Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (4:00)

Hello, dear listeners. Welcome back to conflicted as ever. I'm here with Eamon Dean, my stalwart co host. Today, Eamon, as you know, we are going to be heading back to your old stomping grounds and our original backyard and Afghanistan.

Co-host Eamon Dean (4:16)

Ah, exactly. I have so many happy memories there. Typhoid, malaria, heroin, the smell of, you know, opium, and, of course, the smell of, you know, so many other things. Like, you know, apart from spices, but also gunpowder and chemicals.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (4:34)

Yeah, Eamon, I was gonna ask, after all these years, does the name Afghanistan still fill your heart with a certain romantic yearning? The land of adventure, the land of jihad. The land of men unstained by the compromises of modern life. But it sounds to me like the word Afghanistan fills your imagination with other things.

Co-host Eamon Dean (4:54)

Yeah, and fills my imagination also, and my memories with how many times I had to suffer diarrhea from all the awful food poisoning basically because we were eating literal poison there.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (5:07)

Oh goodness. Well, Eamon, it is off to Afghanistan we go. And not tales of moral purity, dear listeners, no. We are here to tell the story of the CIA backed Afghan operatives who were left high and dry when the Americans withdrew from the country in 2021. They were in the news at the end of last year after a tragic shooting in Washington D.C. hit the headlines. Allegedly carried out by one of those CIA backed Afghan allies of the U. S led coalition in Afghanistan. We'll talk about the shooting and we'll go right back to the origins of this long and tortured story. Back farther than you might think. But this is conflicted. This is what we do. And I think I'm able to say here, Eamon, that you know a lot about these CIA backed Afghans.

Co-host Eamon Dean (6:00)

Indeed I do.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (6:01)

So let's get right into it. All right. Amen. The shooting in Washington D.C. it took place on the 26th of November last year, 2025. Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot near the Farragut west Metro station in D.C. both were shot in the head. Remarkably though, one, a woman named Sarah Beckstrom, died from her injuries. The other, a man called Andrew Wolf was left in critical condition. Now the male suspect was critically wounded. The alleged shooter was stabbed by one of the victims and shot four times before being arrested. His name is Rahmanullah Lakhinwal. He is Afghan, 29 years old, meaning he was only five when the US invaded the country. He is Pashtun from Khost province on the AfPak border. He worked as a member of a CIA backed militia. In spring 2021 he entered the United States. So this is before the US withdrawal. He entered under Operation Allies welcome, described as a humanitarian parole program for vulnerable Afghans. And in April of last year he was granted permanent asylum in. It's a sad story. We don't want to start off by demonizing Lockenwall. He grew up in a country scarred by war. He effectively became a hired killer for the United States government. He was part of A so called Zero Unit of CIA backed Afghan fighters, specifically Unit 303, the Kandahar Strike Force. We're going to get into the details about all these zero units in a bit, but first, amen. Briefly, what are your views on this sad case? Should we allow it to frame our knowledge of or appreciation of the CIA backed zero units in Afghanistan as a result of the shooting, a Trump administration already doing whatever it can to limit or restrict or cancel America's refugee program across the board, not to mention just good old fashioned immigration of any kind. The shooting gave the administration the justification it needed to continue those efforts. So what should we think?

Co-host Eamon Dean (8:30)

First of all, as usual, we cannot use an individual case in order to make a judgment all across. In multiple programs and multiple demographics, we don't know if the individual was not mentally disturbed, mentally scarred.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (8:45)

Well, given his life, I think if he was not mentally disturbed, that would be surprising.

Co-host Eamon Dean (8:50)

Yes. You can't train people to be killers, especially within the Afghan context. In other words, they do your dirty work for you. Go in the dark, assassinate people who are suspected to be Taliban members, Taliban sympathizers, Al Qaeda members, Al Qaeda sympathizers. So of course, if you train these people to be killers from young age, and he's only 29, so what was he doing in these units? What did he do that is so high value that they gave him the ability to go all the way to the US when he was in his early 20s?

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (9:28)

Yeah, yeah.

