Former Navy SEAL and Bestselling Author Jack Carr on Afghanistan
CLAY: We are joined now by Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL sniper and task unit commander who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Jack, we appreciate you joining us and all your service, and I know this has been a tough week for many people both in uniform and out of uniform. I want to start with this question for you. When you saw the report that we had turned over the names of American allies in Afghanistan to the Taliban, your reaction was what?
CARR: Well, it was another in a long list of errors that is going to impact those on the front lines, and not so much those from temperature-controlled offices in the Pentagon or in and around Washington, D.C. We just handed over the names of U.S. citizens, maybe some people that helped us over the last 20 years to the enemy that we’ve been engaged with on the battlefield for those 20 years, and then we’re asking them permission if it’s okay to get those people out?
They get to decide whether they can let these people through to an airport as we try to evacuate them in a way that is obviously a disaster? And once again, it’s those front line E-1s, E-2s, E-6s, O1s, O2s, those junior-level officers that enlisted that are out there in the meat grinder making the best of a chaotic, violent, dynamic, fluid situation, just like they have for the last 20 years. So, I would like to say that I was surprised by that. But, unfortunately, looking at the last 20 years as my guide, it is not that shocking. It’s just heartbreaking, devastating, unfortunate.
BUCK: Jack, it’s Buck. I want to know what you think we — the United States government/military — could do to try to enhance the security situation on the ground, because all we’ve really heard from the Biden administration is essentially, “We’re residential on the Taliban, and it’s in their interest — it’s in the Taliban’s interests — to prevent this from happening again.”
It’s already happened once. Obviously, everyone hearing that is thinking to themselves, “Well, that’s a horrible situation to be in. That’s not something that makes us feel good.” Do you see a way to at least make that situation a little bit less high risk for the Americans and SIV holders and others who are either trying to or have gotten into Kabul international airport?
CARR: Yes. We saw that same sentiment echoed by the CENTCOM commander yesterday, talking about it being in the Taliban’s best interests to let these people through, to put people through security screenings. But if you’ve seen any of these pictures like we all have coming in… I mean, you’re seeing these people crowding the gates. You’re seeing them standing in sewage.
You’re seeing the babies handed over the walls to Marines that are manning those barriers. It’s just chaos down there. And even when we had very robust security measures in place at a lot of our bases in Afghanistan and in Iraq, you would see these cars come in, you would see people come in, and that’s a tough thing to do even for our soldiers to check out who has an S-Vest on.
“That truck coming in, it looks like that suspension is a little heavy. Do I shoot? Do I not? What’s going on?” I mean, it’s tough for us who have protocols in place, we have ROEs in place who are trained up, and now we’re relying on the Taliban, our enemy, to not let other terrorist groups, warlords, somebody looking to take a shot to blow something up?
Should they be able to get a little street cred by saying, “Hey, we kicked the Americans out of Afghanistan just like they did with the Soviets and with the British way before that”? So there are definitely things we can do. I mean, look at how much we have invested in our military since the end of World War II up to today, and then look at what we’re doing. Look at who we are relying on.
Once again, it’s that rifleman, it’s that Marine down there holding that M4 that is standing the guard, standing the watch, holding the line once again. With all those assets that American military has at its disposal, not in country. Air power, out of there. Intelligence apparatus, dismantled, allowing the enemy to get right up close.
No standoff between that front line soldier and the person who might be wearing that S-Vest in a crazy, dynamic situation. So there are definitely things that could be done both tactically and strategically. But unfortunately, it looks like we are just focused on this August 31st date and try to scramble out of there as fast as we possibly can. It’s a dark day for America.
CLAY: There’s no doubt about that, Jack. Question for you. We talked yesterday, and it seems like there’s a clarity here that we are going to leave some Americans behind in Afghanistan. What do you think the chances are that we end up with some form of hostage-like situation after our troops are already off the ground and out of the country and we may have to send people back in, as you assess the situation on the ground right now?
CARR: Yeah, it’s a good question, and maybe it does fall back to whose best interests is it to have the United States either in or out of that country? So with the Taliban in charge running the country, different warring factions in the mix, there are terrorists organization in the mix there. Who is to benefit from holding on to these Americans and a lot, not eventually allowing them safe passage out of the country?
Or how can they spin this into an advantageous public relations campaign of which they have proven themselves to be much better at than our public affairs officers in the military? So, it’s certainly a high probability that they could be used as bargaining chips for something else that’s the Taliban or one of these warring factions or terrorist groups wants; or it’s also possible that they just leave the country via other means later.
But it’s certainly a possibility that they could be taken hostage and be used as bargaining chips going forward. The point being they should never be in that position to begin with. Once — they shouldn’t have been. As everything started to deteriorate, we should have hit these noncombatant evacuation plans and a gone in, figured out where everybody was, brought them to a strategically advantageous point, not giving those points up and consolidating our forces at Kabul.
