 We call hot car on Afghanistan what what's going to happen. Let's make this withdrawal real. But before we get to that, we wanted to give us give everyone an update on what's going on with Palestine and Israel and the fight against settler colonialism. Is Ariel with us? Not yet. All right, well, Mindy, maybe you can update us on the demonstration in Washington. So let me send her the link. Sorry. Why don't. Why don't you start? Sure. So some of what's been when happening really has been organizing in the Palestinian community delegation on Betty McCollum's bill that restricts funding to Israel until they released the Palestinian children from prisons. The bills has some co sponsors that are, you know, the allies of the community and have been speaking truth to power for for quite a bit but our mission is to urge more congress members to sign on to this bill and support. We know that since 2000 10,000 children Palestinian children have been jailed and imprisoned without really having a fair trial in a court system that is designed to really silence them. And unfortunately, what's been happening really is the mission is I from what I understand to remove 1000 Palestinian families from Shah Jorah. And this is all happening a couple of days before the month of Ramadan is over, which is one of the holiest months that we celebrate as Muslims in this country and all over the world and during one of the worst pandemics. I am very happy that the communities around the world are speaking out and I'm very happy that social media has been amplifying this and highlighting some of these war crimes. So I will link everyone. I'll put the link to the bill here in the chat for everyone to read and study. And we really do urge for you to contact your congress members and have them sign on and co sponsor this bill. Because our tax dollars just always remember that that's the tax dollars that's being spent to do our to Mary Miller who's helping us navigate the tech tonight she just posted in the chat. The page on code pink where we have listed events and solidarity with Palestine. These are events that recognize the knock but that's what that's a term I never learned in Sunday school right. That means catastrophe. That was the establishment or the, the slaughter the terror that led to the establishment of the state of Israel. And we are on now. Yay. Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us and update and particularly I think also about what's happening in the US in terms of political response from or lack of response from the White House and Congress. Well, I want to say that this is likely the largest assault massacre war that we've seen take place in Gaza, probably since 2014 it's it's quite significant. The Israel today hit a 13 story residential building and they have promised slash threatened tonight to hit more high rise residential buildings and the Israeli government Netanyahu. Right now the Prime Minister, Benny Gantz the alternative Prime Minister, and the Defense Minister have both said prepare for a long time at this and have both promised that the response to Gaza would be severe and harsh and long lasting. Benny Gantz said that he plans to send Gaza back decades. So, just to give that that framing of what we are likely beginning and headed into the US, the Biden administration. Shamefully has not even been doing both side ism. I've been hoping for both side ism like please you know they've condemned the rockets coming out of Gaza that are indiscriminately targeted at civilians, as they should be condemned. But I think, okay, and please condemn the bombing of residential buildings, please tell Israel, not to target civilians not to promise to send Israel, send Gaza decades back. And it's it's just utter silence on that front, all they have said are that we condemn the, the rocket fire coming out of Gaza. So for me, it's a low level bottom line asked to say, call out both sides, you know, pretend they're equal which they're, which they're not. But please tell both sides to deescalate, call for a ceasefire on both sides. What I've heard today is that Israel has three times that I've heard of so far rejected a ceasefire offer. I'm not sure if that offer was from Hamas or it was put forth from Egypt, or somewhere else but Israel is saying, I'm not going to demand to, you know, carry out our, our revenge attack as long as we feel like it and expect this to be long. So, I would love to see the Biden administration, calling on Israel to deescalate with Gaza, and to search for a ceasefire. It's like a real basic low level ask. We may we may want to add that to our action alert tonight. Thank you. I noticed that Estie Chandler is also with us she's a board member of Jewish voice for peace. Okay, I want to wave. There's anything else that you want to add. I also want to alert people to the fact that we posted in the chat thank you alley it could make a list of different events that are going on in protest and in solidarity with the Palestinians. I think we should probably move on to our program on Afghanistan tonight. We're going to have our guests with us and Ali call hot car will be the first speaker and then Matthew hoe. We're going to be taking a look at the timeline for withdrawal and what this means and how do we ensure that as we withdraw troops we don't increase the air war. It's my pleasure to introduce journalists activists and artists. So now I call hot car she's the author of bleeding Afghanistan Washington warlords and the propaganda of silence. So now Lee is also the founding member. She's the director of the Afghan women's mission mission, a US based nonprofit solidarity organization that funds the work of the Revolutionary Association of the women of Afghanistan. She was born and raised in Dubai United Arab Emirates to Indian parents. She has two sisters. She is the granddaughter of the famed Indian independence leader, and freedom fighter s y call hot car, who founded the Communist Party of India. In 1991 at the age of 16, Sonali left her family and moved to the United States for higher education. I'm getting choked up reading your bios and Ali. In 1996 she obtained a bachelor of science and physics and a bachelor of arts and astronomy and special honors from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1996 she obtained