Co-host Eamon Dean (9:28)

It means he killed high value people.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (9:31)

It's interesting. Absolutely. And you know, these forces in Afghanistan, the so called zero units, have been described as clandestine Afghan forces operating as part of the covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan, with ground support from US Special Forces seconded to the CIA and air support from the US Military and including intelligence and surveillance in the identification of targets. And as we'll see a bit downstream, my understanding is what they were mainly used for were nighttime raids and assassinations, sometimes involving the tragic semi indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, which must take a psychological toll on any soldier, whether, you know, a full member of an armed force or a mercenary or whatever. But these men, these zero units, were used for some pretty hairy missions.

Co-host Eamon Dean (10:28)

Well, to call them hairy missions is an understatement because they go behind enemy lines. Sometimes they go into villages that are completely civilian, but they house or they harbor some Al Qaeda and Taliban sympathizers. And when they end up calling a strike by a drone, they will know that there will be a lot of collateral damage, as they used to call it. In other words, innocent civilians being killed in the process. And you see, we are not here to judge these operations. We're not here to judge what they were doing. We are here to talk about the psychological toll that it would take on people like that when they are at young age. So if this person was 29 when he carried out the shootings and he was welcomed into the US in 2020, one. So that was almost five years ago. So he was 24. What did he do between 18 when he was most likely recruited, and 24 that would earn him the right to go and live permanently in the US Except a considerable high value kill.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (11:38)

But even before he was recruited by the CIA in Afghanistan, you know, he was a Pashtun. The Taliban, which would have been his targets or the CIA's targets, are largely Pashtun. And in the ethnic sectarian matrix of Afghanistan, it must be psychologically stressful even to be engaged in that kind of. I mean, in a way, that kind of. It's not like he was a double agent like you were Eamon, but you can perhaps sympathize a bit with his position. He was working for a Western intelligence agency within a context where he was passing unknown, unobserved as a Pashtun, a fellow Afghan. That in itself is quite psychologically wearying, isn't.

Co-host Eamon Dean (12:27)

Is incredibly soul crushing sometime. That's why I'm surprised, completely surprised by the fact that they decided, well, this young man who we trained to kill and we trained to assassinate and we trained him to call drone attacks that would, you know, shred people into pieces, including young women and children, we welcomed him straight away without any meaningful psychological support. And that was in itself surprising overall, because I'm aware of these programs, I'm aware of how people were transferred. And the worst thing of his transfer, I don't know exactly his circumstances individually, but it appears to be direct from Afghanistan to the US as opposed to what we call a halfway house. So it was surprising that at a young age that he would be transferred without that much evaluation, psychiatric assessment, and a treatment of any PTSD that would be there. And I can tell you there will be ptsd, heavy baggage of PTSD, and straight to US society without that much mentoring, handholding, and especially monitoring all of this were to happen so poorly like that. I mean, I don't know what the CIA were thinking. I don't know what the American authorities were thinking. And all of this happened during the Biden administration, by the way, because he was transferred to the US in March 2021, in my opinion. And I will come to talk about, I mean, how in later years, Afghans who were moving between Afghanistan and America were housed in a third country in Germany for processing. It was near the George C. Marshall center in Munich, but also during that time they were held there for psychiatric assessment, for evaluation, for treatment, before they were given the final go ahead to go to the US because the company that actually established that whole apparatus for the US Military and for the US Intelligence is a company that I'm aware of. I have friends inside it, and they told me a lot about the process. It made me think that it would have been kinder if, in that country, also in Germany, if they have established just a psychiatric facility. It doesn't cost that much, you know, a few million dollars, and they would have established a psychiatric facility in a very nice place near Munich, like basically in the mountains of Bavaria. They could have basically just had that psychiatric treatment that they need and rehabilitation evaluation, and then take them. Because, first of all, I believe in the principle of you break it, you fix it. These people were yours. You broke them into killers and assassins. You fixed them.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (15:19)

