07/15/14 – Kelley Vlahos – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, Al Scott Horton here to tell you about this great new book by Michael Swanson, The War State.
In The War State, Swanson examines how Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy both expanded and fought to limit the rise of the new national security state after World War II.
This nation is ever to live up to its creed of liberty and prosperity for everyone.
We are going to have to abolish the empire.
Know your enemy.
Get The War State by Michael Swanson.
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Just click the book in the right margin at scotthorton.org or thewarstate.com.
Again, Kelly Blahos from the American Conservative Magazine and antiwar.com.
Welcome back.
How are you doing, Kelly?
I'm doing great.
Great, great.
Very happy to have you on the show tonight.
Appreciate you joining me, especially on short notice and all.
Yeah.
And a couple of very important articles you've written here that I want to try to turn people's attention toward.
Afghanistan's deadly indecision in the American Conservative Magazine and then blowback in Iraq.
The Petraeus legacy comes home at UNZ.com, the UNZ Review.
First of all, to Afghanistan, not many people have been paying much attention.
Not much media has been directed toward the situation there, but they're still fighting or they have been fighting over the election results there.
And then John Kerry went, I saw on Twitter, people were saying, did John Kerry actually just accomplish a thing?
He went over there and struck some kind of deal.
So could you please give us the background, fill us in.
Absolutely.
Well, we were down to two candidates.
There was a recent runoff election.
The first election was in April.
There was, I don't know right offhand, but there was at least 10 candidates in that election.
It came down to Abdullah Abdullah, who is the second time that he's run.
He lost to Karzai last go around.
He was in a runoff with Karzai and decided to leave the race because he felt that Karzai had rigged it to the point where he had not a shot of winning.
And he was probably right in that regard.
There was a tremendous amount of fraud in the 2009 election that had really been hanging over this election.
So Abdullah Abdullah, who is, he's part Tajik, part Pashtun.
He had actually fought the Taliban with, you know, he had been a member of the Northern Alliance.
He was sort of like in the front office.
I don't believe they did any physical fighting, but he was a top, you know, a top official in the Northern Alliance, which, you know, was, you know, it played no small role in helping the US, you know, oust the Taliban from Kabul in 2001.
He has served as the foreign minister for Karzai and has been an official in, in the Karzai government, but has, um, you know, really been trying for some time now to be the next president.
So this is his second go around.
It turns out he was the CIA pick back in 09, wasn't he Abdullah Abdullah?
I think that he was a favorite.
He was a favorite candidate, um, because, you know, at that point the administration had been so fed up with Karzai, um, that I think it was more like, you know, anything but Karzai.
Um, you know, it was funny cause they even tried to, one of the ways that they tried to get Karzai in trouble was the CIA put it on the front page of the New York times that Karzai's brother is a CIA agent and a heroin dealer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Karzai's family has lots of skeletons.
Oh no, he's compromised.
Well, you know, I mean, we could talk more about Abdullah, but I mean, um, just to get the, you know, just, you know, the, the sort of, uh, abridged version, you know, he, well, no, not at all.
I mean, we could, there's, there's more to Abdullah, but you know, you know, he has, you know, he has been a familiar face in Afghan politics for some time.
Um, he is, uh, currently he and he won the election, uh, but you have to get at least 50% of the vote and in the initial election, um, for there not to be a runoff.
He got like 46% and with Ashraf Ghani coming in second, Ashraf Ghani is a Pashtun.
He's a Western educated, had worked in the rest.
He had been a professor in the United States at Georgetown.
He had worked for the World Bank.
He'd worked for, had been an advisor with the UN.
Um, he's very popular.
Um, he is, um, he's very popular against more of the reformer Afghans.
Uh, but this, you know, he, he, he didn't do well in the 2009 election, but did very well.
He became in second during this election.
So the runoff was between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.
Um, what happened was, but the results were, um, were finally, um, released earlier this week.