a master of science and astrophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. In 1998 to 2002 Sonalika Hucker worked as an applications developer at the California Institute of Technology. In March 2002 she changed careers left astronomy, and went to host a morning show on Pacific is KPFK. She lives in Pasadena with her husband and co co author James Ingalls and her two sons welcome Sonalika Hucker. Wow, what an educated woman. I was not expecting you to go, you know, all the way. I'm reading your bio. I didn't know how to. Wow, this is, this is really worthy of mention. Thank you. And so now what I do is I host weekly television and radio program called Rising Up with Sonali which people can hear Tuesdays on KPFK 4pm and also on free speech TV on Thursdays. So should I just jump in? Go for it. Yeah, Afghanistan. That's the topic tonight. Right. And Marcy, you had asked me to focus on this notion of what happens to Afghan women when, even when US troops withdraw from Afghanistan and that is a really important question, especially if you look at the well being of Afghan women as a marker of the well being of Afghan people as a whole and that's sort of true in any society, right. Women's safety is a good marker their education their safety their health their well being is a good marker for the health safety and well being of the entire society and in the case of Afghanistan that is true as well. So one of the most common responses to the idea of US troops withdrawing from their occupation of Afghanistan is what will happen to Afghan women. Can you relegate it to just that if US troops withdraw what will happen to Afghan women. The question itself reflects a deeply flawed premise on which the war was started on October 7 2001 nearly 20 years ago. We the American people were told that the US had to fight the Taliban for harboring al-Qaeda who attacked the US and the Taliban were the most insogenous regime on the planet so we could kill two birds with one stone we could go after and free Afghan women from the group of the Taliban. So if you believe that initial premise that it only makes sense to ask the question of what will happen to Afghan women if the US leaves. The question contains the implication that we would be abandoning Afghan women by pulling out our troops. And there are many counterpoints to this. One of them is that we've been in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years. If we haven't managed to create the conditions for peace for women's safety in 20 years, why would there be any reason to believe another 20 years would do the job. If our presence in Afghanistan is the only reason women are supposedly safe from the Taliban, then we've created some sort of dependency that will never end a permanent occupation. And is that what we want a permanent occupation of Afghanistan because we need to keep women safe. But of course, the larger counterpoint is that women are not safe. The question of what would happen to women if we leave implies that currently women are being protected. But if that's true, how do we explain the horrific attack that just took place this past weekend in the Dashday barge section of western Kabul where a girl's school was targeted. This isn't a primarily Hazara part of town. Whereas Afghans are Shiite Muslims, they're a minority in Afghanistan. And about over the past 20 years, they've kind of formed a community there. 50 people were killed, including many girls. And this is in a part of Kabul, the most fortified, most secure part of Afghanistan, the capital where US and NATO troops are present, where there's thousands of armed private mercenaries employed. And sadly, this attack is not terribly unusual. If in the safest city in Afghanistan, while US troops are present, Afghan women and girls are being attacked, how exactly is our group presence helping to keep them safe? And that's not something that you often hear, you know, government officials or our corporate media address. Not an anomaly. Women and girls, you know, more than 20 years ago were imprisoned in their own homes when the Taliban were in power. They were executed in public, in the middle of large public stadiums, shot point blank. After the Taliban were asked to be experienced a slightly different version of misogynist danger. You had armed fundamentalist warlords who were ideologically very similar to the Taliban who were the partners of the US government and the US backed Afghan government in building something that was supposed to resemble a democratic government. Women who were elected to parliament were jeered, they were injured, they were censured, they were bullied or even killed, or sometimes they were simply figureheads for their husbands or other male relatives who were the ones wielding true power. Women journalists have been killed just for being women journalists. I couldn't, if I was an Afghan woman and a journalist in Afghanistan, I couldn't just do my job there openly while US troops have been there. Billions of US tax dollars were poured into building rural schools and training centers for women, most were either never built or completed or after they were built they were burned down by the Taliban or the warlords or the money was used to line the pockets of corrupt leaders. And no one asked, what about the women at that time, right? That question only comes up when there's a discussion of removing US troops from Afghanistan, invoking some sort of farfetched fantasy of our US soldiers providing security detailed and groups of Afghan women going about their business. But we should be asking the question, why haven't women's rights, safety and well-being been, why have they been the last priority of the US over these past 20 years? They have been, Afghan women's well-being has been the last priority of the US. If they weren't the last priority of the US, we would not have empowered misogynist armed fundamentalist warlords and government. And why are they suddenly, why are women's rights suddenly the first priority when it comes to discussions about withdrawing our troops? Is it possible that for 20 years we've just been using Afghan women as pawns in our war? And I want to be really clear, the Biden administration is talking about withdrawing US troops. It's not talking about withdrawing private armed