Shawn Ryan Show - #36 Lt. Col. Scott Mann - Operation Pineapple Express

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Retired Green Beret Lt. Col. Scott Mann and a small team of former special ops personnel orchestrated what is now known as Operation Pineapple Express. Extracting our Afghan Allies from Taliban regime during a time of extreme violence due to the United States withdrawing all forces from Afghanistan. OUR SPONSORS: https://bullionmax.com/srs https://prepwithshawn.com Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 🚨↘️ Sign up for the VE Newsletter ↙️🚨 https://www.shawnryanshow.com/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We talk about how the cartel is fueling this fentanyl epidemic that we're all feeling throughout the US and Canada. And no matter what the subject matter is, the question from you all is always, what can I do? And we give advice. We answer all those emails. is the question from you all is always, what can I do? And we give advice, we answer all those emails, at least we try to. And I think a lot of people don't think that they think,

oh, well, what can I do? There's nothing I can do. There is something you can do. And what I really like about this episode is that it proves that if a few dedicated, driven individuals get together, you can make a major impact in the world. And that's what these people did. The people of Operation Pineapple Express saved a lot of lives. There was just a few of them.

When everything else failed, the entire government was a complete disaster during the Afghanistan pull out. These guys made some shit happen and left a major impact in the world with what they did. And so what I'm trying to highlight here is it doesn't take an army to make a difference. It just takes a few dedicated driven individuals that can make a major impact. And so I really think you're going to like this episode. It's actually very uplifting once we get into what they actually did at Operation Pineapple Express. And without further ado, I'd like to welcome Scott Mann to the show. If you don't mind, please, this helps me out. It helps get the word out about this exact piece of content. Hit the like button, hit the subscribe button and leave a comment.

And if you're on iTunes and Spotify, please leave us a review. Tell us what you thought of the show. I read all of that stuff. I love reading it. I love you guys. Thank you for being here. Cheers. Enjoy this one. Shocking scenes of desperation and chaos in Afghanistan are being seen around the world. I can't believe my eyes says the man who shot this video of people clinging to an American cargo jet as it takes off. Machine gun fire could be heard as thousands of panic-stricken Afghans storm the airport. For special forces or green berets at our nickname calls, our specialty is the regular warfare unconventional warfare where we work with indigenous people to help them stand up on their own and fight against oppression.

and fight against oppression. When that pullout started, I had friends sent me videos of what they were doing to our commandos. There must have been 20 commandos lying down there. Yeah, hands behind their back, and they were just putting one round. And the back, because everyone there gets, is going down the line. It looked like... Yup. It looked like fucking World War II.

The call that I knew was coming from Nizam and he said, sir, they're looking in my window right now. I said to him, something to the effect of, look, you're not going to die alone. You're not going to die alone, you're not going to die at all. We're going to get you out, and you're going to get across that city, you're going to get through the crowd, you're going to get past the Taliban, you're going to get past the Marines. Wow, why does this kid have to die?

It's just not right. And everything in my life in that war came down to him. If we don't get him in on the inside of that Taliban ring, they're going to check his credentials and he's dead. I used to live in Florida. And when I lived in Florida Florida I learned a very valuable lesson going through hurricane after hurricane after hurricane after hurricane and that lesson is do not wait for the last minute to get the emergency type items

that you need because they are not going to be there because guess who else is looking for that everyone else else around you, everybody on the planet. So I invested in some long-term emergency food with my Patriot supply. This is a one-month supply. This food last for 25 years. It doesn't go bad for 25 years you just keep it somewhere safe hold on to it and then when things like 2020 happened the food shortages the next hurricane maybe a tornado any kind of emergency guess what while everybody else is screwing around trying to figure out how they're gonna survive this thing you've already got everything prepped and ready to go.

It's, I'm telling you, it is the best feeling in the world. To be at home, see something happen on the news, and know we're already ready for this. It's no big deal, and everybody else is going to be out there scurrying around in the grocery stores fighting for a little case of water or some food. My Patriot supplies the nation's largest preparedness company. It is currently offering a 20% discount on their popular three-month emergency food kit. Go to prepwithshon.com right now and grab your 20% savings off each three-month kit you need. That's prepwithSean.com. Scott Mann, welcome to the show.

Sean thanks for having me, man. It's so cool to be here. It's my pleasure. I'm super excited about this interview. So just quick background on you, author of Operation Pineapple Express, New York Times Best Seller, you basically orchestrated that entire pullout on the civilian sector, correct?

With that group, I was, yeah, definitely one of the guys that helped lead that, yeah, for sure. Amazing. Retired US Special Forces, Lieutenant Colonel, 23 year Army career, 18 of that, and Special Operations, 10 years with 7 Special Forces Group, deployed year Army career, 18 of that and special operations, 10 years with 7th Special Forces Group, deployed to Central America, South America,

Iraq and Afghanistan, co-founder and president of the Heroes' Journey, writer and actor of the play, Elgi of a Green Beret. Yeah, last out, Elgi of a Green Beret, yeah. Founder of a green beret. Yeah, last out, Eligee of a green beret, you know. Founder of rooftop leadership. Yeah. That's a hell of a career.

Yeah, it's been, it makes me tired thinking about it, but it's been, and I was supposed to, you know, retire, but not exactly. Ha ha ha ha. Well, I wanna talk all about your book and what you experienced over there, but first, I start Everybody gets a gift that comes on oh man. There you go. This is so awesome. Open it up open it up. All right, okay

I'm never good at doing the tape thing. My wife is so mad at me What's that any guesses? No, but like looking around this room and all the stuff that you have in here, like I can barely wait to check it out, man. All right. Oh my God. There you go, Mies. There you go.

This is awesome. Made it right here in the USA. Absolutely. So grateful, brother. These will be put to use immediately. Nice. Thank you. Well, I want to start we're gonna talk about the Afghanistan pull out an operation pineapple express, but one thing that I think that the

civilian sector They just don't understand is how close special operations units actually all units. all units and all agencies worked with their Afghan counterparts, whether it's fighting for us or an interpreter or an asset. People don't understand how closely we were working with them and how close those relationships were. And so I wanted to just have a conversation with you about what those people were doing for us over there. And we couldn't have accomplished any of the stuff that we accomplished without them. It's such an important question and point, Sean,

when we think about the Afghan issue, because a lot of people, they do, they come up to me, and I'm sure they have you too, and go, what's the big deal? Like we were there for 20 years, they need to fight for their country and we shouldn't be there, you know? And trying to help someone understand the level of relationship and connection that exists between our operators, our service members, and Afghans, and Iraqis and other people that we've partnered with is so critical.

So I think to unpack it, what I would start with is this. If you look at the Afghan campaign, when we were hit on 9,11, 2001, the worst terror attack in American history, and members of the special operations community within weeks responded by inserting into that country, and they didn't go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban unilaterally for the most part.

They immediately partnered. They partnered with members of the Northern Alliance. These were the Uzbeks, the Tajiks, the Hazaras, the ethnic groups that were resisting the Taliban already. And they also partnered with Poshtun tribes in the South and the East who were also resisting. So from the very beginning of Afghanistan, we were partnered and we knew that the only way that we were going to have a fighting chance in that country to serve an antibody to al-Qaeda and keep this from happening again and get retribution was by, with, and through

the indigenous people of Afghanistan. So I'll start with that and see how that lands on you. But like, right out of the gate, we partnered with these resistance groups and from, and one more thing I'll say, if you look at what happened to our country, if you look at how we were hit, we knew Osama Bin Laden was developing Al Qaeda into a strategic strike capability. We had the USS Cole, the attacks in Africa. We knew that he had a safe haven in Afghanistan, but you know, we did not have,

we didn't have the ground intel network that we needed. We didn't have a partnership with the resistance forces, we had no Afghan military to partner with. So there was no way to reach him except with this over the horizon strike capability, which we tried multiple times and failed. And so if you look at the lead-up to the strike of 9-11, the conditions on the ground that led to that are almost identical to what we put in place when we abandoned 20 years later. Wow. That fast. Yeah. And the, you know, we still have partners. So if you look at all of the service members who deployed to Afghanistan over that 20 year period, had some version of partnership

with the Afghans, you know, And there was an evolution in the indigenous capability it started with the resistance group. And then around 0405, that was my first deployment in as a Green Beret, you saw the Afghan National Army start to stand up. And my old group, seventh group, we worked a lot in Latin America before 9-11. So we were real big on partnering with foreign armies,

the Colombian commandos, the Lensarras. And so when we saw the emergence of the Afghan National Army, we saw that as a way to really build formal capacity. Now now you've got a formal partner, the Afghan police, the Afghan army, but they hadn't existed in decades. So they were literally built from the ground up. And even when they collapse there were still all kinds of systemic problems But the point is partnership really went through a lot of iterations in that country over several decades But one thing was consistent whether you were an infantryman whether you were a Marine an Airman a seal or a Green beret

Yes, you would do some unilateral strike-ups, but your focus was on building capacity with partner forces. Very true. That's a great overall picture. I would like to get a little more personal now and talk about, especially being a Green Beret. I mean, with the, do you want to describe the mission? Yeah.

Of the SFN. Yeah, I mean, you know, and when you hear me talk today about this, I, and I please know that like the special operations community in general did a huge chunk of what I'm talking about, that my experience was as a Green Beret, as did the conventional forces. But for Green Berets, who are part of the overall so-com or special operations command community, every single constituent in so-com has a specific unit capability. Whether it's Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, or Green Berets. Each of them has a specific capability that they're the best in the world in my opinion. For special forces or green berets as our nickname calls, our specialty is

irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, where we work with indigenous people to help them stand up on their own and fight against oppression. Now whether we do that with a formal act like a partner force like Commandos, or whether we do that with rural farmers. That's our bread and butter. We, I tell people that a modern day green beret is a combination of John Wick, Lawrence of Arabia, and the Verizon guy.

Yeah. Verizon guy. You know, the guy that's going around making the connections all the time? Because that's what, you know, they are strategic catalysts. They are connectors. If you look at the early days of Afghanistan, when five, nine, five, and those other teams went in

and the horse soldiers, and they connected with the Northern Alliance, they connected with the Pashtuns in the South, what they really did was they mobilized an indigenous population. So they went in with 12, came out with 1200. So that really is where, in my assessment, special forces have a very, very unique approach. Is we are hardwired through language, cultural immersion.

We're taught in the qualification course to make build relationships with indigenous people. And in fact, I would submit that the seals and a lot of the other groups, you know, because of the unilateral strata capability that you guys work on so hard, like that's your thing, where our thing is we can do that, but when we can do that in conjunction with a partner force, an indigenous capability, I think that's when we best serve the nation.

Yeah, I mean, I've always been fascinated with the SF mission, and I did some of that kind of stuff, but we weren't being a seal, we weren't trained in that kind of stuff. So it kind of turned into a mess for me. But watching, then when I went to the agency, I was able to kind of co-deploy with a lot of SF units. And when I saw the capability that you guys have, you know,

with such a small team embedding in a village where nobody's been in and turning that into a fighting force, it's incredible. It is really cool to watch. And I was so in awe of the years that I, because I wanted to be a green beret since I was a little kid growing up in a log in town. I fell in love with it because I met a guy that was a green beret when I was like 14. And when he told me the stories about what he did, I just thought, man, like that is, but being around green beret MCOs that had done that for years to watch them, Sean, go into these places where the rest of

the world's just forgot about them. And the level of appreciation that they have for culture and reality at a local level is I'm never seeing anything like it. I've never seen anything like it. Their ability to just immerse in the language and the culture. And everything they do is built around relationships. The social capital that they build with these communities, that they build with their partner force.

And they take it so seriously. And they understand that like that social capital that you build when risk is lower, that's the stuff that you leverage when it all falls apart, or that when you got to do the nasty work. Very interesting. Very interesting. Let's talk about, let's talk about some of your personal experiences going in and standing up before any part of the world you want to talk about in particular that you were part of. I think my first exposure to it was in the 90s when we were doing work in Columbia.

