amount of time those are philosophical political questions they're abstract questions they're questions that can deeply inform our view of the world they can deeply inform the actions that we will take in the future the Urgent question today the moral

1:01:52 question today is do we have an obligation to the people who for 20 years lived under whatever drove us there whatever took us there whatever mistakes we made along the way whatever things we should or shouldn't have done whichever things we hope to do in the future or hope not to do in the future we did do something in Afghanistan and because of what we did for the last 20 years we keep using the word women the people being raped and murdered or women they're not women they're small girls they're 13 of course girls girls who were going to school girls who were not wearing burkas girls who were not westerners they did not have our values but they had something far better than the values of the generation that preceded them in Afghanistan and they had them as the direct result of actions that we ourselves took so while we are while we are I believe betraying our strategic interests I think we're

1:02:40 emboldening China I think we're emboldening Russia I think we're going to see the fall of Pakistan to the Taliban and now the Taliban will be one of the six nuclear powers on the earth I think we're emboldening Iran I think we're emboldening Isis and Al-Qaeda just like when we pulled our troops wrongly out of Iraq under Barack Obama and suddenly we lost half the country that we had fought and bled to win and we lost Syria and Isis formed and Europeans started getting bombed and getting their heads chopped off and now we had to fight yet another war in Iraq and yet another war in Syria I think we're gonna say the same for all the reasons I think it's horrible for the interests of the United States of America to withdraw our troops I also think there is a moral question about our withdrawal of our troops let me let me address that that one moral question which is in order to answer that moral question you have to

1:03:31 imagine the counterfactual that Joe Biden did not screw this up beyond the imagination of man you have to be able to say that there was an orderly withdrawal we left we left the place intact we left the government intact we left the Army intact and we withdrew slowly in in an orderly manner uh we got our people out we got our allies out all of those things you have to imagine first right because the immoral thing that's happening is happening because of this incredible act almost mind-boggling active incompetence and I suppose what I would say in that case in that case if the we left Afghanistan in an orderly manner and Afghanistan still could not maintain its government and still could not maintain its system then I would say no we don't actually have an obligation and I suppose what I would answer to that is we had essentially withdrawn from Afghanistan and now you're changing the question I

1:04:22 mean the the question is do we have an eternal moral obligation and no eventually another country unless we're an Empire eventually other countries have to be able to pull out of the Philippines I don't think I don't think it's unreasonable if we had any moral obligations that people have Afghanistan and frankly I don't think we did or do but if we did then I think 20 years is a pretty good amount of time uh to to give them to figure out how to run their own country and and honestly we all agree that the way that we pulled out was terrible and incompetent and all that but no matter how we pulled out I just think you're you're the mil you are the military of Afghanistan this this is your job you should be able to do this no matter how America leads and if they can't then um I think the moral failures fall on The Afghan Army more so than on the the um you think 20 years means uh 20 years was

1:05:18 enough uh like the longer you're there the more you need to leave and I think what I'm suggesting is the longer you're there the more responsibilities you begin to incur so you go yes if you go into a country and bomb them and get out if it's shocking on leave if you shoot some cruise missiles into the Sudan you have very little obligation to the Sudan or the people of the Sudan that you incur as a result if you were there for a year until Tora Bora we realized that Bin Laden's probably out of Afghanistan and we're gonna have to take our fight elsewhere you've incurred more moral obligation but certainly far far less than if you've been we have been there after all your if you withdraw your support for a tyrant like the Shah of Iran and another Tyrant uh an islamist Tyrant comes in and takes over like the Ayatollah Khomeini essentially do you have an obligation there do you think like oh we do we should have kept

1:06:05 supporting the shaw well only 100 we should have kept supporting yes for political reasons for political reasons but not for more but I think that even when it comes to foreign policy morality is a currency right I mean that that is that is just a reality of the situation right this is why the United States ought to win the Cold War for example morality is a currency and one of the ways that morality is used as a currency is via incentivizing people to join your fight meaning that yeah so in so in Afghanistan it is not merely that we went there and out of the kindness of our heart we were like here's some liberalism and we're here to save you and we went in there with a particular purpose as we all discussed the political leadership the explanation of that purpose all that's true we then made a bunch of promises to all the people who work with us hundreds of thousands of people worked with us that