contractors, nor is it talking about ending airstrikes. In fact, it's very likely that there will be a greater reliance on private contractors and on airstrikes, which of course won't have the effect of ending the war. It's just going to make it less visible. So whether or not US troops leave Afghan women are in danger, they will be in danger. No one cares about Afghan women other than the actual civilian population of Afghanistan for whom the US troops are just one of many armed forces that are taking aim at them, right? Right now, if you're an Afghan person, man, woman or child, if you're an unarmed ordinary citizen of Afghanistan from a working class or middle class family, you have to deal with the Taliban. You have to deal with the Islamic State. You have to deal with the armed fundamentalist warlords. You have to deal with the Afghan police. You have to deal with the corrupt Afghan government. You have to deal with US troops. You have to deal with NATO troops, airstrikes from the sky, special private contractors that are paid for by the US government or others, other governments who are wielding weapons. If you remove one of those armed forces, it's certainly better to have fewer armed forces on the ground. Does it mean Afghan women will be safer one way or another? No. And so going back to what I started with, we need to see the health, safety and well-being of Afghan women as a measure of the health, safety and well-being of the Afghan people as a whole. The Afghan people were not safe when the US came in. They didn't become safe once the US was there as a whole during the US occupation. They will not be safe when the US troops leave. The war was and is futile. The war is violence. It's never created the conditions for peace. There have been more than 40 years of various wars in Afghanistan, which the US has been involved in various degrees. And throughout those more than 40 years of war, there's never been war leading to peace. And there's never therefore been safety, well-being, democratic rights peace for Afghan women and Afghan people as a whole. So I think that that's probably what I should, I don't know, you wanted me to talk for seven minutes. I think I probably covered about that much ground. So Nellie, I'm not sure what your timeframe is tonight. Can you stay for Q&A later? Or do you want us to ask you some questions now? Yeah, I can stay. My family is actually eating dinner without me and they're watching the talk. So it's fine. That, you know, leaves less pressure. So it's good. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. And it was Ariel going to introduce our next speaker. We just heard from Sonali called Hefker, and we'll hear more from her during the Q&A. Thank you, Sonali. And remember that you can introduce themselves in the chat, say where you're from, and you can start putting questions in there for both Sonali and Matt. But Ariel, if you could introduce Matt, that would be great. And I do want to thank Alan Minsky and the rest of Democrats of America for promoting our show and joining us and helping us spread the word and focus on foreign policy. Thank you. Ariel. So our next speaker is Matthew Ho. Matthew has nearly 12 years of experience in America's wars overseas and in the U.S. Marine Corps, Department of Defense and State Department. In 2009, Matt resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department. He resigned over America's escalation of that war. Prior to Matt's assignment in Afghanistan, he took part in the American occupation of Iraq. In the 2004-2005 Sala al-Din province with the State Department Reconstruction and Governance Team. And then in 2006-2007 in Anbar province as a Marine Corps company commander. When not deployed, Matt worked on Afghanistan and Iraq war policy and operations issues at the Pentagon and State Departments from 2002 to 2008. He is well-versed in U.S. war policy. Since resigning from our wars in protest, that's resigning from the State Department in protest, he's been a senior fellow with the Center for International Policy since 2010. His writings against U.S. wars and imperialism, occupation, have appeared in online and print periodicals, such outlets as The Atlantic, The Guardian, Defense News, Huffington Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He's been a guest on hundreds of news programs and radio, television networks, including CBS, the BBC, CNN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, and more. The Council of Foreign Relations cited Matt's resignation letter from his post in Afghanistan as an essential document. And on a personal note, I met Matt for the first time in the West Bank of Palestine as an integral part of Veterans for Peace. I was there as part of a Veterans for Peace delegation to not just to see the occupation with his own eyes, but to protest it, to join Palestinians on the ground in resistance. And I was so impressed by his dedication and transformation that he and I have remained close friends to this day and it's my great pleasure to give you Matthew Ho. Thank you Ariel. I need to get you a shorter biography to read. I don't know if you can see over and I'm looking at myself so I'm not sure this shoulder here. You're in that photo there that was when we're in Hebron and getting shot out by the Israeli border police, along with Kamro, who is a great Palestinian activist and human rights fighter. Thank you, Co Pink for having me here. Thank you for all the work you do. You know it's just such a pleasure to be around you all and to be inspired by you all. And thank you everyone for joining tonight. I think I want to first say that you know I'm wearing many many you may recognize the scarf here, which Sherry Marin, a good friend of ours who was online here someplace gave to me and this comes from the Afghan peace volunteers. And it says it's embroidered in both Dari in an English border free. And it's a segue into what I think I want to talk about with regards to this idea that the United States will not be leaving Afghanistan in terms of firepower and in terms of being able to interfere. The United States government, its military, its CIA simply do not believe in borders. So whether or not US forces are based in Afghanistan or outside of Afghanistan. It doesn't really matter. You can see this through the