And as a young special forces captain, I thought I was advising my Colombian counterpart in the, he was Colombian, and Fuesa Sespesealis, you know, special forces. And he was a major and really, really sharp deed. And I was, we were talking about their dealings with the gorillas in Colombia and the narco traffickers. And I was giving him like the standard token special forces

advice and how to think about it. And he kind of looked at me and he's like, if you dealt with the FARC before and I was like, no, but you know this, and he's like, sit down for a second, captain. And he took me to school, man. And it really opened my eyes in that moment. I was like, wow, like first of all, the partners that we work with, they really, in a lot of cases, they know far more than we do. You know, it's important to look at where you fit, it's like anything else in

life, right? I mean, to walk in the room thinking, you know, it all. And you have all the answers. I'm from the government. How do you like me so far? It's not only is it off-putting, but it's naive. And that was a real wake up call for me, humility lesson, and what partnership really looks like. And thankfully, I had some wonderful NCOs that taught me, you know, the value of that. I'll remember one time in Paraguay. We dropped into Paraguay, my team, I had a very senior team. This was back in the 90s.

Like my team, Sergeant, had been in seventh group for 21 years. Oh, wow. My Warren officer had been in for 19 years and my Intel Sergeant like 17. And I was right out of the queue course as a captain, and I'm the commander. But we went to Paraguay, and it was right after an attempted

coup by General Oviato. And our job was to help stand up the special operations command or to bolster the special operations command forces from Paraguay. And really multi-escalant training with them and then culminate it in a training event where it would be attended by parliamentarians and the Southern commands forstar and it would really send a message to the rest of the folks that might be contemplating and insurgency don't mess with this force. Like they are the core of the Paraguayan military.

So it's a pretty big mission for a young captain and nine other dudes. Absolutely. And so we go down there and we're training, the NCOs immediately go into what they do. The medics are training on medical portions, the weapons guys are teaching ambush and light infantry. And then we're gonna bring it all into this complex

multi-escalon exercise with infill platforms and meta-vax and field artillery. And so my job as the captain was to really empower these teams or these MCOs, make sure they had what they needed, and ensure that the resources were in place for all this. Well I have managed to square away everything for the actual day of execution, but the rehearsals, the full mission profile rehearsals, I dropped the ball on that. And so we did not have training areas, the full mission profile rehearsals, I dropped the ball on that. And so we did not have training areas for the full mission profile rehearsals.

I go in, I have to tell my team sergeant, these senior old crusty farts that I dropped the ball and I'm going to need some help and we're already in paragon. So I tell them, and they were super cool about it, you know, kind of shook their head and the Warren officers like come with me, sir. And I'm like, all right, so the chief McCag takes me in the truck, we drive across the base to the range control area.

And there's this little short fat Paraguayan captain sitting there. And chief and him start wrapping in Spanish really fast. I'm trying to keep up, you know, with my defense language institute, one plus, one plus. And they talked for a while and I tried to just follow along as we're walking out. I was like, what did you guys say?

I missed part of it. And she said, good news and bad news. Good news is you got your ranges. The bad news is you got dinner plans tonight. So I'm like, okay, so we go back, we take the team home, we go back to the base and we drive on the other side of the base where the officer housing is.

And it's like not the kind of housing you would see on our bases, it's little Cinder Block homes, didn't even have a front door, chickens running around in the yard, kids everywhere. And this little short fat cat that is there, same guy, he's now in his PT shorts and his seventh group T-shirt and drinking a beer and he motions us inside and like it is I'm not kidding you like it's it's half the size of this room the whole house

dirt floors um you know salsa music blaring and in there he's got walls, certificates of appreciation, covering every bit of space in the room going from Septimo Groupo, Seventh Group, going all the way back to 1986. Are you serious? Yeah. Wow. His whole house was decorated with certificates of appreciation from seventh group over 15 years damn and I creepy as hell like I'm sitting or going. Oh my god Like this guy decorated his house with those little cheap certificates of appreciation that we get out of the supply room with the with the

5 cent black frame and but yet he decorated his whole house with it. And in that moment, that's when I was like, okay, every one of these detachments that came here got me this range. Yeah. You know, every one of them incrementally contributed to the organizational relationship with the Paraguayan military that manifested between the three of us

Right, and it did end it ended up being a great event The multi, I mean it was it was and I and I do believe that that it sent such a strong message to Paraguay There were no more attempts, you know at insurgency and you never hear about that in the news That's not sexy. Yeah, but from a capacity perspective, from what that team was sent there to do, it was all made possible by the actions and activities of a bunch of SFOTA's 12-man teams I never met. And for me, that really drove home what it is that we do is that we move the ball five yards down the field every time. If you look at what happened in Afghanistan, when the agency went in as the pilot team in front of the Special Forces guys, we hadn't been in Afghanistan since 78 when the embassy fell and the ambassador was killed. So there were no pre-existing relationships

in Afghanistan for the SF guys to leverage. So guys were brought out of retirement. Senior guys from the agency were sent in on the job breaker teams. Who were they? They were all guys that had worked with the Mujaidin during the Soviet occupation. Wow. You know, it all comes down to those relationships that you build when nobody's looking.

I think that's a perfect story to bring up because it's 15 years. The guy had 15 years of relationships with seventh group, special forces. And then fast forward, however many years to Afghanistan, that was a 20 year war. So we have Afghan interpreters, commandos, all these different types. And that's it. Some of them have a 20 year relationship, you know, with, with U.S. forces. What I like to move into a little bit now is did you, did you work as a green beret in Afghanistan? Did you, did you work as a Green Beret in Afghanistan? Absolutely. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about how closely you work

with the Afghan counterpart. Because I mean, essentially, in civilian terms, what you guys do is you go in, you train up a team, and then you fight with that team just like you would fight with your own team. Yeah, 100%. I mean, the original Green Berets that went into the country, you know, they worked very closely with the militia, with the resistance.

And then when my teams went in in 04, 05, we worked closely with those folks, but also the emerging Afghan National Army. They were brand new. And in fact, I was a, I was mission commander of a commander of an operation that went into Arruzgon province called Nam Dong was the mission. But it was in spring of 2005. And we took the brand new members of the Afghan National Army 205th Corps

into really one of the heartland areas of Taliban sanctuary up in the mountains of Arruzgon, which is South Central Afghanistan, really rough country. At that time, there was almost no U.S. presence up there. So we were going in, it was really the first maneuver warfare to be conducted by the Afghan National Army. Most of these soldiers were 15 years old, had not seen combat. The officers had not been tested, and it was Green Berets that were taking the Afghan National Army in. And we infiltrated on helicopters, on seven HLZs. You had probably

anywhere from 75 to 100 Afghan National Army members and like three green berets in COs with them in their Woodland pattern camouflage uniforms. And we sat down in seven HLZs at the same time. I set up my mission command post. I was combat advising to battalion commanders and a brigade commander and their staff who had never maneuvered forces. At the time, we didn't even have,

they had an HF radio, but that was about it. They were using sat phones and really antiquated ways to maneuver their forces. That's why green berets were so instrumental in that. But as soon as we landed Sean on those seven HLZs, we could hear over the Icom scanners, the Taliban saying, what is this? Like look at, look at all of these Afghan soldiers.

What is this all about? And even like some of them were laughing about it and they decided to mass and hit us. And they hit us like in all seven areas, what they didn't count on were those embedded SFNCOs with their multi-frequency radios and access to fighter aircraft that we had loitering at IPs all over the place.

And it started like a 12 day firefight. Just right off the bat. Right out of the gate. And, you know, a lot of the A&A broken ran, you know, if it the first crack of the round and you had SFNCOs that were fighting overwhelming odds with they used operational fires to reduce it. It ended up being a really successful mission

in the sense that it was the first time that the 205th Corps had been tested. And it allowed them to put their flag, their flag down in a ruse gun at Taran Kout and they never left. And we were able to establish a firebase there at Cobra that became a notorious firebase for pushing into sanctuary. But the point is, in 0405, we were working with the Afghan national army. Now, I'll give you an example like Matt Coburn, one of the guys in Pineapple. He retired as a colonel. He trained the original Afghan national army members that came out as like lieutenants and privates right off the assembly line in that time period. Fast forward 20 years later, he was the final

C. Gisotef or Joint Special Ops Task Force commander, and his peers, his partners, who are generals, Sergeant's Major and the Afghan Commandos, the Special Forces, the KKA, were the privates and lieutenant's that he had trained as a captain. That's amazing. And then he was the guy they called because he had retired when the government didn't pick up the

phone. They're calling Colonel Coburn, who they've known since they were privates. And I think that's what a lot of people don't understand is that the relationships that we built with these people are not only measured in blood but in years. Yeah, I mean, we're talking 20 years, 20 years, two decades. That's the life of raising a kid. And understand, Tushan, that like, there's only 6,500 green berets in the inventory, for example. And most of the special ops units have similar, they're small, right? And then when you split that across Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, and we only had, well we had third group and seventh group that were primarily focused on Afghanistan while 10th and 5th were focused on Iraq.

And then you had the first that went back and forth. But the point is like you were either in Afghanistan or you were getting ready to go back. That was your life. That was your life in the special operations community. So you had a very small number of these individuals who were building these relationships. You were there all the time.

Would you, so, do most SF groups, do they redeploy back to the exact spot so you continue that relationship? So, you know what I think so. You would think so. You know, one of the things that, the other thing that I did in my tenure there on my third rotation to Afghanistan was I helped put in place what was called the Village Stability

Program or Village Stability Operations VSO. And it was basically where we worked with rural farmers, post-tunes primarily, at a village level, similar to the CIDG program with the Motton Yards in Vietnam. That was actually who inspired it with us. But we, it's kind of a modern day magnificent seven, right? Where the teams would go into these villages and they would live in these villages. Sills did some of it too, in Zobble Province, 2010.

But we basically helped build local militias to stand up against the Taliban at village and community levels and spread all over Afghanistan in 2010, 2011, 2012. But what I, where I'm going to with that is that you would think that the special forces community would send the teams back to the same areas that they fought in. As a general rule, our special forces command, the force provider out of Fort Bragg did not do that.

They had this thing called the playbook that they operated off of. And it was basically like a matrix that they used to rotate different units into Afghanistan. And we did not do a good job as a regiment in my assessment of putting teams back in the same areas. It happened on occasion in one area like Maywanda, Kandahar, where one team went back three times in a row, and when you looked at their rate of accomplishment with that community and that district, 10X

better than those around. But yet, when we tried to bring that up to the senior leaders at SF Command, it just was lost on them. There was too much of a programmatic solution to how we fielded forces against this thing and everything except Preexisting rapport in my assessment was considered in that so we could have done a much better job of Continuing those relationships in those areas and we didn't so you had these start and stops every six months to a year Okay

But still there's still it's another SF unit. It was another SF unit with an appreciation for that kind of work and they would typically build on what the other team had done to some degree. But you know the deal. I mean, you bring third group in and seventh group, even if it's two ODA, one ODA from each. Yeah. The cultures are so different and how they think about the world and just the pre-existing rival reason. Overall, it was pretty good, but it could have been so much better. Let's talk about some of the living conditions.