1:06:55 if you work with us you will have these things your women will be able to go to school your women will be able to walk out in the street and women help those many women helped us right you will be able to live a different life and they live that life and many of them kept those obligations and so now the question becomes if you make a promise and then you withdraw the promise is that a problem and I think the answer is yes and then the question becomes okay so how do we deal with that promise so for example if we were talking right now because these are now the Alternatives now we're to the real world Alternatives right the alternate alternative number one we pull out of the country we made promises to literally hundreds of thousands of people that we were Joe Biden says this all the time that we were going to help them get out if not to the United States than someplace else right that if we

1:07:37 leave and if this thing collapsed we're you're gonna get out and by the way we did the same with the Vietnamese boat people in the or we should have in the aftermath many of those people are unbelievably good American citizens we do this for people who are trying to escape Cuba from a bad life to a good life you know the if so if the alternatives are figure out where 250 000 people who actively worked with the United States are going to live or keep a baseline truth presence there and nobody has to leave which one of those is better now again I think that you can the in the end everything in foreign policy just like in politics generally comes down to transactional cost it comes down to cost and benefit when you're making a calculation it's the promises that you made to people on a moral level do we bear any responsibility for those people so for example forget about keeping the troops there do we bear any

1:08:21 responsibility to the people we made promises to that we were going to evacuate them to help them evacuate or should we've just said you know what screw it yeah we helped you for 20 years but you're on your own at the talbance lottery we'd all agree that we had responsibilities to the to the people we promised to evacuate right if our government documented a lot of them by the way right right and they did okay so so we so we so we agree on that so then the question is just whether with regard to the keeping of the skeleton Force whether that would have been better or is it better to try and airlift out hundreds of thousands of people hundreds more thousands by the way are still going to get left and slaughtered and do we own a moral obligation to not just the the girls who are about to get raped but to their fathers who worked with us and step parents who worked with us and I think the answer is yes when you incur

1:08:58 a mutual obligation in order to get a thing done you owe something do you think that's an everlasting moral obligation is I guess is the question I mean I think that it is a moral obligation that if you promise someone yeah we didn't promise the people who fought with us that here's the deal you fight with us today in 20 years we're out right and if the Taliban take over that's it we'll fight with you today in 20 years we're gone that's not what we and that's not how you promise in foreign policy no one promises that way in foreign policy because then Nobody Does it so we promised we'd be there forever no we promised that they were going to have a particular kind of life this is what happens which would entail us to be there forever not necessarily or we fly them over here or or maybe there's the possibility that if we withdrawn more orderly fashion and don't completely collapse their Air

1:09:40 Force from within okay but did the Afghan government and military have any obligation of its own to its own citizens of course they had an obligation of the tone of the of and and by the way they undertook that obligation to the tune of 50 000 dead over the course of the last six years and 67 000 dead in the 20 years we've yeah and and that's and that's that is an awful lot of human beings that is an awful lot but but that's also that's more American troops than we've lost in all wars combined since Vietnam but that's the way the ratio should be at least I mean they're they are defending their own country they either take the Lion's Share of the casualties so I agree with you so the idea that we're supposed to you know admire the Afghan military for being the ones to take the brunt of the casualties of course it's your country who else is going to do it but my question is I just I suppose I

1:10:22 just don't understand the tremendous urgency that was felt by so many people we must get this tiny Bare Bones Force out of Afghanistan forthwith and even the consequences our world's historical and they are okay when you turn over a country of 38 million people to the Taliban welcome in all these terrorist groups give China an open running field give Russia an open running field and then that's right yes create the moral hazard of and this does make a difference in the world when our allies look at us and they and we have and yes this goes back to the political leadership point maybe we should never talk in moral terms but I do happen to think that it was kind of a good thing that we stopped Mass rape in Afghanistan so if George W bush said in a couple of speeches we stopped terrorism and by the way we also stopped the mass rape of 12 year old girls in Afghanistan I don't think that's the end of the world but if

1:11:05 people in the world the other way on the rape of boys though I mean that's the Afghan Army I mean so he should have said that too and he should have moved on that okay like we can all agree I'm not in favor of the rape of boys I think we're all on the same page on this one but there was the painting of of the Afghan allies and I'm very grateful for the Allies who helped us but there's the painting of them as these pure pure as the driven snow charitable people who didn't but what Matt is saying is they committed some of the same atrocities that we're all focusing the South Koreans did too during that 42 years that we occupied South Korea and so like right that's the nature of foreign policy the question is is it more moral what was the United States presence did we make Afghanistan in the period of our dominance better than it had been under the Taliban sure but but if we're making if we're now having the