Well, presumably, Lockenwell did go through some psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to enter the United States and then receive his permanent residency. I think maybe the question is follow up. And this is a question that goes beyond just Afghans who were allied to the US This Thursday, we're releasing an interview I've conducted with Sean Van Diver, who heads up an NGO called Afghan Evac, which advocates on behalf of the Afghans and others whom America allied with in Afghanistan. But he, you know, he makes the point that, in general, the way in which the Department of War, as it's now called, treats all US Servicemen once they're back home, they're not given the kind of support that they need. And he assumes that Luckenwall, in this regard, isn't so different from a lot of American servicemen who back home find themselves haunted by memories of war, suffering from various psychological ailments and not receiving any support. And some of them have been driven to. To acts of violence. So I don't think that Lockenwell is really very unique there. Shaun makes the case, makes a strong case for America's obligations regarding these Afghans and their families. But, Eamonn, who would you say these men are? Are they or were they individuals working from a desire to see a modern Afghanistan emerge? Van Diver describes them that way. And surely that must be the case for a lot of them. But there must have been others, too. Mercenaries, warlord, adjacent people, clannish. People who were in it for other, less idealistic reasons. Why do you think a young Afghan would have joined the American efforts in Afghanistan?

Co-host Eamon Dean (17:00)

Well, I mean, there are multiple reasons. I wouldn't idealize them as saying the majority were hoping for a better Afghanistan. Afghanistan was a shithole and still is. The idea that they were serving their country, maybe many of them were motivated by that, but I would say lacking Amin that the financial rewards were extremely high. It was the best job that you could have. And that is sad. You know, the country was lacking any economic activity that would employ people in a way that would be positive. I mean, let's be honest about it. The entire Afghan economy under the American occupation was geared towards a low wage agrarian economy. And agrarian, I'm putting between two inverted commas here because a lot of it was drugs, opium to produce heroin. And that's why I'm absolutely shocked when people say basically they were doing it because they were loving their country entirely. I would say no, there is a lot of financial reward there because of the lack of meaningful jobs. So many of them were in it for the money, let's be honest about it. But even those who were in it because they wanted to improve the conditions of their country and to fight the Taliban later became disillusioned themselves because they felt that the whole management of the war was completely mishandled by the Americans and by NATO. And it was a lost opportunity to put Afghanistan together in a better, meaningful way. And as a result they feel betrayal in the worst possible sense. You came to our country, you recruited us and then you abandoned us. And those who were taken there, even when they were taken there into the United States, they were treated the same shitty way as us veterans are.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (19:00)

Yeah, exactly. Well, we're talking in this episode about the zero units. Yes, the CIA backed units. Now These originate in 2001 when the CIA organized already existing Afghan militias into anti Islamist, anti Taliban forces. But in fact the CIA was already active in the country before the US invasion in 2001, before 9, 11, even before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. So already in February of 1979, covert ops were being conducted by the CIA in Afghanistan, working with tribal militias opposed to the communist revolution inside the country that had taken place the year before. But during the anti Soviet jihad throughout the 80s, the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan went way up. It funded, armed and organized the so called Mujahideen in cooperation with Pakistan who provided military and intelligence support and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries who provided funding. After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the mujahideen began to fight among themselves. We've told this story on conflicted before. It was an even bloodier phase in the Afghan conflict than during the anti Soviet phase. It was in the context of this Mujahideen infighting that the Taliban movement arose and the CIA got re involved. Once it was clear that the Taliban were going to win the Afghan civil war. The CIA began to work with anti Taliban Afghan militias, some tribal, some factional, some linked to the drug trade. And so already those networks were in place when 911 happened. And this is one reason why Donald Rumsfeld thought his new doctrine of limited engagement would work in Afghanistan. There were already CIA organized allies on the ground there. So the truth is, Aman, when it comes to Afghanistan, the CIA were always there.

Co-host Eamon Dean (21:15)

Of course the CIA were there, and they never left, because the CIA is responsible for counterterrorism policy and counterterrorism action within the war on terror context from the US Mindset. And so this is why they will be there. The CIA is a clandestine organization, so they will have to recruit assets, but it depends on the country. So in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, they have recruited thousands of assets. These assets are mostly actually, to be honest, intelligence gathering. However, some of them are designed just like the zero units for what we call the dirty work, the black ops, you know, the work that get people killed. At the end of the day, it's necessary. If you remember, in one of the Q and A episodes that we have for our dearest subscribing listeners, we talked about why the number of attacks in the west reduced significantly. And we said, because of these dark units that went around, hunted down bomb makers and their students and their apprentices. Because by doing so, you eliminate significant terror capability. And you can do only that by having assets on the ground that hunt them down and kill them and, or call drone attacks against them. And so that's what these units were doing. So in a sense, they did the West a service. And especially in a place like Afghanistan, they did the West a service, whether we agree with the nature of it or not. That's another thing. But they did a great service in terms of reducing the capability of terrorism in the West.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (23:07)