How close you guys were living with them. For example, when I was in the agency, if we were going to an outpost, it was, I mean, you're eating with them, you're working out with them, you're getting to know them. You're learning their culture, they're learning yours, you're sleeping next to them. I mean, it's, it just becomes, it gets to the point where there is no difference

between hanging out with fellow Americans and your Afghan counterparts because you're co-located in the exact same living conditions live inside by side with each other. Did you guys? I mean yeah same hundred percent. I mean, you know, you brought up I mean the way you characterized it spot on the only thing I would probably add to it is for green berets When you go through the green beret qualification course at Fort Bragg, no matter what you do, whether you're a weapons person or a captain or a team sergeant, whatever. When you go through this course, the culminating event is a role-playing exercise called Robyn Sage, the largest role-playing exercise in the world, covers five rural counties in North Carolina, and it's been going on since like 1952,

and you parachute into this place, and it's a replicated insurgency. And you jump in almost identical to what our teams did in Afghanistan, and you connect with the guy that owns the subway shop and done North Carolina, is actually a leader of the resistance and he drives you around a cattle car at night. Like, and, but he lives there. Carolina is actually a leader of the resistance and he drives you

around in a cattle car at night. But he lives there. He's actually a resident. He's a third generation role player. The point is we spend an inordinate amount of time training and inculcating in our operators the importance of immersing in the culture, the language, and the environment. And that is exactly what they do when they move into these communities. Like the Village Stability Program, our Green Berets grew their beards out.

They were in Indigenous clothing. They're speaking the language. They're living in a colot in that village, you know, eating what the locals eat, shopping at the market. There is an expectation that you are, you go local or you go home, you know, if you are working with the Afghan commandos, you wear their uniforms, you wear their patch, you, you know, you, you go into combat with them. You are at their shoulder. And you don't necessarily want to be the first in the stack because you want them to build that capacity

to do that, but you're in that stack, You know, and it becomes such a brotherhood, such a connection that your whole purpose for being there, there's a saying in special forces, which is to work yourself out of a job. The way you measure success when you are working by with and through indigenous partners, is you work yourself out of a job. In other words, that partner force is so good

that you can overwatch them and they are able to handle you know, laterally what they need to handle. And I would tell you by there was so much bloodshed, so much sweat, so much partnership that occurred between O8 when the commandos stood up and the special ops command stood up for the Afghans until the collapse that in the last couple of years of the war, the Afghan Special Operations Forces were carrying 98% of the combat load,

and they were doing so unilaterally. I did not know that, that's incredible. Yeah, I do have a question. When you guys go in like the 12- of the one end of the beginning or the parakeet, the beginning of that relationship or... Because there's only 12 guys. How are you making those relationships before the 12 guys are going in? Right.

And special operations, particularly in special forces, indigenous engagement, you always couple things. One is there's usually a pilot team that can go in in front of you and do that kind of work. So, in the initial invasion of Afghanistan, you had a pilot team where the agency, and if you ever had the book, Jawbreaker, like, you know, for folks who listened to this, like that, that was the pilot team that paved the way for the Special Forces team that came in behind.

So the idea is you always wanna build on whatever pre-existing mechanisms are in place, right? So in the case of Afghanistan, if you're going to roll in there and you're going to work, say, with the commandos in CandoHara and our regional command south. So you know your team is going to go do that. Well, you would get notification ahead of time that that's what you're going to do. And you would immediately start talking with that detachment that's already over there. You'd find out who that is.

You would launch a pre-deployment site survey or a PDSS. You'd get over there with your senior leaders, get on the ground with that team, start building those relationships there, and then go back to your unit, continue your pre-mission training based on, continue to talk with that unit as you're moving through the training, and then you get on the ground, and then there's usually a two to three week, left seat, right seat ride, where you start to assume those relationships from the outgoing team. What I will tell you, Sean, it's a great question, is some organizations did that really well, some didn't put as much stock in it.

The ones that really thought about it and worked at it ahead of time, were the ones who were able to accelerate their results on the battlefield. I think they saw better outcomes from their partner force. With our Afghan Special Operations partners, the commandos, the Afghan Special Forces, the KKA, as they were called, and the Special Mission Wing Aviators, I have to say that our community, our self-community, developed a really good system for building a center of excellence with them. I don't think people realize how competent and capable and effective Afghan special operators were. I had no idea. I did not realize it until I started contracting for the agency.

We tried that when I was a seal. We weren't trained in that kind of right operations and it it just fell short It didn't go great But then when I When I went to the agency and I saw some of the the GB teams and the Afghan teams that they were training I Was I I had never seen it. I was I was just like like, holy shit. These guys are switched the fuck on. They really aren't. They're kidded out. They know what they're doing. They're dedicated.

And I'm more dedicated than some of the Americans that I was working on. No, I agree, man. Like one of the characters in my book, his name is Nazam. And Sergeant First Class, Nazam, Nazami. And you know, he's a big part of the book. And he's a big part of the book. And he's a big part of my life. I met him in 2010 when we were doing that village stability mission I was telling you about. And the thing about Nazam, this was a guy, just to give you, when you talk about the relationships, right?

So his father was a Mujahideen fighter. He was Uzbek. And he was killed when Nazam was, I think, four months old. And then, like a couple of days later, Migg Fighters bombed Nazam's village and his house collapsed on top of him. Everybody ran out, they forgot the baby. Nazam was covered in debris, they dug him out,

not a scratch on him, right? He was, his mom was sold into slavery to a man that was like three times her age. He hated Nazam so much, he wouldn't even let him sleep in the house, he slept in a barn till he was 11 Ran away from home lived on the streets of Tukar and when he was 17 and this Afghan National Army stood up that we talked about when the NATO forces came in he joined it and It was all he ever wanted to do because it was for him. It was a home. He had never had a home to call his own

You know his aunt called him the backpack man a home. He had never had a home to call his own. His aunt called him the backpack man because he just moved around with his backpack as a kid. But he found a home in the army. And then he joined, when he saw these green berets walking onto the base where he was working as a combat engineer or private, just cleaning the floors and really doing nothing, he saw these commandos come walking onto the base with these bearded SF guys and he looked at his buddies like, man, I want to do that. And his buddy was like, the sergeant will sit on you if you even try to do that. Don't even try it.

So he told the sergeant he had to take a piss because they announced that they were going to meet in the classroom if you were interested in the recruiting. The sergeant, the mess hall sergeant, he was working for a locked the door. So none of the Afghan privates could get out and go to the recruiting. The sergeant, the mess hall sergeant, he was working for a lock the door, sent out of the, none of the Afghan privates could get out and go to the meeting. So he told the fat sergeant, he said, I got a piss. And the sergeant's like, screw you, man, get back to where you know, I really got a piss. And, and he was like, all right. So he opens the door. And the second he opened the door, and the zone bolted. You know? He ran into that room sprinting, and everybody turned around and looked at him.

Now he's like five foot nothing, weighs like a Bucco five soaking wet. He had to wear women's high heels, just to meet the height requirements. Are you serious? I'm not even kidding. And the recruiter thought it was so funny that he let him in.

But like he ran into that room. You know, this is a guy who had lost everything. He had lived on the streets. He had never had a home to call his own. And he sprinted into that room with the commandos and he sat down and he never left. You know, he became a commando. He became Afghan Special Forces.

He went to our Q-Course. He went to the Green Beret Q QCourse at Fort Bragg. He was shot through the face when he turned around to tell the SF guys behind in ambush and was back in the fight three weeks later. He was shot in the chest plate three times by ISIS and a unilateral strike, you know, that they ended up winning. That's the kind of guy

that every, almost every one of these commandos special forces KKA were and are and and the level of trust and loyalty and love between them and their American advisors That was one of the hardest things I write in this book was to put it into words damn It's a perfect description. Let's take a quick break and when we come back I'd like to talk about Afghan culture under Taliban rule. Sure.

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And, you know where I'm going with this? Yeah, I mean, one of the problems, people, we try to do the post mortem on what happened in Afghanistan, and we'll be doing that for years, I'm sure, but one of the things that I've always contended is that I don't feel like we got deep enough on Afghanistan and what makes it tick at a civil society level at all.

You know, and what I mean by that is we try to put a square peg in a round hole with Afghanistan. We try to make it a like a top down liberal democracy. And that's just not how that culture, it's not how that society is set up. It's not how it's operated. The way to maybe think about Afghanistan is, you know, it is what they call a status society in many ways. It's a society where it's tribal in many ways.

It's a clan honor-based society. So in other words, the way that that country operates is in groups and clans and tribes. That's how they, and it's all about honor and shame. And the reason you see that in places like Afghanistan is that there's a huge amount of resource scarcity. So the way that you survive and that you navigate the world is you form groups, you form clans, you form tribes or quams. And that's how you survive. That's how you acquire. That's how you protect your resources. And it's a code of honor that allows that collective to function, that allows that collective

to maintain its resources, acquire new resources, protect against other groups trying to take your resources. Every mammal on the planet has some version of this. And we all come from societies that do that. Afghanistan in many ways is still very true to that. If you go four feet off the pavement of Ring Road, the one paved road in that country, you're gonna hit status society.

I don't care which direction you go. The urban areas like Kabul, Candahar, Jalalabad, tend to be more progressive. You tend to see what they call contract society, which is what you and I know more readily. It's some version of capitalism, some version of, in this case, there was democracy that we helped instill, but it's more of a modern society

that kind of focuses on the individual, not so much the group. So when you saw the United States come in there, well, let's back up. So the reality in Afghanistan is that this was a country largely status, ruled by a monarchy for years, and then in the 70s was, you know, the Soviets came in and toppled all of that. And they really targeted that rural leadership structure, the status society, the landed, land-owning elders from these tribes were targeted primarily by the Soviets and they were either killed

or pushed out of the country. And so the Soviet occupation really flipped that whole country on its head and how it governed itself. And you know, it created an insurgency that lasted for quite a few years. And then once they were pushed out, these warlords came in and filled the gap. Why? Because the tribal societies had been decimated by the Soviets.

The resilience of that country had been decimated. And you know, the thing is, Sean, like a lot of people don't know that, like Kabul in the 1970s was a very progressive city. Like women walked around in many skirts. There were disco techs, there were hippies bouncing around the plains of northern Afghanistan, Smokin dope, like it was, I mean, you still had the rural issues,

but it was a pretty progressive society. And it was the Soviet occupation that set all that going backwards. People think that Afghanistan has been like this backward land. And in some ways, it is very status. But it was pretty darn progressive in the 70s. You know?

Interesting. I actually didn't know that. Absolutely. And it went backward under the Soviet. That started like a 40 year cycle of violence that just pulled apart the fabric of that society at both an informal and formal civil society level. What I mean by that is so the rural tribes, the villages that were used to handling their own affairs and just had like a loose affiliation with the government,

they were decimated. They forgot how to farm, they forgot how to resolve disputes, all the elders who normally led those things were either killed, displaced or wearing hiding. At the same time, the governmental structures were destroyed by the Soviet occupation and then the civil war that followed. These warlords like Dostom and Atta, they came in and they filled the gap, the security gap, and then the governance gap and the development gap and it was all patronage and it was this warlord type approach that went on and the civil war was awful. It was worse than the 90s. Soviets left in 89. So then you had the warlords come in, the Civil War, it decimated the country even more than the Soviets. And that is what led to the influx of the Taliban. The Taliban were trained in Pakistan and Madrasas, Pakistan's ISI, their intelligence service had a lot to do with the emergence of that group,

the Wahabi mosques from the Saudis years past, but the point is the Taliban came into the country because the people in Afghanistan needed a security solution that was better than these warlords. You couldn't go 20 meters according to some of my friends without hitting a checkpoint, every 20 meters where you were shaken down. Damn. Yeah. And so the Taliban at first were welcomed with open arms because they brought in a level of security, brutal. And then they also brought in a very, very strict application of Sharia law. You know, they had had the ministry for virtue and vice, which was like where women went out on Escort, they were beaten, stoned. So you saw this draconian governance of the

Taliban. But people endured it because it was a better security situation. And I think probably, I don't know, had the Taliban not allowed al-Qaeda to come in country and strike us, I mean that system may have stayed. You know what I mean? Like people were enduring it. And I think today you're right back at the same level of brutality that you saw. Yeah, I mean, you know, when that, when that pull out started, I had friends sent me videos of what they were doing to our guys and pictures.