It looked like, you know, you know, these are preliminary results that Ashraf Ghani had won this runoff by about a million votes.
And all the way up into this point, Abdullah had been crying fraud saying that there had been a ballot stuffing and other rigging and fraud going on, particularly in the Pashtun areas and that he was not going to concede the race until, um, they could separate the clean votes from the fraudulent ones.
So, you know, before the, the results were even released on Monday, he had already said, you know, that, that there, there was, um, there was the widespread fraud and he would not concede.
So when the results were released, he and his, his supporters were saying, we will not concede.
We consider ourselves the winners.
So there was a big, uh, there was a big concern that he would declare a sort of parallel government.
That didn't happen though.
His supporters were calling for one, uh, then John Kerry, uh, swoops in and helps broker a deal so that every single vote of the 8 million votes, which was an incredibly large turnout, which, you know, had raised a few eyebrows in itself, there was much bigger turnout than the original April election and in areas that had barely any votes, you know, in districts, uh, you know, an extraordinary, um, turnaround from the first election.
So, um, but he brokered a deal that every one of those votes will be recounted and both men agreed.
They stood on a stage with Kerry, took some pictures.
They also agreed to a so-called unity government so that whoever wins will, um, incorporate the other side within, you know, his government.
Um, though, as some analysts have pointed out, there has been no definition of what a unity government is and, um, you know, Abdullah's people are already going on record saying, well, this means that it's basically a co-government 50 50 and Ashraf Ghani's people are saying, uh, we don't really, we don't really see it that way, but we, you know, they're basically saying we're not going to just hand out positions because we have to, you know, we're not going to just hit like cars.
I did.
Oh, well, we owe this guy a favor.
You can, you can take finance minister or you, we owe this guy, you run the bank.
You know, Ghani is basically trying to actually talk, talk and walk the walk and he's saying this isn't going to be a patronage government.
So we'll, we'll have to talk about that.
So I think there's going to be some, um, there's going to be, uh, some more brokering to be done in terms of what a unity government quote unquote will mean.
But so far at least nobody's declaring, you know, civil war on the other side, which this could actually, you know, actually, you know, dissolve into if cooler heads hadn't prevailed.
And I guess for once that John Kerry actually did accomplish something, um, though, you know, some of that might've been already in the works.
It just needed, you know, to sort of like, uh, you know, guiding hand, I guess.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, and it kind of sounds like he may have just kicked the can down the road if they're going to fight about what it means to have this coalition.
I guess I thought, I thought maybe I'd read somewhere that one was whoever wins gets to be the president and then the runner up gets to be the prime minister and then, uh, they'll have to fight over which office has which powers.
Yeah.
I think that's, that's part of this whole confusion over what unity government really means.
And I think Abdul is people have been, we're pretty speedy and getting in front of reporters and basically defining it themselves.
And that's probably what you heard.
Um, there's no prime minister in the constitution right now, I don't believe that would be part of it going in and re re-debating and reworking the constitution, which Ashraf Ashraf Ghani has said that the one statement that he has made since this deal was that, yes, there, we should have a lawyer and go and go back into the constitution because it's not, it's an imperfect constitution.
So you know, that is on the table, but they'd have to change the constitution from that.
But I think that may be Abdul is people are going straight to social media and talking a bit about this unity government as though it is more of a partnership and not, you know, uh, a winner in opposition, you know, the way that it would, that, you know, that had been most likely envisioned by the other side.
So, um, I, I don't, I don't see it.
I mean, when I wrote my story, there was a real tension in the air about whether or not Abdul is people were just going to say, well, we're just, we were winners, so we're just going to create our own government.
And that, that could have really, uh, touched off a crisis there.
Um, this actually, you know, isn't going in a more positive direction and you know, I, between the two guys, I mean, I think they, they both have their flaws and Abdul, like I said, he's been around for a long time and a lot of people who don't like him, um, who believe, you know, he's part of this old guard that really feathered their nests with all of the U S aid and money that has been pouring into that country.