way the military has operated right recall when the United States military killed bin Laden. They moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan. When they killed our Abu al-Baghdadi the ISIS leader in Syria they moved from Iraq into Syria. The way the US military works in Africa, they go from Kenya or Djibouti into Somalia, they go from those countries into Yemen, so to speak. So the idea that they need to be in Afghanistan is just not the case. And for the most part, most of the bombing that occurs, whether it be by bombers, by fixed wing fighter planes, by man fighter planes or by drones, often times comes from outside of Afghanistan. So you may have seen the news this week that the United States moved more B-52s and F-18s to support the retreat from Afghanistan. Those planes don't go into Afghanistan. They're either based on aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea or in the Indian Ocean, or they're based at bases in the Persian Gulf or on the island of Dio Garcia in the Indian Ocean. So that's one thing to keep in mind as this process moves forward, and also to understand the larger war, this larger world war that goes from the west coast of Africa all the way through Pakistan. You know, Afghanistan certainly is the oldest of these conflicts, dating back to the late 70s as Sinali described. However, it's not alone in the way that the United States military wages war. So if you look at really any nation in terms of either directly being inflicted by these wars, or by indirectly having to deal with the wars because of refugees or possibly sanctions, you know, in the case of Iran or terror attacks, you see the same type of format or lay down of US military and CIA presence. What you have is a very light footprint. So special operations, commandos, CIA personnel, and they have their proxy forces, which are typically what the United States does and has been doing this right for centuries. This goes back to what we did against the Native Americans in the first peoples of this continent, the divide and conquer strategy. So we go in and we use what the United States does is it divides and conquers, right? It creates sex, it creates sectarian division, even if there may have not been there before. So in the case of, say, Iraq, you know, of course you see the splits between Kurds, Sunni and Shia, which the United States has utilized so effectively to create division and conflict in order to try and be able to control the country. Same occurs in Syria, same occurs in Yemen, same occurs in Afghanistan, all throughout Africa. So you have these US special operations, commandos and CIA forces that then have proxy forces under their command, whether they be local government forces or sectarian forces. So you can look at the Kurdish forces in Syria that did a lot of fighting on behalf of the Americans in the eastern part of Syria. You can look at the Shia militias in Iraq or look at the Afghan forces that are under the control of the Americans in Afghanistan. You then have American firepower and a form of bombers, fire planes, drones. And that is how basically if you look at the way the United States is waging war, again from the western coast of Africa all the way to Pakistan, that is basically how the US has evolved its war policies. This is something that everyone in the Pentagon likes because what that means is that the special operations community and the CIA, they can have their dirty little wars that are unacknowledged and it's very hard to get information on. The army gets to then have its war against Russia, right, because that justifies tanks and artillery pieces and divisions of troops in Europe, and the Navy and the Air Force get to have their war against China, because that's what justifies 13 billion aircraft carriers, $8 billion submarines, $500 million bomber planes. So we have to look at this in the way that the Pentagon is looking at it in the way the CIA looks at it, the State Department looks at it and how they think they can get the best out of the situation, how they can manipulate the circumstances to their own advantage. So there's nobody in the Pentagon right now with the exception of maybe a handful of traglodytes who haven't understand the last 20 years, who are crying over the loss of the $30 billion war in Afghanistan because it allows the different parts of the Pentagon to now have the wars that they want, right? The wars that fit their ideologies, the wars that fit their budgets, okay, you know, and I'm always reminded when I talk about budgets is you go back to what Curtis LeMay said and Curtis LeMay was the commander of US forces that bombed Japan, right, destroyed 90, 95% of Japan cities through fire bombing as well as of course the nuclear bombings. He then became the strategic air commander. He was very famously characters in Dr. Strangelove, right? The mad general who wants war and that's what he really was. He was constantly advocating for nuclear war. Thank God that he never got his way. But LeMay said one time, he had a subordinate say to him something about the Soviet Union. He said, son, you got it all wrong. The Soviet Union is an adversary. The Navy is the enemy. So as these wars go forward, as what we hopefully this troop withdrawal continues because there to be any chance of peace in Afghanistan, the United States forces and the NATO forces must leave. That's very clear. But we have to understand how the Pentagon and the State Department, CIA, etc., the neocons and the various Democratic, Republican think tanks, the defense industry, everything else, how they will manipulate and spin this to their own best advantage. And I think that's probably about my seven minutes or so. But yeah, I look forward to Q&A. And again, thank you all so much for being here. And thank you all so much for what you do. Thank you, Matt. It's really an honor to have you and Sonali here. And so we're going to take the next 10 to 15 minutes and pose questions from the chat and see what you think. Hania, Medea, you want to read a question? Medea, you have a wonderful couple of them actually. If you'd like to lead with those, that'd be great. Well, it would be nice to hear what both of you think might happen. If indeed the troops withdraw, do you think the Taliban will take over the whole country, including