Reader Homework: Current Afghanistan 360
The media doesn’t want Americans reminded of the Kabul travesty in Dear Leader’s election year - but things are getting bad there (and it’s coming here)
Photo by Farid Ershad on Unsplash
Money, war, religion, markets, geopolitics, social dynamics, the human condition, and societal implications. As everyone with a platform spends their time hyperfocused on single issues that draw you in, this is my attempt to step back to show the larger picture (and potential implications or concerns).
The ever-changing media cycle seems built to give us the attention spans of fruit flies - but there are issues that we should take the time to focus on and understand.
These are those issues.
Topics covered in this post:
Introduction: why what’s going on in Afghanistan matters
Chris Miller (former SecDef) on the initial withdrawal plan under Trump
Tyler Vargas Andrews (Marine sniper’s firsthand account of the Kabul withdrawal Shitshow)
Sarah Adams (former CIA targeter, Benghazi annex team member)
Legend (current Afghan freedom fighter)
Sarah Adams 2nd (recent) interview
Askari Media Group (Sarah and Boone Cutler’s jihadi tracking operation)
Introduction
I’ve been prepping Shitshow Macro readers and podcast listeners for quite some time that I’m planning to get a deep-dive piece and podcast on the current state of Afghanistan and the threat matrix that has evolved with regard to threats against us here in the US as a result.
There are some other things that I have to get off of my plate before I can dedicate the time needed to do so (finishing the Masks Off series, among other things), and some new ones just popped up that may require my attention. I’ve been considering sending out some great information sources for those of you who are interested in this topic - and a bit of an explanation for why we all should be interested in this topic - for a few weeks now.
That nagging feeling that I should changed into a “do it now” feeling last night and this morning, so here we go.
For whatever reason, over the years I seem to have developed some sort of spidey sense for truth-tellers versus clout chasers, bullshit artists, or propagandists.
It’s certainly not 100%, but I’d say it’s far more attuned than that of the average human. Chalk it up to being the target of dozens of waves of smear campaigns from clout chasers, grifters, bullshit artists, and propagandists, or perhaps something else, but that edge hath been sharpened.
Over the past several years I’ve been able to build a portfolio of “go-to” people who, time and time again, are proven accurate in their thoughts and assertions about what is going on in terms of geopolitics, economics, and defense.
Often these people are attacked, sometimes mercilessly, because a large section of our infosphere is dominated by the aforementioned clout chasers, grifters, bullshit artists, and propagandists.
Those people absolutely hate truth tellers, and the ones who are intelligent enough to see bullshit when it's being shoveled by the aforementioned class.
The interviews that I will be linking below are not only from members of this class that I consider “go to” sources based on their backgrounds and history of being proven accurate, but also can be combined to tell a relatively 360-degree view of what has happened in Afghanistan since the Biden administration’s catastrophic Shitshow of a withdrawal, and what is happening there at the moment.
Spoiler alert: we ostensibly went into Afghanistan post-9/11 to take out those responsible and remove the ability for Al Qaeada to gather strength and have a safe harbor. The current status there is far, far worse than it ever was pre-9/11 or in the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF - the Afghanistan War) years.
And, as outlined in multiple interviews below and reporting from other sources, we (US taxpayer dollars) are funding those who are developing massive terrorist networks & training pipelines within Afghanistan and funding/aligning with other groups outside of Afghanistan.
Let’s go Biden!
Interview 1: Chris Miller
*note: Chris Miller’s interview with Shawn Ryan was broken into 3 sections because it was so long. The aspect that I wanted to include here is from the 2nd interview, and if you want to skip to the part where he specifically talks about the Afghanistan withdrawal plan that was outlined in the Trump administration, it begins at 1:18:47 in the YouTube version.
Miller is a former Green Beret (5th Special Forces Group, Airborne) who was among the first ODAs into Afghanistan post-9/11. After that he worked in and out of government, in multiple different areas and aspects, and became Secretary of Defense for the outgoing Trump administration for 72 days, I believe.
There is a lot from this interview that I see as important, mostly because Miller didn’t come to the SecDef position after a long tenure in “the swamp.” He wasn’t an active or retired general, he wasn’t seeking a cushy Big Defense job afterward - as he says he was called to serve and he answered the call, as he and his family have done for generations.
