BUCK: For some additional context on what’s happening on the ground, war correspondent and Fox Nation host Lara Logan. Lara, thank you for being with us.
LOGAN: (hoarse voice) Thank you for having me — and I apologize for my voice. I’ve been basically up day and night working with teams and teams of Americans who are trying to rescue Afghans and help them get to safety. And, you know, there’s no rest, right? Everybody’s in the same boat. But there is literally — you’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, literally nothing like it. The Americans who are coming back from operations and in-between operations who are going out to rescue people, and their own government is trying to stop them.
CLAY: Lara, you’ve covered all sorts of wild scenarios in your career — and thank you for coming on the show. As we just came in, reports now up on Fox News that at least 10 U.S. service members have been killed today in Kabul. Is there anything in your history as a journalist that reminds you at all of the chaos that is going on in Afghanistan? I know you’re probably too young, like we are, to have remembered what was going on in Saigon in 1975, but certainly there’s been talk surrounding Benghazi. Where can you even go to to think of a precedent for the situation right now on the ground in Afghanistan?
LOGAN: You can’t. And I’ll tell you why. Because on the beaches of Normandy and even at Pearl Harbor, Americans acted with honor and with dignity and they stood up for what was good and right and just. And that is not the case today for the United States government. It is the case for American soldiers and intelligence operatives within the agencies. It’s not the case for the State Department, apparently, or for the White House or any of those people who have the power to change everything that you are seeing happen right now.
They can change it all! You can… Literally, the Taliban’s forces are out in full view. You could obliterate their leadership. You could get rid of the Al-Qaeda terrorists that are part of the Taliban and part of their leadership. You could use your diplomatic power to stop Pakistan’s support for your enemies and Qatar, another supposed ally, that’s also financing this invasion of Afghanistan.
You could support your Afghan allies, the special operations soldiers that you have lied about and discredited. Lloyd Austin’s saying, “Can’t buy willpower.” You know what you can’t buy, Lloyd Austin? Integrity! Right? And courage. And the truth. Can’t buy it, ’cause it either is or it isn’t. So we have never in our lifetimes ever seen anything like this. Americans have always been able to go into the world with the knowledge that they truly represent a great ideal: Freedom as a way of life.
It may not be perfect and we all know it’s not perfect. Goodness, that’s all we hear about these days is how imperfect it is. Well, that’s one thing. But now we’ve gone to the point where, you know, America is the root of all level, and believing in America, being patriotic is now a crime, and it’s a crime of such significance that people should be in jail for it. Because don’t forget there are a lot of Americans rotting in solitary confinement today for going to the Capitol on January 6th.
And none of them have been convicted of a crime yet. So what you’re looking at right now is literally not just America but the ideals and the ideas for which America stands and for which, by the way, the Afghan government and the country, the nation stood. All of that has been destroyed by our own hand. We did it to ourselves. This wasn’t a forced error. We didn’t have the Chinese or the Russians hacking us and stealing victory from us.
We gave it away. In fact, defeat… You know, surrender is the only the only type of victory that actually has to be given. You can’t take it, and we gave it not just to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We gave it to every American enemy all over the world. And what we took from our allies was the certainty that you could count on us, which means it works both ways. We no longer have the certainty that we can count on them, and where does that leave us? Isolated and weak, with no moral authority on the world stage — and that puts Americans everywhere at risk.
LOGAN: No, there’s no timeline.
BUCK: What are you hearing about the security —
LOGAN: There’s no timeline!
BUCK: I’m sorry?
LOGAN: There’s no timeline. That is false. That is the narrative that you have been forced, you know, and manipulated into believing is the case. We are imposing a false timeline because we are pretending that the Taliban calls the shots!
BUCK: Just to be clear, I was referring to the Biden administration timeline. I hear what you’re saying, which is we shouldn’t be operating under a timeline but —
LOGAN: Even the Biden administration’s timeline false, because there is no timeline when it comes to what you’re talking about. You’re gonna let terrorists on the 20th anniversary of 9/11… you’re gonna allow terrorists, the same ones responsible for that attack, for killing almost 3,000 Americans. You’re gonna allow them to kill more of your people, and you’re gonna do nothing about it. And you know what?
We should have known this because they did exactly the same thing in Benghazi. They allowed Al-Qaeda, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, to kill Chris Stevens and Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, right? They allowed them to kill Americans in celebration of 9/11, and they’re doing the same thing here almost on the celebration of the 20th anniversary. And the Obama administration did nothing to prevent that attack.
They did nothing to intervene, and they did very little since. In fact, what they did was spend the next few years apologizing for Islamic terrorists, pretending that Islamic terrorism and extremism didn’t exist, and that anyone who wanted to have that conversation was pushing hate and was Islamophobic. They even created the term Islamophobia!