Kabul? And do you think if that happens that the U.S. would come back in again? Or would they allow it to happen? Or what's your scenario for what might happen, let's say, in the period between September and October, November and there? I mean, I can take a stab at that. If you judge from Afghanistan's history, if you look back on the history of when occupying forces after having, you know, poured weapons into the country when they've left, what's basically happened has been civil war. And right now you do have the Taliban. You have the fundamentalist warlords with their private militias who've sucked up tons of money, U.S. tax dollars. And you also have the Islamic State, which is a smaller presence, but nonetheless there. And if NATO also leaves with the U.S. gone, that's possible. Then very likely there would be some sort of civil war. I mean, right now we have a low level civil war for probably the second half of the occupation. The first half of the occupation and the immediate aftermath of the Taliban's withdrawal when the Taliban was at its weakest before the warlords were really strong. You probably have the greatest peace in Afghanistan for a brief moment. And all of that was lost. We've had the most, you know, the last couple of years, especially under Trump, we saw an escalation in U.S. violence. So I predict very likely there will be a, not very likely, but it's very possible that there will be another civil war in Afghanistan. There's a lot of other interests in the Iranian government, the Russians, India and Pakistan have their interests. And Afghanistan has always been sort of a battleground for a proxy war in these regional forces. So depending upon the sides that these governments take, whether they back the U.S. back to Afghan government, whether they back the Taliban, as Pakistan has done in the past, poor weapons at whose hands we could see another civil war. And I think, Midiya, I saw you posed a question of, you know, what about the fact that there are some women and girls that are going to school right now? I mean, yes, it's true that in the chaos of war, some women and girls have managed to go to school, have managed against all odds to attend university, you know, primary school all the way through university. Very likely those very tiny gains will be lost. But if in 20 years the best the U.S. can do and the U.S. occupation can do is have, you know, one out of something like one out of five Afghan girls is literate right now. It's the 80% of Afghan girls are not even literate. Of the three and a half million Afghan children that are out of school, 60% are girls that aren't even able to attend school. I mean, if that's what the U.S. has managed to achieve in 20 years, those gains are really minuscule. And yes, so for that small minority of women who have seen gains, who've managed to somehow make it, it's very likely they will lose that ground. For the rest, there will not be much difference. If, and someone asked a question about if I could be in the U.S. government, what would I recommend we do? It has taken decades to do the damage in Afghanistan. It would take another many decades to unravel it. But a big part of any answer to Afghanistan has been disarmament. There are far too many weapons in the hands of far too many warlords and I count the U.S. as among the warlords, right? And there really needs to be some sort of international consensus over people and different governments coming together along with civil society in Afghanistan, really having civil society at the table to work for peace. What the U.S. has done over the last 20 years is invited civil society to the same table as men wielding weapons who see those people as an existential threat. And so, of course, you haven't been able to have any kind of a real democracy form when you have one side that is so heavily armed. But you really need to take the arms out of the way you need to take the corrupt warlords out of the equation, including the U.S. including NATO, including ISIS. We've spent the last 20 years in inadvertently empowering the Taliban. I mean, we're having peace talks with the very forces that we battled and were the reason we came into Afghanistan in the first place. And so even our withdrawal plan is based on, is premised on empowering the Taliban, who are fundamentalist warlords. It's all wrong and none of it's going to have any good effect. I never have any clear and simple and easy answers on Afghanistan and it always makes me sad. Matt, you want to take that question as well? Maybe you could repeat the question, India. It was just basically, what do you think might happen with the Taliban take power? You know, I like to think of Yogi Bear, right? Yogi Bear said, predictions are kind of hard, especially when they're about the future. But I think history, as Sonali pointed out, gives us some guides to what will happen. And I think exactly, I mean, it's already a civil war. I mean, it's been a civil war for 40 semi-gears, Afghans killing Afghans with outside powers, either directly or indirectly sponsoring that or taking part. You know, we have to remember what happens when the Soviet Union leaves Afghanistan in 1989. There are peace talks. There are negotiations that go on for years that the United States pretty much obstructs. The United States continues after the Soviet Union leaves. The United States continues to fund the Mujahideen because the United States wants ultimate victory. They want the communist regime in Kabul to fall. So up until 1992, 1993, the United States is continuing to send weapons and money through the Saudis and the Pakistanis to the Mujahideen, really just fueling that civil war that was occurring in Afghanistan. So we have to understand that things often occur because of outside influence. Yes, of course, there are plenty of reasons for the conflict internal Afghanistan. But, you know, if there is not some form of declaration and agreement by outside powers not to interfere in Afghanistan, if there's not a good faith commitment by all outside powers to stop the flow of weapons and arms. And I'll tell you, I can tell you this from this was what we knew at the State Department when I was in Afghanistan. The biggest support of the Taliban are the Gulf monarchies or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, etc. So