But once we’re in that position, now it’s time to not leave these Americans behind. That’s the last thing we can do to salvage some vestige of our dignity is to go out, crush the enemy, get all our citizens out, and, you know what? Then reevaluate and hold people accountable, both in the military and bureaucrats, elected officials who… This has been like a slow-motion train wreck —
BUCK: I want to jump in on that, Jack —
CARR: — the last 20 years, and the last couple weeks.
BUCK: — sorry, Jack — about the accountability question, though. I think this is critical. We’ve had friends like former Army Ranger 10th Mountain, Sean Parnell, on to talk about the boots-versus-the-suits paradigm here —
CARR: Mmm-hmm.
BUCK: — that this wasn’t about what was done tactically on the ground during the war we’re talking right now. This is about decisions from the top on down. And they’ve been catastrophic in recent weeks, recent months. We’ve all seen that. For everyone, we’re speaking to Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL and author of The Terminal List Series, which you should all check. Excellent, excellent series of novels. The Devil’s Hand is his latest.
Jack, here is General Milley. This was in June during a hearing on Capitol Hill. The issue of Bagram air base, which many people who watch this closely say was among the most inexcusably stupid decisions made to just sort of say, “Yeah, we’re gonna give up Bagram.” Here’s what General Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in June.
MILLEY: (sputtering) So uh, uh, uh, a couple of quick comments here, uh, on Bagram. Bagram, ummm is not necessary tactically, operationally forward we’re gonna try to do here with Afghanistan. Uhhhh, consolidate on, uhh, uhh, Kabul, ummm, with — in support of their government.
BUCK: Not necessary, Jack. Consolidate on Kabul. Well, we did that and now we see what happened.
CARR: Yeah. There’s a difference between confidence and competence. And we’ve seen these generals get up for the last 20 years in front of Congress with their uniforms on, the stars on their shoulder boards with the medals on their chest and being very confident about, “We just need so many more troops, so many more resources, so much more funding,” whatever it might be, “We’re about to hit our goals.”
That sounds very confident. But competence is lacking. And as you know, we talk about assets and liabilities, whether that’s in the military, that’s in intelligence circumstances that’s in business on with your family. Who’s an asset and who is a liability, and it seems like these senior level military leaders and our elected officials and bureaucrats are falling into this liability category.
For whatever reason, but we’ve had 20 years to look back on to evaluate their performance, and they continue to be promoted up the chain of command and then work after they get out with full pension on the boards of these companies that are attached very directly to the defense industry, and we’re gonna see that again in this case.
But he sounded very confident in that, but was that a competent decision? We’re gonna go back and look at it, of course, but it doesn’t seem like giving up that base made sense. And for those who have been downrange in combat, you always want to improve your fighting position. And you can do that strategically. You can do that tactically.
And it seems like we did not do that in this point. In fact, we did the exact opposite of improving our fighting position. We made it weaker at a time when we did not have all our citizens accounted for or out of the country. So it seems like we did things backwards and we almost did this in a way… We couldn’t have done this worse had we been actively trying to do it the worst way we possibly could.
CLAY: Jack, last question for you. And we Appreciate your time. Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL. He’s done incredible work. I encourage you to check out his books as well. Reports now that maybe another terror attack is imminent. That’s basically what has been told to Joe Biden. We heard that right before this attack that killed, it appears, over 200 people, including 13 American soldiers. How can we stop, if at all, another terror attack from happening before we get our troops out of that country?
CARR: Right. So, the enemy now has seen a successful attack. Yeah, they can try to do the same thing again. But usually what they’ll do is morph it a tiny bit, adapt, which they have proven a lot better being adaptive than we are. They do it a little quicker than us because they’re not a huge bureaucracy like we are. They’re operating in small cells. They can make those adjustments very quickly.
So I would not be surprised if we saw something because, as we know over there, these war leaders, terrorist organizations, they’re gonna want to be able to say that, “Hey, we were the ones that got those final shots off. We kicked the Americans out of Afghanistan.” So I see that as something that is a probability just because of that culture over there, who we’re dealing with, and what we’ve given them to work with which is an awful lot.
So obviously more standoffs between or Marines, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and those crowds is of vital important right now, not allowing those suicide bombers to get close. That’s just basic. You don’t need to be a student of military history or a military tactician to figure all this out. All you need to is a little bit of common sense, and that common sense is severely lacking at our senior level leaders’ levels.
And one more thing I wanted to say, point out is that the President’s Daily Brief is something that obviously one of the most highly classified documents in Washington, in the world. After this, we are going to need to see what was in those briefs leading up to this disaster. I think Obama declassified different President’s Daily Briefs from the Kennedy administration, from Nixon, from Ford administration. We had one page in August of 2001 that was declassified by the Bush administration. We need to see these President’s Daily Briefs leading up to this event, and we need to hold people accountable.
BUCK: Former Navy SEAL Jack Carr. Go check out OfficialJackCarr.com to get some of his excellent novels, which I believe are in progress, being be made into some fantastic series on TV or movie. Jack, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
CARR: Thanks for having me, and thanks for all you do.