And then people like the Open Society Foundation came up a step-by-step way that you could establish Islamophobia as a counter to any criticism of Islamic terrorism, and that was in 2,000 documents that were in a WikiLeaks dump from Open Society Foundation records that, oh — surprise, surprise — are no longer available online. You can’t find them, right? But these things have been well funded and well organized. You know, it’s so important for Americans to realize that they don’t have to… There is no timeline. It’s false!
BUCK: Lara, can I ask you, do you think there’s any chance that the Biden administration could be convinced or is willing to take, from what you’re saying here, blow out this timeline if there are still Americans on the ground, or are your sources telling you, no, the Biden team is pulling everybody out one way or the other by the end of this month?
LOGAN: Look at their actions! The answer lies in their actions. No matter what has happened along the way, even when Afghans were clinging to an Air Force plane and plummeting to their deaths below, right? Six Afghans whose bodies were recovered… I spoke to people who were part of that. Even when that was happening, the chaotic scenes at the airport, the criticism that the administration has had, the emphasis on the how.
There’s no saying, “Well, we’re a great ally except for that that blip in Afghanistan. Oops! Sorry. Didn’t mean to do that.” There’s no coming back from something like this, because you know why? ‘Cause it’s about principle. You either are a loyal friend or you’re not. You either are there when someone needs you or you’re not, and when we need you, you’re either there or you’re not. And you know what?
The Afghans were. When we asked them to be with us, they were. When we asked Vladimir Putin, ‘Can we use your territory and your allies in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for our planes and our bases?” he said, “Yes,” in the wake of 9/11. Right? Even our adversaries were more reliable allies than we have been to the Afghan people. So will the Biden administration do anything different?
If you look at their actions, there has been zero indication that they are willing to change the outcome of their policies and their decisions, because they’ve done nothing to do that. The same with the southern border. People say, “Ooooh, the Biden administration, you know, they’re not acting.” No, they did act. They acted to create the outcome that you’re seeing, and they’re not acting to change it because they have the outcome that they want.
And unless the American people — and America’s leaders on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, unless they — stand up and say, “We will not be misrepresented by you. We will not betray our allies. We will not be isolated on the world stage. We will not have our national security sacrificed on the altar of America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic…” Unless you stand up and do that, you will bear the mark of shame, always, from this moment forward.
CLAY: Lara… By the way, phenomenal. I agree with virtually everything that you have said, and you’ve said it so eloquently. What should happen to Joe Biden and his advisers and his military officials in the wake of Afghanistan? What should we do as a country, in your mind, to serve notice that this kind of decision and this kind of behavior is unacceptable?
LOGAN: Americans should be in the streets! They should be protesting. They wanted to take the power of the people away. That’s what January 6 was about. That’s what all these ridiculous DHS alerts about white supremacy, threats. If you talk about vote fraud, you’re a domestic terror threat. If you question Biden or the reaction to the vaccine or covid or whatever it is, now you’re a terrorist threat.
You know what? Americans have gone along with this for way too long. The truth is that Americans on both sides of the aisle can see that this is absolute tyranny. Right? They know that it’s false. Unfortunately, there are all of the Americans who have been deceived into believing that a bunch of yahoos can go take pictures of themselves in the Capitol and be violent and out of control and behave badly, and that they can really be intending to carry out an insurrection.
What was your plan, that you were gonna delay the vote to the next day? Was that your mark of success? I mean, for goodness’ sake, right? This is so ridiculous, that people don’t think these policies through, and so what should happen… You know, I’m not a politician, obviously. Anyone listening to me can tell. But what I can tell you, this is what I know. I know what’s true and I know what’s not true.
They want to control you. Don’t give them that victory that they can’t ever win. They cannot ever take it from you. It has to be given. When you surrender and you stay silent and you turn off the TV and you say, “Ah, it’s too stressful.” It is stressful. I agree. I’m with you. I’ve had my periods where I don’t want to turn on the TV. But the reality is just because you’re not watching and paying attention, doesn’t mean it isn’t taking place.
So you turn around one day when the fighting is at your door, right? When the bombs that are going off in your neighborhood, when it’s pieces of your children that you’re picking up from the rubble just like they did on 9/11, right? When that happens, we cannot say it’s somebody else’s fault. Because if it is true that this is a government of the people and by the people and for the people — if those things are true — then you have to make your voice heard. Demand action from your leaders, Democrats and Republicans. I cannot say it enough. This is not a left-right thing. It is a right and wrong thing. A right and wrong thing.
CLAY: Lara Logan, just absolutely phenomenal, Fox News war correspondent.
LOGAN: Right and wrong. That’s all it is.
CLAY: We need to get you on again. Thank you for all the work that you are doing to try to help people in Afghanistan. We will talk to you again soon.
LOGAN: Thank you so much.
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