 Welcome and aloha. I'm mark schlaff host of think tech hawaii's law across the sea program Today we're going across the sea to kansas city to talk about afghanistan The united states involvement in afghanistan has been a strange journey For 20 years the united states has been at war in afghanistan We've heard very little about it in the daily news We have been in a very dark and seemingly endless tunnel now The united states is withdrawing from afghanistan, and it seems like we are still in a dark tunnel Unsure where it leads Today my guest is professor raj bala Professor bala is the brennison distinguished professor at the university of kansas school of law He's also a senior advisor with the dentin's law firm And a bloomberg on-point columnist He is an authority on international law and the author of a textbook on islamic law Professor bala recently wrote An on-point column for bloomberg quint about the history current events and future of afghanistan And i've asked him to shed some light On this journey. Welcome professor bala. Good to see you. Well, thank you aloha. It's a pleasure uh to To be here with you, and i'm humbled to be in A mini your midst and in amidst the Wonderful library of programs that you've been offering over the years. So thank you Well, you're you're you're very welcome and you know if you're ever in hawaii, please come by Um now, you know, I want to ask you you wrote a very interesting column and a lot brought a lot of ideas and thoughts to my mind About afghanistan and the withdrawal of the united states and I want to kind of start at the beginning a little bit and Briefly, what were the goals of the united states? What were the and what were the costs and lives and money? And what was the result of the invasion of afghanistan by the united states? What what was that all about? Well, it's several great questions in there So start with this start at the beginning or the goals because the goal shifted over time The initial goal follows immediately the september 11th terrorist attacks september 11th 2001, which of course were the worst attacks on terrorist attacks on united states soil and resulted in the loss of Roughly 3 000 people americans and and citizens from other countries who have worked for example In the world trade centers and attention quickly Focused on osama bin laden the head of al qaeda and his Other al qaeda leaders Who were thought to be in afghanistan and indeed were being harbored by the then ruling taliban in afghanistan? and so The thought was well, we need to Capture and bring to justice osama bin laden and the first go of that was right after the attacks To try and get the taliban persuade them to hand over osama bin laden Now the taliban refused to he was their ally and not a recent ally He had been and his al qaeda movement Had in effect helped the taliban come to power Roughly during the 1996 to 2001 afghan civil war the al qaeda movement Had provided if you will additional military and extremist ideological firepower for the taliban interesting story in in march 2001 I was in pakistan Visiting one of my former students and giving talks in pakistan and I visited my former students father-in-law Muhammad Siddiq kanju Who had been the foreign minister of pakistan under the government of prime minister noah sharif? and We talked about osama bin laden in march of 2001 because the u.s. Wanted him in connection with other terrorist attacks that had occurred in in in east africa and the uss coal off of In the off of yemen so He said to me a foreign minister kanju. He said You know, I I went to kaboom And on behalf of the pakistani government, which had been asked by the americans to get osama bin laden Turned over to the americans, and you know what I heard from the taliban. I said no what? And he said do you know where we first met osama bin laden? what was the answer and Foreign ministers kanju said the taliban said we first met him in the united states embassy in islamabad Your guy in other words. He was part of the movement osama bin laden to help overthrow A soviet and soviet-backed regime Before the taliban and help unify the country And now you say you want us to turn him over Well, uh fast forward in july 2001 City kanju was assassinated by uh taliban who came across the border from afghanistan to his Uh, uh house his country compound in bahá'u'llah for the state in the state of punjab And as he was leaving the the compound was shot dead in the hail of bullets During the brief time we had to gather Among the many things he taught me uh once stood out. He said roge Uh, I have negotiated with many people Uh around the world on behalf of pakistan The taliban are the hardest and to be honest They have rocks in their heads Um, which is you know really undiplomatic language But I relay that story because it all started with the effort to apprehend and bring to justice The man responsible for the 9 11 terrorist attacks And and and who who are the taliban? I mean what what why did they have this? Relationship with osama bin ladin so the taliban means students uh talib means students uh in in uh Pashto and in in farce and they were they were students who had gone to Madrasas islamic schools in various parts of the world particularly in pakistan Sometimes in other other countries And uh, they were students of um, so-called islamic scholars And um their uh, uh, their goal was to unify afghanistan in the post-soviet era after the soviets withdrew Under the banner of what they viewed as islamic law the sharia Now their creation Is really due to the isi the inter services intelligence that is pakistan's intelligence agency Uh former pakistani president per paves mushaf and other senior leaders of pakistan had basically said yes Uh, we the taliban are our