I've Never Seen A More Corrupt Place - Jocko Willink & Hollie McKay

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[@clyd1206]

I am 47 years old and on disability. Am I "Not ready yet" to return back to active duty? No of course not. I will never be ready. Neither will the ANA. You can't take a bunch of people that don't want to be there and force them to do something they aren't interested in doing. PERIOD. Arrogance, Incompetence and Corruption on OUR PART is behind the failures in Afghanistan. Any reasonable and honest man knew within 3 years it was NEVER going to work. Anyone with any sense of history knew it wasnt going to work. People lost their limbs and lives because our leadership has become a joke. Any discussions overwise is delusion. How is it possible that a high school educated Jarhead called this result in 2004? Im not smarter than the rest of the world but Im not going to lie to myself or anyone just because the truth is uncomfortable. We have great men and woman. We have the best training and technology in the world. Yet somehow, every conflict in recent history has been a mess. Why? Lack of accountability. The people making the decisions are NEVER held accountable. They are rewarded. I am very proud of my 8 years of service but if a young man would ask my opinion on joining today, I would say NO. We are no longer the military that defends the USA and Allies. We have become the muscle for a Corporate Globalist machine. Military Industrial Complex. End wall of text.

[@doylelacrua]

For what it's worth, your rant was well written.

[@timontide6404]

Smedley Butler wrote "War Is a Racket" about a century ago. The US military has always been the enforcement arm of the oligarchs, and you can argue that includes WW2. Oligarchs and their employees are accountable only if they cost oligarchs money. If my kid wanted to join, I'd shoot him/her in the foot.

[@Tyler-gx3tw]

Hey, I'm a Canadian, but I guess as a member of NATO, thank you for your service. The war was a house of cards built on propaganda and lies from day 1. Never should have invaded. Can't blame the Afghans for their pure hatred of us. Imagine a foreign nation-state bombed all our critical infrastructure and invaded our territory? We would all resist them asymmetrically as much as we possibly could. MANY of Afghans were not driven by religious ideologies, but by a natural human instinct from our tribal and cultural nature to resist a perceived oppressor. Glad that the bandaid has finally been ripped off. America needs to focus on building up its own nation and going back to a bread and butter strategy for the new cold war we are in with China and Russia because China is eating our lunch. I'd much MUCH rather have American hegemony than the dystopian, totalitarian, techno state China will implement across the world if they attain a global hegemony.

[@frazerguest2864]

God bless you Clyd. Your comments are 100% spot on.

[@ChollieD]

Agree completely. All I want is a country that is worthy of your sacrifice.

[@mikegreenguitar]

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted." Frank Herbert

[@For_the-Emperor]

Facts, facts that’s why like 97% of politicians are corrupt as fuck and in it just to enrich themselves. It’s like Ragnar( from Vickings show) said “Power attracts the worst”.

[@scottmcloughlin4371]

This is deeply accurate. Having worked in DC for a handful of Fed agencies, I now see how our USA "foreign policy establishment" in particular imports violent resentments from overseas. The giant networks of nutcases mostly can't agree on who to bomb or "sanction" next. The dysfunction is hardly imaginable until you see it up close. Everyone perfumes their organized predatory malice in jokes, half truths, euphemisms, winks, nods and laughter. Even many seeming "domestic" agencies are highly weaponized. Most functionaries here don't say much and "just work here." But the political appointees, lobbyists and "legacy" political brats vocalize the pervasive madness. Most people here focused on USA citizens, like "news" agencies and "PR firms" are paid to lie to citizens over broadcast media. Stay strong.

[@FSM46AND2]

Cheers, there's a lot of wisdom in the book!

[@ThievesInTheTreasureRoom]

I usually don't "like" quotes" but this one is right on target.

[@1Plebeian]

He's wrong about it not being power that corrupts.

[@oklahomahank2378]

I remember meeting a retired Tulsa police officer who had gone to Afghanistan to train police. He quit after a couple of months, forfeited a lot of cash, and said it was a total waste of time.

[@MrMalicious5]

They can't even do jumping jacks right. That ancient video is all the proof you need.

[@bertkilborne6464]

Maybe this is the reason why competent people end up running the show. But here, we're at the point where corruption meets competency.

[@thewindowsmaaane]

@@MrMalicious5 yeah that video was hilarious

[@Yolbosun]

What was he thinking???

[@mikearchibald744]

Dentists went to Afghanistan and did dental surgery on people without anesthetic. These people live in the mountains, lets not pretend who needs 'training'.

[@fishsticks850]

10 years ago I was training afghan commandos. We would constantly do all the work and gave them all the credit just for the optics. We all saw this coming. All furr coat, no trousers

[@jameswells554]

I really missed working with the ASF after Karzai got rid of them. They were actually reliable, and dependable.

[@planejoe5263]

Pepper Brooks - I think you may have the saying wrong. In the UK we say "fur coat and no knickers" when referring to a woman trying to look classy when she's really a tart, and "all mouth and no trousers" when referring to someone who talks big, but isn't capable of backing up the talk with their actions. Sorry for nit-picking, or if that's how the saying actually goes where you're from.

[@npierce14]

AF vet here got deployed as a detachment 3 times cuS I was a logistics guy with that said it was obvious they didn’t want us there they high officials took all the money so corrupt saw the president left with 450 million on helicopters smh

[@thomasreaves588]

@@npierce14 Our war on terrorism was not their fight. They were just stringing us along!

[@docducttape9270]

@@thomasreaves588 It was there fight. It's their country. Lol

[@beaubalentine4403]

After 20 years of occupation and training: "They just weren't ready yet." I was a US soldier who deployed to Afghanistan...and the ANA would shoot at us. They killed a bunch of French soldiers while I was there, it was a huge issue. It got so tense between us and the ANA that when we would sleep on base we had armed firewatch posted at our entryways and we all slept with condition 1 weapons (one in the tube) not because of the enemy but because of the ANA that we shared a base with. Anyone close to the ground could tell you that the ANA were worthless, unreliable, and dangerous to work with; it was obvious. What was the disconnect between tactical level leadership who KNEW about these problems and the strategic level leadership at the Pentagon? Communication needs to be streamlined up and down the chain of command or the next time we face a more competent foe I fear an absolute disaster will happen.

[@Hoppensagen]

Wow, that's fucked man. I guess people normally just think everything in the military is just on point. What was kind of the point of spending all that momey there you know? Just make Raytheon richer?

[@pjhaebe]

Straight facts bro. For our leadership to claim no idea the ANA would collapse in 5min is a dead ass lie. The most cherry private in theater knew it, EVERYBODY knew it.

[@overhead18]

Current secdef was commander of CENTCOM from 13 to 16' (as you know, has responsibility for Afghanistan), he led 10th Mountain 2003 to 2005 while they were in Afghanistan. He should have clearly understood the shortcomings of the ANA. If he did not he was either not doing his job or is not very smart (I find it really hard to believe he was not aware). That would seem to indicate either the leadership at the Pentagon were morons *or* they were unable to effectively communicate with the civilian leadership of the country or the civilian leadership of the country understood the reality, fed us a bunch of BS and ignored what the military said. I have a feeling it was a combination of these things.

[@flawns]

What's ANA? American Nurses Association?

[@overhead18]

@@flawns You got it on the first guess, good job!

[@valhallaproject9560]

Was a very similar situation in Vietnam. An American advisor could not report that his unit was less effective that the status reported by his predecessor nor could anyone report that their area was becoming more communist controlled even if it was. So we had a decade of more of false reporting to save careers while the country went down the tubes. We haven't learned a damn thing.

[@re2399]

Bingo! Still this way to this day, it's absolutely despicable and we get what we tolerate in this corrupt gov.

[@alexkalish8288]

Amen, I was assigned to various ARVN units late in the war as an advisor, It was clear to me that some ARVN officers were working with the NVA. I reported this and war crimes by ARVN and was told to stop those reports.

[@macrofocus1988]

Maybe we should learn that nation-building is doomed to failure

[@buxadonoff]

@@macrofocus1988 That's not the point they are making though. They are talking about the chain of command more worried about their own status and ego then about combat and strategy effectiveness.. It might have fly when fighting weak countries and armies... but against another superpower ? Shit might get real bad, real fast

[@vmasing1965]

@@buxadonoff Well, turns out the countries we have considered "superpowers" actually are even bigger failures than anyone imagined. While we keep underestimating the real tough opponents as "too primitive"... so we never learn anything. Too arrogant to pay attention, that's the definition of US.

[@missourimongoose8858]

I was in Iraq from 07 to 09 and an example of the corruption I saw was my platoon brought a huge generator to power this whole village and 2 weeks later when we returned the generator had been moved to the village elders house so he could be the only one using it and asked us if he could get a muffler for it because it was loud being that close to his house lol my platoon Sgt lost his mind and told our mechanic to break it lol

[@wades2132]

Yea, I’ll muffle it for you, you big jerk. lol

[@konakona895]

WTF kinda BS was that man ? How did we allow that ? What a selfish f - - k! Glad it got broke to fix the noise issue!