And they've been sitting pretty and you know, uh, you know, basically building their personal wealth and they see it all going away with cars by leaving in a possible Ghani presidential election.
And so they have, they have a lot to lose, you know, and that's, you know, that's not good.
That that's part of the corruption that, that has basically been, uh, serving as a, a stone around the neck of Afghan Afghanistan all these years that the corruption, they can't seem to get out of this hole.
That's a bad thing.
But I, I, you know, looking at Iraq, I don't think that they're politically are, is in a baddest position for rack is right now, because I don't think that we're actually, you know, we're not seeing, um, a handover to, uh, an authoritarian figure the way that, you know, the, the power had been, um, you know, sort of centered on Maliki when we left and he was already, you know, exercising all of these authoritarian impulses over the Sunnis.
And now you see, you know, that all coming back to roost now, I'm not, I'm not saying that, you know, Afghanistan's in much better shape because they got all their own problems and, you know, we're not even brought up the Taliban yet.
Um, but I think between these two guys, um, I can't see them being, um, a, a, a, a, a, any worse than Karzai and if not better, you know, so, you know, I, I just don't see, um, any reason to really get, um, uh, or be fearful of what's going to happen there.
And, you know, maybe we will get out of Afghanistan at some point, you know, like we had planned without leaving, you know, a huge humanitarian mess there.
I mean, who knows?
I, I, I don't have the crystal ball, but what's happening in Iraq, I think could have been predicted and was predicted many years ago before we even left.
And that's just, what's happening there is just very sad.
Well, so what about the Taliban?
Because they're just sitting around waiting until it's their time, right?
Yeah.
I mean, there's, I mean, there's definitely different schools of thought.
Um, you know, I've talked to different folks and they say, you know, some people are convinced that the Taliban could really mount a, a real, um, uh, attempt to take over the government again and, you know, and take back Kabul, um, the pre, you know, 2001 and other people think that Taliban will, might be just satisfied of, of keeping whatever territory they have already and then finding a way to worm their way into the government, you know, and have political power as well.
So, um, I'm, I'm not, I'm not an expert on...
There's been some of that, right?
I remember Ann Jones telling me that, oh, Taliban coming to town.
Let me tell you, Taliban's here right now.
They're, they're in the parliament.
I think that they'd probably be better suited to, to get back into the government and, and, and force their way into some, you know, power sharing if they, you know, rather than, you know, uh, bring Kabul to its knees the way they did, you know, before 2001.
Um, but I think whoever sits in that presidential seat is going to have to negotiate with them seriously.
People say that Ashraf Ghani is probably in the better position, um, because he is Pashtun and he's got support from that whole part of the country, um, where, you know, Abdullah has a lot of, uh, has support from the North, North of Kabul.
Um, but you know, I don't know.
It's, it's, anything is probably, anything is better than the negotiation that's been going on with Karzai in the United States and it's just been foundering and, um, you know, but they are still active and they're still dangerous and they're, you know, they, there was a bombing, I think it was this morning, was it like 89 people?
The count is higher now, but last I saw, so, um, and you have the whole question of Pakistan and what role, you know, the, the Pakistani Taliban will play.
Um, so now David Petraeus promised Obama back in 2009 that you let me escalate the war.
Give me a few, uh, uh, 30 thousands is more troops over there and we'll surge in there and we'll whoop up on the Taliban so bad.
We won't completely destroy them, but there'll be so, uh, bruised and battered and bloody by the spring or by July of 2011 that then we'll bring them to the table and they'll do whatever we say.
And so that never did happen, right?
They just surged in and now they're surging down.
Did they change anything on the ground other than they ran out the clock on Karzai's presidency?
Uh, that kind of thing.
Otherwise, did they change the balance with that surge at all?