creation. We nurtured them Uh, we supported them pakistan's interest in afghanistan was to have um an islamist a unified islamist government uh Based in kabal that um was not friendly to the soviet union remember in the cold war pakistan was much more of our ally Than than the soviets india was more the soviet ally um and the the the pakistanis thought that they could create the taliban that would then come to power and that pakistan would have significant leverage over Over the taliban and thus it could secure in effect um the the country to its immediate west that proved uh unsuccessful for pakistan pakistan's long overestimated its influence Over the taliban, but that's how basically it was created and it was created with the um both the the support and the neglect of the us After the soviets withdrew in in in 1989 and then the soviet union collapsed in 1991 And we had won the first gulf war No one in the us wanted to make a case for continued intervention even by proxy In afghanistan and i would commend to to all of our viewers charlie wilson's war it's a great movie that makes the point about the abandonment of afghanistan so All of this happens with The the tacit support sometimes explicit support From the us the the growth of the of the taliban and then Its interest in in wanting to be involved anymore in central asia so the uh the goal Ultimately of the invasion by the united states Of afghanistan was to get osama bin laden and the other terrorists that had caused the 9 11 and and what what what did what did that cost us what what uh What was the result of that invasion by the united states? The result was Roughly uh, and and the on point article gives you the exact tali um, but roughly 3000 american service personnel killed and A few tens of thousands upwards of 30,000 wounded untold numbers of post traumatic stress disorder And those are only the us casualties The our nato coalition partners canada for example The the danes the british lost many lives also And and suffered many wounded and then On the afghan side One recent study suggests that upwards of 45,000 civilians were killed And then approximately three million Displaced across the border to neighboring countries like pakistan and iran And then another several million Internally displaced afghans So very high human count if you will and then in terms of budget You know the numbers range depending on what you're counting from You know eight or nine hundred billion to a few trillion u.s. Dollars I'm spent across the 20 years From october 2001 Until you know basically now when we're we're leaving the country so A lot of a lot of money a lot of people And displaced and killed Uh, and the question is I want to know who won? And uh, what happened to the taliban? well, the Let me take the second question first as the taliban are are By their claim, which is not necessarily a bad claim They are in control of about 85 percent of afghanistan the territory um this weekend They launched attacks on three two two southern and one southwestern province And and that includes Names that are are reasonably familiar to people who've been following this war kandahar Uh, and helman's and herat kandahar was their Initial capital when they came to power in 1996 before they shifted it to kabol uh, they also Excuse me are said to be in control of about half of the country's approximately 300 districts and they have Threatened kabol itself. Um, I will predict and i'm not happy to predict it I will predict and the column gets into this a little bit that the taliban will be in control or nearly in control Of all of afghanistan including kabol as early as this christmas Up 2001 you probably know later than about 18 months from our conversation. So they have not gone away at all They are they are headed towards power Well, I I mean i'm having a hard time With this, how is it possible That the strongest military force in the world the united states At least that's what we're led to believe was unable to defeat the taliban and and why have they been able to survive and apparently Thrive after 20 years of war Uh, and that connects to your earlier question of who who wanted who lost and I think I think we have to be honest and say the united states and nato did not win The longest war in american history your question. Why? They're they're multiple reasons. Um, and and I I I don't want to be um You know pretend i'm an expert on this and I think time will teach us more One of the reasons I think One of the one of the factors that is not a reason is our If I may say good-hearted effort many of the Special operations forces and other military forces That I had the pleasure of quote-unquote teaching. They taught me a lot. Um, I I learned firsthand Uh about their their work their civilian affairs work their work on nation building if you will setting up banking systems um In afghanistan I learned that they would go back on three or four deployments To the same remote villages in afghanistan And meet with the same tribal elders Sit down in a circle on the ground cross legan and have tea with them To build warm relationships build community Um, it's it wasn't for lack of effort and I think as as as the war Got on Ground on we got smarter we we understood that um, uh, this was not going to be a military solution It was going to be a political and diplomatic and relationship And you heard our forces speak much more about relationship building And I think we did that but I think initially One of the mistakes we made was um, uh ignorance of history We go back and study modern afghan history From the the time of the what's called the april or the saur revolution in in 1978 That ultimately led to the sovi invasion Um, and then the the legacy of the history and problems the soviets