Transcript of AE 1920 - The Goss: The Taliban Take Afghanistan

G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English. The number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss' episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world.

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Man, Afghanistan.

(sighs) Basket case.

Fuck me, man, I- This has been one of those things that is sort of like in the news that has upset me a great deal more than I was expecting it to. It's kind of like when Heath Ledger died or when...

Or for me was when Elvis Presley died. Yeah, you sit there and go, why am I so affected by somebody that I've never met, never likely to meet? And it's not like, I don't get to listen to Elvis Presley music for, you know, now the next 45 years. But yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Well, it is interesting, but I wanted to talk about it because it's obviously been all over the news. And I'm sure, you know, people are thinking about this quite a bit at the moment. So, why on earth, dad did Australians end up in Afghanistan fighting for 20 years? Do you want to sort of give us a nutshell review?

Nutshell, one sentence. Because John Howard wanted to support the United States. We have possibly the closest, well, anti's along with New Zealand. We possibly have the closest military alliance anywhere in the world, is Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

They say, jump. And we say, how high?

Exactly. And the United States, the value they see in Australia and New Zealand is because we're on the other side of the world, particularly close to Asia and much closer to the Middle East. It gives them, you know, places that they can have military bases and, you know, they can effectively use the Australian and New Zealand military as, you know, an arm of their own if they want to.

And that's why we went to Vietnam in the 1960s. That's why we're in Afghanistan. That's why we went to the Middle East, to Iraq. It's simply because the United States says, jump. And we say, how high? Now that's not necessarily a complete negative because obviously having a military alliance, the world's closest military alliance with the world's biggest military force is not a bad thing to have.

But there is the element of it that just says, you know, Canada said, we're not going to Iraq. Fuck off.

True, I hadn't thought about that.

Yeah, the United States- Yeah. And they've got a very close relationship, obviously. And so, they dug their heels in and just said, no. I actually think they were in Afghanistan, but- In fact, I know they were in Afghanistan, but they didn't go to Iraq. They might have ended up there later, but they certainly didn't go the first time, they didn't go the second time immediately.

Because they looked at it and said, what's the strategic advantage for us? And you can say that's selfish. But at the same time, you go, what does it mean by Australia having a few thousand troops in Afghanistan?

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Do you think it's more that America is just like, we want you to be involved? Ten people, ten thousand people, whatever. But we're doing this, and so we need a front of, you know, allegiance where everyone does what we say.

You get some moral high ground by having other people go with you. You also get- It's purely a cost thing. I mean, America spends trillions of dollars over decades on, you know, what they would call policing other countries, you know, effectively going to war with other countries because they don't like what they're doing.

And if we can contribute some financial infrastructure and human beings to go as well, then it's in their interest to do that. As well as that, you know, you get the moral high ground if most of NATO, most of Europe, most- And the United States and Australia and New Zealand would ever go in, then they can say, we're not going to be the pariah here. We're not going to be, you know, everybody holding it against us.

But we all know whose war it is and, you know, you've got a bunch of people going and supporting it. I think the- Well, the- If we go back even further, you said a nutshell, but go back even further. The bizarre part of this is that the, you know, pre-Taliban the far-right Muslim guerrillas there, the mujahideen that were in Afghanistan before the Taliban ever existed...

Were these the ones that were fighting against Russia?

Well, Russia decided that because the mujahideen were anti-communist...

Yeah.

...And there was a socialist, if not communist government that was being supported in Afghanistan by the Soviet Union at the time. And then the mujahideen started to come in and have this little guerrilla warfare going against the government of Afghanistan. And Russia went in there and just said, look, you know, stop this. We're not going to put up with this. And guess what, the United States did?

They went in and supported the mujahideen. They effectively armed the right-wing Muslim uprising in the country against the Soviet Union...

Because they hated communists.

...It was Cold War thing. It was if you're anti-communist, it must be correct. And there was never, like, this is their fight, let them have it. Why weren't they in there supporting the government of the country because, you know, they were, ostensibly the Soviet Union would have called them a communist government to suit themselves. They were probably not. They were probably more of a socialist government.

But all that aside, the United States in there went in and they were effectively propping up a war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Now that fizzled out and the thing that came over the top of that after that was the Taliban happened...

And this was an uprising of students, right? I learnt that the Tali- After 20 years of the Afghan war, that "Taliban" means student.

Yeah.

So, why did the Americans decide to invade Afghanistan in the end?

Well, they did it on a... Well, I think, it was a humanitarian thing. They're already in the Middle East, so they're already in Iraq. They've already- They've had this ongoing effectively a Cold War, at least philosophically with Iran. And who's next door? Afghanistan.

Yeah.

