Retired General On Afghanistan: ‘Have To Demand Dissenting Opinions Get Sunlight’

Retired Gen. Ben Hodges discusses what we got wrong with Afghanistan and says, "there is a tendency to suppress, bury, kill assessments that are contrary to the prevailing narrative of any administration. … We have to demand that dissenting opinions get sunlight."
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62 comments

    1. @maria schultz what year did you attend the War College? Or do you make it a habit to speak ill of what you may know little.

  1. Everyone is ready to blame Biden, do they think they could’ve done better?! Really?! Easy to say when you don’t know the whole story and you’re sitting there making judgements! Afghanistan had 20 years to learn how to defend themselves, so why didn’t they? We weren’t in there to fight their civil war! Would you throw your weapons down if we were invaded by an enemy? I feel sorry for them but they should have done something for themselves! Anything would’ve been better than nothing!

    1. I think a lot of people would have done a better job. You can’t tell me that Obama, Hillary, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, or John Kerry would have pulled out troops BEFORE evacuating citizens and not guarded our embassy or the airport. They wouldn’t have abandoned Bagram Air Base when we needed it the most either.

    2. @Reason it’s nonsense for you to dream another 20 or in ending more years to be there. More Americans lives lost in future in Afghanistan. Are you runaway ANA ?

    3. @Kathryn Elizabeth: Biden EXTENDED the time frame from May 1st to Sept 11th then moved it back again to August 31st. He wasn’t bound by Trump’s time frame.

    1. @Lee Don’t really know if any other presidents could have done any better.. 20 years in Afghanistan with everything to be considered, I think the Biden administration and especially the military has done a great job under the tremendous stress put upon them. It wasn’t Biden’s war..he just had the guts to carry out the empty promises through! Thank you~
      Now let’s put all those money that will be left over to domestic problems here in our backyard!~🙏👍👏

    2. @Muthafucka Jones are you on the moon half the time or you just screwing with me. Look up Iran’s retaliation for Solemeini. Then the attack by taliban at a deli American troops frequented.
      As usual you’ve been fed lies. 11 troops died in 2020 . 4 to war violence. Roadside bomb ECT.. I get mad and feel embarrassed for the way fox and right-wing media makes you look so clueless. Actually their lies keep you clueless.
      He set a red line for Iran. Then he bitched up when Iran retaliated for Solemeini. He lied the next morning. Said there was no casualties from the 16 ballistic missiles ayatollah Khomeini dropped on our troops. Over 100 troops suffered varying degrees of traumatic brain injury.
      Why was a red line you say Obama set on Syria over bombing their own people with chemical weapons worse than t setting a red line concerning American troops and not only doing nothing but lying so you didn’t know he let the red line be crossed.
      If you’ve never seen what the family of some Wounded Warriors with TBI go through, Google it before you’re a wise azz.
      A few went on the news to tell him what a TBI patient suffers.
      How come you don’t remember that.

    3. @Muthafucka Jones there’s 5 Senate intel reports all saying Russia interfered for trumputin.
      Read the email header jr released that said Russia gave dirt on Hillary to show support for t
      That letter alone is collusion.
      Remember when Horowitz was gonna lock Obama up then he didn’t. He said there was no spying on t’s campaign. Said there was mistakes made with the FISA warrants but they would have been granted anyway.
      That’s probably due to the 140 contacts between t’s campaign and Russians.
      We routinely spy on Russian diplomats in America. T’s campaign got caught 140 times.
      That’s partly why the judge publicly called barr a liar over the lies he put out about the Mueller report.
      To top all that off your strange orange god gave Russians highly sensitive classified intelligence in the oval office. The source was so sensitive we didn’t share it with all our allies.
      We had to pull a deeply imbedded spy from the Kremlin with t in the oval.
      You don’t know what you’re talking about. Use Google and your critical thinking skills please

    4. @Edward Riley There are no senate intel reports supporting anything you just said. And I am now realizing I am talking to someone who is not well. You are living in an alternate universe where cnn is the arbiter of truth. Now the tds is making sense. Good luck on your recovery.