By me and our guys, I mean our commandos. Our partners that are over there. Terab, I'm a little one. There must have been 20 commandos lined up. Hands behind their back and they were just put in one round in the back of every one of their heads just going down the line. It looked like yeah, it looked like fucking moral war two. Yeah, you know, in the concentration camp and and those were our people. Yeah, and we trained them and had relationships with them for years,

and you know, the thing that really it's to me is so egregious about this is that, you know, in the special operations community, certainly in the special forces community, there is an implicit promise in partner work, which is, I have your back, you know, and we are raised to know that and execute on that at a very early age and special forces. Like it's for us in Robin's age, it's just grilled into you. And our operators for decades worked off that. I have your back.

And it was just understood. So if a commando unit went in on the mission, there were SF guys right there at their shoulder. If the KKA went in on the mission, there were Rangers or Seals right there at their shoulder. Like it was just understood. And then all of a sudden, you know, really under two political administrations, this desire to just get out of the country, to get out of the war completely dismissed these deep relationships that were in place and frankly that we bled for for 20 years so that we didn't have another 9-11. So that we wouldn't have to rely on the over-the-horizon attacks that failed so miserably to prevent

9-11. We had built this ground-in-till network. We had built these phenomenal partners. Now, granted, the larger Afghan army and the police rafted with corruption and desertions, and they had all kinds of problems. Yeah. But, you know, it takes time to build those kinds of capacities.

But the commandos were carrying the load, the soft were carrying the load, and in June of last year, we completely pulled all of their contract support. We pulled out all the contractors without warning. Now, why does that matter? When people are saying that the Afghans didn't fight, that's just a complete false narrative. Remember that we built these commandos, these KKA, these special forces in our own image. Like if you looked at another group as the national mind reduction group, the NMRG, who actually protected us from insider attacks,

they slept in our compounds with us. That's how much trust there was. Right. They would trade their life for hours, you know, to block an IED, to sweep a road for seals and SF deeds. But all of these groups, you know, I mean, we had built such a capacity to block an IED to sweep a road for seals and SF deeds. But all of these groups, I mean, we had built such a capacity with them, but we built them in our own image. Like if you looked at them, they had their hats cocked up

on their head, they had all the kit, they're dipping Copenhagen, they do their mission planning like we do, they, you know, three to one ratio, overwhelming operational fires, precision fires to saturate the total of that, to keep the Taliban off guard, you know, three to one ratio, overwhelming operational fires, precision fires to saturate the total of that, to keep the Taliban off guard, you know, and punch them in the face and hit them hard, and you don't know where they're coming from next.

That's how Afghans saw off-operated, and they're very good at it. But they were reliant on the same things you and I were reliant on. Surgical platforms, operational fires, Metavac, you know, optics and tricked out weapons, all of those things that gave you that edge, night vision goggles, we pulled all of the contract support. So they had no operational fires,

they had no surgical strike, they had no MetaVac, you know, air MetaVac, and this happened in June, right? So this was after a province, after a province, was already falling, generals were deserting, and then all of a sudden you pull their contract support. You know, everything that gave them a decisive competitive advantage over the Taliban was removed.

Over literally just chucked the legs out. We took their legs right out from under them. And then, when they started calling saying, okay, we're holding the line. I mean, there's a guy in the book I talk about his name's Bashir, it's not his real name. He was an Afghan, commando, Afghan Special Forces and a QCORS graduate.

Went, was at Camp Morehead, was the liaison to all the Special Forces teams that came through there for years. His house was right outside Camp Morehead. He stayed on Morehead until the Taliban were literally at the gates. His guys killed in him killed 14 Taliban on 15 August. You know, at the ammunition supply point up in a tower, a sniper took out 14 dudes and they stayed on target even after all the generals and officers left. They stayed. And we're calling

us saying, Sir, what do I do do I do? My family's over here. If I don't go to my family soon, they're gonna be killed. I'm willing to fight, tell me what to do. And they're calling retired guys, because no one in the government was picking up the phone or authorized here. He was maddening.

Heart breaking. Yeah. Do you wanna talk a little bit about the headway that Afghanistan made with women's rights? Yeah. And schooling and all the good things that happened because we were there. And then we'll get into them, we'll get into... Sure, I think that's an important point and I appreciate you bringing it up because you hear a lot after what happened in the collapse of what was the point. What was it all for? I can't tell you how many gold star families contacted me on August 15.

Just through tears asking, what did you die for? You know, buddies that called me and you may have had the same thing like, you sold this for, like what was the point? And it was, you know, and I have to admit, I asked myself those questions as well. And I still see a lot of that, you know, in LinkedIn and I get it. But I think you have to step back from that. And really, I don't think it was in vain at all. I don't think the 20 years of

sacrifice in that country was in vain and here's why. I'll hit it on a couple of levels. First of all, the primary mission was to dismantle Al Qaeda and prevent them from launching another strategic attack on the West or the United States. And I feel like our forces did that. The al Qaeda had a few other attempts, but for the most part, for 20 years, the West enjoyed relative peace and lack of al Qaeda influence at the scale, which they were capable of striking when 9-11 hit.

And I think you have to attribute that to your brothers, my brothers, and everybody conventional forces that serve there to keep that organization off ballots at bay. And frankly, the Afghan commandos and special ops, they picked up the mantle starting in 2014 when OEF officially ended operation during freedom, and it became an Afghan led endeavor. And again, you never hear that, but they took the lead. So Al Qaeda was kept really off balance and unable to strike at a strategic level for 20 years. But also, you had, I think the numbers close to 8 million boys and girls that attended school. You had 20 years of relative stability in that country. Time for informal civil society to get its feet under

it again, for farming to reestablish itself. And I saw this through the village stability program, through local agriculture, dispute resolution, mechanisms for that to start to, you know, to find its way again. You started to see elements of governance and economic development in that country. Now granted, the graft and corruption, and I think, frankly, western biases that we brought in the industrial war complex, it overshadowed a lot of it, but I don't think you can ignore the fact that a lot of these resilient systems did start to emanate out. It looks as if they're gone now, as if the Taliban have taken it over. I think the Taliban have a very fragile grasp on power.

Really? I do. Why do you think that? Well, first of all, they're not good at governing. They suck at governing. The draconian measures that they're putting in place are as bad or worse than what they did before 9-11, but here's the difference.

You didn't have eight million young men and women that had attended school back then. You didn't have the millions of Afghans who had endured some level of relative stability, opportunity, and particularly in the urban areas that you have now. You didn't have Uzbek's, Hazaras, and Tajiks who had finally enjoyed periods of non-persicution by postons.

So there were a whole lot of social factors that were enabled to find some level of resilience in that 20 year period. And I tell soldiers, marine seals, Navy Cormin, listen, you held space for these local civil society systems at formal and informal levels to try to get their feet on the ground. And I don't think we've seen the end of it. I don't think the Taliban have a good hold on power. I tell you that because I still have a lot of good contacts in the country with commandos and as we talk to them all the time,

with our volunteer groups. There is an Afghan-American need to introduce you to this guy, named Legend, former Army until NCO, who went back into Afghanistan. He was featured on Fox legend, former Army intel in CEO who went back into Afghanistan. He was featured on Fox News early. He went back in there helped his family get out from under the Taliban. He just went back in again and just came out but has been working with the resistance. Wow.

I did a podcast interview with him and I have to tell you what he was telling me is, yes, the Taliban have, I mean, they've got a death grip on things, but the resistance is really starting to rise in that country. Really? In the Panture Valley and Bombayin, even in the South, you're starting to see the resistance.

A lot of them are commandos, special forces. Their ability to resist is vastly better. Yeah. Then what it was. Now granted, they've been, you know, their beat down, the Afghans saw far, they feel abandoned. And I think that we're gonna have to give them some support.

But I will tell you, here's how I see it. I would not count the Afghan people out. I don't think we've heard the end of this. I think that what we did in that country for 20 years and held that space is going to be manifested in what happens now and going forward with how these Afghans, this generation of Afghans, decide their future.

And a lot of it's gonna be without us, and that's okay. You know, we need to support them. I think similar to what we're doing with Ukraine, I don't think we have to put boots on the ground, but we need to just give them more support than what we're giving now. Yeah. Why do you think it happened the way it did?

When it's, you know, it seemed like, to me, it seemed like it was a spur of the moment decision with zero planning, which turned into a complete fucking disaster. Yeah, I think there's multiple contributing factors. I'll tell you the ones that I think are so relevant to me. Is one, is our, we have become so factioned in this country and so divided in how we deal with problems. Like, you know, the polarization between left and right, for example, has gotten

so pervasive that the leaders that we now have in politics, diplomacy, and even military, I think it's careerist. You see leaders that are trying to, you know, take care of themselves or trying to take care of their small group versus the greater good. I think if you look at how things went down under the Trump administration, under Biden administration, it was more about one party versus the other than looking at the problem itself. You contrast that, too. And I know we're going to talk about this in a bit that like in Pineapple,

I went back through the signal chat room where we had 150 volunteers in this signal chat room for like days and days and days on end Biden was mentioned one time Trump never And all those tens of thousands of chats. Wow. That's a That's unheard of right But it's our veterans showing us what leadership looks like when it's hard Yeah, and what we should be doing. And I just think that we've moved away from our ability to look at the greater good. So that's one problem.

The other one is, I think our politicians, our senior military leaders and our diplomats are not listening to the guys on the ground. We're just not listening to them. To draw the way that we did, to close Bram airfield, to not have any special forces teams on the ground in the last 90 days leading up to the pullout, to at least get them cash-aid and ready to fight, you know, to not consult with the special operations community on how to do the Neo before you do it.

Like, none of that makes any sense. You know, we've stopped listening to the operators that we put on the ground. The final thing I'll say as to a why that we've got to get to through, I think, hearings and accountability, we have a systemic problem in this country of abandoning our partners that goes all the way back to Vietnam. The Montenyards, if you talk to a fifth-group Green Beret today who fought in Vietnam, who worked with the Montenores in the Central Highlands, they'll just start crying because of the moral injury that they still carry 50 years later for abandoning their partners and being forced to do

that. The Kurds in Syria, the Iraqi police and army, and most recently the Afghans. Like, we have a multi-generational reputation for abandoning our friends when it gets hard. Damn, you're right. And if we don't get that fixed, I mean, what country in the world is gonna wanna partner with us? And my thing is like, okay, Russia, China, North Korea,

near-peer, I know we gotta focus on that, and people are saying, we need to get out of Afghanistan so we can focus on the near-peer threat. But do we really think that we're going to take those countries on unilaterally? You know, it's going to be by-with and through. It's going to be with surrogates, with partners like the Ukrainians. But right now, you know, we're not really in Ukraine. We're doing it from the edges.

And I honestly believe that if we don't start restoring the social capital that we've damaged from these abandonments, when it really comes down to time for needing a partner, they're not going to be there. You know, if you do this with your friends, if you and I had a reputation of just bailing on our friends every time they were in trouble. Yeah. How would that work out for you? Not good. Nation states are no different.

But yet somehow we think that it's excusable. Why do you think we continue to do that? I mean, when we left World War II was over, we still have bases in Germany and Holland and Belgium and Spain and Japan all over the place. Right. And why didn't we leave? I just don't understand why we didn't leave at least some infrastructure there in case

we need to go back. Well, it's just, to me, that's common sense. We even have, it's a great question, and I think it's a question that needs to be answered formally. Like, we need to answer this through. There's been one public hearing with Congress about Afghanistan since all this happened. One, everyone has been behind closed doors.

Like, that question needs to be asked publicly, and there needs to be some accountability on it because Sean, we have the capability in a special operations community of this thing called foreign internal defense or FID. And it's a capacity building approach where you go into at risk under governed countries and you build partner capacity, right? Now, you don't need a hundred thousand dudes to do it, like we did in Afghanistan and Iraq. A small residual force like SF,

or the Marine Special Ops, who are trained expeditionary diplomats, and let them go in there over the long haul. We've been in Columbia for 50 plus years, and no one knows that, but you've had seventh group guys down there, 365, 24, seven, and seals. For 50 years, building the Colombian special ops capability.