[@willplyler1069]

I hope your mechanic completely FUBARed the damn thing!

[@thekamotodragon]

yea.. most Americans are ignorant to the fact that other people in the world are at different levels of development in terms of their societies, it's just facts, not just in terms of technologies but in terms of the literal age they're living in mentally. But if you say this, most Americans will then just say you're being discriminatory and stop listening even if it is truthful. Some people are literally still at tribes people level and some are at 1st world tier 1 advancements, but everyone in the US judges everyone else like they're all at the same level of development mentally as them and that's the wrong way to look at it. Some places just don't have the same morals. Now is everyone in Afghanistan uncivilized? No of course not, but to deny that there isn't some level of uncivilized-ness or backwardsness that exist there is purposeful ignorance imo, at least according to our standards.

[@wades2132]

What a dumb comment.

[@haveaday1812]

I give Jocko credit for still believing in the military. After I got wounded in Sadr City back in 2005, and saw first hand the shit show that Iraq and the military was. Even our own military ineptitude. Soon as my time was up, I walked away and never looked back. Totally disillusioned and skeptical to this day. I’ll never trust nor support the military again. But, that’s just me. I’m insignificant in the grand scheme here. To each their own.

[@wtice4632]

Working for the federal government is immoral at this point. They are not worthy of serving

[@a1sauce775]

So youre a NPC. got cha

[@jiminycricket1593]

@@a1sauce775 you clearly don’t understand what that term means.. I’m a disabled veteran myself and it’s not unpatriotic to believe the military is incapable and doesn’t act morally all the time.

[@manticore4952]

You saw the truth. Many veterans can never undo the brotherhood or the conditioning and end up worshipping the military for life.

[@Cardan011]

@@manticore4952 it’s normal, those bonds forged in mutual suffering and shed blood are sometimes stronger than familial bonds, humans are inherently tribal, we still form tribes and have this unconscious need for having a group to belong to: sports team, military unit, local knitting club…

[@Graftanker98]

We were basically forced to say they were doing good or we got slammed. Leadership didn’t want the truth.

[@joeythechin8870]

Same exact shit in Iraq, training the Iraqi Army and Police Forces. We trained those Iraqi's for months on end; and the minute we set them up for checkpoint duty or sent them out on a patrol; they would get destroyed and or join the insurgents who were coming to kill them!!!

[@hermeticsoldier3311]

dude how the fuck else our the commanders gonna get some bs oer bullet points?

[@hardlymovinson9405]

@@Hereticalable and that is the root cause. People avoiding/ignoring truth… not because it’s inaccurate, but because they don’t like it.

[@slappy8941]

When officers would rather get their men killed than to tell the truth to their superiors, it's won't be long before disaster strikes.

[@brycealthoff8092]

@@hermeticsoldier3311 the thing is it doesn’t matter if you are honest with them. I’ve listened to a lot of former military officers from all branches and they all said the same as these two. Even if you do tell the truth, they would simply replace you with someone who would continue the lie. The higher up are worried that reporting this lack of progress would be seen as a failure. Military officers are not allowed to fail unless they want to ruin their careers. So, they lie so they don’t get removed from command and/or get passed up for promotion.

[@phil5569]

I've seen this first hand in Afghanistan. Spent a year there. The corruption and incompetence was so bad that my personal assessment of them as a legitimate fighting force was utterly hopeless. 20 years of wasted time and money all at U.S. taxpayer expense. It's criminal that the USG let that persist as long as they did.

[@SpartacusColo]

Don't forget Americans dead: for nothing but getting some defense contractors even fatter than they already are. If you haven't read "War is a Racket", do so.

[@johnrobberts7936]

That was intentional. Look what happened to Haiti. The whole operation was the biggest money laundering operation since the vietnam war. There were not any real obtainable objectives and the US wasn’t interested in being a true occupying force. In the end it was one big dog and pony show.

[@dontbugme7362]

@@SpartacusColo Jocko did a podcast on that book with Daryl Cooper. I listened to the whole thing. One of his best podcasts. It's a tough listen because it makes my heart ache for the young men and women who are USED for this exploitation.

[@jrus690]

It was our fault for going there, most of them saw us as potential enemies and were not interested. Most of them knew that we went to Afghanistan under phony pretenses so there was no point in being real buddies. The majority of the American public knew we went there under phony pretenses but most just went along with it because we were so shocked by 9/11. Anyone who had done their research had an idea why Osama Bin Laden did what he did but it is a lot easier to believe he just hated us and we were of the wrong religion.

[@firedude3337]

Same exact corruption issues in S. Vietnam during the war. Same problems, same result.

[@Asukmadik]

Same ppl that wanna sell arms..

[@qwerty9714]

Installing puppet governments never work

[@newagain9964]

@@qwerty9714 bruh. The whole point of a Military campaign is to install a puppet govt or conquer and make the ppl subjects.

[@metadata4255]

also by assist I mean "engage in extrajudicial imperialist war crimes that fail to get prosecuted by the incestual enforcement bodies, if you wanna talk about corruption"

[@unvaxedmarine9534]

I remember being in Fallujah shaking hands with an Iraqi police officer who was leaving our checkpoint during their "shift change" and 3 hours later taking fire from a house. After a brief firefight I found the same police officer dead on the roof where we were taking fire. This happened more than once.

[@ghostirq]

I wouldn’t call that corruption

[@agent5778]

I'm not sure if I am misreading your text, but did that same iraqi police officer shoot at you?

[@metadata4255]

@@agent5778 no you read it right, they're making shit up lmao

[@Yolbosun]

@@metadata4255 opinions are like azzholes Everyone has one….

[@unconventionalideas5683]

@@metadata4255 Not necessarily. Fallujah was quite a stronghold of resistance for awhile, even if Sadaam was unpopular.

[@thevet2009]

I was there at the beginning of Afghanistan....and it did not take a genius to figure out that corruption is a way of life there.

[@TheBrynoch]

There was some article or guidance I first read when I first got to Afghanistan that basically said to chuck your ideas of corruption out the window. They aren't corrupt, they are survivors. Survivors make sure they get theirs first. Of course they sell off our equipment, who knows when they'll get another windfall. Of course they fill all open slots with their tribe versus who is best able to do the job, who else will watch their back when things inevitably go wrong. They aren't corrupt, they are surviving. A tribe is the most basic unit of human groupings and you see when all other types of society fails or are disrupted, we go back to tribes as we're in survival mode. We fooled ourselves, or our leadership just didn't care enough to take it seriously. Either way, all those bulletpoints got people promoted and we've got the same leadership playing the same games and doing anything but taking serious things seriously.

[@clacicle]

Well, anyone with a basic understanding of that region would know that corruption is a way of life.

[@tommysoliz3064]

Imagine saying this lmao, “corruption is a way of life” those people are not loyal to the US or NATO and they never needed to be

[@jonz23m]

Lol saying that while working for the US government is cognitive dissonance to the highest degree.

[@newagain9964]

Yeah. And America is not corrupt. Tell me Why did we invade AND occupy those countries again? and Who benefited?

[@ktgiffin8147]

On my tour, we built a police substation at Deh-e-Bagh (if I remember correctly), which the Taliban then blew up. So we built another one and it blew up. So we built another one. That was when we found out that the contractor building the PSS was the brother-in-law of the ANP district commander. So the ANP DC was evacuating the PSS, then telling the Taliban to go blow it up, which led to him getting a kickback from his brother-in-law, who we overpaid - ludicrously - to rebuild it. We had a power dam that was sabotaged twice, then rebuilt and regular infrastructure like power lines was destroyed almost on a daily basis. We were overpaying by so much, we made ourselves the only clients on the market and for 20 years, a huge part of their economy revolved around us paying to replace the infrastructure that they destroyed, which only benefited those who were either employed by the government or their relatives. Corruption is just a way of life in that country and you can't really imagine how pervasive it is until you've seen it.

[@mikearchibald744]

YOu'd almost think they didn't actually care and it was an operation for money laundering.

[@RW77777777]

I like this story. the clip doesn't do anything to illustrate the 'how'

[@JZ909]

When I was there, I saw a huge issues with how intelligence and operations related. Operations guys were looking at ways to attack enemy networks, and intelligence guys, generally being subordinate to an operations-focused commander, fed that with targeting information. Success was kill counts, HVTs killed/captured, weapons caches seized etc. Very rarely did anyone take a step back and ask what changed as the result of an operation, or try to figure out what impact we were having on the local politics of a particular district. I'm not sure if it was just lack of time, an understanding that these more political questions were outside the scope of their unit's mission, or people who were afraid of writing an official report that would make their commander look bad. Maybe it was all of these things. In the few cases that I saw intelligence actually look at the problem this way, it didn't look good. Sometimes we would whack one insurgent group, and it would create a power vacuum that another would fill. Sometimes it would free up space for some local Afghan official to use poppy eradication as a weapon against people who weren't paying him off etc. Very rarely did it create space for an effective and good government to govern better (the exception being counter ISIS-K operations; whoever took over after we got rid of them tended to govern better). National intelligence agencies, that didn't have a direct relationship with operations, and whose customers were only concerned with strategy, tended to get the gist of things right, but they were looking at everything from 50,000 feet, so their understanding was vague and driven by metrics. They could tell people there was a problem, but they generally couldn't inform decisions on how to fix it. They didn't have the more granular perspective of military intelligence guys, and even military intelligence guys didn't have the perspective of operations guys. We needed a method for people who had an understanding of the situation to get that perspective to people who could implement strategy, and have strategy implementation that was responsive enough to address the myriad of little issues that popped up on a day to day basis. I don't really think we had either. Sorry about the novel. Just an intel guy who served in Afghanistan trying to make sense of what went wrong.