And so, you're fighting in Iraq, you don't like Iran and you've got an internal civil war going on in Afghanistan next door. They went in there for- Ideally for humanitarian reasons to say, look, we've got to stop this uprising, the people coming in and being anti-government.

They were in Afghanistan first. They invaded Afghanistan after September 11, so that was October 2001.

...There was the first war in Iraq before that.

Yeah, and then Iraq, they went in, I mean, at least, yeah, most recently in 2003.

Yeah. But- So, it was a humanitarian thing. It was basically saying, you know, we're not going to put up with this again. It wasn't- In this case, it wasn't a- It was more of a religious thing rather than a political philosophical thing. It wasn't that, you know, we've suddenly got, you know, anti-communists or communists or whatever were the argument.

The Taliban were basically saying they were about as far right in Islam as you can get. And the Americans were saying, we don't want this. We want, you know, particularly, you know, we want women to be able to go to school. We want, you know, civil rights for people in the country. We don't want people being killed in the street because they disagree with these people.

So, from that point of view, you go, all right, there's a moral high ground that you can take in there. But as with Vietnam, there was never an out-clause. There was never a, how are we going to get out of this? What does victory look like?

You can go in and police a country, but effectively it means you've got to either, you've got to agree to be there for the next century or you have to set up a government that will be able to be ongoing without you there. Now they say they thought they had done that, but anybody could have seen and, you know, in hindsight, 2020 hindsight a few weeks later it's quite obvious that that is not the case.

And now we look at it and, you know, with the United States and I'm a fan of Joe Biden, but I don't know whether it's him or whether it's his military. But the fact that they've pulled out and left billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure there that the Taliban have just taken over. If they went back in now to fight them, they'd be screwed.

You'd end up having to put hundreds of thousands of troops into the country to fight a few tens of thousands of Taliban soldiers because they've left them all this infrastructure. They've left them weaponry and tanks and trucks and all this stuff. And you just go, it's crazy. Why wasn't there- And they said at the beginning of this year that we want to be out by the 1st of September. So, you've got eight months to get out.

Not, oh well. Tick tock, tick tock. Now we've got two weeks to get out, just run away. They should have been getting all of this stuff out for months.

Well, it was mind blowing for me learning about how much money had been spent there. I think they'd spent almost a trillion dollars over the 20 years, I think just in Afghanistan. And they had spent, I think less than a hundred million, I think, it was like 80 million or something on training the Afghan army. And the Afghan army ends up crumbling.

300,000 soldiers apparently, they had, the government had, and they just crumbled because it turns out that shit loads of them weren't getting paid, didn't have food. And your just like, how on earth have you put so much money and effort into this and yet the-? It's still set up so that the soldiers who are fighting to try and maintain, you know, what you've built over 20 years are not getting paid and they have no food, and they have no incentive.

What are they going to do? Of course, they're going to run home and be like, well, fuck this. I'm going to go protect my family or I'm going to get out of the country. And obviously, it was an interesting thing to see and learn about in terms of just morale, because clearly, it's like a cancer, right. It starts in one place and just spreads rapidly. And obviously the people on the front line who are taking on the Taliban just bailed.

And then it just ended up this kind of like avalanche or cascading effect, where, well, the next town was like, well, fuck this, I'm out too. And then the next one and the next one, all the way to Kabul. You know, they got there within, what, two weeks?

Yes.

And you see things with Biden saying, no, they won't be there for months, even if they get there, it's unlikely. And you're just like, how much is that going to come back to bite you? So, how is Australia doing in terms of its bit for resettling Afghani's, especially the Afghani's that worked for...?

Oh yeah, that was the other thing, too, is that, why did it take us a month? We knew we were coming out. We knew this was the date. Why did this take us a month before we were sending planes there? The day they decided, right, we're now going to start getting out, you know, which was again five months after the decision was made.

But the day they actually activated it, why weren't there, you know, 10 planes a day going into Kabul airport and just getting people out? You know, stick them on Christmas Island, stick them, you know, do a deal with the Indian government. Just get- You can helicopter people across Pakistan, get them into India and then argue about whether or not they're legitimate refugees and things.

Not saying, oh, look, you know, we'll need to work it out. Well, what are you going to do? Interview them on the runway in Kabul while they're being shot at? You know, it's crazy that we've got into this situation where they're going to go, any logical thought that went into this said, we've got to get (A) the Australians out.

But (B) the Afghani's who have been helping the Australians. They're not just helping Australians. We can take people out who are helping Canadians or Brits or the Americans, just get them out and worry about where they're going to go later. There seems to be this whole lot of sabre rattling on one side, in particular, the American side saying, we're still, you know, might is right and they'll never attack us. Well, guess what they are.