as long as they continue to provide support, as long as the United States provides support to the Afghan government and the various warlords that support the Afghan government, the fighting will go on whether or not there are foreign forces there. I don't you hear a lot if you go to the Wall Street Journal, CNN, New York Times, Fox News, whatever. You're going to see a lot of hysteria about Kabul looking like Saigon in 1975. I don't think that's the case. I think the Taliban are a lot smarter than that. Because basically, look, the Islamic State did this in Raqqa in Syria, they did it in Mosul in Iraq, they took over a large number of cities in Iraq, and now all those cities are have been devastated. They have to be clearly leveled the Islamic State has been decapitated many different ways they still exist, but they have lost the caliphate that they had the Taliban know this the Taliban know if they take Kabul in a way that Islamic State took Mosul in 2014. Kabul is going to look like Mosul look like in 2016 2017. It's going to be completely devastated. It will be destroyed, flatly destroyed by American air power. And the Taliban already went through this once in 2001. They're not dumb. That's why they've won this war. What you will see is like Sonali said, if there's not some type of peace agreement, peace process, some type of negotiated settlement, and you're going to have spoilers. You're going to have spoilers all throughout. I don't think I can't imagine how the violence completely ends because you're going to have people on all sides who want this war to continue. You certainly have those United States who want this war to continue. You certainly have those in the Afghan government who want this war to continue because this war ends they use you lose support. They lose US support, then they lose power, right? You have those in the Taliban, the hardliners in the Taliban who want ultimate victory. They're balanced by those in the Taliban who say, and I've met these people who say, look, our fathers fought our sons are fighting. We don't want our grandchildren to fight. Doesn't mean we're going to surrender, but we'd like a way to this war to end. There are those like that in the Taliban, but they have to compete with those in the Taliban who want ultimate victory. Did he go mute? Nope, did I? No. Okay. And so I'm not sure if you all heard that or not, but yeah, it's a long way to say that there's a lot more suffering ahead for the Afghans, unfortunately. Matthew, you were saying there are people in the US who want this war to continue. Hillary Clinton just came out and said she was very much against Biden's decision to withdraw US troops. I'm sorry, Hillary Clinton did? Surprise, surprise, surprise. Matt, that brings me to my next question in your speech you mentioned the amount, the cost of ICBMs and SLBMs and some of our weapons. Biden just recently added to our military budget spending instead of reducing it while we're pulling out of Afghanistan. What is the justification for that in your opinion? Oh, you got to keep the machine keeps rolling, right? I go back to Steinbeck and the grapes of wrath and when he talks about the banks, the banks have to grow, right? The banks have to, they're a living organism, they have to grow, they have to keep swallowing properties, they have to keep swallowing farms. The defense department is the same way, the military industrial complex, this war state is the same way. You know, my colleague at CIP, Bill Harton, you know, as well as a lot of other people, national priorities project, Brown University across the war project, etc. You know, they calculate the US war budget as being $1.25 trillion a year. I mean, so you have this is a living organism that has to grow as well as to the idea that you're somehow going to, that somehow the idea that Biden, and if you look at what the Intercept just did, the Intercept just did a really great package, about 60 stories or so I think. Amy Goodman had Jimry Skahill on a democracy now to talk about this, but there's a really great package on the Intercepts website talking about Joe Biden's foreign policy. Joe Biden is very much a hawk. Joe Biden is, he got, you know, if you look at his personal history, he gets burned by not supporting the Gulf War in 1990, 1991. And since then he has always, for his political ambition, his political desire, his political benefit has been to support wars. A lot said about his time in 2009 with regards to Afghanistan, how you oppose Barack Obama's surge. That's not true. What Biden did was Biden wanted to do a counter terror campaign as opposed to a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. The net result of that would have been 10,000 less troops. So whereas by the time Barack Obama, by the end of Barack Obama's first year in office, there are 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan and 100,000 contractors in Afghanistan and 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. Under Joe Biden, the only difference would have been there would not have been 100,000 American troops, there would have been 90,000 American troops. So there's been this revision, this revisionist history and a lot of emphasis on things out of context from 2009, 2010, about what Biden said about the war. That makes it appear that he's always been against this, that what he's really doing right now is just the fruition of his desires from a decade ago, and that he has been proved right over time, et cetera, et cetera. But that's instantly not true. And, you know, he's in favor of this because it's good politics. I mean, it's good politics for Democratic Party. It's part of the way our system works, as well as to the, again, as I described, the Pentagon gets out of this, what it wants. I mean, you're looking at a military, you look at, say, you brought the SLBMs and the ICBMs, the submarine launch ballistic missiles and the intercontinental ballistic missiles, of which we are upgrading everything. It's about $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion or 30 years that the United States will spend, and this began under Barack Obama, that the United States will spend modernizing its nuclear forces. There's, I mean, we could have a whole conversation on this a whole evening on this, and I think