And even in the 90s, when I started working there, the Colombians wouldn't leave the base. But now they fly at night. They were actually advising Afghans in Afghanistan and they flew Afghans over to Colombia to see what they were doing, but it took decades. We don't think about the long game anymore. The reality is, if we're going to set up antibodies to violent extremism like ISIS, Al-Qaeda,

or even be a buffer to the Russians and the Chinese local approaches, local resilience, it's going to be key, and building that capacity from the ground up. Back to your question, why did we, I mean, you had the general officers like Millie Miller saying, Hey, a 2500 person resource, residual force in country to include a CT capability is essential. What I'm disappointed in in those generals and others is they did not recommend a FID capability as well. Like yes, you should have like a hammer, you know, I don't know, half a squadron of seals or Delta, but you should also have SF guys and other advisors

working with the Commandos, working with the KKA so that you have that capacity, because they're the ones really doing the striking. So I'm thinking 5K, we could have maintained that for an indefinite period of time in Afghanistan. And it would have held. Yeah. But no one brought that up.

And the other thing that really bothers me about it is I don't think that our senior leaders in the military, they said it, but then when the said the answer was no, okay. And I think personally there should have been some stars on the table. Yeah. Resignations over that. Because that, any special operator worth their salt, whose senior in this game knows how this ends.

Yeah. Not to change the subject, and right after this we'll get into what you did. But on the topic of China, you know, it did come up. China was quick to, it seemed to me that China was quick to pick up where we left off. Yeah. With the lithium, do you think, I mean, with all the contacts that you still have over the what does that influence look like? Are they, are the Chinese coming in and building major infrastructure?

They sure are. They sure are. So talking to legend and some of the other contacts, there's clearly a Chinese presence in the country that I've heard that they're all over Bogrum. I've heard that their access and placement to minerals has gone even higher. They are certainly increasing their influence in that country, particularly around natural resources. Same with the Russians, the Russians are also trying to expand their influence.

But here's the only thing I would say about that. Afghanistan is one of these countries that, the Taliban may establish friendly relations with certain nation states that counter our goals like Russia or China. But those entities still have to operate in the rural areas. And they're no better at it than we are. They're probably worse.

Russia, they had plenty of years in Afghanistan to try their hand at it, and they were terrible. They abused the local populations, killed over a million Afghans, like they were terrible. And you just had an explosion outside the Russian embassy that killed several Russians. So I don't think any of these countries will have an easy go of it. However, I do think that the Taliban are giving favored status to the Iranians, the Russians, and the Chinese. And if our reason for getting out of Afghanistan was to get into the near-pier threat, we left all the near-pier Yeah. We left all the near peer opportunities

on the Afghan battlefield. What a disaster. Let's say, how that calculus works is beyond me. I just can't fathom how any politician, bureaucrat, or senior military officer or diplomat looks at that and says, well, that's okay. Let's just bet. It's like there was not even so much of a thought that went into the execution of the

fact. In fact, in the book, I talk about this, on August 14th, the National Security Council issued a memorandum for evacuation priority. On the 14th of August, one day before the collapse, was when the NSC actually issued a memorandum of evacuation priority. So you tell me. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. Let's take another quick break when we come back talk about how you got contacted. I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the vigilance lead patrons out there that are watching the show right now. I just want to say thank you guys.

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go. Alright Scott, let's get into the actual afghan withdrawal. When did you hear from Nizam? Yes. So Nizam and I, you know, we stayed in touch. I retired in 2013, I met him in 2010. And I retired really earlier than I thought I would. I'd been selected for a battalion command, but it wasn't in special forces. And honestly, I just did not like where things were going in Afghanistan. I had seen levels of careerism and the pull out of the village program that I'd helped put in place.

We were now abandoning that program as a precursor to what would actually happen in the country and all of those villagers we had worked with were being hunted so there's a lot of them in Killed. So I left and I pursued another direction in my life outside of Special Ops and I really had no interest in Afghanistan again, other than just moving on. And the relationships that I had like in the zone.

So we stayed in touch. We would call each other a couple of times a year, but it was really in the late spring, early summer of last year of 2021 that I started to hear from the zone on a more frequent basis. And I'd been one of the guys, among several who was helping him with his special immigration visa or the SIV. He had left the commandos, he'd left the A&A,

we'd kind of talked him out of the league, you know, getting out, talked him into getting out because he had seen so much trauma, seven years of non-stop fighting. I wanna go back for just a second because we had a conversation off along about that. You know, when we go in, whether it's an SF unit,

a SEA unit, Rangers, conventional, whoever, we go in for a period of time, then we come home and we take a break. Even if that break is training, you're still in a sovereign country with great amenities. These guys are there for seven years straight. They never get a break. You know, you could take a guy that has a 23 career, 23 year career like yourself. You know, at most half of that, you know, was over there. For those guys, it's all, it would have been all 23 years every single day

in that environment fighting. Every day and they just don't get a break and that's true for our interpreters. It's certainly true for the Afghan special operators and the NMRG, the National Minor Reduction Group, the guys who kept us safe. All those cats and they're a small fraction of the Afghan military but they carried 98% of the load was the estimate with the last couple of years in the war. And we would rip in and rip out as they call it, relief in place. So you'd have this hand over this high five between your unit and mine. No such thing for them. So you're running combat operations straight with no break, no leave, and you think about

the toll that that takes on one's body, one's mental health. And that's where Nizam was. He was, you know, he was at a place where the night terrors were getting so bad and he would talk to me about him on the phone. And so we, a handful of us talked him into getting out, becoming a contractor. He was guarding infrastructure when all of this happened and trying to get his SFE. And it had been a year and there was no movement on it from the State Department, like so many other applicants.

And he was texting me on signal, which is how we communicated, and we would talk on the phone, someone's signal, and he was saying something's really wrong. You know, by this time, the Biden administration was in charge, they were pretty much executing President Trump's Doha agreement and that excluded the Afghan government completely that deal. So the Afghan government wasn't even in, so what do you think they're doing?

What was the deal? So the deal basically was a set of terms between the United States and the Taliban Okay, so this assumption that the Taliban are gonna take over But there were conditions that had to be met, right? And if they didn't meet those conditions, then we'd go back in or whatever But President Biden's administration pretty much took that same deal and just went full bore and and But the Afghan government was not included in the deal. So they're doing all of the self-preservation things that you would think that an already

corrupt government was doing. They were pocketing the money, sending it to Dubai, sending their families out. And people like Nazam are carrying the load. Like they're the ones that got it on their shoulders. And as their leaders are pulling money out and skimming and getting ready to make their play, including President Ghani. The Afghan special operators who have no pathway other than what we're talking about, were carrying the load.

So Nizam was texting me, and he was basically saying, sir, province after province is falling. I can go back and look at my signal thread and it was like one province after another. And what the Taliban were doing, Sean, it was brilliant. I mean, it was the ultimate siop. Is they knew that if they could go into the urban district centers and capture it for 24 hours, it would make CNN and Fox, and it would look like the whole district was captured. They could send targeted text threads to certain individuals in the Afghan army, the police, pictures of their kids, and they dropped their weapons and they're done.

And that's what they were doing, these targeted campaigns leading up to the collapse. They were already siopping the whole country. Nizam was getting text threads from the Taliban saying, we know exactly where you are. We know who you are, we know you went to the QCourse and we're coming for you. Holy shit.

That's fucking scary. It is. It is. And they were saying, you're not gonna, we're not giving you any sanctuary pal. We're gonna cut your head off. And he told me, he said, he said, sir, I'm not afraid of dying. He goes, I just don't want to die alone and everybody's gone.

You know, and for him it became just he was isolated. He was ended up hiding out in his uncle's house like Anne Frank and Cobble. His uncle's getting ready to toss him because the Taliban are appearing through the window, you know, trying to find out if he's in there, he's putting the uncle's family at risk. You know, this was after the country started to collapse, but it was just a slow lead-up, starting in June of province after province. And meanwhile, you've got people in our government, Blinken, Biden, Millie, San, no, it's going to hold. And Nazam is, and the others inside the country are saying, it's saying flips in a month.

And so the special ops community, both active duty, I can't say enough about those guys, I can't. Like our brothers that were on active duty, NCOs and junior officers, that they really risked their careers to keep people alive. A lot of them. But they started mobilizing and the veterans started mobilizing. I started getting calls in June from Mark Nuch, from the horse soldiers and others saying, hey man, are you hearing what I'm hearing? Because something's wrong. We got gotta start moving. And so there was already some movement underway

in the soft community, because we saw it coming. We saw it coming. What was that initial phone call like with? With Nazam? Yeah. I think for me, the phone call that really got me was after the collapse. I don't really watch 24 hour news, but I was watching it on the, because my buddy called me Steve, who I served with in seventh group, and he was like, turn the news on man.

So I turned it on, and there's the Taliban, you know, strutting around Kabul and argue our kid, our enforce with optics, driving our vehicles, Afghan vehicles that we had given to them. I mean, it was like, it was the most devastating, just, it was just, it was humiliating. Yeah to watch that so that coupled with the call that I knew was coming From Nazam and he said sir. They're they're looking at my window right now And he's like I'm not gonna make it and For me in that moment All I could think about were you, the 23 buddies that I'd lost over the years, over 20 years.

Over my buddy, you know, Romi Kamargo, who's a worn-off certain SF, who's paralyzed from neck down, he's on a ventilator, you know. So many of my friends have taken their lives and I just thought, fuck man. You know, how? Why does this kid have to die? It's just not right. And everything in my life in that war came down to him. And whether he lived or died, that was it.

I didn't give a fuck about anything else. I just didn't. It was like he has to live. You know, there's somehow he's got to make it through this. Because then maybe something good could happen out of all this. Yeah. What did you say to him after he told you that? I felt like I just needed to say something that would,

you know, kind of get his hopes up. I keep them, you know, in the game because that was my biggest fear was that he was getting it because you could tell man he was starting to feel it. Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't? You know, like, you're completely abandoned. Like everybody that you thought was your family is gone.

And I said to him, something to the effect of, look, you're not going to die alone. You're not going to die at all. We're going to get you out, man. You're going to get across that city. You're going to get through the crowd. You're going to get past the Taliban. You're going to get past the Marines. You know, we're going to get you on a plane. You're going to come to the States. You're going to, you're going to live next to me. We're're gonna be neighbors. I remember saying that. You said that.

I did, because I just, I needed to say something that would just give him some kind of hope. But then when, and he kinda laughed, it's high enough like laugh, this little high pitch laugh, and he's like, okay, sir. And we hung up the phone, and I just looked at my wife. And I was like, what did I just do?

I just, I just made him a promise that I don't, I don't know if I can keep it. And my wife said, you'll keep it. You'll see back to 100%. And you know, we had tried so hard to put the war behind us with our play and everything else that we had done. I didn't want to get involved in this thing. I just I really didn't but at that point I knew I was I was in and I was in pretty deep and and and so I just started calling buddies that knew Nizam that had fought with Nizam that knew him the way I knew him

Some of them were on active duty some of them were retired Not that many like five you know and We decided to do it. We just said let's let's try to get him out, you know, and that there's no way we could get over there That wasn't gonna happen plus we just getting away So we decided to to just do it remote. Could we leverage our networks? Could we leverage our relationships

inside Kabul International Airport? Could we use the Jamiat Islamic network to get him a cab to move in through the city? So we just started putting a plan together. And where did you start? I started by... I mean, that's a huge... That's a lot of logistics.