[@samrapheal1828]

Correctamundo 💯

[@kma3647]

To a civilian, this just comes off like they weren't playing to win. The military was doing jobs police and civilian contractors should be doing. The Afghans were totally passive players here, just wanting to get paid. And the leadership that was supposed to be managing the whole thing had no vision for success nor strategy to achieve it (at least publicly). I've got other theories that the goal itself was to destabilize, drive money into the MIC and DOD budgets, control the opium flow and siphon off the cash for black budgets - but no real evidence other than whispers and imagination. Maybe the real trick is just to look at the Brandon administration and understand we're being led by morons. Afghanistan is not going to make sense because it wasn't competently run. The people running it didn't have a clue what they were doing - and it kills me to say that as a patriotic citizen with friends who've put their boots in that sand.

[@JZ909]

​@Aliwos I don't think the outcome was inevitable at all, though in order to win, we needed to address a lot more than what I wrote about here. In my opinion, we had two overarching issues: 1. The political system in Afghanistan was not appropriate for the Afghan people. 2. Our counter-insurgency strategy was not sound. Political. The most glaring issue with the political system is that it was too highly centralized for a very decentralized people (at least without ruling with an iron fist). This led to lower level officials largely being appointees, only accountable to centralized leadership, rather than elected officials, accountable directly to the people they governed. When it became obvious that this was enabling corruption and feeding the insurgency, we should have used our influence over the Afghan government to force change, both by aggressively using our considerable leverage to pressure the Afghan government to reform, and by bypassing the Afghan government and directly addressing some local issues ourselves. The United States Institute of Peace wrote an excellent short paper about the challenges of governing Afghanistan that may give you some better insight into the political issues we were facing. www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Afghanistan-Peace-Process_Nature-of-the-Afghan-State_Centralization-vs-Decentralization.pdf Counter-insurgency strategy. One of the most basic tenants of counter-insurgency is to separate the insurgent from the population. Our efforts in this respect were somewhere between lacking and non-existent, depending on the time period. We did patrols out of large FOBs while the Taliban terrorized the population at night. We were rarely present to defend the population from Taliban intimidation, so the population, being pragmatic, was always cautious not to support the Afghan government too much, regardless of what they actually thought about it. IMO, we needed a lot of troops in Afghanistan, and the bulk of those troops should have been in the villages, protecting the population 24/7, with air mobile units on standby to bolster forces quickly if a village came under attack. This population-centric approach probably would have addressed some of the intelligence issues that I described before, because operations would have been aligned with the local situation, and would have pulled intelligence along with it. Those are the broad changes I would have made if I had been in charge.

[@JZ909]

@@kma3647 I would agree with the description "weren't playing to win", though I don't tend to believe theories about opium money, the MIC, DoD budgets etc. IMO, U.S. political leadership was more concerned about the immediate political consequences of Afghanistan in their reelection campaigns than they were about winning in Afghanistan. Putting pressure on the Afghan government to reform would have made the U.S. look like imperialists, and everyone was trying to avoid that characterization. Protecting the Afghan population would have put more U.S. troops in harm's way, and more dead and injured U.S. troops in the short term wasn't politically palatable either. I do not degenerate the Afghans, particularly the Afghan soldiers who fought. They had to deal with the same issues we had to deal with, but didn't have the equipment or support we had. They took losses that would have broken the U.S. military had we taken similar casualties.

[@JZ909]

@Aliwos Thanks for asking the question. Without people who are curious about what happened, and are willing to ask questions, and hear different perspectives, we'll just end up making the same mistakes again.

[@zaffo757]

Three years working at HQ ISAF and RS in AFG 14-19. If you add up all the assessments and their "% accomplished"...we won several times over. Leadership at the GO/ Flag level cycled through for their tour and ALWAYS reported success. ALWAYS. Their promotions depended on it.

[@ericciaramella1768]

I was in Afghan. The problem is fundamentally cultural. There is no concept of professionalism, as much as you might try to instill it, there's only so much you can change a grown mans fundamental character.

[@ianhall6614]

Exactly right. It's incredibly hard to change cultural norms, especially when the way you are trying to change it makes no sense to the person.

[@YasserMaghribi]

There is especially no concept of nation-state. That's the core problem. They act and die for their tribes and their families, not for something british-made called "Afghanistan".

[@ericciaramella1768]

@@YasserMaghribi Spot on. Friends back home never really understood me when I tried to explain that there is no such thing as "Afghanistan" - it's just a name we've given to a vast region occupied by various tribes.

[@samrapheal1828]

Correctamundo 💯

[@qwerty9714]

Afghanistan was much more civilized, secular and didnt force women to wear hijab as recently as the 70s, until foreign superpowers (such as yours truly) showed up and started creating problems because of geopolitical interests, not to help the people

[@wanderingwade8877]

War Is a Racket is a speech and a 1935 short book by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit from warfare.

[@thomasritz9604]

I Commanded all the PMT teams supporting the ANP in Kandahar Province (2007-2008). My heart broke watching the fall of Afghanistan. However, I could write books on the corruption in Afghanistan. From the Governor of Kandahar at the time, Police Chiefs, District chiefs and on down the line. I got a front row seat on the drug trade, bribes and how our money was wasted.

[@samrapheal1828]

Vietnam 10x [given the two decades]

[@ConfucianScholar]

Thomas, you should write a book with the stories. The public should know the truth of what politicians and the media sell to them.

[@mikearchibald744]

You ARE familiar with the CIA's role in the drug war right?

[@elihathaway6784]

I was in Afghanistan before the elections in 2005 and a few times I went out as security for the Civil Affairs guys. The CA people would literally just go to a local tribal elder and hand him a suitcase full of American dollars. I knew half the money (probably all) was just going to fund IED's against us but those decisions were made way above my pay grade.

[@pikiwiki]

@Aliwos I imagine it was the only thing they could do to satisfy themselves that somehow they were fulfilling the requirements of the job

[@panamajack5972]

@Aliwos They sleep great in silk sheets with a belly full of steak.

[@Razaiel]

@Aliwos Yup, just following orders...

[@Chevelle602]

Yeah one of my first missions in iraq was delivering money to a sheik

[@ExMachina70]

Jocko has such a down-to-earth personality. He makes no excuses, and he even admits when he was wrong. This is why people connect with him so well.

[@darthwicket]

It's the boot licking for me.

[@cdr861532]

If anyone is interested in hearing more about the corruption and failures of the Afghan war, look into a war correspondent (and author) Ben Anderson. He did a piece for Vice that was titled "This is what winning looks like". He also wrote a book called "No Worse Enemy". Both of them are amazing and go into this in depth.

[@doriancrayy7707]

I don’t read Vice

[@digi_edits]

Amazing, I´ll check them out. thanks.

[@kingelvis5502]

@@doriancrayy7707 so dont. No one cares one way or another but thx for sharing.

[@doriancrayy7707]

@@kingelvis5502 lol 😂

[@cdr861532]

@@doriancrayy7707 And being how I recommended a video.....you still wont have to.

[@superlite177]

She is absolutely correct in stating the corruption that was in place at every level.

[@rdc515]

just like in the US of A. the Afghans are just more direct about it, i suppose.

[@milakuzmanic3313]

@@rdc515 Mothers in the USA don't hand their male children to man in power to be raped. In Afghanistan it happens in droves. So, NO, not nearly just like the USA.

[@rdc515]

@@milakuzmanic3313 Mothers and fathers do regularly bail out on kids. or do drugs in front of them. or decide to have babies and then kill themselves and the children too. i mean what depravity of US society is not known to the world, thanks to all the reality they put on tv. my point isn't that Afg is holier than thou. It has its own fuckups, but US created the taliban, US wrote the book on shadow deals and paying the jihadis to kill US's enemies. So, when young Americans now act like they are surprised how corrupt Afg is, may be they should have a chat with their dads and uncles and grandads about their achievements in Afg 30 years back.

