On Saturday at my direction.
The United States successfully concluded an airstrike in
Kabul Afghanistan that killed the emir of al Qaeda Ayman al Zawahiri.
He was deeply involved in the planning of 9 11, 1 of the most responsible for
the attacks that murdered 2000, 977 people on american soil for decades.
He was the mastermind behind attacks against americans,
including the bombing of the USs cole in 2000,
which killed 17 american sailors and wounded dozens more.
>> That's right.
The big news on the foreign policy front is that a drone strike that was ordered
by President Joe biden over the weekend killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.
The strike carried out by a CIA operated air force drone occurred on Sunday morning
in Kabul as he was apparently standing outside on the balcony of his house,
which was a habit of his and it ended with his demise.
Apparently that habit was deadly.
The biden administration alleges that he was planning additional attacks
against the United States and allied countries.
Of course that they're saying that we don't have any confirmation of it, but
I'll take their word for
it considering the fact that he was one of the architects of 9 11.
In fact senior White, a senior White House official who spoke to politico said
quote this year, we identified that his family, his wife, his daughter and
her Children relocated to a safe house in Kabul.
We then identified Zawarhiri at the location in Kabul through layering
multiple streams of intelligence and the terrorist leaders habit
again of standing on the balcony allowed the US to observe him and
confirm his identity to hellfire missiles were fired at him.
And apparently according to what they're saying,
he was the only one who was killed in the strike and his family or others around
in the area did not lose their lives as a result of these hellfire strikes.
Now, who was he?
Well, Zawahiri was an Egyptian who took over Al Qaeda after the US killed
its longtime leader, Osama bin laden back in 2011.
A physician, he founded Egyptian Islamic Jihad,
a militant group that merged with Al Qaeda in the late 19 nineties.
He had been indicted for his suspected role in the 1998
bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
So Francesca when this news broke.
I gotta be honest, my first thought was good.
I mean, it's not a bad thing.
It's good that this happened.
So I don't want to take away from that.
But at the same time, there have been many announcements of many
leaders of terrorist groups who have been taken out.
They usually get replaced with another dangerous violent
unsavory individual and the same vicious cycle continues.
And so what's your take on this?
Is this something to celebrate or is this just more of the same
foreign policy that won't really amount to any changes.
>> I mean, it could amount to worse as you're alluding to, right,
who the worst part about a horrible murderous terrorist organization is
when there's a vacuum of power in a murderous terrorist organization.
Let's look at the Narco wars in latin America,
that always happens whenever there is a vacuum of power.
Got someone else vying for that title.
So it could actually be worse to say nothing of the fact that it happened in
Kabul, which United States has left.
And arguably he was there under Taliban protection.
And instead of potentially using the knowledge of his whereabouts or
even his capture, which, yes, would Be more would have been difficult, but
using his capture as some kind of leverage for a country that we left in shambles.
It's a withdrawal.
I was totally on board with.
But now the Taliban is fully back in control.
Women are now being persecuted in the same way they were under Taliban rule
before 2001.
It's like, could we have done something a little bit different here.
And yeah, I think the last thing I'll say is that different thing.
And I've been waiting for the United States to finally fight terrorism.
Not with more terrorism, not with better terrorism, but
with bringing someone to the international community,
bringing someone to the ICC actually having them stand trial.
My first reaction when I heard Zawari was dead was who never heard of him.
No idea.
Had to look it up.
Well, but if he had to stand trial,
then the entire world is exposed to these crimes.
And then he can actually like, you know, be sentenced for them, right?
Rather than a hellfire missile with crazy blades that like sliced him.
It's it's insane.
So that's my question is, when does the United States lead the international
community by being better than terrorists and actually relying on justice?
>> Well, the incentive structure would need to change.
And right now, the incentive structure is all about military contractors and
private, you know,
private defense contractors making a killing through endless wars.
And what you're referring to to, which I hadn't thought of.
That's a really smart commentary.
You're calling for something far more strategic and you're calling for
the international community to be involved in maybe the prosecution of these
terrorist leaders, which I think would be certainly a sea change.
It would be a different way of handling foreign policy,
certainly from what the United States usually engages in.
