Episode Transcript
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doing our part, the
0:30
Armstrong and Getty show. Well.
0:37
There have often been discussions about
0:39
war at Kept David. There have been discussions about
0:41
peace there as well. Then some pretty bad
0:44
actors traveled through that place throughout
0:46
recorded history. What
0:48
was Mike Pompeo talking about? Well? Donald Trump
0:50
tweeted about it over the weekend. Unbeknowns to
0:52
almost everyone, the major Tally band leaders
0:54
and separately, the president of Afghanistan. We're
0:57
going to secretly meet with me at Camp
0:59
David on Sunday. They were coming
1:01
to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order
1:03
to build false leverage, they
1:05
admitted to an attack in Kabul that
1:07
killed one of our great soldiers. I
1:10
immediately canceled the meeting and called off peace
1:12
negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in
1:14
orders seemingly strengthen their bargaining position.
1:17
They didn't. They only made things worse.
1:19
I have so many questions, And
1:22
since neither Donald J. Trumper nor Mike
1:24
Pompeio was available, our third choice
1:26
was the fabulous my clients military analyst
1:28
for CBS News, and Mike that was that's
1:31
a strange introduction, I realized. But when I am
1:33
president, you will be my secretary of Defense.
1:35
Does that make you feel better? That makes me feel
1:37
great? Perfect. It's great to be back on with an excellent
1:40
excellent, So listen, Uh,
1:42
why don't we get your thoughts overall on
1:45
hearing about the secret negotiations
1:47
that were aborted? What was your reaction? So
1:50
so, initially, it's classic Donald Trump,
1:52
okay, in that he wants
1:54
to create a photo op, he wants to create an opportunity.
1:57
He's got the mentality of Jimmy Carter and
1:59
Arab Fat at Camp David, you know, the
2:01
accords and all that stuff, and that's his mentality.
2:04
And he struck a nerve with this not
2:06
eleven generation of like, how dare we bring
2:08
these terrorists to Camp David? I think that's one
2:10
thing that came out of it. But so he
2:12
finally gets talked out of this, I think by Mike Pompeo
2:15
who says, look, we're not going to get any kind of deal
2:17
here that's going to have any teeth, and in
2:19
classic transaction based Donald
2:21
Trump mentality form of what i'll call fill
2:23
er kill, is going to fill the requirement. If it works
2:26
or not, he just kills it. He sends a tweet out,
2:28
and all of the work that was done in the back,
2:31
you know, for the past few months, is now gone
2:33
and they have to reset everything. But it
2:36
was the right move. But again,
2:38
the way he conducts foreign policy is
2:40
just something like we've never seen before. Okay,
2:43
that explains my question because to say we
2:45
we can't negotiate with these people they killed one of
2:47
our guys, while Mike Pompeios on the talk shows
2:49
saying, listen, we've killed a thousand Taliban
2:51
in the last ten days. So
2:53
that explanation just didn't really make sense to me. Okay,
2:56
I get it, I get and
2:58
I think I think, um, we've
3:00
been getting indications from the past week's secretary
3:02
espimate a comment about, hey, we're gonna walk away from a
3:04
bad deal. We're we're coming to realize that.
3:07
You know, we were looking for historical analogies,
3:09
right, and we looked at that's in Fain
3:11
when they were negotiating with the British with
3:13
the IRA. The bottom line is they had a very
3:15
direct connection to the military arm of the IRA
3:18
because the money flowed through the political arm
3:20
to the military arm, and once that
3:22
stopped, if you can negotiate with that political arm,
3:25
you could get a real cease fire. Well,
3:27
we're discovering that the people were talking
3:29
to at the Taliban have no control
3:31
over the tribe that runs the military arm. They
3:33
do whatever they want to do, and it's you know,
3:36
the spirit hydra, fifteen different heads, whatever
3:38
you want to call it. The bottom line is there's
3:40
a disconnect there. So we're gonna negotiate
3:42
with somebody that's not capable of enforcing the deal.
3:44
And I think we're starting to realize that now. But from the
3:46
standpoint of just being there.