They may have done so, but they were always controversial and even within the military. So in Afghanistan, after the invasion, once the coalition turned its attention away from overthrowing the Taliban and away from counterterrorism ops against Al Qaeda and toward nation building, the CIA's network of militias became something of a problem. The loudest voices in the coalition wanted them disbanded or absorbed into the Afghan national military. The CIA, unsurprisingly, wanted to keep them because their eyes were still on the prize of counterterrorism, I guess. Or maybe there's just internal politics as well. The CIA wanted their own power base in the country, the militias themselves. And these militias will eventually evolve into the zero units, but the militias themselves were dead set against disbandment. This threatened the peace. In the end, the CIA's view won out and the militias were maintained. Now, originally, these black ops teams who mainly conducted quote unquote, kill or capture operations, and they sound like really horrible actually. I mean, I can't imagine what it would be like at night bursting into a compound, guns blazing, you know, trying to find that bomb maker that you've tracked down, killing, killing everyone in your path. It's really like Zero Dark Thirty kind of stuff. Originally, these teams did involve US servicemen directly and they mainly targeted Al Qaeda members. But from around 2009 onwards, after the so called surge in Afghanistan, the targets of these kill or capture operations increasingly focused on a resurgent Taliban and then later to ISIS members as well.

Co-host Eamon Dean (25:03)

Oh yeah, the ISKP, they were their prime target between 2014 and 2019.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (25:09)

Exactly. And in 2014 Operation Enduring Freedom, which is the coalition's operation, ended and the majority of coalition troops left. You know, we now focus on the American withdrawal in 2021, but the vast majority of troops left in 2014. There were only about 10,000 US troops and a few thousand other NATO personnel in the country from that point onward. This is when in 2015 the CIA establishes an Afghan counterpart, the Afghan National Directorate of Security, or NDS. This was the country's primary intelligence agency before the US withdrawal in 2021. All Afghan paramilitary forces nominally belonged to it, but the CIA backed units, the zero units, did not answer to the NDS or to US Military Command. They answered directly to the CIA. And as you say, Eamonn, from 2015 onwards, these units were being employed mainly to attack ISIS which was resurgent in Afghanistan and the Taliban which were on their way back. And it's funny because the CIA was attacking them on one side, while eventually the Trump administration was negotiating with him on the other.

Co-host Eamon Dean (26:27)

Indeed, and that's exactly, I think the beginning of the negotiations at the beginning of the cracks, because my understanding from talking to my friends in that company who were talking to many of these individuals who were from the ZERI units, it's the Trump administration negotiations with the Taliban that started the cracks within the units.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (26:51)

Those negotiations did end up leaving these Afghan allies rather high and dry. And absolutely cracks began to form which we will hear about in the second half of this episode. We've got to take an ad break now. When we get back, we're going to outline what these five CIA backed zero units were. We'll be right back.

Co-host Eamon Dean (27:16)

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Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (27:52)

We're back. We're talking about The CIA backed zero units in Afghanistan that were the CIA's deadliest weapon on the ground in that country during the American occupation, especially the last 10 years or so of the occupation. Now Eamonn, there are really four zero units and then there was a fifth. It's officially not a zero unit, but it was a CIA backed force. So there's basically zero unit 1, 2, 3 and 401020. Unit 1 operated in Afghanistan's central region in Kabul and the surrounding area, possibly sometimes expanding to some bordering provinces. Unit 2 operated in Afghanistan's eastern region in Nangarhar and other bordering provinces. Unit 3, also known as the Kandahar Strike Force. And this is the unit that, that lock Anwal, the alleged attacker in Washington D.C. in November was a part of the Kandahar Strike Force. This operated in Afghanistan's southern region in Kandahar in Helmand and other regions down there. They worked out of the former compound of the late Taliban leader Mullah Omar, commonly referred to as Mullah Omar's house. This is funny and I imagine, Amon, that you may have visited that house.

Co-host Eamon Dean (29:17)

Indeed yes I did. In 1997.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (29:20)

Incredible. Back then, in 97, could you imagine that down the line that house would be used to house possibly the most notorious and expert of all the CIA units in Afghanistan?