Yeah, and I... I play around the world. It was overwhelming in the sense of like, you know, because here's the thing, is like, you know, in... My role in Special Forces over the years, like, I did have the opportunity to, you know, obviously work alongside commandos and tactical missions, but a lot of what I did in the later years of my life in SF, in Afghanistan, was to command and control remote operations

of special forces and seals and other groups. And I was pretty good at it. That was what I did. I ran those operation centers, I planned executed controlled missions, and I lost a lot of friends doing that shit that were on that that died doing what I asked them to do or what they counted on me to help them do, you know, and, and, you know, you don't get over that, right? You know, you never, you never forget that. And, and I didn't care if I ever did that again. Because there's just something, because you're so, you're away from it, but yet you're hearing their voices over the right, and it's the stuff that you're supposed,

that Metavec's supposed to be there, that aircraft's supposed to be there. Those enemy forces weren't supposed to be there, you know? And it was right back at that again, except this time, no resources, no authority, no ISR, no access and placement. None of the things that you need to command and control a good operation. You had none of it.

You know, and this kid is putting everything in us. That almost got me. So like you said, I didn't really know where to start. I just knew I needed to start. So I went to my office and I drew a course of action sketch on the board. You know, I started with his safe house, the map, just a rough map.

I kind of had it the area. You know, I'd indicated Taliban checkpoints along, trying to just think of what were the things, just like at a templated level that he was gonna face from his safe house all the way to the United States. And I, once I did that though, I actually felt better. Once I got it up on the board, I'm like, oh my God, this is impossible, but at least I see what it is.

And then I took a picture of it, send it to the other guys, and they're like, and we can start talking about something that was tangible at that point. Even though it was extremely difficult. And we just started breaking it up into chunks. Like, okay, like how are we gonna move him across the city? And I was thinking, well, I've got a good

set of relationships in Kabul. You know, the Jamiat is Lami Network, the Northern Alliance Network of Mujahideen fighters. Like, it's still strong. And I know people are connected to that. We could get him a cab that'll move him Do with a poshtoon driver that knows the area that has done the routes and we did and then it just we just took it chunk by chunk You know, we were like well he can move through the crowd

He's a friggin commando like he'll get and he's little You know, but what about how are we gonna get him past the guards? You know what who do we need to talk to there? What are we gonna do that it doesn't have a visa? Like how are we gonna get it manifested? And people just took different chunks of it. And you know, we do what we do. Was everybody special operations that was involved?

No. Congressman Mike Waltz, who is special forces and is a friend of mine, we fought together in Afghanistan. I called him and he actually loaned us one of his staffers. Her name is Liv in the book. We changed her name. But I knew we were going to need to kind of breach some doors

on the political side and come in with some juice. Wow. And Liv agreed at the time. political side and come in with some juice. Wow. And live, agree. At the time, now remember, a lot of Congress congressional officials were getting involved. They were getting calls from constituents. So there were all these little command centers. I mean, even in the joint chiefs of staff, the war room was silent, but the generals and admirals had little command centers running with their AIDS operating.

It's the craziest thing. Everybody was doing this on the down low, you know, trying to help their afghan get out. And it was admirable, but it was chaotic. So we got access to live one other reporter who was a Washington insider, who had different relationships, but also knew Nizam, named James, and that was our team. And then three SF dudes, Mollamike, who was a battalion commander in Special Forces,

active duty that had fought with Nizam. Another guy, I call Charles, he was in an interagency task force up in DC, so he had good access and placement and me. And that was our team starting out. Wow. Wow. And it was super informal, like we were all in different places.

And it wasn't a task force or anything like that. It was just a group of guys trying to help a friend. How fast was this all developing? Come on, guys. With the minutes, I mean, it was going, it was, this was around the 15th and he got out on the 19th. So, you know, Cobble fell on the 15th and it fell hard. And then you had the rush to the airport. It became readily apparent to everybody in Cobble that if you were getting or not just in Cobble, Afghanistan, if you were getting out, it was at Kabul International Airport.

That was your only hope. Yeah. So you can imagine how the crowds, you know, they swole really fast. Yeah. And so we had to, in fact, one of the things, Mullah Mike, who had been in Nazam's kind of commander at one of the fire bases, Mike and I had worked together for years. And we were putting together this plan for Nazam. And Mike called called me and he said, Scott, he's got to go now. And I was like, what? Dude, we don't even have a plan yet. Like he's going to burn his safe house. It's

broad daylight. And he said, Mike said, I've got a feeling, man. I'm watching the news. I'm watching how things are falling. The Taliban are actually going to be security partners with the Neo forces. Like if we don't get him in on the inside of that Taliban ring They're gonna check his credentials and he's dead. He's got to go now Because you know We didn't have a full plan. We didn't have a way for him to get in all we had really was a way to get him to the edges of the airfield. And then we were going to have to figure out the rest as we went. And that was when it was like, shit. And so that's what we did. And we told him, brother, you're going to have to go. You're going to have to go now.

And and and he said, okay, sir. And I don't know, man, I didn't know what was gonna happen. And I think that's probably the hardest thing about this whole thing, is that so many of us, we heard those words a lot, and they didn't get out. You know, they died in the ISIS blast or they were executed or they're still there. You know, it's one thing when you, you have memories of brothers or things that happened and it was bad. You know, like there was, but when

they say, yes, sir, got it, moving. And that's the last time you hear from them. And you never get over that. And that's what this was really, that's what this really came down to. Like, yeah, we got in his arm out. And it was the, there were thousands that were counting on us. Yeah. You know, and we just couldn't do it. It was just too big. You know, it's like my buddy Duke says it was an uncle samsize problem that we were trying to solve with our cell phones and checking accounts. That's a hell of a thing to put on guys

that fought for 20 years. That's heavy. That is heavy. But we got into the airfield and he is such a resilient guy. Well, before we go into the airfield and he is such a resilient guy. Well, before we go into the airfield, let's talk about his journey, how long did it take? What did you do?

So, the thing is about, here's another thing it was interesting, is we told him take pictures of all your certificates and your tabs, you know, he went to the QCore so he has like an SF tab and the certificate of completion. And we said take pictures of all that, send it to us, we're going to upload it on the cloud, wipe your phone and burn all that stuff. wipe your phone and burn all that stuff. So he starts a fire out in the backyard. That's actually how my book starts

is him burning all this stuff. When he got to the SF tab and the certificate, he couldn't burn it. So he stuffed it down in the gym bag. And the crazy thing is, I interviewed dozens of Commandos, KKa, Afghan Special Forces. Not one of them burned their stuff when we told them to. They all carried it. Wow. And so that's, you know, there was a lot of preparation that went in, but he had to move pretty quick

when we decided to go. It took him, it didn't take him that long to get to the, I mean, the traffic was terrible. But I think all in all, a couple hours, transit in the cab to get to the airfield itself. And then with his, with family? Well, so turns out he had family, we didn't know. Oh, yeah. But yes, with family, and that became another adventure, and this happened a lot, actually, particularly in the special operations community, even as good as our trust was, they

did not devolves to us that they had families, or who their family members were. And I understand, you know, because they were highly targeted and the Taliban proved that they knew how to do that. So we would learn, the families would actually have discussions that the operator would make it out and then pull them through. And that for Bashir, one of the guys in our book, he was an operator and his wife was nine months pregnant and went into labor in the crowd

and ended up having to move them back to the safe house. He got through and she had the baby and then one of our shepherds moved her in the newborn and others overland to a third country and They're still there. He's still he's a security guard at a grocery store in Texas And he still hasn't seen his baby girl the family still in that third country Are they is he gonna see him again? If I have anything to do with it, you will well, that's good If pineapple has anything to do with it, you know, we're still working it, but it's hard I mean, there's

so much bureaucracy and those are the those are the true stories of what our brothers and sisters have gone through and are going through. You know, that's the it's just it's a humanity level. It's just so heartbreaking. Yeah. You know, it's just one after the other, but you know, he's he's got a good attitude, and we're talking about Bashir now in Texas. He's got a great attitude, but in a zone, we were actually able to get his family to him before he evacuated inside Kabul. That's incredible. Two different.

How many of these guys did you guys, the Operation Pineapple help? So it's always hard to put numbers on that, but we think somewhere between 750 and 1000. That many, that many people. I mean directly, and I think more than that indirectly, and there were groups that did a lot more, that did a lot more than that. In fact, Mick Mulroy worked at the agency as well,

and I think now he works at one of the news organizations. He told me in an interview, he said, he had a, like a kind of a grand view of everything. He said that of the 100,000 Afghans that made it here, large chunk of them were probably shouldn't have, were not vetted. But the ones who were, a very large percentage of them were made possible by these volunteer groups, because we knew who they were made possible by these volunteer groups, because we knew who they were, we knew where they were, and they trusted us.

And so if you're up marine, that's amazing, but it's also pathetic that you guys were able to outdo the US government and help in these people. It's, it's, sorry. Oh, it's, no, it's crazy, brother. And the thing was, like, so after we got in the Zom out, we realized that we were running out of time, you know, there was an imminent

departure that had already been announced. We knew ISIS was in the crowd like there was all kinds of rumblings of an ISIS suicide bomber attack and and so we knew we were on borrowed time to get as many out as we could. And getting the Zom out the way that we did took four days of planning and execution. We hadn't slapped and I was like, there's no way, we now, so when Nizam got out, people heard about it. Seals like J. Redman and others were like,

hey, I'm working this family. So we just opened the aperture on the signal chat room, called it Task Force Pond Apple, because that was the code word that Nizam had to give to get through. And, task, out task force pineapple was born, but it was just a signal chat room of these various former special operators who had partners that were commandos, that they were

working or SF. And so we would collaborate in the main chat room. We would share information about which gate was open, closed, Intel coming in. And then Jay, for example, would go to his Afghan family and say, okay, we're moving you here. And they were tactically trained. So they knew how to move tactically with their family.

But we didn't have a mechanism, Sean, to get large numbers in. And that's what I was asking the younger leaders in our group, like does anybody have any ideas? This one guy named Zach, Greenborre, former Greenborre turned Syracuse inner city school teacher that we met on LinkedIn who was helping his SF partners. He goes, I have an idea, but I need somebody on the inside. I was like, what's your idea? And he goes, well, in my classrooms, I have a lot of intercity kids that come from other countries.

And we talk a lot about Harriet Tubman. And Harriet Tubman, she settled in this area after she retired. And I think we could build an underground railroad to get these people out. He goes, there's a sewage system that opens sewer right there. And if we had someone on the inside, we could use our shepherds as we called them, guys

like J. Redmond and others who were the volunteers working on their phones. They could get be the eyes and ears and guide their flocks of commandos and their families to a certain point and then they could be pulled in. But we didn't have anybody on the inside until Congressman Walts' assistant connected us with Jesse and John from the 82nd Airborne who had helped rescue a pregnant woman inside the airfield the day prior and said we have a four-foot hole in the fence that's been cut. And if we can do more and you guys can vet them on your side, you let us know. And so live, offer that and we were like, okay, so we put Captain John Fulta from the 82nd on the phone with Zach. They started talking and we decided they would become the conductors on the underground

railroad. So the way it would work is if you were a commando, you would get instructions from your shupper who would say you were to report were a commando, you would get instructions from your shupper who would say you were to report to this link upside at this point in your abigate at this time undercover of darkness. Then we would send all of the information on a baseball card, photos of the family,

numbering party names to John and Jesse in the 82nd. They would have those baseball cards on their phone. At designated time when the pineapple express was open, they would walk out to the link up point with a green chem light on, and then the flock that was in the queue would get instructions to move into the link up mechanism. They would drop down into an open sewage canal,

move through that to the green chem light, and then they would show the pineapple on their phone, challenge and password, check the baseball card, get pulled through the four-foot hole, driven across the airfield onto the aircraft. Fuckin' amazing. Amazing. And that was the pineapple, express.

And what I have to tell you is, like, I had nothing to do with that shit. That was these junior leaders, like junior leaders, that's not the right term. Younger guys, like Zach and John and Jesse, who they just came up with this stuff. And I found that in my old age, one of the things about leadership

is no one wanted to get out of the way. And these guys, they had a plan, and it was a beautiful plan. And so that's what we did. We just turned the heat up on that. And for 96 hours, that's how the pineapple expressed world. And we were able to move a lot of people through that thing. And there were other groups doing similar versions, but that was ours.