1:11:51 moral discussion then I think it's important to remember that when we went in there the people who helped us in Afghanistan I don't think they did so on the suggestion that we were going to stay there forever and claim it as an imperial territory that was not the argument we made when we went and I don't yeah I'm sorry who claimed it as an imperial terrorist well I think we're saying now we should have stayed there for many many more years which makes it an imperial territory yeah okay yeah I think it does but we'll think about that Germany I think both of you are wrong about that what would you say if China tried to build a base what if some other country tried to build one military base in our country we would say you're trying to claim us as your own right and I just just to get back to this morning yeah but so isn't the same thing if we do that in another country you know Ben brought up transaction and

1:12:35 foreign policy is decided by transaction and I just think that it's worth remembering I'm grateful for the support of our Afghan allies they were doing so because they had an interest and I don't I actually don't believe that they thought the United States was going to stay there forever I don't think we said we were going to stay there forever they thought we were the best I think when you look at America's victories in the last century any place where we fought and won we still have troops before 1975. anywhere I'm sorry in the last no but I mean I just think yeah until until next year every place that we fought and suffered humiliating defeat we don't still I can if I can just inject one more time my uh morbidly uh tragic move life here uh one thing we should also keep in mind that the thing that we're we're actually noticing is that a democracy uh is a very bad system for running an Empire

1:13:23 and the reason it's a bad system for running an Empire is because one day you've got George W bush running the place and the next day you've got Joe Biden or Obama running the place don't agree and they pull out our troops and they put our troops back in and our promises are broken and our promises are broken for Democratic reasons because we voted for somebody who's going to break the promise of the last guy we voted for that this is one of the reasons that as great as free Nations become strong and free Nations become strong they become Empires and they stop being free Nations and this is one of the prices I believe we're going to have to pay there's a reason the Roman Republic fell there's a reason this Republic will fall and I think that we have to understand that what you guys are talking about keeping your promises is going to have it be a drain on the Democratic process I'm also curious what uh foreign policy has been

1:14:06 I mean I I just again I'm going to point out that every president since since Barack Obama pledged to get the troops out and nobody did it because it turns out that foreign policy is not a democratic process we vote not at the moment it's not but it is you know it has not been since World War II Joe Biden did not get out because the people of the United States were rapidly demanding that Joe Biden get out she looked at the list of American priorities getting out of Afghanistan okay but that okay now you're actually justifying the idea they voted for somebody who pledged it was giving about Universal Health Care I mean like that doesn't work that's not right no the fact that it is but it's true it's not because I'm not saying it's right I'm saying bush is right in 2005 when he said you voted for a guy who's going to privatize Social Security except that's not the way this works okay just because

1:14:49 you vote for a president of the United States and because that President wins does not mean that he has a referendum on every single issue down the line or that his calculator is not the reality of it I'm not arguing the morality I'm talking about the reality of it and this is one of the reasons why why great Nations lose their elections have consequences and says this is true of course it is also true that the American people have a piss poor understanding of foreign policy because our leadership class is garbage when it comes to this stuff and it has been since the Cold War and how and during half the Cold War we had a pistol it was America America's uh leaders have been pissed poor on foreign policy way before the cold yeah this war on everything also but I I am curious what uh you guys say about this issue of on the moral question of of our country right now when we talk about exerting our influence and we

1:15:36 think about what that influence actually is now I think about one of the most powerful videos that I've seen recently was and it was a small group but still it was in Jamaica and I don't know if yeah everyone seen this video but um our Embassy in Jamaica was flying a pride flag and it's the Jamaican people got together and protested it and said we don't this we don't want that here this that's your values it's not ours we don't want it here and I look at that and I and I side against our Embassy I'm on their side 100 and so uh and I don't like that I mean when someone's protesting our Embassy and I have to be on the side of the protest it's not a good place to be it's not a good place to be it's also it's also it's tragic and sad that I have to say that right so so what what about that problem as well I'm just curious what you guys think about I disagree with any of that I do think that it is better for that I