And the other side is this sort of, oh, well, we'll have to work it out. We can't just take everybody. Well, take everybody and worry about them later. Because you can guarantee that the people who are actually, you know, you've got kids falling off planes taking off at the airport. These are not people who are doing this for political reasons.

They're not sitting there going, oh, I just want to get out of this country. These are people who are in fear of their lives. They're risking their life to get out.

Well, there was a few of those, right. There was one guy on camera who was in the airport, and I saw this on Reddit, and he was like, I was a translator for Australia. And, you know, I'm waiting for a plane. And all the comments were like, this guy's dead. He's gone.

Like, just by filming himself saying that either he is going to get out on a plane that goes in there now or he knows, you know, and that's why he's saying it, that if he doesn't get out, he's a goner. He's an absolute goner. Because the Taliban- How do you think-?

How do you think about how the Taliban have handled this? Because I was kind of shocked at the level of passivity, if that's a word. At the level that they came into Kabul, and from what I've seen, there's been the odd little bit of violence here and there from, you know, probably an unruly army that they have doing things on the individual, but they haven't just gone...

No.

...We're going to just go through the place and raise it to the ground.

They don't want us- They want to set themselves up as a legitimate government.

Yeah.

And you can't set yourself up as a legitimate government if you go in there and kill half a million people, you know, that's- It's just not going to work. And it's not about- You could get away with that internally because everybody will just lie down and go, hey, don't shoot. And, you know, you can do what you like. Look, what's happened in the Soviet Union for nearly 100 years.

Their government has basically been, you agree with us, or we kill you. And so, you can do that internally. But the Taliban want to set themselves up in Afghanistan as a legitimate government with recognition from other countries worldwide...

So, you think that over the last 20 years they've really matured in terms of understanding the politics and trying to play the long game now?

I still think they're, you know, it's all just, you know, lies. We go, oh, we'll allow everybody to go. Firstly, it will allow anybody to go who wants to go. Two weeks later, it's we'll allow Americans out or Australians out, but Afghans must stay. Read between the lines. If we want to kill you, we don't want you leaving.

And you go, really...?

That's one of those crazy things, too, right.

...Opposed to you and actively against you, just- Isn't getting rid of them better? But no, it's not because there's this sort of religious overtone to it, you know, this right-wing fundamental branch of Islam that says, if you're against us, we have to kill you.

And so, it's not just a matter of, oh, we win the war by getting rid of you, you know, you go off and live in America or Australia or on some little Pacific Island somewhere and hope that no Taliban person ever finds you. But the fact that they actually want to keep them in the country...

Yeah.

...There's only one reason for that. You know, that's- This is not about- If they had come out and said, even though we would realise it's a lie, if they'd come out and said, we want all Afghans to stay in Afghanistan because that's the only way our country is going to survive is if we keep all the good people here...

I think they've said that to some degree. They've said, oh, we're trying to- We want to rebuild the country, so...

Oh, of course they do.

...We're stopping the, you know, the people leaving in the next few days.

What they don't want is Syria. They don't want a million people banging on the doors of Pakistan and saying, let us in. Well, and they think- I was watching some news about that, they think that's going to happen. There's going to be another wave going into Europe, right, of mass migrants, you know, just immigrants leaving Afghanistan as a result. And you're like, what is going to happen now? Like, it's just- It's just crazy.

Do you worry about the political situation globally as a result of Taliban getting in control of Afghanistan? Obviously, it's a massive tragedy for people on the ground there who fought for the last 20 years for, you know, women's rights and to be able to get educated and have jobs. That's all gone because they're going to be following Sharia law now, you know, one of the strictest versions of Islamic, well, the strictest, right.

But what do you think it's going to mean for the rest of the world if they do end up becoming quote unquote a "legitimate government"?

Look, I think- I don't think they will have a direct effect on many things. The trouble I have with is the indirect effect that the right-wing Islamic politicians in Pakistan will start to get, hey, look, this is actually legitimate now. We've got, you know, there's a country next door that is set up like this, that, you know, Pakistan had always been a very mild Islamic country, in a sense.

I think that'll give them some solace in, you know, how the right wing there, too, in terms of how they can take over. Now that's not going to happen in a hurry, but I think there will be more and more political and social unrest in- Certainly in the west of Pakistan, where there is likely to be a refugee problem, as well.

I think the other side of it is that it's going to prop up the militant side in Iran, because for all the, you know, Americans hating Iran, because they've probably got nuclear weapons. Iran in itself from a global political perspective, has never been seen as much of a threat. Now I think there is likely to be again more unrest there. So, you know, it's going to be a trickle.