Co-host Eamon Dean (29:34)

Irony, absolute irony. You know, Afghanistan is the land of ironies.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (29:40)

And though, though the CIA, you know, was clearly coordinating this Zero unit three, the Kandahar Strike Force. The brother of the former President of Afghanistan, President Karzai, his brother reportedly oversaw the ksf, the Kandahar Strike Forces operations, yes indeed, in Afghanistan before his assassination in 2011. So the CIA were clearly working, you know, very closely with Afghan partners. It's not like they were running around half cocked just doing whatever they wanted.

Co-host Eamon Dean (30:11)

No, of course not. Like at the end of the day, the CIA were blind without them. I mean, you can't navigate Afghanistan without Afghan navigators.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (30:21)

So that's Zero Unit three. Now Zero unit four zero four. They operated in Nuristan, Kunar and other bordering northeastern provinces. So you see the Units were spread across the country. And I guess in each part of the country, Ayman, they would have maybe focused on a slightly different threat to the coalition. I mean, what was the geographical sort of layout of the different threats that the Zero units were opposing?

Co-host Eamon Dean (30:49)

Every geographical position had its own set of challenges. So, for example, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, these were isis. These were ISIS territories.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (31:00)

Those are in the northeast.

Co-host Eamon Dean (31:02)

Northeast.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (31:03)

Yeah.

Co-host Eamon Dean (31:03)

If you go more northeast to Badakhshan and Mazar e Sharif, these were the Tajik and the Uzbek groups, as well as the Uyghurs. If you go to Kabul, Wardak, Tagab, and the areas surrounding these, these were Pashtun, Taliban, you know, of the center. Then if you go to Ghazni, Kandahar, Khost and Helmand to the south, that is absolutely like in, I mean, heartland, Kandahari, Pashtuns. If you go to Nangarhar and to some extent Bakhtia, this is where the Pakistani Taliban side would be. So, yeah, every geographical position has its own set of challenges.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (31:48)

So we can imagine then that Zero Unit one in Kabul and the surrounding area were fighting the Taliban. The proper, the sort of Pashtun Taliban. 0 unit 2 in Nangarhar and other areas were fighting the Pakistani Taliban. 0 unit 3 in the south in Kandahar, the Kandahar strike force and Helmand, they're fighting, you know, Taliban as well, but on the AFPAK border, sort of that sort of Taliban.

Co-host Eamon Dean (32:16)

Yeah.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (32:16)

And then Zero Unit four in Nuristan and Kunar. Now, they're the ones that would be fighting isis. Yes, they were fighting isis, absolutely. And then there's the fifth, the Khost Protection Force on the AFPAK border. You know, Khost, really, that's like the Taliban heartland.

Co-host Eamon Dean (32:31)

That's the Hakkari network. The Hakkari network.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (32:34)

So, you know, you can see how these forces were very valuable to the CIA and the coalition.

Co-host Eamon Dean (32:40)

Absolutely.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (32:41)

You know, as the years went on. Now, Eamon, because the Taliban ended up winning the war in Afghanistan and now governed the country, and because we tend to see the Taliban as villains, incompetent at best, but at worst, truly wicked, backward, reactionary Islamist, et cetera, because of all this, we are now predisposed to see the US as the good guy in that war, or at least to see its Afghan allies as good guys. And so we can forget that the long US war in Afghanistan was not really a good versus evil affair. Not really.

Co-host Eamon Dean (33:15)

I know it was dirty.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (33:17)

There was wickedness on all sides, corruption on all sides. All hands were covered in blood. In pursuit of its often ill defined goals in Afghanistan, the United States got into bed with a lot of bad hombres, as President Trump might have called them. I mean, we don't want to idealize the Afghans who partnered with the US Too much, do we?