1:16:28 think that if the package deal and I wish there weren't a package deal I wish that we weren't flying the pride flag I think it's absurdify anything but the American flag period at the United States Embassy but the the American flag is now more controversial in the United States than the pride progress flag much more so much significantly more because the pride progress flag is in my view my humble view the the Imperial flag right it's Universal and we put it in our embassies all over the world so the but putting aside the the so then the question is okay so here's the package deal I disagree with flying The Pride progress flag in Kabul I definitely agree with preventing the mass rape of 18 million women so if I have to balance those out yeah that's not that tough a balance like I like I America May suck in a lot of ways but we don't suck in that big giant way yeah and so I'm I have I have generalized moral objections

1:17:13 to the conflation of America again and and you see this a lot actually with with the kind of left-wing approach to the United States we can't criticize this country over here because look at all the problems we're having over here and I do see it mirrored sometimes on the right which is look at all the bad stuff we're pushing over here you know the gender ideology and and critical race Theory and that makes it inappropriate for us to quote unquote spread our values anywhere else and all I would say is yes those values should not be spread even at home but it's a fallacy to say that because there are people in the United States spreading that at home right is therefore bad for other countries to export the parts where we kill the guys who are the rapists I'm I'm the pride flag here is just sort of symbolic and in a lot of ways but it represents the overall problem obviously if you're going to

1:17:55 weigh a the rape of thousands of girls against the pride flag hanging on an embassy uh the rape a thousands girls is obviously a lot worse clearly but what we are exporting in general and the pride flag is only one small symbol of it it's just I think utter total moral confusion and I do think that people in Jamaica and across the world see that and there and what they're saying is we don't want any part of that we don't want that here you guys are this is falling apart and abroad on a broad scale I mean we weren't flying The Pride progress flag in 2005 and the Taliban didn't seem to waver in their determination to overthrow the the uh the you know macron the leader of France came out and this was about a month or so ago and he addressed woke ideology you know political correctness whatever you want to call it he said this is bad stuff we don't have that in France this is France this is one of the most liberal Nations

1:18:47 on Earth because we we don't have that here it is a poison we are going to prevent it from coming into our schools and our institutions and I think that's kind of what Matt is getting at here is yes we're we historically have exported wonderful things and ideas and values around the world that that is changing that is that has changed and and even Western enlightened wonderful leaders are recognizing that and I think that that causes some of the it is a lack of cohesion it has absolutely changed our values today in many ways are worse some of our values are a lot better though and I think one of the mistakes that we make on the right because we're definitionally reactionary that's what the right is uh is that we because we point at all the bad things that are beginning to happen we wind up and even Donald Trump did this you know when he basically said oh we do bad things too the Russians do bad

1:19:36 things we do bad things that's a horrible line because it is it is 90 true and 100 wrong right yes we do it's of course it's true that we do bad things there is no comparison America is like we still live in a great time we still have Prime fundamentally compared to most people in most places at most times yeah a great way of life a great value system a better value system in some ways than we've ever had a worse value system in some very important ways and a a worsening value system in some very particular ways that we need to fight but when you see like Nikki Fuentes Little Nikki Fuentes uh saying on the only social channels he's still welcome on what of course he should not have been banned well this actually I still also like to rub a little salt but he said you know the tal uh Afghanistan is falling to a regime that uh makes women cover their faces and you know some little clever little

1:20:31 list of haha the I made you think because really America is just as bad and you go no America isn't just as bad the fact that America has gay marriage does not make it as bad as the talent but I suppose the fact that America has transgenderism confusion which is a horrible moral sin that needs to be combated doesn't make us as bad as Afghanistan honestly even the fact that America has abortion which I think is the grave sin far worse than gay rights far worse than even the trans ideology a a blight that will if God permits the Earth to continue a blight that future Generations will look back on not the way we look at slavery the way we would look at slavery if slavery involved murdering every every black person uh nevertheless we live in this broken and Fallen World and America is still better our way of life is still better and our values are still better than in most of these places I I think it's

