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We're not done thrashing the Afghanistan disgrace, so we coaxed Michael Anton (the Power Line podcast's most frequent guest it turns out) to join us for a few quaffs. We use three of his recent articles to launch our discussion, starting with "Afghanistan: Doomed from the Start." But we use a section from the middle of this essay, on the blunders of our advisers in the Middle East who don't understand our own Constitution but presumed to advise Iraq and Afghanistan about how to write theirs, to pivot to the crisis here at home.
Along the way, though, Michael has been having some very polite arguments with some of the leading "Paleoconservatives," who for various reasons didn't like President Trump's 1776 Commission that was set up in explicit opposition to the pernicious 1619 Project. From there we have a vigorous argument amongst ourselves about how to think about—and more importantly argue in public about—the place of equality in America, deriving from the famous phrase "All men are created equal." (The two Anton articles that bear on this are "Could the Founders Have Done Better?", and "Getting Right with the Founders.")
And then at the end, we ask Michael when we can expect him to start a full fledged cooking channel on YouTube, since he recently did a boffo sample on preparing a lamb demi-glace, which naturally led to an argument about . . . lamb. Seriously. (Guess what: Lucretia is agin' it. It figures, doesn't it?) So for listeners who bear with us all the way through to the end, I have some fitting exit music, though not everyone will get it.
Hosted by Steve Hayward, with guests "Lucretia" and MAMichael Anton
Discussion (15)
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This book says the same thing about screwing up Tora Bora. The author was a successful CIA commander in Afghanistan and he was in complete shock that they didn't have the Rangers set up a blocking position and then just bomb the crap out of Tora Bora. They were down to 200 guys at that point. The other thing is the Taliban that went into Pakistan were the types that wanted to promote world domination. The ones that stayed in Afghanistan just wanted to live in the seventh century.
It would have been a big help to kill all of those guys right there.
Really good book.
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I really wish Lucretia would let the guest speak. You shouldnt just steamroll your guest in the way she does repeatedly. You invite them on to let them talk.
Its interviewing 101.
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Apparently Bush didnt send in the Ranger battalions cause he didnt want to escalate the war at that point.
Laughable as that now seems.
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I thought it was Tommy Franks. It's so unfortunate. All these guys understand is ruthlessness and force. It would've wiped out their nerve center totally.
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I forget where I heard this, but we should have put up multiple blocking positions or fronts all the way into Pakistan. I heard somebody talking about it recently.
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