Co-host Eamon Dean (33:40)

No, we don't. And this is why I said from the beginning, don't expect they were all there for ideal reasons. It's because there were no other employment options. Not to mention that, you know, yes, the Taliban are backward and medieval and unsavory characters and goodness luck, basically I wouldn't want to live half an hour under the rule. But the other side were equally bad with drugs, you know, and drug trafficking, kidnapping, you know, and other criminal activities, smuggling that were taking place. So the idea that this is good versus evil is as naive as it could get. And that's why we shouldn't idealize one side against the other.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (34:22)

Human Rights Watch described the CIA backed Afghan forces as Afghan strike forces who have been responsible for extra judicial executions and enforced disappearances, indiscriminate airstrikes, attacks on medical facilities and other violations of international humanitarian law or the laws of war. And after human rights organizations Amen. Drew attention to civilian casualties in these black op operations, American servicemen were increasingly replaced by Afghan soldiers or mercenaries. Call them what you want though. U.S. special Forces officers, mainly from the Army Rangers were always also involved. But you can see as the kind of operations that Americans were forced to carry out to attack a rising resurgent Taliban, to attack isis, et cetera. In that murky Afghan world of God knows what's going on with the drug dealers and the military arms contracts, you talked very persuasively about the corruption that underlay that whole saga. So, you know, in order to make sure that not too much blood was on themselves, the Americans were relying more and more on, on Afghans. In 2017, Mike Pompeo, the head of the CIA under Donald Trump, he said this, quote, the CIA, to be successful, must be aggressive, vicious, unforgiving, relentless, you pick the word. We must every minute be focused on crushing our enemies, end quote. And in 2018 alone, as a result of these ops, there were 353 civilian casualties, according to the UN. I mean, the point being, Eamon, that, you know, these were tough, tough characters being given a tough, tough mission.

Co-host Eamon Dean (36:19)

After all, they were after isis, Taliban, Al Qaeda. So the problem is, and I'm not defending them here, but if I recruit a bunch of people and I tell them these are your enemies, you're going into the field and you are expected to confront these kind of characters, the Taliban, ISIS and Al Qaeda. And these are merciless. It's a kill or be killed situation. What do you expect? They will choose kill or be killed. They will choose the former rather than the latter. They would rather kill. And of course they're already nervous. They know the reputation, the fearsome, vicious reputation of their enemies. And so when you send them there into the field, pumped adrenaline completely overtaking their senses, fear is what dictates their judgment. And as a result, there will be civilian casualties, inevitably there will be innocent people who will be killed. Because these people are nervous, trigger happy and trained to kill. And they are told they are going against an enemy who do not show mercy whatsoever. And they tell them, don't get caught, don't get caught. Because if they get caught, the whole secret of their locations, their safe houses, their chain of command is going to be exposed by the Taliban or Al Qaeda or isis. So what do you expect of them to do? Exactly, like distribute candy. So this is why when I talk to human rights organizations who are also equally naive, you know, about the whole thing, they think that like, oh, they should exercise, you know, judgment. It's like exercise judgment. You know, you're sending them to kill the most vicious killers ever existed. So what do you expect them to do? And these vicious killers happen to be hiding among civilians. Gosh, it's always, it's not just only in Afghanistan, it happened everywhere, in Syria, in Iraq, in Gaza, in West bank, terrible Yemen, wherever you think like, I mean, wherever there is terrorism hiding among civilians. And these terrorists are so vicious and you recruit equally vicious people to go and take them out because you don't want your nice white hands to get blood on them. So the human rights organizations cannot basically go after you in the courts. I mean, sometimes I feel like, as if the human rights organizations with their own naivety are the ones who actually push organizations like the CIA towards even recruiting younger, more innocent people to go and kill on their behalf.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (38:55)

Goodness gracious. And that's a long story that goes back all the way to Vietnam. And we can't talk about that now. What I want to talk about is the Doha Agreement that was negotiated between the Trump administration and the Taliban, which, you know, made provision for the US withdrawal of the country, which then was undertaken when President Biden was in power. Now the Doha Agreement made no mention of any CIA backed Afghans or any other Afghans who worked alongside US forces in Afghanistan. So they were simply not Discussed.

Co-host Eamon Dean (39:27)

They are secret. They are not supposed to be discussed.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (39:29)

But even the ones who weren't secret. So basically it wasn't on the table. What do we do about Afghans who've been working with the US for, you know, 20 years? What do we do about them? That wasn't discussed in the Doha agreement. Now when it comes to the CIA backed Afghans or Afghan paramilitaries, one reason it wasn't discussed is that all along during the negotiations, the CIA itself was advocating that they retain a network of paramilitaries in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal. So the CIA didn't want to leave the country. Maybe that was, you know, prescient. In fact, Ayman, here's a question for you. I don't know the answer to this. Are there still CIA backed militias in Afghanistan?