1:21:22 I'll take America over the Taliban any day of the week I mean that's why I'm living here and I want to move to Afghanistan but broadly speaking can I say that I recommend the American way of life as it stands right now and the answer is no it's not something that broadly to the entire world I want to broadcast and try to bring people into I I think the abortion thing you know that if if we really take that seriously just homing in on that for a second if we really take seriously the idea that a million 800 900 000 human beings are being slaughtered every single year uh but you can make the argument it's actually hard to find something worse than that that's about 60 million human beings we've killed in about 40 years since Roe v Wade yeah so so do we believe that or not do we actually take that seriously as a real death toll or not and if we do then uh we're in a pretty bad shape against almost anything

1:22:13 actually well not against almost anybody because abortion is legal in many uh other Western in almost every other Western Nation because for most of our Lives abortion was mandatory in our only true rival superpower so when you're still talking globally about the values that are being imported or exported around the world then yeah America is still better than China even with those Grievous sins because China has all of not all of the exact same they have abortion certainly the same Grievous sins and more more additional reasons that's an okay argument but it's not that great an argument I think what Matt's saying is does have a lot of weight there's also really really no wait wait a minute I think with this idea that that we are slaughtering this many big was it like three thousand a day uh you know I think this this should weigh on us a lot more heavily than it does one of the great uh triumphs of the

1:23:08 left is because we can't see the babies who are being killed they've convinced us that they have no humanity and if if we could see them uh what was happening it would be on a parallel with raping uh the the young women of Afghanistan if we were going to Afghanistan and then immediately forcing abortion on all the women there I think that that would be a far Graver oh yeah I think that the big question in politics that people generally fail to ask is compared to whom or comparison that's right I agree I agree and so whenever this is like a great country if you survive birth listen you don't have to preach to me about the portion but the but when it comes to you know the question of whether the United States has the right and or obligation to push our values when we are so confused and discombobulated and screwed up at home I think the answer is compared to what because I think in certain circumstances

1:23:59 the answer would probably be no right I mean we would look at like if you were saying do we need to pursue cultural imperialism with regard to uh Western European country that happens to be stricter on abortion say Ireland four years ago right not not France right or France like not really I don't see a need for us to be culturally imperialist on that I don't see our need to be culturally imperialist with regard to wokeness and so I think it's almost a non-sequitur to say something like you know the problems that we have at home are the problems that we are exporting abroad when in large measure that is not true the problems that we are having at home are problems that are that we are screwing ourselves up with a symptom of our of our failure to have any sort of heart for the fight for our own values that we have no values so what I would say is that our withdrawal from these places are our attempt to go

1:24:43 isolationist is a symptom of our interior weakness not a reconsolidation it's it's almost as though like you hear a lot of people on the right make the argument well you're spending all this money over here let's bring that money home and they'll spend it on the border it's like well yes but that's not where any of that money is Joe Biden is not going to take one dollar of that or one soldier there and put that person on the board it's not going to happen so you're just doing a non-sequitur now you're just saying I would like more Security on the border and also I don't want troops in Afghanistan and and that's not the same thing you're gonna have to show the connection between those two things I can say it once I hate wokeness I think all the stuff left is pushing is serious garbage and also I don't understand how that is of any comfort at all to anybody who's still trapped Behind Enemy Lines but it is true it is

1:25:22 true that within living memory at least my living memory uh it wasn't always so that this was a great country as compared to what yeah you know that that's that's a new phenomenon no I don't think that's true I mean I think that no because I think that I mean and this is where you're going to get the argument I mean pick a period Michael which which fear are we talking about I think the period after World War II uh this country actually entered a period of segregation there yeah wait a minute wait a minute I didn't say I didn't say that it was perfect I didn't say that but then it is compared to what the Soviet Union made this exact argument I know they did no that was that was what aboutism but but abortion is different it is and also to to Matt and there's a difference you know a lot a lot of the way that we spread our Imperial reach is through non-governmental channels or ngos literally right and we actually do

1:26:08 spread abortion through ngos and this is something we've gotten a lot of pushback from Africa so one of the values we're spreading I'm sorry to report is abortion and I think you know Jeremy will you bring up this point about this guy Fuentes who you know you but it's not just him right it's other people too who who will make this argument and say are we so much better than the Taliban and the reason that some people can make that argument with more credibility is because they have as we joked been kicked off of social media they have been taken out of financial institutions they've been put on the no-fly list without being accused of crime yeah we got some problems so I so I'm but I'm just I guess my point again is is descriptive which is I understand why some people would make even that semi-joke in comparison when perhaps we would not I think that it's disingenuous to to have this particular group of people devolve into