  2. The Afghans had 20 years to get their crap together. The moment they were given the ultimate responsibility of defending their country they ran for the nearest airport. Blaming Biden for that makes no sense.

  3. There was a time when Generals led like Napoleon and Alexander the Great and not like this retired armchair general.

    1. No Melania, he’s a real retired General.
      “Armchair general” [DEFINITION] (Google) “is a derogatory term for a person who regards themselves as an expert on military matters,👉 despite having little to no actual experience ..”

  4. The fact of the matter is, we brought a “Democratic Republic” to Afghanistan and they didn’t want it.
    BTW – Republicans don’t seem to want it, either.

    1. @maria schultz Yeah we want you to stop killing people with your viral load. You do not have the right to murder people for “freedom”. You bend over for TSA, you smoke outside, you drink inside, you wear a seatbelt. You are lost.

    2. @maria schultz
      Just stating facts . . .,
      Didn’t say anything about being a socialist or denying services to anyone. Your imagination is running amok.

    3. @i dont have time 2 reply …Because no one bothers to THINK that every Military and National Security Adviser, including MIKE POMPEO assured t’Rump and Biden that the Afghass Army could provide Security.

    1. @thegags probably hard to fight when the lord high commander pulls your air support and intelligence. After 20 years of training them to fight with that like Americans do

    1. President Trump initiated the withdrawal of our troops from the war Biden voted for and prolonged under Obama as VP

    2. @i dont have time 2 reply _”Trump initiated the withdrawal of our troops from the war”_
      DumbDonald couldn’t get the job done.

    3. @i dont have time 2 reply
      The only thing ex-president Trump did was surrender to the Taliban, release Taliban and ISIS prisoners, close military bases and left behind the military equipment. He didn’t even begin to evacuate civilians or military personnel.

    4. @Jesus Says No it is fair to say that Trump was the lone voice in the wilderness at the time wanting to end hat war pronto. Same now. Very few support Biden’s doing so. Meaning very few in Washington. As far as the public,the opposite: they always said get out and dont pack. I agree with the latter

  5. Indeed, the Taliban and US are more in sync as the US moves to emulate China and authoritarianism, forcing others to submit.

  6. Intelligent people knew “we were wrong” the DAY Dubya invadedAfghanistan knowing full well Bin Laden was sponsored by the Saudis. We had NO business invading another (entirely WRONG) nation, especially considering the Saudis got NO sanctions of any kind…

    1. @i dont have time 2 reply – Just another blowhard without ANY credentials or expertise. I’d ask what YOU would have done – but nobody cares…

    2. Bush had no idea what was needed upon invasion. Just a complete failure to understand what was needed to actually accomplish what we wanted.

    3. Agree with Godfrey here.

      the quality of people recruited into US military complex are the low life of society. These rejects have only one track mind.
      These are outcast of society.
      That’s another reason WHY VETERANS cant assimilate back to society because they were OUTCAST in the first place….

  7. ❤️it.. that’s right, no one had the balls to end the war once and 4all, 4 fear of political backlash..
    EXCEPT BIDEN!❤️👍😎

  8. John 8:44
    Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

    Isaiah 5:20
    Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

  9. amazes me how everyone here seconds the need for dissent while always claiming on every issue that we must obediently listen to experts. The experts and their fans are the problem. Same with covid. Can not tell u how many times as a scientist I have posted rebukes of Fauci ‘s thought process as illogical with clear diagrams and math to buttress it but am barraged with posts that trumpet his reputation.

    As if reputation is a retort to a specific claim that a certain action or belief is illogical Same with Afghanistan. Or covid. In both cases the counter arguments are dismissed out of devotion

    1. Sorry, Pal. I’m just a practical engineer, but the mechanics of exhalation abatement via simple mechanical filtering is pretty obvious. All you have to do is blow smoke into a mask to see the difference.

    2. @MeanGeneSanDiego yes but in the real world when people sometimes wear them,sometimes not –the question then is what will the net effect be ?

      Will the masks be sufficient to arrest the spread ?
      —or will be it be a good try but not work.?

      My point here is that the evidence seems to say that the latter of the two is correct,not the former. Based on what we see

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