One explanation that Miller has given of this time in that role has always stuck with me. I’ll butcher it if I try to repeat it word-for-word, but the essence of his takeaway was this:
I went into the role assuming that everyone at that level working for the US Government was all on “the same team” - Team America. I soon learned that I had been sadly mistaken.
As a former 5th Group Green Beret and one who had firsthand experience of the success of those initial ODAs in Afghanistan before the conventional generals got their hooks into it, Miller’s role in shaping Trump’s initial plans for an Afghanistan withdrawal was informed by someone who knew what worked, versus those who had bungled the war's execution at every step they could.
For a brief summary, his plan that was formed using other experts who knew what had & could work included:
Maintaining the hold on Bagram
Keeping air support resources in the theater for air strikes when needed
Keeping a Counter Terrorism (CT) strike force on-site for when needed
Maintaining an intelligence network for real-time on-the-ground intelligence
Suffice it to say, the Biden administration plans facilitated by Milley and Austin did not seem to include any of those (wise) choices.
Watch the interview and decide why that plan was scrapped for yourself. I would recommend watching all 3 Miller interviews with Shawn Ryan if you have the time.
Interview 2: Tyler Vargas Andrews
This is another very long interview altogether, and it should be as the entire story is so interesting. In the progression of this post, we started with Chris Miller outlining what the initial Afghanistan withdrawal plan was and should have been implemented, and now we move to the disastrous results of allowing incompetents to scrap that plan.
The interview goes through Vargas’ early life, what drew him to the Marine Corps, and his early career there.
The part that I really want you to focus on begins at 2:15:15 in the YouTube version, when Vargas begins recounting how he was promoted to a sniper team leader, which leads directly into his vantage point of and firsthand experience of the (totally preventable) Kabul debacle.
I will add that I have a personal, long-time close friend who was also there and on the ground that day. My friend does something quite different than Vargas, so he had a very different POV, yet his takeaways and recounting to me echo the same sentiment and understanding of what transpired that day. That is as deeply as I will go into that.
Some of the highlights that need to be understood for those who may not have the time to watch this interview:
Even the snipers had intel that a suicide bomber was coming, what he’d be wearing, and what his backpack (containing the bomb) looked like
The snipers saw him when he first made his way into the crowd
The snipers alerted their chain of command that they had positive ID of the suicide bomber based on the intelligence they had been given
The chain of command took the information - and never responded to requests for permission to eliminate the threat (which, again, they had intelligence that provided a Positive Identification (PID))
A subsequent Army investigation cleared the chain of command of any mistakes, and the higher echelons of that CoC testified they had never received the request from the snipers to eliminate the threat
The person in that CoC that Vargas gave his request to directly was cleared of any wrongdoing, is named in the interview, and as far as we know is still an officer in the US Marine Corps in charge of the decision-making that affects the lives of US Marines
And the DoD pretends not to understand why they have a recruiting problem
Interview 3: Sarah Adams (first SRS interview)
This is the first interview in a 2-part series with Sarah Adams and Shawn Ryan, and she also recently sat down with Shawn for an update of what is currently going on. Sarah is a former CIA targeting analyst (“targeter”) who was in the CIA annex during the Benghazi attacks.
After the Benghazi attacks, Sarah and others set their sights on tracking down those who were truly responsible - which is a very different list than the one the US Government has largely told the public is responsible. I will provide links to the group that she, Boone Cutler, and others formed to do so (Askari Media Group) below.
Their initial hunt for the Benghazi attacks took an interesting turn when many of those people began popping up in and associating with jihadis in Afghanistan. They were the ones who discovered that Hamza bin Laden (yes, Osama’s son) was still alive, while the greater Intelligence Community (IC) believed him to be dead.
He’s not the only one that Askari was the only one to discover were still alive, or in places the IC didn’t know they were, or aligning with groups that the IC didn’t understand.
Another revelation from this interview was that the Taliban, after taking over the country and government of Afghanistan, has been working with other terrorist groups to build and open terrorist training centers in every province of Afghanistan.
Interview 4: Legend
For an on-the-ground, current-day perspective of what is going on in the fight against the Taliban (and the aligned terrorist groups who now have safe harbor in Afghanistan), Shawn Ryan sat down with one of the leaders of the current rebel army of freedom fighters there.
It’s obviously a dangerous profession, given all of the US military equipment and funding from US tax dollars that the Taliban currently has on hand, so his true name and face are not revealed.