No, I mean, um, for years they'd been, you know, the, the military had been putting out these congressional reports that, that they were mandated to give Congress report, you know, sort of a, you know, what the state of, you know, affairs report and, you know, you constantly heard these carefully orchestrated, you know, carefully framed phrases like, you know, uh, we're turning back the momentum, um, you know, we have, uh, you know, with It's fragile and reversible gains.
That's what you're looking for.
Gradual, reversible gains.
Um, you know, the, the momentum is the one that always clings to my head.
Um, you know, and, and, and there was really not a lot of, there, there was never any real confidence behind these statements, but they were carefully couched to, to, to, to indicate a level of progress that was just slow and steady.
And that way Congress would be mollified and, um, we'll go on with our business.
I never, in all those years of the, of the so-called counterinsurgency, the coin campaign ever heard anything more confident or more inspiring than these, these, these phrases, these sort of, you know, Orwellian phrases.
And so I, I don't think, and I think when you talk to, um, veterans, they will say, you know, they did their best, they cleared areas, but then they had to leave.
And then the Taliban came back and you see that story after story after story, um, you know, there, you know, case after case where they did their job, they had the firepower to pacify, you know, a certain area, certain outpost, a mountaintop, but then they had to leave eventually and they just came back.
And I think that's the story of Afghanistan because I, I really haven't seen much evidence of there being, um, you know, places like Kandahar or there where they did have a surge and it was greatly publicized, you know, with McChrystal and we're going to bring, um, a government in a box, you know, to this area and we're going to, you know, protect the population.
And I remember, you know, people like David Kilcullen and others at the center for new American security saying, you know, the only measure of success is if how, you know, we, how well protected the Afghan people are, how we can keep them safe.
That has never happened.
You know, the, the number of civilian casualties has climbed up in that time.
And for, for a period of time, our better, you know, our soldiers injuries climbed up.
So, um, you know, to answer your question, I don't think it changed much on the ground.
I think at a certain point we began just retracting and letting areas be reclaimed by the Taliban.
Very quietly.
And we've, we've been in a withdrawal mode, you know, for over a year now.
So the army that we're leaving in place is a complete joke though, right?
Yeah.
Well, they, they've never, they've never, you know, if you, again, if you look at the reports about the training, you know, they'll say, well, you know, there's so many units are able to, um, conduct operations without, you know, a U.S. or it would be out in front, you know, uh, with, with minimal support.
And very few are, um, we've handed over cities and, um, areas and districts to the Afghan military.
Um, but there never seemed to be a high level of confidence that they would be able to conduct operations without at least, you know, our firepower or sadly without losing a significant number of their own.
And that's, you know, that's another sad story is that when our casualties started going down, their started going up and you'd say, well, that, you know, this is, they've taken back, they're taking control of, of their, uh, country and that that's what's supposed to happen.
But, you know, at the same time, if we had created this safe space, you know, um, and we had changed things on the ground, we wouldn't be seeing these significant casualties that these Afghan soldiers have been incurring for, for a couple of years now.
But, you know, that's not, doesn't really make headline news.
What makes headline news is when we, we don't even hear when our own soldiers die.
I mean, um, much less at this point, you know, Afghan soldiers.
So no, I don't think there's been any change on the ground.
I just think that there's been a sort of, um, acknowledgement, a sad acknowledgement that, you know, this is, you know, a stalemate at best and we're getting out and, you know, the Taliban is still very active and, and, you know...
Well, even now, I mean, how sure are you that we're getting out?
Because they just put getting out off for another two years.
Yeah.
Well, we have, what, 33,000 there now and, um, there has yet to be this bilateral security agreement signed.
Uh, Karzai refuses to sign it, which would keep, you know, any number of combat troops there for another two years.
I, from what I understand, both Abdullah or Ghani will sign this thing.
So they'll sign it and, and Obama wants, what, 10,000, close to 10,000 troops there for two more years.