1:26:56 some sort of tacit accusations that maybe we're not pure enough on the abortion issue uh no no no nobody's saying that that's not that's not true the abortion is likened to slavery in two ways and wholly different than slavery in most ways it's like unto slavery in two ways one that it is culturally in Broad swas of the culture considered moral even though it is wholly unrighteous and it is likened to abortion in that it is somewhat ubiquitous slavery was ubiquitous in all of the world abortion is ubiquitous in all developed Nations really on Earth and that does that does not get out of jail free card for us we're abortion is concerned but it is to talk about the scope of the problem of abortion that abortion does not make America unique America America is a a grievous evil abortion is a grievous evil and we're worse on it the most it's not a unique it's also that also what you're talking

1:27:48 about also I think could potentially mitigate to a certain extent the personal moral culpability of of some individuals who choose abortion because they because they're they're in this environment where they're told by everybody that's okay but in terms of of the point that I was making anyway is not about any individual here it's actually all of us this so I had this thought just the other day when I was I was we were going out to eat or something and we passed by a Planned Parenthood and um which we all do all the time we pass by Planned Parenthood and and I didn't even think much of it I just went to to eat to eat and and only later did I stop and reflect I'm like I just passed by a building where they were killing babies and it didn't even register fully on me um as as pro-life as as I am and as we all are so this is this is a like Drew pointed out this is a success the left has had this is something unique about

1:28:32 abortion that we don't see the victims and so that that prevents us all from fully confronting it I think that if these were and I'm sure we all I know we all agree if these were two-year-old children who were being and we could see them being carted in by their parents to have their brain sucked out of their head I wouldn't have been able to go eat I mean I would have had to charge in there and stop it and um and we don't none of us really have that abortion is the Lord abortion is the Lords of the Ring sin yeah it's the sin that God can't see right it's the if you had the ring of power and you could turn yourself invisible 100 of all men would go into the women's locker room like your very first thought and be like yep just instantly because God couldn't see you because and when I say God I really mean man because God knows God sees all but but we reduced God down to us we think so abortion is what it is in

1:29:21 particular because people don't see not only they don't see the crime they don't see the criminal uh and in that way I I mean I will confess in in various moments in my life always thinking that abortion was a grievous crime I've confirmed I've been confronted with the part of myself that could have snuck around and done it but because I know what I would do if I I know what I could do if I could get away with it I said that Matthew's uh that passage of Jesus in in the Book of Matthew about you know adultery if you lust after you're an adulterer if you have hate You're a murderer not you're kind of like them or you're on the path to being one you are one because you've you've revealed what you actually would be if no one was watching uh abortion just happens to be the one that actually no one is watching we've actually run out of time but rather than ending the show I'm going to prolong the suffering

1:30:12 because we promised that we would take some questions from our daily wire subscribers they make it possible for us to conduct this crap show we we have a I would argue that the longer the show goes the more moral obligation we incurred too you know our subscribers now I even more strongly disagree exactly we should just withdrawal uh the first question for the group how will the reduction in American might and reputation uh have ramifications on other world events namely China moving on Taiwan and Russia flexing its muscles in Eastern Europe uh that's the question Ben I mean I think it's gonna have dramatic notifications I think everybody who follows foreign policy can see that people are talking openly in China about moving on Taiwan frankly I think they'd be fools not to move on Taiwan before Joe Biden is out of office because get while the getting is good I think you're going to start to they may try to pursue

1:31:03 the Hong Kong model of trying to pressure the government there into moving more pro-china because they feel like you're not going to get American Support so just basically softly take them over the way that they did Hong Kong before they marched in the troops but look China's on the March they're taking advantage Russia is on the March they're taking advantage we're not going to have any bases now not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan so we have no ability when Joe Biden talks about how we're going to have over the horizon capacity we absolutely will not in order to do that you have to have people on the ground who actually know where to spot the actual bad guys that you can actually put a laser on it so that our guys can hit it um so it's it's a disaster area and a wide array of of foreign policy issues is the really short answer and uh and yeah again I think our enemies are looking at this and they are just