[@samrapheal1828]

@@rdc515 Correctamundo ✔

[@SpartacusColo]

I worked in a couple public school districts here in the USA: medium-larger sized urban and suburban cities. When they started talking about over-reporting staffing and not reporting fatalities in order to game the system for money, I immediately started thinking of my time in public schools here in the US (I moved out to other employers about 4 years ago), and the things that I saw public schools doing to influence their budgets: things which wreck the quality of education for the families who are actually trying, and even things which compromise the safety of students (the more extreme examples are, sweeping under the rug, incidents of kids bringing weapons to school): for money. At least I wasn't getting shot at. But I am damned-glad I don't work in public schools anymore. And this is inside the USA...

[@samrapheal1828]

Truth 🎯

[@JjjToken]

Outstanding analogy, if anything causes a failure in our country it will be our public school system, something so profound and professional has become a cause.

[@BirdTurdMemes]

" over-reporting staffing and not reporting fatalities in order to game the system for money" Now imagine this in every single sector of society, from agriculture to steel to automotive and so on. That's Maoist China and Soviet Russia.

[@craigross341]

The thing that makes an American soldier functional and effective isn't the six months training. It's the 18 years in the US *before* the military training.

[@joeruhe8030]

That and the fact they don't smoke hash all day like the Afghan Soldiers.

[@treelee2602]

Huh... This feels very right

[@andrewrobertson3894]

So if we consider the IDF, FFL, Royal Marines, NZSAS, Gurkhas and such; does the same rule apply? Are they functional and effective because of where they grew up? Doesn't really add up, does it.

[@thomasreaves588]

@@andrewrobertson3894 Yes, it is the same thing with the Royal Marines, IDF, FFL...etc. They care about the mission and have an esprit de corps.

[@Gauntletbloggs]

cringe

[@HillTrekkerSarge]

I'm a former Marine and a former civilian cop in the US. I spent over five years in Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan National Police (ANP). I worked in a lot of aspects of that job and in locations from Herat to Jalalabad and points in between. I traveled and inspected police stations, met with police chiefs and commanders. Broke bread with them. Traveled with them. Stayed in their compounds. I also assisted in the running of regional training centers. For a few months I was in charge of the distribution of pay for the ANP in Laghman Province when the big change was made to a direct deposit system instead of cash. I had Afghan counterparts assigned to me with whom I worked with daily. In our training centers we would train up to 300-400 ANP at a time. District and province commanders were tasked with showing up with a certain amount of trainees and the pay was in relation to that number. Believe me, they showed up with that amount even if it meant sending guys back through training they already done or picking up guys along the way. Literally stopping in villages and getting more. The one conclusion I came up with after all that time there working closely with Afghans is that the corruption is part of the culture. Deeply embedded. In existence for centuries. Long before there was a US. It's just a way of doing things that we westerners cannot relate with or fathom, but at the same time no different than our similar system in Washington with the special interest groups and lobbyists. Same goals, different methods. IMO there is nothing that the US and the coalition could have done different and had better results. You can't put a leopard skin on a tiger and say it's a leopard.

[@DemetriPanici]

*"I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be." - Ken Venturi*

[@ScreamingSturmovik]

kind of ironic that coalition forces engage in the same kind of acts that would be expected from the Soviet Union where everyone says "all good" because if there is a problem it either means they lose their job or get shot and due to high level diplomatic (and legal) issues you can't drag out anyone who is stealing money or molesting children because "they have to learn by doing" and there are no consequences

[@Collateral0]

Besides the Afghan Commandos and other Afghan Special Operations units (CRU 222 , Commando Force 333, ATF 444), the Afghans were probably the worst soldiers I have ever seen. More dangerous than the Taliban, and probably killed more American troops than the Taliban did. The Taliban were probably just as bad in terms of tactics but at least they had motivation to fight while the ANA had nothing. Relying completely on the Commandos and Americans for everything. When the US withdrew, the ANA practically stopped existing, and the Commandos were practically left to fight it alone.

[@VideoGameWarlord]

Man, seeing the situation devolving down the just the commandos was a rough time.

[@Joseph.M.]

There's footage of Afghan commandos being slaughtered some months before the pull out. They were surrounded and out gunned by the time they surrendered and died waiting for American air support.

[@timontide6404]

It was the CIA commandos who opened fire at the gate of the airport in Kabul after the bombing. Most of the casualties were from their shooting.

[@healthieryou7206]

A friend of mine (we are from South Africa) was employed in Afghanistan to train people in diesel mechanics. He came back saying that the Afghans are worse than people in Africa that he trained. He said that their false pride was just out of control. He has never seen anything like it. They are practically from the stone age in certain regards and yet they look down their noses at him who were trying to drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[@JK-br1mu]

Yah, we've heard good things about some of the Special Forces that Afghanistan (and Iraq I think) had. Interesting to hear your side.

[@craigseganti8999]

I’m the author of Classroom Discipline 101, and it may seem trite in comparison but this is what goes on in schools as well, especially in the cities. What we suspend less students we get more money? The vast behavior problems are negated to put a different face to the world. They are generally a mess, and systems that incentivize lying and the reward of corruption and failure are the theme.

[@UndeniedPunisher]

There's a lot of "turning a blind eye" here in the states as well.

[@timcoolican459]

The brief training that I took (SERE Fit - AOS-L & AOS-AA) taught me that, in no way, was I ready to undertake the tasks that were expected of me. Even though they were 'off-base' training sessions, the instructor was ex military and a great teacher at that. Having some survival skills already, they still paled in comparison to what I learned. I can only imagine how the inexperience guys felt. This instructor was brutally honest, but this was for a private security firm, which provided consulting, body-guard and armed security detail services overseas. There were a lot of ex military personnel working for this firm. I befriended a few of them, who helped me to better my awareness, surveillance, and fighting tactics. Even then I felt ill prepared for some of the 'issues' that came up on the job. At least I could trust the guys I was with, and they sure as hell made certain I could be relied upon. I can't imagine having to deal with the corruption of the likes you two are talking about. It would be hard enough to organize and train the numerous men required to maintain security, let alone an army!!! Jocko makes a good point here, regarding 'sugar-coating' the situation. When has hiding the truth every helped, or even remotely to be considered virtuous, with regards to the preparedness of any security force? This namby-pamby gerrymandering about an 'okay' or 'needs work' security force should never be allowed to fly. If I didn't pass my SERE Fit courses, I wasn't working...but more over, people could die...if not for the guys I was with, I would likely be dead! Good enough just doesn't cut it, yet we seem to be in that mindset today. Where has taking pride in doing the best that you can gone? I'd blame video games if we didn't need drone operators. Unfortunately this looks like it will continue...for now. How does the saying go? - "Hard times produce strong men...good times produce weak men." Cheers Jocko.

[@0321recon]

I was with a platoon + element way past Chamkani. BDE and BN loved to say company minus. Job being to train and employ an Afghan Border Kandak. Our greatest achievement: Setting the ground work for Puppy Rescue Mission. That was B 1/121 we were Ripd by the New England gang and they really got the ball going on getting the dogs out. The stories are all true. Local dogs attacked the suicide bomber and several made it to the USA. First was Bear then his mom Target. She actually made it on Oprah. Some of you may have followed Charlotte and KSAR during the Kabul mess, all part of the story. In all that corruption the Joe's got it done for themselves and the dogs they loved. Sascha was mortally wounded, Rufus and Target wounded. Rufus made it to Georgia and Target to AZ. Dirty secret, dogs had to be hid from the Sergeant Major.

[@colinsdad1]

I served in Afghanistan.... My Dad was an 11 Bravo in Vietnam 69-70. My limited contact with the Afghans had me thinking about my Dad's stories about ARVN forces in Nam. Thoroughly unmotivated, except by money.... ZERO desire to improve. Afghans, like ARVN would just assume letting someone else do the heavy lifting. We have learned absolutely nothing in those intervening years. I mean Kabul last year resembled Saigon in 1975 a bit too closely.

[@AnomadAlaska]

Ready and having the balls to stand up and do it are two different things.

[@cumminapart77]

although these speak about a foreign war.... i find connections or make the connections with my personal war inside

[@larsp3280]

No balls? Not ready.

[@FraldinhoBJJ]

I mean it’s discipline . American soldiers are trained from day one week one , forget your MOS , you are an INFANTRY SOLDIER. Your job is to close in on and kill the enemies of the United States in close combat . In basic you do drills for mortar attacks , defending fighting positions , watching each other’s backs , advancing on enemies wit cover fire etc. If you have a competent set of drill sergeants , basic training and AIT could prepare you for most basic combat situations like an ambush etc. But to develop that mentality and the muscle memory and discipline to do what you’re supposed to , it just requires that kind of environment . I don’t think trying to show these guys a little marksmanship etc under very light circumstances is going to show them the right way. Part of our problem is we take our most elite soldiers who have made it through a million dollars worth of training where it was performance based and just teach it to people in a few months who don’t have what it takes . To be where jocko is from an army standpoint you made it through 9 weeks of basic training , probably some infantry OSUT, airborne school, ranger school (which has a 50% drop out rate ), SFQC, and a few years special forces experience as a tier one operator . It’s just so hard to get them to possess the level of motivation and drive it takes to win a firefight and not lose it when some mortars come falling or the bullets whiz past you

[@FraldinhoBJJ]

@@Garivich they weren’t ready . Because as soon as we left they got their asses kicked by terrorists

[@isaacshultz8128]

Do not ask "what will happen to me" instead ask "what action will I take next" -Xenephon 400ish bc The Persian Expedition or (Anabasis) by Xenephon is a very good book for the podcast. It tells the history of a Greek mercenary army that was stranded in persia after losing its senior leadership. They then had to create from their own men new leaders and march home through a hostile country. I'd love to see your take on it and hear you discuss some of the leadership lessons from the book.