Co-host Eamon Dean (40:10)

I would bet my reputation on it. There are still CIA backed assets in Iraq and Syria, in Yemen, in Somalia and there will be in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan, inside Pakistan itself, in the tribal areas. The idea that there will be no assets there is just ludicrous. That would be leaving America vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (40:32)

Well, that may be one reason then why Afghan allies of the US were not mentioned in the Doha agreement. Another reason I think is that the Trump administration was just desperate to get a deal signed with the Taliban brokered by the Qataris so that they could withdraw the withdrawal. As I said, it took place under President Biden. We have narrated that withdrawal on the show before. It was a shit show. You have been extremely critical of President Biden, Eamonn.

Co-host Eamon Dean (41:00)

Oh yes.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (41:00)

Or his team in how the withdrawal was handled.

Co-host Eamon Dean (41:04)

Mishandled, I would say. By the way, if there is a young lady basically, and her family name is Handel and her name is Rachel, does that mean I can call her Ms. Handel?

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (41:14)

Oh, goodness gracious. There we go. There we go, there we go. There's the dad joke of this episode. Now, Eamon, this is where, this is where I want you to talk about your experience working with the company in Germany outside Munich on dealing with the Afghans who worked alongside the US whether as parts of zero units or not, and who sued for asylum in the US and the process they had to go through. What can you tell us about that process from your experience?

Co-host Eamon Dean (41:49)

So I'm aware of a company and I had friends working for them at that time, like close friends who set up a transitional encampment in Germany on behalf of the US Government for people who were leaving Afghanistan, who worked with the US government in multiple capacity, whether with the Department of Defense. Now, Department of War, or with the CIA or with the State Department, you know, as interpreters, as intelligence assets, or as part of the zero units. And it was very clear that while they were in Germany, they were being vetted, they were being processed, they were being assessed, they were being evaluated. And it was a very good process, you know, according to my friends, at least, like they were saying, it was a very good process because it was a third party doing it, you know, a company. And that company actually is Albanian Macedonian, funny enough, but they have global reach.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (42:49)

An Albanian Macedonian company with global reach that is efficient and competent. This is very surprising.

Co-host Eamon Dean (42:57)

Extremely efficient and competent, I must say. Not only that, they were so efficient and competent that for eight years inside Afghanistan, they were providing all the necessary living arrangements, supplies of food, sanitation, health requirement, everything, all of that for the German forces who were serving in Afghanistan. So already they have an Afghan experience before serving the NATO mission in Afghanistan, especially the German forces, for more than eight years. And so they did this in Germany for the us they were paid handsomely for it, of course. And because they were paid well, they were able to give the Afghan people two and a half thousand at any given time. At any given time, throughout an entire 18 months period, there will be two and a half thousand people in this small village they built for them in Germany, in Bavaria. So they have a hospital, they have a psychiatry clinic, they have pharmacies, they have Subway and McDonald and, you know, Domino's Pizza and all of that.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (44:00)

Everything you need to live a glorious free life in the West.

Co-host Eamon Dean (44:04)

Exactly. They had sweet shops, cake shops, they had karak tea, they had everything they need. So many of the Afghans who left then to the US said that those six to 12 weeks they were spending in that camp were the best of their lives. You see, when the US paid a third party company to do everything for them in terms of housing, looking after these people, and even their children were having a rudimentary education and daycare and all of that, and vaccinations. All of these were taken care of. Like that halfway house was so important because some people were rejected. And even those who were rejected, they were offered asylum somewhere, either in Germany or the Czech Republic or Austria. And so they were somehow basically taken care of. They were not thrown back into Afghanistan.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (44:56)

What do you think might be the grounds for the United States to reject one of these Afghan asylum applications if a country like Germany wouldn't reject them?

Co-host Eamon Dean (45:05)

Well, mostly is because you did not serve the US enough, you did not earn enough points to say that You've served more than 15 calendar months as an interpreter or some of them were family members who do not qualify, like brothers who are above the age of 18. They are not dependent or something like that. There are many grounds and some were rejected because of fear of having links to the Taliban. So these were allowed into Germany and into other nations, but under severe restrictions. And slowly, gradually, you know, these people either integrated or were deported back to Afghanistan. Some of them were offered voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan, provided they accept $13,000 as a goodbye gift. You know, just get lost back to Afghanistan. This is $13,000. You know, build a life with it.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (45:57)

This sort of process was in place long before the American withdrawal. So this isn't something that was established after the Americans withdrew to process Afghans. There was already processing going on many years before there was.