face I think we would have had much more pause. Um, I think we also Did not know enough about islam itself many military said very Honestly and and with melancholy Um, when we were sent to afghanistan We didn't know Sunni from shia And if I may say we were we were taught the only thing is don't shake the hand Of of a of a muslin with your own left hand And this was scandalous professor ball that that we didn't get the proper training. We needed education Now, of course, we wised up quickly and we we did start doing that training um, so I think that was that that's Was a contributing factors rushing in without really understanding the the landscape and the culture um, you know, I think um another uh problem was We didn't appreciate the failure of governance um, uh that had brought about the success of the taliban infrastructure development Water power um, when when we would go in and drive the taliban out of a particular district Including condo Then we would say then leave and The remaining soldiers that we trained afghans government soldiers Would would be left to hold the the the line against the taliban But where was the the infrastructure development going on that the people yearned for it? It reminds me not unlike of the situation in lebanon Where um, you've got um the the popularity of hezbollah and you say why Well, if you've got essentially a failed or failing state in in based in beirut There's going to be a natural gravitation towards people who are keeping schools Uh, uh open build a taliban hasn't done that for girls to be sure Um and building roads, etc. Um, so that was I think, you know part of the um, uh a problem here Um, and I think still another problem was as you referred to we are the most, uh overwhelming military force in human history But look at what we had Um, we we we we couldn't could we have realistically and this is a rhetorical question Obviously use tactical nuclear weapons in toro Bora. We know um, uh, we we had air power but This was a completely different terrain Um that called for a different it was asymmetric warfare to use the technical term Um, and we we were not really that good at that We were we had to learn by doing And then still another reason I think Is if you take us back In our minds to september 12th and 13th of 2001 when we're trying to say, all right This this happened and Uh osama bin laden this president bush identified in this speech Is is the is the a man wanted? um, we didn't think through Whether or not We could view the mission as a law enforcement mission and thus deploy a small number of intelligence law enforcement and special operations personnel Or view the mission as a military invasion We never we never really were presented with that choice of law enforcement versus war Now i'm not saying that the the debate would have Gone out in favor of law enforcement in retrospect. It would have been nice to have thought that through More carefully and critics may say look we tried the law enforcement We tried to get the Taliban to turn them over we had foreign ministers like city kanju Try and bring uh osama bin laden To american hands and it didn't work um But you know and reasonable minds can can differ as to whether or not we We could have done more before going down the war pair But you you mentioned that you had some involvement in teaching about islam What what was that about to to u.s. Forces? Is that correct? Yes? I was I was blessed and I I truly I feel that way in in in 2009 2010 At the command and general staff college At fort leavenworth, kansas, which as you may know is the army's elite training facility forward special operations forces the rangers the green berets And also brings in Some of the special ops from other branches navy seals air force marines The the special operations command basically approached me and said Would you like to um teach a course in in islamic law? And I had been teaching that course Since coming to the university of kansas in 2003 again When I say teach I really mean a student because scholars Through the centuries have spent their entire lifetime studying islamic law and and ironically islamic law was sort of my Other specialty my focus had always been on international trade law And we can talk about how those two sometimes come together. It's rather interesting. Um, so When the when the army asked i'm like, yes, I would love to do this So for 10 straight years Uh, I would commute over to fort leavenworth And we would do the uh a three hour session once a week on islamic law and It was it was just so meaningful Aside from being in a great, you know um intellectual experience There there I am in front of the women and men who are Keeping my free speech safe allowing us to do a program like this And we'll go back into the theater because what they were all doing was they had all been Hosted in afghanistan and or iraq and or other Theatres in southeast asia for example Where they were fighting islamist extremism And then they they were selected as being the best of the best special operations forces And they would get a year to come into a master's degree in international studies At the university of kansas and my course was one of those courses that they could take and So at the same time I was finishing up the first edition of my textbook in islamic law And I owe them again a great debt because they helped make the textbook better As did a number of my my research assistants at the university of kansas and now As we speak i'm working on the third edition of that that understanding islamic law textbook and it became Through no plan of my own. It was literally, you know, thanks be to god um the first textbook on islamic law Written by a non muslim american legal scholar I'm sorry you you you mentioned