And the stories that I tell on this book are all about those people that went into that express, the ones that got out and the ones that didn't. That is incredible. It was amazing to see it. or all about those people that went into that express, the ones that got out and the ones that didn't. That is incredible. It was amazing to see it. You know, one of the people that came through that, and we didn't even know at the time, like some of the people that were moving through the express,

once it got going, we would have others that would come into the signal room saying, hey, one of the people was the minister for women's affairs has seen a softie, the most hunted woman in Afghanistan. She couldn't get out through the state department. She couldn't get out for any other mechanism. So we ended up moving her through that sewage canal with her family. And she got out. You know, the four female ministers in the country moved through this four-foot hole in the fence. Damn.

How long was the sewage canal? It ran a good chunk of the fence. Like, I mean, it was long. It was hundreds of meters long. Initially, you would go through the crowd and cross it. It was like just, it was an obstacle, it was a linear obstacle, but it was a great reference point and it was a, the Taliban would not get down in that thing. It was so fetted and nasty. Yeah. Right. You know, is this on the back side of the airport?

Yep. Okay. On the Abbey Gate side. Okay. Yeah. And then an Abbey Gate proper was really kind of closed. This four foot hole was what afforded us the opportunity. And the Marines in the 82nd, they're Charlie Company, they had a great work in relationship. And so it was this private public partnership, really, between these NCOs and junior officers on the side of the 82nd in the Marines and NATO troops in that area. And these veteran groups,

or these veterans that were retired and some active duty guys, that had the relationships with their flocks. So we knew who they were. We knew these were commandos. We knew these were KK, they were highly vetted, and we could present them responsibly to the 82nd versus all these other people

holding up their certificates and phone calls from the president You know all trying to get my guy in it was chaos for them Yeah, so this was an organized plan But to your point one other thing and I'll point out is that number of Institutional leaders that started calling us the volunteers is really Agrejas like I got a phone call from the special advisor to Kamala Harris Asking us to get their favorite afghan out. And I'm like, you got Delta sitting on a hangar, man.

Like a hundred meters away. Yeah. Why don't you just authorize them to do what they do? Like, and but instead, like you're going to a 53 year old storyteller, like, you know, to get your guy out. I'm like, I'm not exactly a top draft pick for personal extraction. Yeah. You know, but that was what we had. You had these a lot of guys and girls that just had no intention of getting involved in this. But nobody else That just gave me goosebumps. Um, top, well, top level government positions. Top West Wing, unbelievable. And that wasn't the only one. Chief of the Air Force, senior enlisted advisor to the chairman, like I'm talking even more

that I probably can't talk about because of the sensitivity of the people that got out. But we had the government coming to these groups, particularly a pineapple for sure, making requests to get their people out. And I think that's kind of what I have a problem with, too, with this thing. Sean is that you had these institutional leaders who did not oppose the decision in any way and went along with it. And then under the table, use their personal cell phone to call veterans that they had worked with or turn a blind eye to their NCOs to allow them to work it. But all you're really doing is you're shifting

the moral responsibility onto the backs of veterans. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. And these are men and women who've already given plenty. Yeah. And they're not gonna say no. And that's to me, like, how could you do that?

How could you ask these men and women this this Noble fragile class of people who are truly the moral compass of our nation? How could you put this on them like that? Knowing that they can't hang up the phone and a year later You know like 73% of veterans feel he betrayed 67% feel humiliated. There's been an 81% spike in calls to the VA hotline since August, you know?

And they've, there's friends of mine in Pineapple, like Perry Blackburn, who lost his job, Duke lost his job. He had a high paying job, like they've cashed in their savings accounts, their kids' education funds to pay for safe houses, food drops. We had 20 babies born in safe houses in Operation Recovery, a group that was paying for our manifest to keep them alive through the winter. And all the money to do that, none of it came from the government to keep these thousands of people alive that didn't get out over the winter.

It came from donations, it came from private checking accounts. And no one talks about that. But you think about the level of stress and load that that puts on a a Ranger NCO to try to keep his KKA partners alive when they're being hunted. Yeah. You can't hang up the phone. There's no release shift. He doesn't have the resources to do it, so he takes his own personal resources. He's retraumatized, all the stuff that he thought he'd put behind him is now back. He's sitting at his breakfast table with his kids,

looking at execution videos. You know, it's serious. And I think we're on the edge of a moral injury nightmare in our veteran population if we don't address this at the public level. Yeah, definitely. It's unbelievable the level of competence that is running this country right now. It's staggering.

But at the same time, one of the things that I take hard in is that man, was it the best in America that stepped up? Yeah. You know, was it just absolute, and not all veterans, there were civilians in there, active duty people, but just to me, just the best in our country, who saw that institutional leadership failed,

nobody else is coming, I'll do it. You know, and, you know, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't feel just completely out over my skis. You know, like I have no idea what I'm doing right now. I have no clue how we're gonna do this, you know, and... But yet, looking at the men and women that step forward is one of the proudest moments in my life. Yeah. How are they doing now?

They're hurt. The ones that lost their jobs. They're hurting bad. They're really hurting bad. We stay in touch. We formed a federation because all of the volunteer groups were running out of steam. Even doing this for a year now.

And these were people that had jobs. They had lives. They had, most of them are retired. You know, they've left that world behind them and now they're back in it. And the government is not picking up, you know. In many cases, we just want to responsibly hand off. There are manifests of commandos, KKA, special forces

that are still in the game. That could be mobilized into the resistance, that their families could at least be exfiltrated. We just wanna hand them off responsibly. Nobody's picking it up. And it's like no veteran is gonna let that go. We're taught not to do that. I interviewed, we interviewed Pineapple did,

a guy named George recently from Fayetteville, North Carolina, who's a former Green Beret, and he's pulling people out. The only difference is George is 82 years old. He's a fifth group NCO from Special Forces in Vietnam, and he's pulling out Montenegro's. He's pulled out thousands through his nonprofit and helped some resettle on a farm in the outskirts of Fort Bragg,

and he's been doing this for 50 some years. Holy shit. And he'll never stop. And that's what is going on with these veterans. Like they're never going to stop, but they're approaching this culminating point where they're out of resources. Their mental health is in the toilet. They are experiencing suicidal ideations in many cases.

I mean, let's just look at the suicide thing for a second. We had 7,000 combat deaths, post 9.11. You have 30,177 suicides with active duty and post 9.11 veterans. Most of those in the last few years, the worst. If 73% of our population feels betrayed and 63% feels humiliated, what's that gonna look like in two years?

It's not gonna look good. I mean, I was almost one of them. Me too. I get a phone call probably on average once a week from somebody that I know who's thinking about pulling the trigger. Same.

Same. And that's before all this. It's been like that for years. Yeah. Now you add this to the mix where a large chunk of the veteran population, even the Vietnam population is severely disturbed by this. And our government, it's called, you know, we call it a moral injury, where what you believe in is violated by the people you serve. You have to violate your own moral code. I think

it's one of the worst injuries of veteran Ken and counter, because it's an injury on the soul. And it's what those fifth group NCOs cry about leaving their mountain yards in their 80s. They weep Right, we're doing that to this precious generation of veterans right now who stood with us for 20 years and Volunteered and went again and again and again and this moral injury You know what we know is that for a moral injury to actually be righted You know you can actually address it, you can create moral recovery, but it takes leadership.

Institutional leaders have to step up, and they have to get involved in this. They have to acknowledge what happened. They have to look for fixes, solutions to the systemic problem, so that the people that endured the injury see that it won't happen again to their kids and to the people that follow. But let me ask you, where are the generals,

where are the admirals, right now both past and present, stepping up and leading the charge on this. What you see are retired, O4s, O5s, E7s, addressing it in the public space. You see no flag officers in the public space addressing this problem. That's a problem. Yep. And the dissonance between the leaders and the lead, the men and women who carry the load for 20 years on their shoulders, they're looking at their senior

leaders right now, and the dissonance, the distance between them is striking. And I say this in my book, I think most of our senior leaders, they don't even see it. There was one senior leader heavily involved in the withdrawal, who was a special operator at the flag officer level. When I explained to him what our community was going through, he said to me, I thought they would have been over this by now. And I just said to them, sir, they'll never be over this. And they need you right now. And they're just, it's just, they're absent, you know?

They're just, they're just not present in the public space. There's a lot of flag officers doing things in private to help commandos. That's not what we need them for right now. We need us flat. We need their voice exactly. Where is it? I don't see it. And I think most of the people I interviewed in this book dozens are asking the same question. One iconic NCO, fifth group NCO named Donnie in the book, not his real name, saved hundreds in the final moments before the bomb went off. Like his actions to get people out were just in keeping with the

kind of solid team sergeant NCO he's always been. He told me like months later we were talking, I interviewed him, and he had just lost a special operator that he was trying to keep alive, had been executed. And he was just a wreck. How'd they execute him? They shot him. They shot him in front of his family. And I believe in him. I don't know the status of the family right now.

A lot of times, you know, that family screwed because like they have no patriarch at that point. If they're even still alive. Yeah. And in some cases, the entire family is wiped out, but the magnitude of loss on the special operations community over this past winter for retribution is terrible. You know, again, no one's talking about it. But Donnie said to me, he goes, if I had known, back then, what I know now of how we were gonna treat our partners, I would never have walked down to the recruiter

on 9, 12, 2001 and joined Special Forces. And he said, my kid wants to join the Army, and if I have anything to do with it, he will never see the Enzomer Recreation Station. And this is a guy who literally was an SF, his entire life. And then even as a contractor, he loved it. This is what's happened. And I just, again, I don't want to sound all morbid, but like, this is our moral compass.

These are special operators, our combat veterans. These are the men and women that they are our conscience. They represent everything that's good in the country, and we have literally run them into the ground. No. And there's been no recognition of their, you know, Congress has not recognized what these volunteer groups have done. The president didn't talk about it in either of his talks

since this has happened. They've made no mention of it, you know? And I don't know how we can do that. I don't know how we can ask that of these amazing men and women who stepped up when nobody else did and then watch them go through the level of moral injury and mental anguish that they're going through right now. It's unforgivable and I'm never going to stop talking about it because it's wrong. I mean, the government is obviously failed.

Is there anything a lot of people are gonna watch this? Is there anything that they can do? Yeah, well look, that's a great question. There's a couple, let's take it, you know, start local. That's where I like to start on things as an SF guy, start local. One is check in on the veterans that you know, check in on the gold star families and the military families that you know.

And just ask them how they're doing. Let them know and not just thanking them for their service. Let them know that what they did mattered. Let them know that you appreciate everything that they did and if they ever need to talk you're here. Like I really think we need to check in. For veterans and the intelligence community, we have to check in on each other more so than ever

because these numbers really worry me. 73% betrayed, 67% humiliated, 81% spike on the VA hotline. That's unprecedented. So we got to check in on each other. 56% of veterans of Afghan war veterans say, no, I'm sorry, two thirds say that resettlement of Afghans would help their mental health. So how can we get involved in helping our veteran population

see their partners find safe passage and get resettled? A lot of this moral injury comes from that. The State Department could do this tomorrow. They have the authorization to do it now. So I believe pressure in this midterm election on our elected officials, both at the administration and congressional level. This is not a Republican or a Democrat, she's an American issue. But if we really want to fight for what our veterans did, particularly these volunteer groups, and in the war, is put pressure on our elected officials to help with safe passage for the

most at-risk Afghans, really double down on a resettlement here and take a hard look at the overwhelmed resettlement agencies, give some resources to that. Open public hearings to go through what happened so that we can address this systemic problem of abandonment and fix it once and for all. I think there needs to be accountability to senior military officers, diplomats, and politicians that were involved in this.