3:48
Pompeo is making the argument on the shows
3:51
yesterday, Look, there's all kinds of places around
3:53
the world where we've got problems
3:55
with terrorists that are you
3:57
know, trying to come up with a plan to attack the United States,
3:59
not just Afghanistan. So
4:02
his point is, I think what
4:04
he was trying to say, why why are we putting so much emphasis
4:06
on this particular little stretch of crappy
4:08
land. Well, I think because
4:11
the President did make a campaign promise to get
4:13
us out of there. But I think he needs to
4:15
repivot this whole thing. And you've got again the nine
4:17
eleven generation who thinks to fighting an
4:19
endless war and they
4:21
want out. They want to say that this is enough, we just
4:23
want to leave there. The bottom line
4:25
is, you know what we're doing Afghanistan.
4:28
It's similar to what we did at the end of the Second World WARLD. We kept
4:30
troops in Europe for fifty five years. We've have
4:32
troops in South Korea since the end of that conflict
4:35
as well, and we should
4:37
not look to actually leave Afghanistan. That's the
4:39
President needs to kind of pivot back to the
4:41
fact that we could keep sevent troops
4:44
in Afghanistan and still get all the things
4:46
we need to accomplished militarily that we
4:48
did when we kept a hunt at the thousand troops there. So this
4:50
is actually a bargain. This is actually a good thing. It's something
4:52
that the military can do. And
4:55
I think that's what Pompeo is trying to shift the attitude
4:57
too, because Trump again going back to the third kill mentality,
5:00
he knows that if he doesn't get the troops out, well,
5:02
all the political enemies of his are going to hit him over the head
5:04
with the fact that he didn't do that. And he's now back
5:06
to where the same troop level he
5:08
wants is what Obama did when he left
5:10
office in two thousands sixteen. Now
5:13
there are any Nazis attacking American soldiers
5:15
in nineteen sixty twenty years later
5:17
though, yeah, well yeah, And
5:20
I think that the United States has got to
5:22
take this role of this kind
5:24
of mission, maybe as a leader
5:26
of NATO, in order to have these wars
5:28
eight time zones from where you Where do you want to fight these people?
5:31
You want to find them in the streets in New York City, you want to fight them
5:33
in Kabul? And I think the
5:35
projection is, let's fight to make time zones from here.
5:38
So, just to finish this discussion,
5:41
if you were advocating that point of view or Trump
5:44
were, should he say something
5:46
like, listen, every one of our guys
5:48
who dies is a tragedy and is injured
5:50
and it's terrible and we're seeking to prevent it,
5:53
but it's not really more than die
5:55
in a big city police force. Yeah.
5:58
Yeah, it's exactly the analogy. And that's
6:00
exactly right. And the fact that he
6:02
should say we're winning an Afghanistan because
6:05
we don't have to keep a hundred thousand troops there that
6:07
we have trained troops
6:09
to the Afghan security forces are getting better every day,
6:12
and maybe we'll get it down to five thousand, but the bottom
6:14
line is based on the strategic weapons
6:16
we can always bring to the table and the amount of
6:18
troops that we have, they're unlike anytime else in warfare.
6:21
I think we had a conversation once about how
6:23
fifteen hundred troops in Syria can control
6:25
everything that's going on there. We used to
6:27
have to send twenty thousand troops anyplace fifty
6:30
thou in order to get anything done, but nowadays
6:32
we don't have to. We don't have to do that. And I think
6:35
he's got to re educate the population
6:37
about how we do this, and and politically
6:40
it's not going to go well for him because again the Democrats
6:42
are gonna say, oh no, you say we're all coming out,
6:45
you know, peace, love and the grateful dead, and you know
6:47
everything's gonna be great. But but no, this is
6:49
the kind of new way that the military I
6:51
think needs to position these kinds of
6:53
these kinds of depens interesting military analysts.
6:55
Mike Lions on the line, Mike, have you gotten a chance to
6:57
take a glance at the d i as new
7:00
unclassified report on the Chinese military?
7:03
A little bit? I could tell you that
7:06
their missile program is something that we've got to be
7:08
real concerned about. And the
7:11
thing is, you know, they're they're not We're
7:13
gonna be swapping ordinance I think soon in the Pacific
7:16
Ocean. I mean, they're gonna they're gonna go after
7:18
our our carriers, and we're
7:20
gonna have, you know, got a nine eleven decision, Because
7:22
you take out one of those carriers and you kill five thousand
7:25
sailors, you know what's going to be our
7:27
response that they they have looked at nine
7:29
O eleven, and they looked at what happened in Desert
7:31
Storm, and they looked at the fact that the United States can
7:33
bring command and control of literally
7:36
everything and every tool in the toolbox to
7:38
the battlefield and they're gonna
7:40
try to get out in front of that. And you
7:42
know, I think the Navy is preparing for the Navy,
7:44
I think is going to be leading our country in the
7:46
next twenty to fifty years and projecting
7:48
power against what's going to be at Chinese
7:50
military that's going to continue to try to
7:53
grow and and expand its capability.