[@467076]

Heard of that story, didn't Xenophon end up motivating the people, even though he was a philosopher? I'll look into that book.

[@tjrrind1452]

@@467076 The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford is a fictional account of the The Persian Expedition.

[@michaelknight6905]

@@467076 He frequently roused the men and boosted morale with riveting speeches of home, and triumph. He kept them moving when the walls were closing in, and kept their spirits up when their heads were low. It's an incredible story. Bit of a slog to read at times, but it's well worth it. The details of the various battles fought are very thorough as well. Tactics, formations, play-by-play. Highly recommend. I read it in college.

[@467076]

@@michaelknight6905 awesome, I heard of the story. I can’t believe he wrote it himself, will definitely get my hands on that book.

[@michaelknight6905]

@@467076 Yeah man, he travelled with them and fought alongside them throughout the whole journey. Was right with them in the thick of all of it. He wasn't just a writer, he was a soldier. A Warrior Poet, if you will. I actually wrote a paper on that book, which is the reason I read it. Edited to delete spoilers :P

[@shrimuyopa8117]

From my understanding of history, it doesn't matter how much you care about their sovereignty, it matters how much they care. You might say, "Oh no they did care! They just didn't have the equipment and training in Afghanistan!" Tell that to the Taliban who were outnumbered and only had smooth bored AKs from the 80s and RPGs against the greatest military on the face of the earth. Somehow they figured it out. And oh yah we gave the Afghans all kinds of military gear, money, and two decades of training. No the reality is that the Taliban have far more heart and will power than the average Afghan fighter did.

[@TROll-oe9ng]

And more heart and willpower than the entire us military.

[@haydenlawrie7130]

@@TROll-oe9ng I would say it was more so they had the people on their side. The only way to win would be to wipe out or subjugate the people and that is not something that the free world will abide by

[@TROll-oe9ng]

@@haydenlawrie7130 no argument there. My comment was not meant to be disparaging to the military. I simply meant that a people fighting on home soil, among their own people, and around their own homes are going to be far more driven than people thousands of miles from their home with no real idea of why they are actually there and who are subjected to extreme mental and physical stress.

[@haydenlawrie7130]

@@TROll-oe9ng 100% agree mate

[@Tyler-gx3tw]

@@TROll-oe9ng Same thing the Germans faced when they invaded Russia, which ultimately cost them a war they were winning. Unless you're essentially willing to exterminate nearly everyone including civilians you can't win these occupation wars with people who don't share the same worldview as you, don't want a democratic, egalitarian society, and who govern themselves based on medieval ideologies.

[@Iseeyou67]

Positivity is such an asset, but its limits are most definitely exposed here. Better to keep it real sometimes. Lesson learned!

[@badxradxandy]

"They're not ready yet" and they never will be. Ever. Not in 20 years. Not in 100. They want to live in the Stone Age, my dude. Just leave them be.

[@paulm1690]

Truer words have never been spoken.

[@abdq4712]

The ethnic component of this is completely understated by Westerners. You had a resistance to the Taliban since its inception that was mainly comprised of the non-Pashtun ethnicities (e.g. mostly Tajik and Hazara and some Uzbeks, Turkmens). These same forces participated in operations that defeated the Taliban (apart from the ones saved by Pervez Musharraf and good ol' George Bush with the 'Kunduz airlift'). From then, instead of giving the presidency and leadership to one of the major leaders of that resistance such as Burhanuddin Rabbani, instead the Americans along with their stooge 'special representative' Zalmai Khalilzad went to war to get a former chicken shop owner in the USA to become the president of the country, a complete baffoon and corrupt stooge named Hamid Karzai. Many Afghan politicians and individuals are corrupt, hell most politicians regardless of country are to a level corrupt, except this Karzai moron was doing everything in his power to keep the Taliban alive and from being fully exterminated. Then you bring in the academic fraud in Ashraf Ghani, who they tried to parade around as some Western educated genius, and this cuck amplified the corruption and incompetency to the nth degree along with rigging elections. In all institutions, not only in the military/police forces, this corrupt stooge removed any literate and competent individuals and filled all the positions with some stooges from his own 'Ahmadzai' tribe. The guys National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib is a guy with no military experience or background and has a PhD in computer engineering. Americans have a huge part of the blame in this process, and it mainly rests on trusting and allowing this Zalmai Khalilzad to empower these corrupt Pashtun ethnofascist Taliban sympathizers to destroy any progress made and to let their illiterate cousins in the Taliban take over power. Karzai, Ghani and Khalilzad all have 1 thing in common and that's being Pashtun, they can't fathom a non-Pashtun being the leader of that country. 96% of the Taliban are Pashtun and at the end of the day these people want to cling onto power at any cost, even if by the Taliban.

[@karimmoop9560]

Shut up.

[@samrapheal1828]

Truth 🎯.

[@samrapheal1828]

@@karimmoop9560 Foxtrot Oscar.

[@karimmoop9560]

@@samrapheal1828 this guy I trying to con you & I out of our tax payer dollars. He does not give a shit about women's rights or democracy.

[@JK-br1mu]

Interesting points, but Afghan, Muslim and Third World country politicians are especially corrupt, much more so than in advanced nations. That's why the nation collapsed in seconds against the onslaught of a few thousand bearded neanderthals. The Judeo-Christian foundation, even if it's aging, provides something these nations lack.

[@josephabraham4058]

My platoon trained Iraqi border patrol and soldiers in 2011 out on COB Minden east of Basrah, on the Iranian border. We later caught those same soldiers attempting to use our training against us, i.e., mortar fire, rocket fire. The good news was they have no clue how to use math, so they missed our little 100 m^2 compound. In a system where every failure is a reflection on you, where every poor performance is a reflection of your level of effort, in a system where nobody wants bad news, only solutions and performance, it's no wonder to me at all that we left a country in ruins. I see the same shit inside of government contracting today.

[@JK-br1mu]

Were they mostly Shia troops? or did you know. Probly killing Americans on orders from Iran.

[@namzflix9179]

That's the training US troops get. "2nd place is 1st loser" gets drilled into their heads then nobody wanna take responsibility.

[@richardd7614]

May i ask how you felt watching the afghan withdrawal?

[@EricDaMAJ]

Vice, when it was a reputable journalistic outlet, did an entire video about how hopeless the ANA and ANP were about a decade ago. In that time nothing changed.

[@silvercomic]

Do you mean "This is what winning looks like"?

[@ricflair5956]

@@silvercomic yup that’s it. The afghans were the most inept and useless partner force we’ve ever hard. Some units were good, like the Afghan sf, but across the bulk of the country they were horrible. Even Iraqis were better. Saw it first hand over several years.

[@drlca6601]

Yeah, that time ceased about six years ago. Right about when Trump was elected... Rationalism has gone the way of the dinosaur (kidding, we're not going to let it die.)

[@masonart4950]

It's not in their blood to defend themselves and stand up. They never have. Only once it springs from within them will it ever happen.

[@danf1862]

The checkpoints held by Iraqi security forces were always the ones we approached with the most caution. Complex ambushes tended to occur before or after passing through one. If we passed through one and they were sitting back in their chairs with their vests off and their weapons leaned against the barricade it was game on. Overall though, the only path to freedom for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, in the western sense, is through occupation. And we don't occupy anymore. They need to find their own path out of the darkness.

[@Xplora213]

They’ve had 1450 years....... and eons before that. Maybe it’s not going to happen.

[@angelariley5403]

@@Xplora213 maybe, but without the experience of creating a successful society, they will never keep one.

[@Xplora213]

@@angelariley5403 but they haven’t created a successful society. Others have tried to build one for them, and it failed the moment they were left to their own devices. Teach them libertarianism, and wish them luck. Give them the studies to show prosperity is found in education and respect of women, and move on. If they are that stupid, they will not succeed no matter what you do. Plenty of smart people fail as well. We won’t get to Mars by trying to prop up people who will not be producing the next Einstein or Oppenheimer, and won’t allow them to thrive even if they do make them💡

[@moonboy2941]

freedom throvgh occvpation, lmao.

[@danf1862]

@@moonboy2941 You don't pack an overnight bag for a regime change.

[@ronloomis8245]

40 years ago when I was in the Army and overseas most of the militaries were "not ready yet." I saw very few NATO soliders who really cared.