1:31:43 drooling yeah up to Drew's Point America is about to have to actually face the question of what is our role in the world do you think Biden is going to be impeached or is going to be forced to step down and is that even a good thing because Kamala is just as bad and also should be impeached Kamala too because she obviously had a part of this plan also in fact she right before it all went to crap she made a major point of saying yeah that she was very important you have to be where you're like okay this thing is going to be just but I need to be on that bandwagon well don't forget at that first speech she wasn't there I think she had to have her arm Twisted a little but to this point I think as just I'll defer to the lawyer in the room but as a as a simple matter of impeachment Mal Administration is not a basis for impeachment High crimes and misdemeanors is a basis there's also nobody who's going to impeach you right

1:32:30 exactly I think the question of whether he will have to step down is unanswerable because he is such a a we we just don't know how bad off he is and it's some it's it's possible at some point they won't be able to hide it he looks the way he looked tonight I cannot imagine running for re-election but at the same time they can't let Kamala Harris I think everyone I think you did you just see so the Yahoo headline just came out about his poll numbers and they said this is really hurting Biden Harris Harris is only leading Trump by two percent that was the headline uh wait is she running I didn't I didn't know that was part of the pack I just I'm kind of with Ben I think that they will it'll be Weekend at Bernie's they they are terrified I mean Kamala couldn't win a primary she certainly isn't going to win and you know the idea that both the president and the vice president would not seek a second term

1:33:21 against a republican I don't know if we've ever seen that I think that's gonna happen I I I we don't know the future but I think that's going to happen and I think it's very hard to know it really is impossible to know what's going to happen with Biden because he may just be it may just be possible do you believe the Biden Administration will pay a ransom for remaining Americans who are left in Afghanistan before using military force for sure one but yeah yeah exactly they're gonna be pallets of cash that are shipped over there that we're never by the way that actually is an impeachable offense yeah so you're not right I mean that actually is so if we start shipping money over there without any sort of congressional approval yeah to a terrorist group but that's right and that actually isn't it who's going to do it right I don't know but I mean just to the legal question by the way to the legal question the real answer is it

1:34:04 doesn't matter because impeachment is right so it doesn't really matter but right what are the chances that China decides it's time to go after Taiwan I mean we've we've basically 100 yeah and and if I if I were China I'd certainly do it in the next three years because we don't know what's coming by the way who exactly is going to oppose them to speak of like the the west and its restrictions on freedom it makes more sense to have that conversation less in the in the guise of the Taliban than it does with regard to China considering Chinese social credit system considering how Australia is currently locking its citizens down like I mean like did you see the video from yes from nine news yes and it was like I was just waiting for the and then there was the guy who's coming down the elevator and then Anchor's like his name is and I was like I'm waiting for them to release the Hound on Montage I I agree you're the

1:34:46 only person who got the reference but I was like the end of Fahrenheit 451 he's running for the river and you've got the Hound following him because he might have covet and he's asymptomatic it's unbelievable it is the fall of the West right now and it is the Chinese moment I mean you wrote your book The authoritarian moment and really what you mean in some ways is that this is the Chinese moment there have been for the last 25 years there have been two models that were sort of dominant there's the Western model basically the American model now in Europe it it's further left and it has more parliamentary system and it has you know bigger social space that's essentially the post-war American order uh and what we're seeing to some degree even domestically which is very concerning is that in some ways both left and right are looking at China now and saying you know this system of of strong authoritarian regimes with

1:35:36 liberal economics may be scalable in a way this happened before World War II too you know there are plenty of people in in America who are going like huh is Hitler's in such a bad it was winning he's got a point yeah he's got a point do you believe that this is a combination of idiocy incompetence naivety or intentional uh in other words are they trying to inflame the American populace and thereby increase military operations overseas I think it's I think it's a i i really I've heard the the conspiracy if you want to call it that the conspiracy theory that this is a purposeful attempt to debilitate us and demoralize us I just don't think that's smart to be honest with you morons and he always was even before so put my tinfoil hat on though if I could stand up for the question to Ben's Point uh the the people do not control foreign policy or at least have not in in many years many decades and we know that the