7:55
So do you think is some sort of punch in the nose
7:57
is imminent? Then it sounded like your
7:59
lane in that way, you know imminent is
8:02
um imminent? Is maybe
8:04
too close? I think that we're
8:07
getting to the point where the amount
8:09
of ordinance that they have on those ay tolls
8:11
there that you know, that they built up as opposed to putting
8:13
you know, condos on them. Um, the
8:15
missiles that they have there were now getting to
8:17
the point where they could make a mistake and may
8:19
they might not hit a U S cruiser or destroyer,
8:22
they might hit something else, but they're looking
8:24
to instimidate those shipping lanes that are taking place in the
8:26
South China see and um, yeah,
8:28
I think we're getting to the point where you could have
8:30
you know, Cuban missile type of crisis mistake if
8:33
we don't figure out a way to to
8:35
respond back or open up the dialogue with
8:37
what's what they're doing there? May you live in interesting
8:39
times? Mike clients military analysts for CBS
8:41
News. Mike, always a pleasure. Thank you, great
8:44
guy. Thanks from me. Yeah, so I haven't read it. I've
8:46
just seen the headlines. But what, well, what are
8:48
the headlines. Well, that China's
8:51
China's military is a near peer
8:53
of the United States in a lot of capabilities.
8:56
Their missile programs, Mike said, is
8:59
leaping for word. We still
9:01
own the seas um
9:03
to a large extent. But you know, my
9:05
my brother's active duty in the navy,
9:07
and and you know, I've known many
9:09
sailors. And if if
9:12
you blast a ship out of the water,
9:14
many people die. It's
9:17
unless you're you know, firing off warning shots,
9:19
and it's that posturing thing a naval
9:21
attack. People die. And
9:26
I'm just I'm thinking over what Mike
9:28
said and how poligerent China has been about
9:30
building these little islands in the South China Sea
9:32
and then arming them and turning them in a military
9:35
basis, and and they're gonna want to flex their muscles
9:37
soon or later. Um. The other thing they
9:39
said is that cyber wise, it's difficult
9:41
to say who's ahead, but both of
9:43
us are are cyber superpowers, and
9:45
China may well be ad um,
9:49
but oh they're They're spending
9:51
more on the military than anybody
9:54
on Earth except the United States and are are
9:56
growing it by leaps and bounds. It's a huge
9:58
priority. So yeah,
10:00
yeah, although you know, if there's
10:02
one kind of softening
10:05
note a couple of experts I was listening
10:07
to her pointing out that it's very different
10:09
from the Cold War because we had very
10:12
very little relationship with the Soviet Union.
10:14
We didn't have trillions of dollars in trade
10:17
and and and billions and billions
10:19
of dollars in tourism and and thousands
10:21
of students going back and forth to each
10:23
other's countries. That's That's
10:25
not to say that's going to prevent anything ugly
10:28
from happening, but it is different. It's the through
10:30
Clidean trap. I was afraid
10:32
of that for many, many thousands
10:34
of years, an established
10:36
power and arising power almost
10:38
always go to war, like nine
10:40
out of ten times. Eventually.
10:43
Yeah, I once accidentally caught a
10:45
skunk in my through Clidean trap, and I didn't
10:48
know what to do. Mike Lyons. Saying we in
10:50
China will be swapping ordinance at some
10:52
point is frightening.
10:54
Will you talk about rattling the markets? Yeah?
10:58
Yeah, well you've seen what's happened in the Persian Gulf,
11:01
various warning shots. And how about Russia
11:03
buzzing? Our fighters are our our our
11:05
boats? Yeah well let's hope not. But
11:08
you know, world keeps
11:10
spinning. Are
11:13
strong and getty.
11:16
When you're ready to ride Metro, we want
11:18
you to know we're ready for you. Here
11:20
are just a few of the people at Metro to tell
11:22
you how we're doing our part to keep riders
11:24
safe. We're cleaning like noble before.
11:27
We half builded greatly. You've
11:29
found half sanitizing stations. No
11:32
mask, no Metro need
11:34
one. We have a few extras at Metro.
11:37
We're doing our part to keep the DC area
11:39
moving. Find out more at wilmata dot com
11:41
slash doing our part
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