I personally, I mean, you know, from, you know, military experts that I talked to do not believe that 10,000 troops, they're going to do a squat, um, out other than protect our bases and embassy there.
I don't see how that they're going to be making a difference in, you know, this, this balance of power between the Taliban and the Afghan military.
I think they'll just be there to sort of train and we've seen how well that's gone and protect our interests over there.
I don't, I honestly, I don't think that there's a lot of, um, interest on the administration, at least this one, to protract this for much longer because it's just been such a drain, Scott, that I think even the politicians in Washington are like, come on, are we going to get out of there?
I mean, you have these Warhawks who are ready to go back in any time to Iraq, you know, put more troops in Afghanistan.
But I think that at this point, I think that they're in a minority because it's been such a drain.
Well, you know, you mentioned a billion dollars for Afghanistan, you know, for aid and training alone, much less everything else that we've spent over there.
It's just ridiculous.
Well, you know, when it comes to that kind of stuff, that's always been the case and they've kept on anyway.
And it seems like something has changed here for the worse, I think, from the anti-war point of view, which is what's happened in Iraq.
The quite phony lesson, the presumption that everyone in media has, everyone in D.C. seems to have that, you know, just shouldn't have left.
Even if Dick Cheney shouldn't have done it, he just shouldn't have left.
The lesson here is you just got to stay forever or else bad things will break out.
And that is the new conventional wisdom in D.C. since the rise of the Islamic State in western Iraq, northwestern Iraq.
So this one here is a Josh Rogin today in the Daily Beast.
Obama's counter-terror plan has new doubters, his own generals and spies.
And it's about how, you know, especially in terms of Afghanistan, they don't want to leave because what if comes back?
Yeah, but I think I think when it comes down to it, first of all, the Daily Beast has had like a whole parade of war hawks writing on this issue for the last month.
So I think that they kind of they skew, you know, reality in the sense that they seem to be really gunning to get back to Iraq.
But you know, and Libya and everywhere else.
Exactly.
But I think what also skews is that you have these if you have these active duty people who are talking off the record or as sources to people like Eli Lake or whatever, you know, that's their meat and potatoes.
Of course, they want to be in war.
I mean, they want to be out.
They want to be using their equipment.
They want to be gunning.
They want to be, you know, they want to be active.
They want to be deployed.
So I but I do think that they're in a minority because, you know, the veterans that I talk to, you know, I can't speak for all of them and I haven't taken up, you know, an official poll.
But, you know, I think once you get back here and you start absorbing, you know, what happened and how the policies had been fleshed out and how and how terribly they had gone.
I think most veterans are saying, you know what, let's take care of our country first.
You know, there's you know, some of them talk about wanting to go back because it's unfinished business.
And I and I understand that's a psychological thing that a lot of veterans go through.
But I think when they when you look at policy, I don't hear a lot of them saying, yeah, we need to go back there and finish the job.
So I'm not sure.
And I think if you look at polling, most Americans don't want to go back to war, whether it be Afghanistan and or Iraq.
Most think that it was a waste.
And most veterans, when polled, thought, you know, it was a waste to go to these wars.
So I think this little contingent of war hawks who, you know, managed to get off the record comments from the military guys who, you know, frankly, they have to be self-sustaining somehow.
I just don't think that that's reality at this point.
But I could be wrong.
I mean, we could get, you know, this presidential election can start ramping up the Republican, you know, neocon, you know, interventionism.
You know, you see that with Rick Perry going on, you know, the talk shows over the weekend bashing Rand Paul and talking about going back into Iraq.
Yeah, maybe you could get that whipped up again.
But is that is that the real sentiment of America?
I'm not sure.
Yeah, no.
Well, I agree with you.
I mean, I think and it's funny, too, how the anti-war movement is in terms of, you know, the protest movement and all that is completely evaporated now that the entire American population is finally behind them.
You know, unfortunately, these groups are so small now with Democrats in power.