[@SAVikingSA]

They are very happy to tell Americans on the internet that they have healthcare and Americans don't, without a hint of irony. They don't understand that they can pay for a robust social safety net because we keep them safe. Big reason why I don't care about Ukraine right now. Let Putin take it, let the Euros figure that shit out for themselves.

[@samrapheal1828]

Correctamundo 💯

[@SAVikingSA]

@Aliwos I have zero problems being friendly and trading with Eastern Europe, but I have huge issues with sending our men and women to die for them. At the end of the day, defending Ukraine is not about Ukraine or Eastern Europe, it's about providing a bulwark for Western Europe. That is something they no longer deserve, save perhaps England. Not even Wales or Scotland, because Wales and Scotland are clearly insane.

[@pomperidus]

@@SAVikingSA People are often asses about it, true, but there is no irony. The big point pro public healthcare is that it's cheaper... Americans are paying more for their health than everywhere else in the world (including many countries with higher life expectancy or standards of living) . You'd have more money left in your hands if you switched to the solution the rest of the world successfully implemented for a much lesser cost , and we'd have less money if we got rid of this cost-effective system and switched to yours. That why none of our politicians, even in desperate need of cutting expenses, think about doing this. But I agree with your point that I don't see why the american taxpayer should have to pay for Europe's safety in any case. and I don't wish any american soldier (or anyone for this matter) to die in Ukraine. Respects from France.

[@SAVikingSA]

@@pomperidus the $700 billion dollars we pay a year could be cut in half and pay for health care in the US easily, and we can cut that in half easily by removing our troops from Europe. This is the point I'm making. The other point I'm making is that Europe would then have to bulk up their defense spending, which would have to be paid for via increased taxes, or face massive cuts elsewhere, like your health system. You can say respects from France all you want, but the motherfucking US taxpayer gave your nation a free lift to Mali when you felt like playing at colonialism again.

[@jimsturt]

19 of the 20 hijackers were Saudi. Bin laden was Saudi. We learned in the 2016 report that the funding was Saudi. Yet we went to war in *checks notes* a dirt pit called Afghanistan because that is where they trained? I am of the belief that we knew 9/11 was sponsored by a more hardline Islamist faction of the Saudi royal family but knew we couldn't go to war with them at the time because we weren't oil independent (this was pre fracking/shale) so we chose Afghanistan because the country needed to see SOME sort of retribution. You can't fight a war against the country that supplies the fuel for all those tanks and planes. :) As an aside - when I was in grad school I had a professor who worked for the Federal Reserve as a researcher - guy was studying the flow of money through US banks in the months leading up to 9/11 for a paper. Turns out tens of BILLIONS of dollars flowed out of the country in the months prior. Gets called into his supervisor's office - DoD said to drop this project. He was let go shortly after.

[@manticore4952]

Bin Laden said he used Saudis to cause a war between Saudi and the US, it would have gotten rid of two of his enemies, the House of Saud and the US.

[@jsquared1013]

Bin Laden had his citizenship revoked and was exiled before the Al-Qaeda terror attacks on US soil. The Saudi hierarchy in general wants to be on friendly terms with us because it helps them be the big fish in the region. Even back in the 90's, we didn't import as much oil from the middle east as you think we did. There were/are certainly wealthy Saudis and peripheral members of the royal family who are hardliner islamists who support anti-western terror groups, but they are atypical. The reason we attacked Afghanistan was not just because they trained there, but that they wouldn't turn them over to us or stop offering them safe haven.

[@Neo7406]

I've learned some time ago that the part of the pentagon that was destroyed during 9/11 was were all that money was being handled (The budget analyst office if I'm not mistaken)

[@Cam11B83]

Appreciate his candor and insight always.

[@YasserMaghribi]

The problem of fake european-made nation-states is the core problem of Middle-East. An Iraki doesn't care about "Irak". He cares about his community (Arab or Kurds, Sunni, Shia or Christian). And I would have been exactly like them. Especially when I consider Americans and other foreign people like invaders that I never allowed to come here in the first place. Same thing for Lebanon which was a French-made country created with the sole purpose of having a christian state in Middle East. And the list goes on. That's why those countries needs hardcore dictators to stay in place (Saddam, Assad, Khadafi...), without a strong unifier, the entropy does its job.

[@readhistory2023]

They have a culture that condones pedophia and the cutting the clits off young girls. Take a clue.

[@frankcarrasquillo6394]

Hey genius you spelled iraq wrong 3 time s! So you re post does nt count.

[@YasserMaghribi]

@@frankcarrasquillo6394 I'm not a native english speaker, I'm a native french speaker and in french we write "Irak".

[@YasserMaghribi]

@@readhistory2023 false, and out of subject, you're ridiculous

[@samrapheal1828]

Correctamundo 💯

[@reddiver7293]

We Americans seem to have this notion that democracy is this seed that will flourish anywhere we go. Kick out a despot, build some infrastructure, train some nationals to be cops and soldiers, liberally sprinkle some money and a new democracy is good to go. In a place where only tribalism and feudal warlords prevent utter chaos. Mad respect for our brave men and women in the military! Appreciation for our white collar workers attempting to assist nations of folks out of poverty, disease and lack of education. But in some places, democracy just is not going to happen in our time.

[@reddiver7293]

@The Adjudicator That's universal. And not exactly on point with my comment.

[@mikearchibald744]

Wrong. The US BUILT Afghanistan for corruption. Go look at just HALF of these comments. From day one it was clear that not only was democracy not 'necessary' ' it was not desired. Read the about the operation from OTHER perspectives.

[@JoeZelensky]

I was in Fallujah back during the surge. And I said to a guy that as soon as we leave Iraq is going to fall apart and terrorists will take over and signify they are in control by blowing up some stuff. And what do you know, the day we left 2 car bombs at a market in Baghdad killed 52 people. And that signified daesh taking over.

[@joshuapinkston9314]

"I've never seen a more corrupt place" Finally Jocko is gonna talk about my home, the great state of Louisiana!

[@johnjr757]

Obviously you've never been to New Jersey

[@jackmckay4621]

Keep up the good work Jack from Maine God bless the world

[@Aaron-rj7bv]

Both the podcast episodes with Hollie were super interesting.

[@SomeCanine]

Corruption and dishonesty is the problem. If you lie about the small things, the big things are that much more broken. You cannot build anything on a foundation of lies.

[@ChrisV25]

Reality check: They were NEVER gonna be ready LOL. If 20 years wasn't enough...

[@uprisingtv9291]

Facts

[@Minotaur-ey2lg]

That’s the issue of current American foreign policy. Why fight for a people who aren’t willing to fight for themselves? Leave them alone.

[@davewood406]

@@Minotaur-ey2lg post WWII the US has what, some CIA meddling in politics in Italy to tamp down the Communist party being elected to think "we" can effectively shape foreign governments. I mean we can break them and send countries into chaos or divide them but change them for the better? No reason to think that at all for the last 70? years...

[@maxstotto3594]

"Silk purses and sows ears" come to mind!

[@Ja50nkAt]

As a young man (18yo in 2010) I was asked, "why don't you join the military" but I had learned about Vietnam in school and many other things in the military that gave me a bad feeling about joining. During and now after the this Afghanistan debacle I am glad to have steered clear of the military and glad I listened to my gut. Our US service members are some of the bravest people on the planet and it sad to think about the lost of lives over.... nothing :(

[@plamenatanasov1091]

I had the same exact outlook as you back when I was graduating from high school. I almost joined but knew in the back of my mind that I would regret it due to the corruption, political correctness and indirectly serving for a globalist agenda.

[@whenwasthat]

So you were smart enough to steer clear yet you think it's brave to give your life to a maniacal killing conglomerate? Ambitious, dumb, no other prospects... Totally, but brave? It's completely insane that this idea still persists.

[@stevenwestfall7638]

@@whenwasthat Its brave in what they do as their jobs and for each other while over there in a combat zone.

[@johnvaness8445]

Take the long pole out of the tent! What a Great Analogy. Great interview, thanks.

[@Jazzman-bj9fq]

Yup, the good old American "Hey, we aren't there yet but we're making progress!" optimism can be a trap. The main thing with the US or UN trying to help other people in other countries is that these people who may say they want a better future have to be willing to fight to take their country back from the insurgents or whatever forces we're talking about. If the desire isn't there, the commitment is lacking or they simply have other things more important on their minds then maybe they just have to live with the conditions they're NOT willing to fight to change so they then do get tired of it enough to commit to fighting and change. It's as if WE (the U.S.) care more about their situation than they do and that's not a sustainable situation.

[@HaloJumpmaster]

From an army soldier that had to erect alot of old fashioned army tents...and the accompanying camo and spreaders...that analogy about pulling down the center pole really drove your point home quite eloquently.

[@Hongobogologomo]

I think the current issue with the armed forces is "nation building" and bringing "democracy" to places with no infrastructure. You NEED infrastructure in order to have these things. Theyre called 'foundations', upon which a nation stands. These countries have no such foundations. In order to do anything, we need to occupy, feed, and educate new generations who can, over the next few Decades, build foundations. It cannot be done with beaurocrats, or drone strikes, or trade deals with royal families. Tldr, democracy is not possible in the middle east, because it is currently unequipped to deal with the demands a functional democracy require.