But I would venture to say that considering the fact that
the United States doesn't really seem to value the International Criminal Court
because of the fact that it doesn't want to, anything you lend, they don't want
to lend any credibility to it because the International Criminal Court wants
to investigate the Israeli government and its human rights abuses.
Right?
So, the idea of the United States legitimizing the I c c by bringing
a terrorist leader to the court for for, you know,
investigation prosecution, what have you is it's just not gonna happen.
There needs to be a lot more reform in the way that we think of foreign policy and
that's going to take a change in the incentive structure that overwhelmingly
benefits private military contractors.
The other thing I wanted to mention is, you know,
this isn't the first time we've heard an announcement from a United States
president about their success in taking out a terrorist leader.
And there's this fantastic video making its rounds on the internet featuring
former President Barack Obama, former President donald trump and
current president joe biden making their announcements.
It's just incredible to watch this juxtaposition.
Let's take a look.
>> The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
>> Abu bakar al Baghdadi is dead.
>> The United States successfully concluded an airstrike in
Kabul Afghanistan that killed the emir of al Qaeda, Ayman Al Zawahiri.
>> Small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and
capability.
>> He died like a dog.
He died like a coward.
>> The mission was a success.
None of his family members were hurt and there were no civilian casualties.
>> Am I a bad guy for laughing at that.
I mean, I just he died like a dog.
He died like a coward.
You guys took him out with an air strike.
I mean, you didn't really have much time to think about whether or
not he wanted to be a coward in that moment.
Just putting that out there but.
>> Yeah, the final moments,
he was a coward as he died from your hellfire missile.
I mean, it also just goes to show the kind of isolationism that Maga believes
in isn't actually isolationism at all.
It's just like kill him dead a million times.
Use more hellfire missiles.
Why don't we use that on?
I don't know.
Democrat polling sites, why don't we use them everywhere?
Like they want more war.
They don't want any kind of negotiation.
But the reality is democrats are not far off from that.
The war hawks are very united in a bipartisan way on all of this.
And I just wanted to say like the example that we could set right,
like if we actually pursued those who harm our country in
a different way could be pretty powerful.
But what is the lesson here for
other people who've had terrorist acts committed in their countries?
It's, I gotta get me a hellfire missile.
Let's sign me up for one of those.
It's not, let's arrest someone, bring them to trial, bring them to justice,
imprison them, etcetera.
And no, no, no.
Give me a hellfire missile.
I want one.
>> Yeah, that's that's a great point.
And I don't think that that's an accident.
I I think that is the lesson that United States lawmakers with
the influence of private defense contractors want to send
they want the international community to arm themselves.
And we certainly see that with the arms that we sell to Saudi Arabia, you know,
it doesn't even matter what kind of authoritarian or
dictatorial regime we're talking about here and it creates less stability.
Geopolitically speaking, we're constantly selling more and
more weaponry, which provokes more tensions in various parts of the world.
We're seeing it with our hostility toward china.
For instance, we're selling record arms to Japan to India.
So these are all things to keep in mind.
You know, we talk about incentive structures on this show a lot.
And so when you're questioning why policy is carried out in this
weird nonsensical way, understand there is a reason for it.
It's actually not nonsensical.
Or yeah, you all you have to do is take a look at where the money is flowing.
And unfortunately as long as we have these defense contractors making money,
weapons manufacturers making money,
we're gonna constantly see this kind of foreign policy carried out.
And now that's not to say that, you know,
a terrorist leader is a good person that we're trying to protect.
He should be brought to justice.
But I do think it sends the wrong message that, you know,
the United States can just do airstrikes on a sovereign country in order to take
out whoever they want to take out.
And that's the other lesson that I'll end on this Francesca,
that I feel like lawmakers and
you know foreign policy experts are learning from what happened here.
Turns out we don't need boots on the ground to take out these individuals.
We can just do these airstrikes.
And so that opens up the opportunity I guess for
the United States to be involved in many other countries
in ways that it really should not, in my opinion be involved in.
>> Yeah and on TVD, in terms of the blowback and what's going to happen
now that al Zawari is dead right, things could get a lot worse.
Who knows?
There might be the plans that were so called in the works.
You think those have been called off now that Safari is dead?
I don't know.
>> Yeah that's a really great point.
So we'll see.
We'll stay on the story.
If anything new develops.