The US media doesn’t want anyone to be reminded of not only the withdrawal debacle but the absolute Shitshow that the US State Department created when they left thousands of American citizens stranded there with no plan to get them out.
And that’s not even getting into their leaving behind the BATS systems (biometrics) that had all of the genetic markers for our allies who had been helping us, which gave the Taliban a very precise targeting list and identification program to hunt them down.
Although the US media wouldn’t talk about it, most veteran’s circles and some alternative media discussed the groups that popped up to help get US citizens out of Afghanistan post-Shitshow when the US government proved inept at doing so.
They really don’t want to talk about the freedom fighters who are still on the ground there fighting, who are not only lacking US support after the mess we made but are being targeted by jihadis who have US taxpayer funding, military hardware that we left behind, and again, the BATS system to track them, their families, and anyone who helped us while we were there.
And yet those freedom fighters continue their fight.
It does paint a pretty stark contrast between virtue signaling and reality when the “human rights” and “pro women’s rights” groups don’t have anything to say about the vehemently anti-woman Taliban not only taking control in Afghanistan but receiving US taxpayer dollars to wage their anti-woman campaigns, but c’est la vie.
I don’t have a specific part of this interview that you should jump to because you should watch the whole thing.
Interview 5: Sarah Adams (very recent interview)
Sarah sat down with another interview this June to get Shawn, his listeners, and the world up to speed on what is going on in Afghanistan (and how they are spreading their circles of influence to North Africa and other places).
If you still haven’t read it and don’t understand why North Africa is such a prime location for jihadi (and Chinese, Russian, and Iranian) activity, read my previous post on the topic:
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertplewis/p/shitshow-macro-issue-7-why-are-us
Not only is it revealed here (and in the previous interview) that the USGOV is sending $87mm weekly to the Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan, but some of that money is being funneled to other terrorist groups outside of Afghanistan.
The people we have in charge from the US to deal with Afghanistan are considered by some to be Taliban sympathizers. One of those known jihadi leaders (of the Haqqani Network or HQN) is in charge of issuing passports for Afghanistan and the Taliban.
This allows terrorists, both known and “clean skins” (not previously on the IC radar) to be issued state-level passports that are now recognized around the world which allows them direct travel into the West, including the USA.
Just take a moment to consider that: by giving a known terrorist leader the ability (and US funding) to issue passports - he can issue passports for his people under whatever names or identities he wants.
This means that even those who are “on the radar” won’t pop up at immigration checks because the “known” identity doesn’t match the issued passport, which again was issued by an AQI leader.
If you don’t understand the importance of passports and their recognition or lack of recognition, read my post where we outlined how important they are in China’s grand strategy:
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertplewis/p/shitshow-macro-issue-8-china-part
Askari Media Group
If the media doesn’t want to mention Afghanistan lest it make Dear Leader look bad in an election year, and the IC has moved its resources away from tracking the region, where does one turn to know what’s going on and what threat matrix is growing there once the eyes are turned away?
Sarah and Boone’s group Askari Media Group is very active in that respect, although they constantly get dinged (see: censored) by the various social media platforms for trying to get the word out.
If you want to stay up to date on what’s going on now that the jihadis all have free reign to meet, mass, train, and plan in Afghanistan without US eyes watching them, here are some places where you can follow them:
Sarah also adds intel briefs to the Shawn Ryan Show newsletter from time to time, which can be signed up for here
Closing
Afghanistan is a very personal subject for me, for reasons that I think most of you can understand. As an American citizen, however, simply seeing the cancer that is being allowed to spread there is quite scary, and it almost seems like we want another terrorist state actor (besides Iran) to create havoc that can lead to forever wars or something.
Whatever the reason, the fact that the media won’t talk about it and that social media keeps censoring Askari is maddening. But, again, c’est la vie.
At least now you will be better informed on the reality of our situation (and that of the normal Afghanis & freedom fighters there) than most.
I will get my post on the subject finished as soon as humanly possible, but this is a great 360-degree view for those of you who either don’t know about any of this or would like to know but don’t know where to turn for credible information.
Until we meet again, keep fighting for truth and raging against the dying of the light.
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Regardless, we’re all in this shitshow together. I’m going to do what I can to help you see the bigger picture and keep your eyes on the things that matter.
Until next time,
RPL