Co-host Eamon Dean (46:09)

But the operation expanded significantly after the withdrawal. You know, it was there, but it expanded significantly afterwards.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (46:16)

Well, Sean Van Diver, whose interview is being released on Thursday, he shares your criticisms of the American withdrawal itself. He does have high praise for the U.S. state Department and other partners inside the Biden administration in the way that they did respond to the plight of Afghans left behind. And they did put in structures swiftly, rational structures. I mean, they didn't just let anyone in. You know, they, they really did have a system in place. And he praises that system. He's extremely critical of the Trump administration, basically throwing a grenade into those systems, being heavy handed in the way that they're treating some of these bureaucratic systems that were in place. And I can believe that the Trump administration has many things, but oriented towards rational bureaucracy is not one of those things.

Co-host Eamon Dean (47:08)

Oh, no, of course, don't expect that. It's a sledgehammer to deal with the nut.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (47:12)

And the main thing, though, I sort of, to end this conversation about Afghan zero units, CIA backed zero units in Afghanistan. One thing that Sean Vandiver says is, you know, he is a former soldier himself and he says, look, we're Americans, we're soldiers. We owe it to the men and women, but mainly men who served alongside us in Afghanistan just out of honor. We owe it to them to treat them like brothers in arms. America's honor will fall if we abandon these former allies. And he also made the point, and I'd love your thoughts on this, he says, look, if America gets the reputation of not fulfilling its obligations to those people who work alongside it in theaters of operations like Afghanistan, but God knows, maybe Venezuela, maybe Yemen, who knows, if America gets a reputation of abandoning and betraying such People, they won't find allies on the ground without whom they could never be successful in any of their war aims. I mean, what do you think about that, Eamon? It is extremely valuable what these local allies do to help countries like the United States in foreign policy adventures.

Co-host Eamon Dean (48:22)

There are two things I will say. First of all, already America's reputation have been tattered. You know that they sell their allies down the river since they sold their allies in Vietnam down the Mekong river, literally and proverbially, like in 1973, 4 and 5. So no, sorry, like, you know, basically that's a reputation, but yet they will always find allies. Do you know why? Poverty.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (48:45)

Oh, it's so depressing, Eamon. What a depressing world we live in.

Co-host Eamon Dean (48:48)

I'm sorry, it's a depressing and disgusting world, but that's the reality. You know, whenever there is a conflict, the first thing people will think about not, how am I going to survive until five years from now when America leave? How am I going to survive the next five minutes? How am I going to feed my kids for the next five days? So the problem is that America, or how they pay or treat their allies, the problem is war itself. So as long as we humans glorify war, love it, as a first resort to solve our problems, there will always be people who will take whatever paycheck that will come their way because they need it.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (49:26)

Well, if you were looking for sunshine and roses, dear listeners, you've come to the wrong place. And next Tuesday, Eamonn and I will be talking about another sad and beneath united and rather depressing part of the world. We'll be heading back once again to West Africa, this time to talk about Boko Haram, perhaps the most notorious Salafi jihadist militia of them all. We're gonna go right back to the beginning and tell the remarkable story of that corner of Nigeria in recent times, of the fascinating man who gave birth to Boko Haram. And of course, as ever, Eamonn will tell us what we can expect to happen in that part of Africa over the next weeks and months. I'm looking forward to that one, Eamon.

Co-host Eamon Dean (50:13)

I'm too so looking forward to it.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (50:15)

Until then, dear listeners, take care. Conflicted is a message heard. Production Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzie Andrews. At vrbo, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support.

Rocket Money Advertiser (50:52)

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Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (50:53)

Every booking is automatically backed by our VRBO Care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start.

Co-host Eamon Dean (50:59)

Whenever you need help, it's ready before your stay, through the moments in between and after your trip.

Podcast Host (possibly Jake Warren or Max Warren) (51:06)

Because a great trip starts with peace.

Co-host Eamon Dean (51:08)

Of mind and maybe a good playlist, but we've got the peace of mind part covered.