Afghanistan

Gary's a former CIA guy.

He's the guy that set up our, our operations in Afghanistan right after 9/11.

So 9/11 happens, and then Gary is told in a room, small room with a couple of people, "You're gonna go to Afghanistan, you're gonna set up our operations there, you're gonna make this happen, and you're the guy in charge." In essence, he was the guy trying to get bin Laden in Afghanistan.

So moved him from Afghanistan to the mountains of Tora Bora, and then he ended up going from Tora Bora into Pakistan, where we ended up getting him in 2012.

Did we have an opportunity to get him before? Was bin Laden a, an asset of the CIA or the FBI? Why, why, why exactly did it take 10 years to get bin Laden? I mean, Sam, there's stuff there that everybody wants to know the answer to.

Absolutely.

I mean, we're now getting information that we probably should have seen this coming.

Let me get with Gary Berntsen, author, former CIA sp- uh, senior operations officer, former CIA s- uh, station chief.

Meantime, Gary Berntsen, former CIA.

He set up our response in Afghanistan in 2001.

Keep it here.

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Come on, that's stupid.

No.

But having said that, did we purposely let him go from Afghanistan to Pakistan? 'Cause how does this guy get away? He's 6'6".

Now, look-

Make sure you go stop by the, uh, by the YouTube.

You can go to joepags.com/youtube and you'll see the full interview of Gary Berntsen, the guy who was the commander of the CIA action over in Afghanistan right after 9/11.

Right after 9/11, the job was go get bin Laden.

Why didn't they get bin Laden right away? Why did it take, what, 11 years to get him? I think they got him in 12, didn't they? And was Barack Obama on board? Did he wanna go and get bin Laden? We talk about that as well, and he gives kudos again to Hillary Clinton for her wanting to get bin Laden.

FX's American Horror Story: 13 premieres September 24th on FX and Hulu.

Last time we talked about the story of 9/11, the aftermath, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the death of Osama bin Laden that was a part of the forever war.

This time we're gonna be talking about what happened next because the response hasn't just lasted for a generation, it's going to endure as a legacy for many years and decades to come.

And while for a time America had almost the whole world behind it, by the end of this period, what followed was Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, drone strikes, and a war on terror that spread across and alienated much of the globe.

Osama bin Laden had wanted to provoke the world's most powerful country into a war that it couldn't easily win and to make America spend its money, exhaust its military, and compromise the values it claimed to defend.

So the uncomfortable question 25 years on is just how far did he succeed?

This is 9/11: The Reckoning.

So bin Laden's death in 2011 creates a problem for the story because it feels like an ending, but yet it wasn't one.

Right.

It is only later that he learns his true British lineage, is physically shipped back to England, and eventually returns as a member of the 19th century British military in Afghanistan.

Wait, really? So his very existence is just a complete contradiction.

Precisely.

The Russians were quite keen to have India on board, so it's, uh, you know, so to that extent, it was worthwhile.

Um, it's also coming at a time when the drawdown in the US force posture in Afghanistan was taking place.

So you knew your continental security environment was going to change, uh, because the US was pulling back.

Uh, and if the US is pulling back, then there are other actors in the region that you will have to engage with, um, because your continental security environment is going to change.

Okay, so The Fix is a movie that stars, uh, Liam Neeson as, like, a CIA guy.

And at the beginning of the movie, uh, it's the evacuation of American military forces from Afghanistan, which i- ignoring all of the political, like, ramifications and who actually, like, ordered it and how...

W- the actual implementation of it was really shabby.

Hmm.

And we see such examples.

Look how entire... nations live in Afghanistan or all kinds of places and what ideals they have of their own and their own goals and how they despise this America and all of this you think it's just because they don't have anything this is why they behave this way no it's not because of it but a society can create for itself such goals both spiritual and corporeal and it will hold it even though it has nothing that's incorrect the society does everything whether you want to or not you also have certain ideals in your life certain criteria by which you walk this is how you were built in your family and in the society and they are already greater than concrete things concrete things you can't run away from them the society is holding you question but even if I now take some goal that let's say was built towards from the age of zero and I see that the process towards it after I tried a few times to reach that goal It's a process that doesn't do good to me, right? I won't keep going towards the same goal, even though the goal seems clear to me, even though the society is strong enough.

It's the strongest society there is, let's say.

Why am I here? Probably in the society that they've been, it was controlling me from all directions, full of its ideals, but still...

And we see such examples.

Look how entire... nations live in Afghanistan or all kinds of places and what ideals they have of their own and their own goals and how they despise this America and all of this you think it's just because they don't have anything this is why they behave this way no it's not because of it but a society can create for itself such goals both spiritual and corporeal and it will hold it even though it has nothing that's incorrect the society does everything whether you want to or not you also have certain ideals in your life certain criteria by which you walk this is how you were built in your family and in the society and they are already greater than concrete things concrete things you can't run away from them the society is holding you question but even if I now take some goal that let's say was built towards from the age of zero and I see that the process towards it after I tried a few times to reach that goal It's a process that doesn't do good to me, right? I won't keep going towards the same goal, even though the goal seems clear to me, even though the society is strong enough.

It's the strongest society there is, let's say.

Why am I here? Probably in the society that they've been, it was controlling me from all directions, full of its ideals, but still...