I don't think it's going to be a direct- I don't think Afghanistan can suddenly declare war on anybody. But I think this, you know, the fact that we now have the most extreme version of Islam potentially being seen as a legitimate government in a country in the Middle East is going to be a problem.

Yeah, it's pretty weird. And what did you make of China legitimising it? They were sort of one of the first off the ranks, right, to get out there with the Taliban and shake hands.

It's hard for them not to, because...

Just anyone who's against America.

Yeah. Well, but also, you know, if they don't support the- Of the legitimate uprising in a country to create a new government. How are they possibly going to stand in the world with Tibet and Taiwan? Because that's exactly what Tibet and Taiwan are doing. Now, if they'd come out and said, you know, we're anti-Taliban. Then everybody in the world would have said, well, you know...

Yeah.

...How come you're not anti-Tibet and anti-Taiwan, you know? The fact is that they are, but it's this sort of odd dichotomy there that they, you know, effectively they've got, you know, Tibet wants to stand alone, Taiwan wants to stand alone, and China want to control them. And, you know, they have to be sitting on the other side of that fence to give them some political legitimacy to hold onto them, I think.

I wonder what's going to happen with Taiwan? Like those guys, I feel so bad for them because I imagine that they're, you know, on the edge of their seat, too, just worried...

...Hong Kong.

Yeah.

Same thing. You know, Hong Kong is now, you know, potentially I wouldn't go and travel in Hong Kong at the moment. Not that we can get out of the country. We can get out of the country, not that we can get back in. So, you wouldn't leave. But, you know, Hong Kong previously was, you know, it was a Chinese protectorate. Now China sees it as a state, and therefore it has to come under Chinese government law. And Hong Kong was never like that.

And, you know, there's six and a half or seven million people who lived in Hong Kong, treated themselves as a separate country. And, you know, they no longer are. And I don't think, you know, when the British effectively handed Hong Kong back to China, I don't think many people in Hong Kong saw that things were going to change.

Because they were a legitimate world economic power in a sense of, you know, most of the world's financial, you know, major financial companies and things have branches in Hong Kong. You know, it's a huge stock market in Hong Kong in comparison with the size of the population and so on. But when you compare that with China, you know, it's a pimple. It's-

Hong Kong is not even in the top 20 cities in China in terms of population size, and so- But because of its political significance worldwide, China want to control it. They really don't care. It's the same thing, if they'd had people in another little town in Guangzhou province, another little city of five million people in Guangzhou province, behaving like the people in Hong Kong behaved, Chinese government wouldn't have cared.

But the fact that they want to take over and tell them how to behave because the rest of the world understands what Hong Kong is, is China just puffing its chest out.

Did you see what they recently did to their billionaires in China?

No.

They pretty much crippled them. Like, they- All of the tech billionaires, I think they've pretty much just said, you're ours. Like, there's no, you know, all of your companies will- They are Chinese. They will align with Chinese- The Chinese government's intentions and policies and everything.

So, I think, you know, is it Jack Ma that was the creator of Alibaba kind of got too big for his boots and were saying, you know, too many things about how he was going to change the world and everything. And he just disappeared, like he's out there somewhere, but he's obviously been told you need to shut your mouth. And the weird thing was that China went through, and I think they imposed a bunch of restrictions.

I remember seeing these stories. I can't remember the specifics, but they effectively, from what I remember, wiped off billions of dollars of all these companies. So, it seemed like it was an own goal. But from what I understand that they're playing the long game again of, if we just get 100% control of all these companies, they can lose billions of dollars right now, it doesn't matter.

But in the future, we'll do better because we'll have complete control of them. You know, I think- There were a few that were over in America that was setting up businesses there and everything, and they just, yeah, crushed them. So, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in the future business-wise.

Well, there was, you know, Huawei was setting themselves up as a phone company in opposition to Samsung and Apple, and they've gone down the tubes because the Chinese government just said to them, sorry, you can't operate outside China.

Well, you can as long as we have access to everything, right?

Yeah, exactly. That was never going to happen, so.

Yeah. Oh, well. Let's finish up there, dad, and see you guys next time.

Bye.

Alrighty, you mob. Thank you so much for listening to or watching this episode of The Goss'. If you would like to watch the video if you're currently listening to it and not watching it, you can do so on the Aussie English Channel on YouTube. You'll be able to subscribe to that, just search "Aussie English" on YouTube.

And if you are watching this and not listening to it, you can check this episode out also on the Aussie English podcast, which you can find via my free Aussie English podcast application on both Android and iPhone. You can download that for free, or you can find it via any other good podcast app that you've got on your phone. Spotify, Podcasts from iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is.

I'm your host, Pete. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you have a ripper of a day, and I will see you next time. Peace!