Scott talks to Andrew Cockburn about his 2014 article on Afghan-born neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad. Cockburn explains how it was Khalilzad who selected new leaders for Afghanistan and Iraq after the old regimes had fallen to U.S. forces. Scott and Cockburn also touch on Khalilzad’s role in “the Redirection” when the U.S. began backing bin Ladenite groups in an attempt to counter Iran. In the end, Scott and Cockburn think Khalilzad deserves a lot of blame for the current problems in the middle east. However, he also deserves credit for following Trump’s order and negotiating a deal with the Taliban.
Discussed on the show:
- “The Long Shadow of a Neocon” (Harper’s Magazine)
- “How the US military got rich from Afghanistan” (The Spectator World)
- “The Redirection” (The New Yorker)
Andrew Cockburn is the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine and the author of Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins. Follow him on Twitter @andrewmcockburn.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio.
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