[@shittywheelies7403]

These places have their own culture, attempting to turn them into fuckin Ohio just makes a bunch of PMC’s and mega corporations looking for raw materials rich and devastates the local population.

[@Razgriz__1]

We possibly could have, but it would have required an economic commitment from us even larger than what we put towards Japan and West Germany after WWII, where we had to rebuild those countries' industry nearly from scratch after we bombed it all. The will for an effort of that scale just wasn't there, not from our leaders and not from our people. And even then, those countries were already largely industrialized prior. They had a culture of collectivist thinking and action that lent itself well to being rebuilt into modern industrial powers, that allowed us to largely throw money at the problem and make sure it was being managed well from a top down perspective. We wouldn't have such a luxury in Afghanistan.

[@flyoverkid55]

It's more than infrastructure, those folks have NO IDEA what self rule is about. They have millennia of being dictated to as a way of life. In places like the Middle East, you either lead or follow.

[@RETOKSQUID]

@@flyoverkid55 And they couldn't care any less about changing the way it is. Sure modern things are sought after, but the culture isn't about to change anytime soon.

[@animegod1714]

@@flyoverkid55 exactly. They have no concept of a nation state. Many people haven't heard the name Afghanistan. People live like how they have lived for the last 2000 years. If you ask them where they are from they will point to a mountain or a river and say they live next to it in the village. World outside their village doesn't exist to tgem

[@LordOfCinder85]

Our guys handed over a complete base to the ANA. A couple of months later when officers came to inspect the place, everything was trashed. They had torn out and sold literally every piece of copper wiring and tubes that they could get their hands on. Showers and toilets were also destroyed and none of the generators were working anymore.

[@titan_o7]

A topic of conversation that I think would be really interesting and beneficial for Jocko to cover would be Stoicism. Talking about its importance in everyday life and how it differs or is similar to discipline and controlling your emotions.

[@chrisperry7538]

The big question is would they ever be ready? I was in Panama when the Panamanian President fired Noriega & Noriega took over with a coup. Panamanians were asking us if we would get rid of Noriega for them. I told them we had the same problem in the 18th century and fought for our freedom…why don’t they fight for their freedom? I think there are many people in the world willing to live on their knees in fear rather to die on their feet in pursuit of freedom.

[@samrapheal1828]

Correctamundo ✔

[@SteelDoesMyWill]

I was in Iraq most of 2006 with MNSTCI, US Army 4th ID (but I was Navy). I worked supply and logistics trying to get the Iraqi 6th in Taji up and running. Officers were stealing fuel from the fuel dump and selling it on the black market, Iraqi trainees and probably Iraqi CIV base workers were snitching to the Insurgents who was (by name) part of the new Iraqi Army or Police, giving up FOB details on movements, locations of people/gear and such... the Iraqi Commanders were giving the 'contracts' for base construction projects to their brothers-in-law/cousins or what have you... I could go on, and on, and on. Were learned that corruption was a fundamental part of their culture. They literally don't see corruption as amoral like we do, it is an accepted part of the norm rather than an unpatriotic deviation from what is right, to them.

[@docholiday7758]

It's not too hard to understand. Islam teaches family comes first.

[@PaulVerhoeven2]

And that is a big part of why the 3rd world is the 3rd world. And bringing the 3rd worlders here only brings the 3rd world with them. No wonder they vote for the most corrupt politicians here too.

[@shooter7a]

@@PaulVerhoeven2 you are spouting nonsense. Your implication is what...these "3rd worlders" vote Dem? In the Legislative branch (House and Seante) of the Federal government from the 1970s to present, the corruption is quite even. Lets say you assign a points system for corruption, with 3 points for a criminal conviction, 2 points for someone resigning under suspicion or to avoid investigation, and 1 point for being fined, you would have the following: GOP - 130 DEM - 125 But if you take into account the Executive Branch, what do you get? GOP - 465 DEM - 34 If you look at State and Local Government, including Legislatures + Executive Branches (Mayors, Governors), what do you get? GOP - 207 DEM - 341 Oh and corrupt in the US is far far less than it used to be.

[@PaulVerhoeven2]

@@shooter7a Yes, 3rd worlders vote for 3rd world policies, like socialism.

[@shooter7a]

@@PaulVerhoeven2 again you reveal your stunning ignorance.... Most 3rd world nations have small authoritarian governments. The first world nations that are nice places to live ALL have larger governments, and more socialist governments than the US currently does. Here are the 5 nations with the largest % of government vs GDP in the OECD Austria France Denmark Finland Belgium These are about as far from 3rd world as you can get. In fact, they are all very nice places.....

[@nunyabidness3075]

That positive thing is built into the military (and many other institutions). It’s tough to discern a negative attitude from an accurate report to begin with, but when your a senior person that had to overcome a lot of challenges your seniors dumped on you without even trying to fix it, you do it again to your subordinates. Repeat through generations of leadership and your lucky if there’s any reasonable perspective left. This is why no one told the CINC his Afghanistan orders were going to blow up on us.

[@vmasing1965]

Yea it's everywhere, in every army all over the world. Self-organizing systems Vs. top-down centrally controlled systems. It's the same problem as Free Market Economy (or "Capitalism" as Marx called it) Vs. Communist economies--there's no competition, one is a whole magnitude more efficient than the other. Less fair but more effective. What's the _self organizing system_ in the military sphere? Read Koran...

[@buckmaster911]

"They just weren't ready" ... because they were getting stoned 247 instead of paying attention to any kind of training or direction , they pissed away our time and efforts and paid the price for it.

[@johnconlon2207]

The American soldier paid a price. Lots of others got rich.

[@pirobot668beta]

"Whenever possible, concentrate power, but distribute responsibility". Steve Ballmer

[@blooeagle5118]

I see stuff like this all the time in the military. Lying about how good something is, or what good it will be doing, because officers are so scared of being relieved or not given a positive fitrep. Anything negative on a career page is career death, so they do everything they can to preserve it, even if it means blatantly lying. I genuinely fear that in a head to head war, things will crumble before they get better..

[@deepg7084]

Same thing occurred during the fall of the Soviet Union. They were more afraid of reporting the truth to their superiors than the cost of embellishing the truth.

[@whitebeltjoe4109]

@@mohammaddoesit do you still think this given russias performance in ukraine?

[@msfkmsfk]

This is hands down my favorite Jocko video I've seen so far. This shit is way too hilarious.

[@joaquimliengme4989]

To win a guerilla war you got to do it the ceasar way he did in Gaul, burn everything to the ground.

[@ianhall6614]

You have to out g the g. Something our military and political leaders clearly are incapable of.

[@scotty33mac]

Well that would be against the Geneva Convention and considered a war crime soooo...

[@samrapheal1828]

@@ianhall6614 Correctamundo 💯

[@joaquimliengme4989]

@Aliwos agreed but Roman empire lasted centuries while nazi only decades same for British empire . For me to lower recruitment standard was the mistake that started going downhill. Plus after decades of blood they bought Roman infrastructure and political to gaul which was superior Edit 200 years for British empire is quite long to be correct

[@djay6651]

I didn't go to Afghanistan, but my unit did. Part of the problem was that there were commanders in the ANA and ANP who couldn't read. How are you supposed to run a unit, go over intelligence, send up intelligence, plot operations on a map, keep track of equipment, conduct AARs, or file reports/story boards if you can't read? There is very little you can do in the modern world without being able to read.

[@mountainadventures7346]

Huge respect for Jocko, and to all our vets. I don’t want to come off sounding like I’m being a jerk to our heroes. But let’s be super pragmatic for a moment. 1) You cannot have allies with divided loyalties. From the Vichy French in WW2, ARVN in Nam, Iraq or Afghanistan. This could even go back back back to Apache scouts. Yes! Some of those guys are hard core brothers you could bet your life on! But many? You cannot. And even if they are good people? How many of them are going to draw a bead on the enemy…. their uncle, their cousin, their brother? How many of them are just drawing a paycheck and go with the flow until the tide changes? It’s just GOOD policy to NOT put much trust in these arrangements. Never. Ever. 2) You cannot break a mans will. Especially men who already live in hell on earth. They will never count down the days of a deployment. They will never get candy and cigarettes in a mail call. They will never be resupplied or medivaced. They will never take their family to Disneyland on leave. They live in a cave. They drink shit water. They starve half the time. And if they die the world doesn’t care. And yet despite overwhelming odds? They fight on. Victory or death. And we wonder why they smash indigenous forces sucking on uncle Sam’s tit? 3) For the love of Pete? Have we learned our lesson on nation building? I’m by no means a dove. And it’s America first for me. But go in root out the enemy, kill them and LEAVE. Does it suck to watch people suffer at the hands of thugs? Yes. But you cannot do for other people what they need to be doing for themselves. Navy SEALS did not fight at Bunker Hill against Red Coats…. The butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker DID! It has to be grass roots. Not some top down throw money at the problem solution. The people must desire it worse than bread and water. Or it’s not a worthy cause. 4) The US needs to get some shit figured out at home before it tries to spread its core values anymore. Same goes for the rest of the free world. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms and the right to make your own medical choices…. this is no longer taken for granted. My grandparents would no longer recognize the nation of their birth. And went through much greater trials and tribulations than we have. We are selling off our sacred sacraments for trinkets that supposedly keep us safe. Sickening! 5) Lastly? We need to hold our politicians feet to the fire. They work for us. And the debacle that is the Afghanistan withdrawal isn’t on our warriors. It’s on THEM.

