ACOSTA: Joining us now, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied commander of NATO and a CNN military analyst.
General Clark, great to see you. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating at shocking speed. It's just incredible. We just heard John Kirby say he's surprised by this lack of resistance that the Taliban is facing. What has happened to these Afghan security forces? It is just remarkable to see them melt away in the fashion that they have been.
GEN WESLEY CLARK (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it's years and years of mismanagement and corruption, and people who were half- heartedly committed in order to get a paycheck and leaders who took pay from them and didn't provide logistics and at the top politicians who lined their own pockets. Corruption from top to bottom. And no real support from the citizenry of the government and no loyalty up and down the chain of command. So once the momentum started, it unraveled pretty quickly.
A lot of observers have noticed this over the years and yet we lived with this illusion that we were doing something really profound there and trying to really shape up these forces. And now we see that it wasn't strong enough. The morale, the cohesion, starting at the top with the leadership of the president and his commanders. It wasn't strong enough to withstand the surge. And there was no reason to believe that had we stayed there for another year or two and kept another 5,000, that anything would have changed.
And one country that hasn't been mentioned in this is Pakistan. Pakistan has enormous influence over the Taliban. What are they doing right now? What are they saying? Are they restraining the Taliban? They armed them, promoted them, guided them for over 20 years. It's time for Pakistan to step up and stop the humanitarian tragedy that's unfolding there.
ACOSTA: Do you think they're just taking advantage of the situation?
CLARK: I think there's no doubt about it. I mean Pakistan has always looked at Afghanistan as its strategic rear in its confrontation with India. And it wanted also to make sure that its Pashtun tribal members in the northwest frontier area and their relatives over in Afghanistan weren't a part of a fifth column against Pakistan. So they always played two sides in this.
We've known it. We've known it for 20 years. We've never been able to deal with it effectively. And now the fact that Pakistani leadership and support for two decades of the Taliban is coming home to roost in terms of the humanitarian tragedy that the people of Afghanistan are facing. ACOSTA: And General Clark, President Biden held a briefing with his
National Security team on Afghanistan today. If Kabul falls, what happens? What does that mean for the Afghan people? And do the last 20 years of trying to build up this country, does that just all go to waste?
CLARK: Well, first of all, there are a lot of individual Afghans who have benefitted not just financially but culturally, educationally and so forth for 20 years in the United States. Many of these people are all over the world and many of them are going to be great, great citizens of whatever countries they've landed in. But for the institutions of Afghanistan that we put in place there, yes, those institutions are going to disappear.
But some of the trained civil servants, they're going to have to stay. The Taliban is going to have to have utilities in the country, they're going to have to have communications, they're going to have to repair the roads, they're going to have to face the responsibilities of governing. And this may, it may soften the image of the Taliban and their actions.
[15:20:00]
If they want any support from the United States and the world community they're going to have to slow down right now on their rush into Kabul and stop the overwhelming violence and the humanitarian outrages that are already being reported in places like Kandahar.
ACOSTA: Yes.
CLARK: So can they control their own troops? Can they form a government? Can they do something for the people? It remains to be seen. But here's the thing. The biggest losers in this really, China, Russia, India, Iran. The neighbors of Afghanistan who now don't have the United States to help hold stability in the region and will themselves have to take actions to maintain stability in that region against a resurgent Taliban.
ACOSTA: All right. It does not sound like a good situation over there, General Wesley Clark, but thanks for those insights. We'll get back in touch with you again real soon to talk about this further. But thanks in the meantime, appreciate it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