1:36:30 bureaucracy foreign policy establishment did not want to pull out of Afghanistan and we know that Joe Biden is not running the show and so there there is the question I I don't want to ascribe to malice that which is explained by stupidity and incompetence and there was a lot of that we left a lot of stuff behind at Bagram we left a lot of stuff behind in the country 75 000 Vehicles over 200 aircraft 600 000 Firearms were a million rounds of ammo and I mean we're missing an Army's worth of stuff that that is either historic incompetence or or there were competing I think we're missing we're missing an option though which is indifference I think I think part of it the problem is the people that run our country don't really care that much about Americans or or our country at all so I think there's also Joe Biden's always been committed to his particularly stupid idea of the moment right I mean it's like what if we just

1:37:20 took this country and we sliced it in three and you're like well there are no natural resources one third of that country and he's like I don't care man come on man and it's that here too right like did you did his press conference tonight where he was like all my generals agreed on this he kept saying this over and over right not on my generals all the higher-ups in the military right which actually extends even Beyond like one person has to say but I mean I didn't right by the way it's not true we have many many stories of all his guys going you can't pull out this way and he's like we're doing it and then he's like but they also agreed that we should not defend Bagram it's like Oh you mean once you said we could have two troops and you could put the two troops in one place they said let's do Kabul instead of Bagram wow big agreement there but it's it is I do think that we should we can't talk about

1:38:01 it on the show because we got to go home this is ridiculous but but I do think that there is a case to be made that our intelligence services are infiltrated by our enemies yes there was a case of course of course yeah and you know the thing we talk about the big things I'm not committing suicide if I die yeah I wrote a mcafee-esque letter you did just give up the uh the whole plot Hillary is going to be president we talk about the big things Humvees you know armored vehicles uh uh airplanes and helicopters it's the 16 000 pairs of night vision goggles that I'm the most worried about our special operators have ruled Afghanistan truly for the last 20 years that they're the uh they're the most lethal fighting men that have ever existed in all of human history and their superpower is that they can see them that's their superpower and we just gave the enemy the superpower the good news is uh where are they going to buy

1:38:54 batteries that's all this time we have for tonight we want to especially thank our daily wire.com subscribers for being patient with us tonight it took us a minute to get to your questions uh but we're grateful that you are with us uh thank you all for tuning in as always happy to have you join us we would love for you to become a subscriber go over to dailywire.com uh Slash subscribe get a reader's past trial you can do it for just four dollars you'll get four weeks for free four dollars a month and it's a I like to think it's the gateway drug to the full Daily wire experience we'll hope to see you here next time not yes foreign backstage is produced by Mathis Glover executive producer is me Jeremy boring our technical director is Austin Stevens our production manager is Pablo widowski studio and Equipment management is by Patrick Kennedy and broadcast engineering is by Mark Herman editing is

1:39:49 by Jim Nichol audio is mixed by Mike coramina and our audio assistant is Israel McFarland playback is operated by McKenna Waters hair and makeup by Nica Geneva baileywire backstage is a daily wire production copyright daily wire 2021

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Ben Shapiro Show | Daily Wire Backstage: The Fall of the West"?

Peter Doocy (Guest), Ben Shapiro (Host), Jeremy Boreing (Host), Andrew Klavan (Guest), Matt Walsh (Host), Michael Knowles (Guest), Joe Biden (Guest), Kamala Harris (Guest).

What is discussed in "The Ben Shapiro Show | Daily Wire Backstage: The Fall of the West"?

In order: 0:00 Daily Wire Backstage, Matt Walsh, Big Tech, Dan Crenshaw; 10:00 Taliban, Afghan Army, ExpressVPN, Big Tech; 20:00 Taliban, South Korea, Barbary Pirates, Department of Homeland Security; 30:00 Taliban, South Korea, Bravo Company Manufacturing, Bravo Company MFG; 40:00 Taliban, Afghan Army, Al-Qaeda, South Korea; 50:00 Taliban, Policygenius, Colin Powell, Pride Flag; 1:00:00 Taliban, Afghan Army, Al-Qaeda, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; 1:10:00 Pride Flag, Taliban, Afghan Army, Critical Race Theory; 1:20:00 Slavery, Taliban, France, Nikki Fuentes; 1:30:00 Russia, Fahrenheit 451, Israel, Social Credit System.

What is mentioned in this The Ben Shapiro Show episode?

55 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Taliban, Afghan Army, South Korea, Pride Flag, Russia, Vietnam. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Ben Shapiro Show | Daily Wire Backstage: The Fall of the West"?

The episode runs 1 h 40 min; the transcript is about 22,246 words in 128 timestamped sections.

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