it's worthy to do that. It's just good business for all involved, including to I go back and I'm sorry, I do a lot of historical and references because you know, or literary or movie I think my friend Max is on here Max I still have not watched Leviathan, but you told me watch, but if the, the idea of being is that sometimes the only explanation is that it's simply in this in the best interest it makes the people in power feel good it makes those around them feel good, you go back to the justifications for why Rome waged all those wars and oftentimes it comes down to for the glory of Rome. And you know why does the United States maintain this empire is economic reasons of course right and there's ideological reasons of course and political reasons of course, but a lot of it comes down to just the glory of the empire. Right the glory of keeping this empire. President wants to go through the who lost China hysteria that occurred in the 50s and 60s and pushed Lyndon Johnson into continuing to escalate the Vietnam War, who wants to go through what Barack Obama went through when he pulled troops out of Iraq and then three years the Islamic State took Mosul, and they took Mosul now because the US pulled troops out of Iraq, but because the United States have been funding directly and indirectly Islamic State in Syria trying to use Islamic State to overthrow the Assad regime, and thinking that they literally would not cross the literal line in the Sam between the Syria and Iraq and cross back over to Iraq which so many of them came from. So there is there's this madness that permeates it and I really just think it's a madness it's motivated by money. It's motivated by legacy concern the careers concerns but it's a madness. It really is. I want to remind everybody that we will have a capital calling party toward the end of this hour, in which we will be calling members of Congress and writing the White House with the focus being, we don't want to step up the drone warfare. We will be withdraw from Afghanistan that's not ending US involvement and military involvement in Afghanistan and frankly that is my fear that it could be even worse but you know, let's be optimistic let's try to be optimistic and on that note. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering what what can we do what could the United States do now other than just stop. I mean I think reparations would be in order but I'd like to hear your thoughts. I wanted, first of all, acknowledge that there are thousands and thousands of private military contractors and that should be part of the withdrawal on that. You know, what Matthew was saying is really important they're trying to invisibilize this war. Biden is withdrawing troops because it's good politics because the appetite for war in the US has plummeted people see that we need money for our own means. Why are men and women out there fighting and so the politically it's a good optics to remove US troops and his speech announcing that US troops will be withdrawn he did not once mention the military contractors. So that should be part of it that's a very clear ask. And also, if we are going to simply switch from removing military troops and turning it into an air war as some generals have said in New York Times a day after Biden's speech. We talked about General Lloyd Austin saying you know we could do to Afghanistan what we've been doing and Somalia and Yemen, basically turn the US war and Afghanistan into a drone war into an air war exclusively. We've already been dropping bombs for many years that way, but they want to escalate that so you know I think a clear ask could be in the short term barring, you know, not really having a good solution to the long term for Afghanistan. If we're going to withdraw US troops, we have to withdraw military contractors, we have to seize air operations and air strikes. And then if we're going to be negotiating with the Taliban on anything, the condition for the negotiation should be disarmament and the Afghan warlords in the government should be part of should have to face whatever the Taliban are being asked to face which is ideally disarmament ideally joining civil society or facing accountability Afghan justice and accountability for any crimes committed etc. That's the longer term. But yeah, let's stop the military contractors let's stop the air war. Yes. Can I ask one follow up on that scenario. If indeed ISIS gets stronger and the Taliban have denied that they were the ones that did that horrific attack on the girl school. If they're more horrific attacks like that. If there are the Taliban do ceasefires like they're talking now, and things get worse with ISIS. Would you ever think there was justification for the US to be involved in air strikes against ISIS and has the US worked with the Taliban against ISIS at all. As far as I know, no, there hasn't been any formal arrangement between the US but you know there are special forces on the ground whose function and whose whose work we don't really know. And that is all kept secret. You know the Islamic State has emerged because the US has over 20 years nearly through the so called war on terror created and done so much damage in Iraq in Afghanistan and the surrounding region so we I think have to see the Islamic State as a outcome of US policy. And if the Islamic State does get stronger in Afghanistan, any function that the US plays any role that the US plays has to be in conjunction with in collaboration with or with the permission of the Afghan government but then again the Afghan government itself is not an legitimate institution you know it's not exactly like working with the Kurds in Syria. That's a different situation so I mean I don't have an easy answer to that. But my, I don't know what the Islamic State is going to be my guess is that the Taliban have been and are getting stronger and will continue to get stronger. So they're not stupid they're very smart they laid low they made gains, little by little by little, they've beaten the US is at its own game and they're probably going to be resurgent. Matt, do you want to comment on it. You know, I agree. The US has for the Taliban through airstrikes indirectly in the east of the country. How that works is our special forces are with Afghan security forces, and through those