And then finally, I know I've got several, is I think it's time to start supporting the Afghan resistance. We need to support them, at least to the level we're supporting Ukraine. They are fighting, they are pushing back, and they are our best antibody to an al-Qaeda that has completely reconstitute and has its sights set on us again.

No. Those are my thoughts. Very tangible. I mean, those are things that people could do at both, and if you know volunteer groups, help them, you know, whether volunteer in your time, you know, moral compass federation is a great one to get behind. We'd spoken downstairs about how these guys that you saved you in your team have saved. How are they doing here in the US now? How are, I mean, it's a culture shock

coming from a country like that to a Western country. How are they integrating, not just with the war trauma, but also just culture, regular culture. It's really difficult. I mean, Hussein Asafi, the minister of women's affairs, has been living in a hotel in the United Kingdom for a year with her family, a year. She goes down to the job line every day to try to find work. Damn. In the United States, most of the people that we helped get over are struggling,

Bashir, who was separated from his family and that baby girl was born, you know, after he got out, he's a security guard at a Tom Thumb grocery store in Texas while his family stuck in a third country right now and he's never seen his baby girl. A lot of our, but the cool thing too, man, I'm so proud of, it's like a lot of our shepherds and pineapple. Like, remember I was telling you about Matt Coburn, the retired colonel that had worked of our, but the cool thing too, man, I'm so proud of is like a lot of our shepherds and pine apple. Like, remember I was telling you about Matt Coburn, the retired colonel that had worked with Afghan army since they were private all the way until he was the colonel they called at the end. He brought most of the Afghans, he got out to Pennsylvania where he lives.

They live all around him. Nizam lives near me. You know, Nizam's got his driver's license. We helped him get his GED, but Matt, he drives, he drove his Afghan partners to their job interviews. He would drive them to work every morning. He would have them over for dinner every night. And then most recently, most of them have gotten jobs and got their own car.

They share a car between them. He helped them get alone for a car. I mean, it's... So they're coming around. They're coming around. It's gonna take years. You know, and the veterans, what I would leave you with on that is they're overwhelmed.

They cannot, they cannot shoulder this load anymore. Like, they will continue to do it, but they're dropping like flies. And whether it's resettlement, working that aspect of it here in the US, or the safe passage where these at-risk commandos in MRG are surrounded and being hunted, they need the support of the American population behind them to put pressure on politicians to lead like our veterans have led and do the right thing. That's what we need.

Let's take a quick break. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show review If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Scott. I want to kind of wrap this thing up. But to close it out, I want to know what your opinion is on what is the effect of the Afghan withdrawal going to do to global terrorism?

Yeah, I think that's the right question to ask. I mean, there's a lot in that, and I'll try to unpack it just as succinctly as I can. And here's some things I think that are worthy of considering as people make up their own mind. Does Afghanistan really matter in the scheme of things? This little dusty-ass country in Southwest Asia that no one has really heard about until 9-11? I think that it does.

It matters to every day Americans. It matters to everyday Americans. It matters to people who are raising their kids. And if you have, whether you have memory of 9-11 or not, here's why I think it matters. And what the impact is gonna be on global terrorism. First of all, we may think that we're done with al-Qaeda and ISIS, but they're not done with us. You know, the enemy we're taught in special operations

always has a vote in the outcome of the plan. You know, you may make the best plan in the world, but the enemy gets a vote on how that happens. And in this case, global terror groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, they have a narrative that drives them to action, that they follow for centuries Right, we may come and go with political polarization and political administrations our narrative changes our goals change It's not true for al-Qaeda nicest. They have a goal to reestablish the Islamic caliphate They have a goal to

establish the Islamic caliphate. They have a goal to Unseat and destroy the apostate governments of the Middle East and the great Satan in the West. That does not change right they may they may get decimated and Experience degradation like what happened with the 20-year war in Afghanistan and the ISIS campaign in Syria But they do not lose the focus on their narrative, and they are very patient and very committed. What you're seeing right now in Afghanistan is a complete return to where we were pre-9-11. And I'm getting this firsthand

from former Afghan special operators who fought Al Qaeda and ISIS four years. Also from legend, the Afghan American intel and CEO from our army who's been in country reporting as well. They're all saying the same thing. Al Qaeda, Lieutenant General Sami Sadat, the last commander of Afghan special operations before the country fell.

I've had conversations with him. He's getting ready to go back into the country and try to mobilize the commandos as part of the resistance Which is encouraging to me, but but he's saying the same things al-Qaeda has completely reconstituted the strike on Iman Zawahiri who was the number 200 bin Laden and then the number one Shows us that he was standing on the porch of a Kabul at a an affluent cobble neighborhood in broad daylight. Yeah. He was there as a guest of the Taliban,

General, gosh darn it, another Afghan special operations general recently talked at a conference that I was at, and he said that the Taliban are actually issuing passports and visas to foreign fighters to live comfortably in Afghanistan. We know for a fact that foreign fighters from Syria, Iraq, Al-Qaeda foreign fighters from North Africa, and even Southeast Asia are back in Afghanistan training openly on former Afghan army bases in Helmand and

Kandar. Why do you think they're massing in Afghanistan from all these other countries? Well, it's the perfect safe haven. You know, if you're gonna have a global terror threat projection, if you're gonna fulfill on that narrative of bringing unprecedented violence to the West, like you saw on 9-11, 2001, you have to have a safe haven

that gives you the ability and an unfettered, uninterrupted way to plan, prepare, project, train, and refit. And Afghanistan is the ultimate safe haven in that regard because their government is an Islamist government. They have a soft spot in their heart for anything that is anti-American, that is terrorist in nature. They support it. And they're showing that openly, right?

Now, even though we have a Doha agreement that says, if you do that, we're coming back in, that what we're seeing from this administration is no indication that that will happen. It all except these over the horizon strikes, like we did with Zala. Here we, great, we got him. And kudos to the intelligence community for making that happen.

But Sean, we saw over the horizon strikes when we were trying to get Ben Laden before 9-11. There's just no substitute for the ground intelligence network. You know this better than anybody. There's no substitute for a partner force who can resist at a local level and be that antibody. Both of those were abandoned wholesale in Afghanistan on August 15th, and they're still somewhat intact. And these volunteer groups have manifests of Afghan commandos, KKA, intelligence officials that, yes, want to get out of the country, but if they were extra, you know, extra-dieter brought out of the country

They could become huge assets for countering violent extremism But the bottom line is I think we are a couple of years out from a catastrophic attack That's going to come from this unfettered safe haven and I'll leave you with this scenario Let's assay. Let's assume that two to three years from now we suffer a strike in the US, and it's on par with 9.11. I don't think that's a stretch considering the level of freedom of action that OK,

and ISIS-K are being afforded in Afghanistan. Let's just assume that attack and attack happens here and it is catastrophic. Out of the ashes and when the dust clears, you have an America that is reminiscent of 912 2001. The country music songs are playing, the Budweiser commercials are going strong, the Yellow Ribbons are on the trees, except this time it's your son and mine that are loaded up on these airplanes on these C-17s and are deployed over to for a retribution operation in Afghanistan to seek vengeance and and oust this group that just did

this. Now last time you had members of the special operations community that went in undercover of darkness and they linked up with resistance groups like the Northern Alliance and the Posting Tribes in the South and the East. But what if this time when our youth are going over, laying in weight, are dozens, if not hundreds, of former Afghan commandos, special forces who are in rag tag clothing, but they still have the kit, they still have the M4s with optics and the night vision goggles. And they're pissed off because they watch their kids starve to death over three years. They've been co-opted by ISIS or al-Qaeda, and they're ready for some payback.

And the very partner force that we trained and supported and blood with Could be the people that were fighting the next time we go back in there And not a pretty picture no, and I think you know what a what a terrible Post-911 testimony that would be to have to give. You know, I want to bring up one more thing. That was perfect ending, but we're seeing this new alliance starting to form with China, Russia, Iran, Korea, those countries are massing in Afghanistan right now, and building relations with Taliban al-Qaeda. We already know that China is very smart, and now they play this game.

Do you think there's a possibility that we might see another terrorist attack, but maybe it's not, maybe it was... States, boss, or actually? Totally. Yeah, I think it's very possible. I mean, think about terrorism is a technique that is very suitable for the kind of asymmetric world that we live in, particularly when you have,

you know, great power competitions like what's happening right now. You've got a multi-polar world, right? I mean, where these nation-states are all vying for some kind of impact on the U.S. They perceive the U.S. as weak right now, and frankly, they see us as not being able to partner very well. So we're pretty isolated. You've taken, in fact, also, Sean, that how did we treat our NATO partners with the

abandonment of Afghanistan? Yeah. Pretty bad. They didn't get the memo on how we were going to get the memo. In fact, also, Sean, how did we treat our NATO partners with the abandonment of Afghanistan? Pretty bad. They didn't get the memo on how we were going to go down with this. They had to scramble in there and deal with that situation really on the receiving end. Even our NATO alliances, which run so deep, I believe we have squandered those relationships in the last couple of years as well. Really the way that we've treated our friends,

our partners, the people that should stand at our shoulder in the darkest of times has been terrible. You know, it's been really bad. And our relationship, social capital, skill set for leading in this country is in disarray. And I think that country is like China, Russia, they see that. They factor that into their calculus.

Would they be willing to sponsor a surrogate attack on the US? Certainly. I think that certainly there's the potential for that to happen. But by the same token, what is our ability to work with partner forces to counter or butt up against what they're trying to do either in Taiwan, Afghanistan, and other places? I mean, if we don't regain our partner capability and our trust in the world, I think we're putting the country at risk, not just for terrorism, but for near-pure aggression. It all comes down to how you treat your friends,

and it all comes down to how you treat your veterans and your citizens. And right now, our institutional leaders have dropped the ball in every regard, and they've been allowed to get away with it. I hope that changes. Me too. And I hope that people, because what I take away from pineapple and this whole experience was, Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone, he's a social scientist, he talks about how in the early 1900s America was in these really dark times. Really dark times.

You had polarized politics, crime was terrible, immigration was off the chain and unchecked, and people were screaming that America was on its last leg. And about that time, two drunks in Akron, Ohio, who could not get sober, looked around and said, you know what, nobody's coming, let's have a meeting. Let's call it alcoholics anonymous. And it was Dr. Bob and Bill W. And what started in that two-person meeting was one of the largest movements for recovery, including myself, where millions of people were affected. The Rotary Club, the Junior League, the NAACP, future farmers of America, all of the social capital groups and trust groups that

we know and grew up with in our time started during this downswing. And it began this upswing that lasted all the way until 1972. And it was citizens who stepped into the bridge when nobody else was coming and they addressed a systemic problem, right? And they showed what leadership looked like and the institutional leaders followed. So there is massive meta-level precedent for this in the United States.

I believe that what happened in Afghanistan, this is what I choose to believe, pineapple, sacred promise, project exodus relief, those were the first shots across the bow of the next up swing. I think that people are tired of it. I think that Citizens see the lack of leadership in our country that nobody else is coming. And what I tell people is that was our pineapple express.

What shores? Because it's time. That gives me a lot of hope. Me too. Because that's what our brothers and sisters fought and blood for. Yeah. And they deserve that. And it's still in us.

I'm absolutely convinced of it. Yes it is. Well Scott, I just want to say it was a real honor, you know, to interview you. I hope you come back. I want to get your backstory another time. But for anybody listening, check out Operation Pineapple Express book, I'll link it in the description. Wonderful.

You're an amazing human being, and I'm just, it really was an honor, thank you. Thank you, bro. Appreciate you. Cheers, best of luck. Thanks, ma'am. Finding suitable mental health medications can be a challenge. The gene site test may help.

Did you know that genetics can play an important role in gaining insight on how a person may respond to various medications? Understanding this may help reduce medication trial and error. Gene site is a genetic test that analyzes variations in DNA. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of day job is sprinkled on our PTSD. So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from inside Washington and around the world.

You document in a very compelling way. All of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast. Wherever you listen.