that that was important For us to learn about islam Why is that why why was it why why in the military operation? Why were why were these soldiers? Why was it important to them to to be taught that they weren't taught it originally? Yeah, you you know, it's the old sunzoo art of war know your enemy Problem that the french faced in dien ben phu in 1954. They didn't know That who they were fighting and we made the same mistake in vietnam. We thought of ho chi min and the vietnam as as All about communism when in fact they were very much about nationalism. They didn't want foreign powers in vietnam and likewise the taliban didn't want any foreign power and So that's one reason just know know the enemy second reason Which which became clearer as the war Went on and as we started searching for peace The peace agreement that we ultimately signed and we would have fascinating conversations about this in in the islamic law class is Are there any Taliban are there any islamist extremists Ones with whom you can deal Are they all irredeemably radical? And will for sure die for the cause Or are they are there some who are more moderate? with whom you can Deal at a bargaining table as we did in doha and come to an agreement and that ability to try and Look and in a way empathize not sympathize but empathize with the other side and see that they're not monolithic And that there are splits within them and that ability then I may say to exploit the splits In america's interest and work with moderates That's something that requires an understanding of islamic law because the splits are typically based on doctrinal differences Not just ethnic differences or political differences But doctrinal differences about the sharia about islamic law But how you read the holy karan or how you interpret a A statement from the prophet muhammad peace be upon him So we have to understand how they're thinking to understand Who's aligned where and then whom we can reach the the out to negotiate with Let me ask you one last question here. We and that is you know, you mentioned that the Learning uh about each other is important with it in the america. It seems like The trump administration and the biden administration both agreed To get out of afghanistan Why was that how could they uh, what what what is what brought those two seemingly opposing Groups together realized that this was um, uh an unwinnable war and that just as um the uh, uh one of the uh presidents of The republic of afghanistan najibullah had begged the soviets to stay and the soviets said no Then michael gorbachev Said no The the president's trump and biden realized that if we were to say yes and commit to indefinitely It would be In perpetuity there'd be no there'd be no endpoint and America would continue to spell spill Blood and treasure And i'm not sure we would have been able to hold the coalition together And the fact is this And and it's worth exploring this a bit the Our coalition partners and the trump administration and the biden administration quite rightly in my judgment Viewed that the bigger strategic threat to the united states Is currently China And so it was important to liberate america's um, uh, human capital and economic resources And pivot them out of central asia and into the indel pacific region Where we are now confronting And in increasingly aggressive china is i think you all very well know In hawaii with you've all heard terms like the nine dash line You've seen recently what's happened with the national security law in hong kong even Being used to with respect to the olympic games So I think both the trump administration and the biden administration said no more of this endless war the nation building won't work It will be an endless quagmire and we really have Bigger a bigger military strategic issue to deal with and that's china in the end of the And I guess my my final question I think I know the answer to in your on point column in reference to the 20 year invasion by the united states of afghanistan you ask Was it worth it? so What's your answer? That's the hardest question on and the the column tries to leave it To each of us to make that decision if we make the decision based on utilitarian philosophy Which you and I have been basically uh conversing on And you look at the the costs you could make the argument. No, it's not But then let me give you a radical view Not necessarily mine about us history It came came out of a school of historians based I think partly in the university of wisconsin called the empire theorists We said look the us is an imperial power and just like we need to exercise our muscles so that they don't atrophy We need to continue to exercise our military to keep it world-class in that sense afghanistan was quite an exercise and we developed a lot of Techniques and intelligence and strategies, etc If we take a different philosophical premise Which philosophers called deontology that we'd we judge and act for its intrinsic goodness And we ask You know, was it worth it? Was it intrinsically good to invade? Was it intrinsically good to conduct the operations that we did? I have a hard time answering that because I know there were so many as I said good hearted people From our side who were trying to do the right thing and their their behaviors were good But on the other hand, I can't easily say that invasion is good in itself um That it's morally justified so I I think I'll leave it at that and say that i'm still pondering Your question. Well, I greatly appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us and hopefully we can get out of this tunnel And see some light somewhere In all of this and I appreciate you. Thank you very much, professor Rajbala. I thank you for being my guest today. Aloha Thank you. Aloha