But yeah, no, I'm with you that that the American people and clearly all the polls show that it's, you know, the new consensus, even if it's sad that it's new, it is the consensus that we've had it with all this kind of intervention.
And after all, the safe haven myth for, oh, no, there could be an Egyptian somewhere in Afghanistan.
And then, you know, how Afghanistan is direct access to New York City and everything.
Even though 9-11 was waged by Egyptian graduate school students in Germany who had Western passports and that was how they got their access.
Afghanistan is actually exile on Earth.
It's the it's it's the furthest place to get to from anywhere.
So, you know, there's no real problem with a safe haven only if you're trying to justify the policy.
But I guess you're right.
Yeah.
They really have decided to change the policy.
They can win that argument pretty well.
And what I think is the most important fight right now, and I would like to see the anti-war movement maintain a level of diligence on this, is fighting for the history of these wars, because if the neocons have anything, they do have direct access to the elite media.
And so when they go on, you know, these talk shows and television shows and talk about how Petraeus won the war and Obama came in and lost it, this isn't just about here and now.
It's about them trying to shape the way we look at this war for the next, you know, several decades to come.
And this is what happened after Vietnam.
You had a lot of, you know, military types were going out there saying we could have won the war if we did, if we had the political will at home and the civilian masters hadn't screwed it up and the hippies hadn't protested.
And I mean, it sounds silly, but there is a big movement within the military, or there was, to shape the history of the war.
And you still have people that talk like that, and they're fighting over whether or not we won the war or could have won the war in Vietnam.
So I think that we can be very diligent by, like, my story today that I wrote about Petraeus, because I see, you know, this is the real battle to come.
Sadly, I don't think the American people or even our politicians really care about what happens in Iraq.
I think they would let these poor people go down a hellhole, and they wouldn't give a crap about them.
I think what the real battle here is going to be, you know, who sits on top of history.
Is it Petraeus?
You know, is it the people who stopped the war and finally got us out of there, you know?
So I think people like yourself with your shows and your talking and me writing and other people writing and talking about and reminding people what, you know, these policies brought.
You know, like with Petraeus, you know, with the betrayal of the sons of Iraq, with Petraeus overseeing directly or indirectly these Shia killing squads, you know, during the 2000s.
I mean, all this is blowback.
We're seeing the blowback.
So to say that he won the war with his surge and Obama, the defeatist, came in and lost it is just wrong.
And we shouldn't let that stand.
We should we should counter it every move.
No, you're absolutely right.
And listen, in fact, I'd like to invite you on the other show for some time later in the week to talk about just that, because, yeah, we rightly, I think, spent the whole interview on Afghanistan.
But that that myth of the surge is a problem of mine, too.
I sure would like to.
And I mean, the Iraq one, we cover the Afghan bogus surge.
But but the Iraq one, I hope we can arrange to talk in the coming days about that, Kelly.
Because, yeah, it is a great piece, too.
That one is at UNS Review, blowback in Iraq.
The Petraeus legacy comes home.
And then also the one that we're mostly talking about today.
It's a couple of days out of date now, but it's still got a lot of great information in it.
Afghanistan's deadly indecision that's there at the American Conservative Magazine.
Thank you so much for your time, Kelly.
I sure appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
All right, y'all.
Kelly Vallejos from the American Conservative, UNS.com and Antiwar.com.
Thanks all of y'all for showing up tonight and listening in to the show.
I really appreciate it.
I'm here every Tuesday from eight to nine o'clock Eastern time here on Liberty Chat.
Very happy to be a part of Liberty Chat.
I really appreciate you guys showing up and listening very much.
If you want to hear my other show, I'm live noon to three Eastern time weekdays at the Liberty Radio Network at lrn.fm.
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And so with that, I got a ton of work to do on a tight deadline tonight and I got to go.
But thank you all very much for listening and I'll see you next week or tomorrow or on Twitter or what have you.
Bye.
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