[@ss-qm5hz]

Hello. I’m from iran and I currently live here. I am not religious at all by any means i thing islam is rotten to its core. If the USA attacks our country i wouldn’t fight them, but when they bomb our critical infrastructure (electricity, gas, gasoline, water) what am I supposed to do? Am i just supposed to wait and watch you do what ever you want? Is that it? What would yo do? If someone comes to my country and decides to fuck it up just because, i will fight them, bit for religion, but for country. It doesn’t matter if the USA decides to build our infrastructure, they fucked it up in the first place. It’s not personal, you would do the same thing.

[@mountainadventures7346]

@@ss-qm5hz If I lived in a dictatorship as you do? And I was odd man out? I would leave. If I could gather a sizable force of like minded people? I would try to change my government. And if a powerful ally was willing to help? I would welcome it. Without France’s help? The USA probably would have never existed. It ultimately comes down to how much you love Freedom and how much tyranny are you willing to tolerate. My heart goes out to you! That’s a tough spot. I also believe there are many good Muslim people out there. Be safe!

[@lcjjr.6714]

They weren’t ready yet because they never wanted to be “ready”. Most of them could never be trusted!

[@hdavis9856]

The big question I have after hearing this is, Jocko didn't feel like they were ready. But when would they be ready? Didn't sound like they ever would be. Same with Afghanistan, it sounded like things were always going to end the way they did whether we stayed there for 3 years or 30 years. We should have cut our losses years ago.

[@vmasing1965]

It takes _at least_ 100 years of full scale military occupation, prolly 2 or 3 centuries to see any permanent effect. In other words, it was hopeless right from the start. What's amazing is the fact nobody knew that going in. Like, really? There was highly educated intelligent people who sincerely thought it would be just like W-Germany or South Korea? They thought Koran was a children's book apparently? Incredible incompetence or maybe it wasn't meant to succeed in the 1st place, I can't decide...

[@Hawaiian80882]

The tent pole....thats and excellent analogy

[@heavyassaultmode1503]

We had similar experiences in Iraq. Some of the trained units were good to go, others not. Corruption is a problem everywhere, but far worse in Iraq than the US, and far, far worse in Afghanistan, apparently.

[@andrewdavid5928]

"Put some lipstick on" is a very creative way to describe telling lies.

[@ls6097]

A competent leader knows "lipstick" when he sees it, and should CERTAINLY know when to "cut bait". And therein lies the US military's problem, no competent leadership at the levels where the decision to cut bait needs to be made.

[@davidoftheforest]

or.....maybe....just maybe.... its by design

[@samrapheal1828]

@@davidoftheforest All according to the "plan."

[@davidoftheforest]

@@samrapheal1828 its astonishing how blind people can be

[@toddshoemaker4285]

This speaks to the culture, and we have little historical data to look upon. The culture of a people is written in an ink that is permanent and the conflict reveals itself when we understand that the arrogance of outside military leaders is written with the same ink.

[@MM12684]

Jocko goes to DC?

[@2Oldcoots]

Why did G.I.'s in Vietnam often carry lighters inscribed "We are the unwilling; Led by the unqualified, Doing the unnecessary, For The Ungrateful"?

[@TaintNunya]

I ran a "police development program" in Ramadi in '05. First thing I saw once inside the Government Center was a conference table covered with Dinar and a bunch of highly angry "police" arguing how to use it...against us (My eternal thanks to my Kurdish interpreter). I kicked them all out (an interesting methodology but in Arab tradition), grabbed their stash and said "Who wants to work tomorrow?", once outside the Government Center. Whoever showed the next day we ID'd via BATS and other collection systems; signed "anti-Saddam declarations", "anti-Ba'ath Party declarations". But even the "made Soprano's" got caught and went to Abu "G". And since then became ISIS. OK, Werner, lets launch a moon landing...Or Mother Teresa prevailing through faith on terra fermi? What's the difference? Werner was a state sponsored terrorist. Mother Teresa, a Saint.

[@JK-br1mu]

Werner was a rocket scientist who made rockets for a living, not political decisions.

[@MrHarbltron]

What the fuck does Mother Teresa or the Moon Landing have to do with Afghan police? Try keeping both those feet on Terra Firma, champ.

[@btuesday]

In Vietnam we learned that if a people are not devoted enough to their own cause, it doesn't matter how much money and weapons we give them, or how much training, or if we do all the fighting for them, they will still lose. Why do we have to keep learning the same lesson over and over again?

[@syx3s]

you HAVE to know that as soon as western troops were pulling out the ANA were "flipping sides". back to the side they had always been on but had been serving in a much safer and easier way and that actually paid.

[@fjbtube6278]

Many examples of this throughout many countries we've delved in

[@alejandrogonzales7022]

They weren't "not ready" They were straight up unwilling. Instead of setting up defensive positions, the ANA and police evacuated the schools, took off their uniforms and went home.

[@benglasby8014]

Harsh truth. They were never going to be ready.

[@aaronwilkinson8963]

I'm a British soldier I served in Afghanistan 2009 to 2010. I worked alongside Afghan police and army. I don't want to say bad things about them because they were my friends but I'm not surprised Afghanistan fell like it did. I witnessed corruption because one of the police tried to black mail me. He wanted my watch and jacket if I didn't give them to him he would tell my commander I'm on hashish. These guys could be a real nightmare but funny 😆 I really liked them. I was sad when they got killed

[@PaulVerhoeven2]

"one of the police tried to black mail me. He wanted my watch and jacket if I didn't give them to him he would tell my commander I'm on hashish... I was sad when they got killed" So you were on hashish...

[@aaronwilkinson8963]

@@PaulVerhoeven2 Troll

[@PaulVerhoeven2]

@@aaronwilkinson8963 So the rumors about British humor were false...

[@JK-br1mu]

hahahah

[@TheLogitech91]

I worked with Afgani folks here in the US. They would tell me that if we rip you off it's your fault. You allowed us to rip you off. They didn't see it as being corrupt. It's just a way of life.

[@ls6097]

They were never going to be "ready yet", because it was a waste of time to begin with.

[@noelmaher4633]

As part of an contract in Nair*** K**** we had to hire and supply 40 locals as part T&Cs. We kitted them out with uniforms/vests/boots and surplus. Some basic static training and CCTV etc, perimeter stuff hand wand, observation.. Centre opened and everyone to a man sold their kit. Local Poli turned up and demanded re kit or centre wouldn't open. Boss said we budget for this contingency. Centre became famous year later...

[@bx3556]

That's why any occupation by a democracy must come with incredibly harsh punishments on anyone doing ANY amount of corruption. You have to make examples of corruption. Corruption is cancerous to democracies. Same for chain of command, someone reporting FALSE information up the chain is punished severely, not fired, but actually punished.

[@deanfowles3707]

everything is corrupt though, the us military is corrupt. how is a corrupt institution gonna filter out the corruption of another?

[@11ASCT]

Corruption is the understatement of the decade

[@tmcche7881]

Video title, "I've never seen a morecorrupt place." First thoughts, what did you think this ideo was going to be about. Be honest. Having a tendency to be a little parochial, my first thought was DC.

[@fredhampton3899]

😂😂 hall of fame comment 👍🏾

[@chrisast3368]

Mine was a three letter agency

[@nunyabusiness4904]

I never went to Iraq of Afghanistan but I've heard absolute horror stories, a guy I currently work with helped train some of the Iraqi troops and he told me of an incident where a guy traded his weapon for a case of MREs.

[@rakk2416]

To me it isn't a issue if they were ready to be a miltary force and defend their country. It comes down to having the will to fight for your country . No excuses we have been training an supporting them for years .

[@prometheusjackson8787]

It's because nobody wants to be like America. Who's to blame them

[@msfkmsfk]

I really enjoyed this fucking video. They should really keep these Jocko interview videos going they are very entertaining.

[@paulnettles9109]

Experiencing the state of the ANF/ANSDF from 2007-2010, I knew that everything was going to collapse after we left, very quickly. The leadership, guys with no military experience from land owner families, were in business for themselves and the soldiers, guys with no social standing and were unmarriageable, were high AF and just collecting a paycheck to get more drugs.

[@TheTenCentStory]

They are never going to be ready if they are not ready after 20 years.