contacts with the Taliban it's very incestuous. Particularly in some of the more remote places in terms of how these different forces know each other, but certainly the United States has dropped bombs in support the Taliban against the Islamic State. It's also important to remember that the Islamic State in Kursan as they call themselves or Islamic State in Afghanistan is by many estimations of creation of the United States directly and the Afghan intelligence services. There's been some good reporting on the initial creation of the group in Afghanistan in 2015 or so 2014 2015 that there are elements of disaffected Afghan Taliban as well as some elements of Pakistani Taliban and you don't really see a connection between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban too much but supposedly in this case there was they were brought into Afghanistan by the CIA and the Afghan intelligence service called the NDS to try and cause problems within the Afghan Taliban. And then after a couple of years when that did not work, they were cut loose by the CIA and the NDS and they needed a new sponsor these people and the Islamic State was available they put that head they put they took that name and all of a sudden they're getting on the front page of the Washington Post Wall Street Journal in the New York Times. And there's a good if people want to read about that further you can go to the Afghan analysts network. They did some of the best reporting on that in a sense of, so that's just one example of how so much of this war is a Frankenstein's monster that the United States has created. And his idea that somehow dropping bombs why be so opposed to that. Because the effects of that the exponential effects to the tertiary, the secondary and tertiary effects of dropping bombs, the unintended consequences. We've seen what's happened with that we see what the results of that have been, you know, I mean, one of the things that you speak about now we can speak about now in a sense of like the progress of Afghanistan that people have spoken about is just such BS right such nonsense, but the two things that I point to all the time that are the most or not the monstrous gift facts that there has not been progress this has been counterproductive. As a fact that in 2001 the State Department said there were four international terror groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And now the State Department said there's more than 20 international terror groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda Al Qaeda in 2001 by the FBI's calculation had less than 400 people worldwide and look at over the last 20 years, they've grown to 10 the thousands of people they've had they've got branches affiliates outfits in dozens of country they've taken over entire cities, entire regions, right they've spawned things like the Islamic State. So anyone who says that this has somehow been successful or that dropping bombs and putting troops someplace or doing counterinsurgency or counterterrorism or whatever, whatever name, some somebody wants to assign to these policies right that somehow it's effective. It's just simply not true. And so I would to go back to what was brought up about to ask about what we can do is to continue to continue the persistence. I know this work is hard and I know everyone probably feels overwhelmed and burnt out and they're beating their head against the wall and I know so many of you have been doing this for so much longer than I have. But your persistence has had an effect. Look, when the polling came out the day after the week after Biden saying that he's going to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, 70 70% of Americans were. Okay, let's do it. And that's with everybody on Fox News CNN MSNBC the Wall Street Journal CNN, I mean the New York Times, Washington Post, etc, etc, etc, losing their heads over this right that's with them trotting out all the same old war apologist. 70% of Americans are saying no okay we agree with Joe Biden let's get out, including I believe a majority of Republicans. So, you know, I mean, keep that's why I would just say just keep what you're doing, you know, and God love you all for doing it, because, you know, I mean you'll never be thanked by the people that you're trying to help but I'm as sure as I'm sure as many as you know, it does matter to them, it does matter to them. Thank you so much Matthew Ho and Sonali co hot car. We want to unmute now, and have everybody thank our guests. Go ahead and please do that. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Wonderful. Yeah. Thank you so much. Tasha good. Tasha good. Tasha good. To echo what Matthew and Sonali said we want to press the Biden administration or Congress members to stop the drone strikes. We don't want an air war to substitute for withdrawal of US troops who want our military contractors out of there. And so we have 99 people on the call I'm going to ask you to stay with us. Hi, Miller, who navigates the tech force is going to post our script on the screen, and we'll be calling our Congress members and saying we don't want to, you know, further involvement in in Afghanistan we really want this to be it. And we'll also put in a good word for Daniel Hale while while Mary's putting the, the action alert in the chat and on the screen perhaps media do you want to give an update on Daniel Hale the drone whistleblower. I think media may have taken a break so I will. Okay, so Daniel Hale who's really heroic. And has is facing sentencing July July 13 for providing information classified information to what we now think is the intercept on drone warfare and the like that 90% of the of those who were struck by US drones in a five month period were not the intended threats. Well, he was out on pre trial release and now he has been arrested. He's being held at the Alexandria detention center in Virginia. We have been in contact with some of the people at the jail. And I think he would really benefit from hearing from us and we'll be putting in the information on how you can write a letter to Daniel. And, and we can also ask the Justice Department to let him go and ask President Biden to pardon Daniel Hale. All that I believe is, well, if it's not in our action alert we do have it on code pink we have a page for Daniel.