general stanley mud crystal is on the line with us for an actor retired united
states army general former commander of the international security assistance
force and commander of the united states forces in afghanistan
he has a new book out it's called
my share of the task
his website mcc resto groups dot com slash my share general welcome to the
program
complicated thanks for joining us but
i spoke with uh...
a couple years ago the suspect
three four
maybe five years ago in new york city at a talk radio convention i spoke with one
of the generals who is operating out of this dennis tan
and sartre briefly i was on a panel i was walking out through the hall and and
shook hands and and ask one question
an iphone
what in retrospect it was you were you at that convention
i would not come okay
that this is the solar spoke with on what he thought
bahala hollow atkinson's and resolve itself it he said one thing i know for
sure is that we can't kill our way out of afghanistan
what are your thoughts on that come in
when i get that playwright at the end of the day
uh... accurate and they're going to be decided in the minds of etc and
to get a little history the soviet union
fought therefore from nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty nine and one
point two million afghans were killed
adult population of about twenty four twenty
uh...
you you don't
in this kind of war it's not like conventional war war war two we get
crush the enemy what you do if you could benefit people
uh... which side they're going to back it like a argument
between two sides and that the people decide which is most convincing
well and apropos of that uh... right after nine eleven
when the taliban and this was in the washington post the taliban uh...
explicitly offered to arrest osama bin laden and turning them over to a third
nation for trial they wouldn't send a message that they would senator third
nation
for trial
uh... drizzly bush said no thank you and began bombing afghanistan
afghanistan at that point i'm had a g_d_p_ of to billion dollars a year
we we sixty-first cbs then that there that it'd in a week or so
would never solicited cheaper to take bin laden and put him on trial someplace
and give afghanistan
enough fifty billion a hundred billion and give them like five or ten years
with the g_d_p_ and say here build yourself the country have a good time
i think all we do you're not quite
limited to fight and all we need less expensive
uh... i don't believe your with that being a credible
offered to give up the video or to stop harbory calcutta i think there was a
point there were reactor you get
on in fact the
mechanism the leadership that had actually because of the nine eleven
attacked emanate
uh... from that team
needed to be stopped so i think that was a there's a reasonable requirement to
have protected america by
bringing outcry that to a point where they could uh... good press kit that can
protect
your your book
the apple on
to your book
i thought was particular poignant and begins with us at the quote from samuel
taylor tolerance from the rhyme of the ancient mariner
this is uh... he went like one
that has been stunned anissa cents for lauren
a saturn a wiser man heroes the morrow morn
is that you
two-degree lactic backlash uh... verse from
of kuwait should b
you learn from everything you do in life
and when i decided to write my share of the past
i thought about heart of the raleigh experiences i've had in the context
to include the end of my
career when i when the president accepted my resignation and at the end
of the day
intimacy by looking at that
the epilogue it brought about leadership and that was my experience
you know that think that happened to you have a little controversy the people
that
you know you may like or not like they don't book on very important when you
really captured the history of your life
we explored every product i was like a three-story rapid leadership
and
trying to communicate committee amazing service to people that i got to be a
long time in some of the big ideas
and i experience over so many years
so little thing
don't make so much different
but you do learn from all along
and and i learned from them
well apropos that when rolling stone ran the uh... the article in in which some
of your officers were
speaking
derisively repetitively if the president
that led to your resignation
uh... in retrospect is they would have been better to push back and say no
that's not me
you know i bought a lot about that arm
in fact there was an inspector general report department fantastic came up so
much later that took a very different view of the conclusions of the article
then
that the article portrayed
but at the time
there were several things at work first we were in that
process for the difficult part of the operation against and that had to be
most important
checking in
obama is trying to lead a nation commander in chief of one of the things
one of his subordinate commanders b
should try to do is prevent controversies
from making his job more complicated now whether i think that article was fair or
not
it could put the controversy in right in front of the president that he's got to
deal with
so i thought it was my responsibility to offer my resignation and accept
responsibility whether i thought
the article was was particularly uh... fair depiction of now well and happy
cause that kind of you know it's reflecting poorly on the administration
is getting back to the administration it's turned into a tabloid story general
betrays
that enough on himself in a very very different situation from you
but in the c_n_n_ other general have apparently characterize
the situation as being that there are general groupies out there and are there
g groupies who follow generals around
well i didn't have any so uh...
antonio on that
request will so little
part do do
uh... on carries you thoughts about
uh... the elite
kill squads that we've
hurts so much about
when we were
particularly the roger yes in iraqis we took a force that past four seven one
board in my book what i'd do without i really lay out how the entire task force
maturity became incredibly effective force
uh...
that did up to three hundred race tomorrow
i didn't have that night
again a
growing al-qaeda in iraq
network and led by having to stop dot sarkar with his network which
extraordinarily
bloodthirsty an extraordinarily legal killing iraqi civilians by the thousands
so we we had to build a network to defeat at the park testified entirely
different than we ever had before really to be information centric
to be an intelligent based organization as opposed to other they were killed
watch what they were was we had
team that went out always
with the effort to capture because we wanted to get information
but we need to dismantle
network that was our
house our car we had created and was content to be growing
uh... accelerated by seven outside pressures as well
as the as a military man does it end
binoy a long tradition in the military in your family as well and and i'm sure
you're
knowledge of the
the history of the military in united states the the founders been so wary of
the standing army that they require
reauthorization for two years only for the army not for anything else in perth
uh... does it
does it concern you that in nine
military branch
of the executive branch the c_i_a_
is uh... using drones to conduct extra judicial killings
uh... inside countries with whom we are not at war
drawn strikes
but the way okay better peppers say that use of the we call monday they repeated
calls by the predator
or extraordinarily important they provide the information they allow you
to watch things you could watch and i do have a strike capability
i think they're unnecessary poor of
the
the tools that united state should have been used effectively now at the same
time i would say we need to be very very cognizant
pepper everything you do there is a reaction to it
when you shoot
anything
uh... but now it's become focused on growing inane
orentreich report even in a country where you are operating
it how it perceived by the people matters a lot
i need to describe to people
in nineteen ninety eight with president clinton make a decision to launched
tomahawk shanti sedan
apart that give a damn
in responding to our predicate act on the embassy
in the east africa
if you'd asked an american the next morning whether or not we were at war
most americans with no governor war
british option tomahawk
if you ask
someone in the vicinity of those tomahawk strikes
whether they were at war with united state they might have a different
perspective
yeah and i think it's important to understand that because help people he
was in the world determine how they act
well it's justice mexico decided that there
partner kal
problem was to senate drawn over phoenix and take a house full of mexican
bad guys
uh... figures i would react very well or america for them
i think that berksten whether or not there's whitewater again court target
we would probably be
you know unhappy with him
it seems that there's a lot of that going on the world
uh... server
precious time on this but uh... pot
hi i just want to say i found this uh... a fascinating
book my show we're talking the general stamina crystal u_s_ army retired my
share of the task
in memoirs titles book the uh... website is crystal mc c_ h_ r_ y_ crystal group
look crystal group dot com slash my share thank you for writing this book
and thank you for being with us compact take it this week