YouSaid · the spoken record

Robert Crews

lines on the record: 191
first: 2021-11-28
most recent: 2021-11-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Constructing democracy. And of course, you know, cinnamon's like us might have been thinking, well, you know, you're not really doing that. You're backing frogs.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fake. Fraudulent elections for parliament and for president. Afghanistan again and again from the very beginning. And there's elections were partly theater for the US, for remaining on the road that you're describing, right? For not deviating, for not exiting, because we were building democracy there. In reality, the US government knew it was never really building democracy there. It was establishing control. And elections were one means to gather control, right? But then you had on the ground, especially on young people. University, having experiences that were denied to them before, they took these problems as seriously. So part of the disillusionment that we see today is that they believe what the U.S. told them that.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Having telephone cheap telephones, which then become an access point to the world and social media, right? So all the stuff swept across Afghan society as it did elsewhere in the last decade or more. So Afghan society became in important ways really connected to everything going on. And so you see that reflected politically and what people wanted. So you had some people, obviously back to return to the Taliban. Some people wanted the status quo. But increasingly, many more people wanted something else. And one of the great failures was to expose people to democracy, but only give them the rigged version. And so the US State Department in particular continued to double down on fake elections for the parliament and for the presidency in Afghanistan.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People hooked up generators to televisions and watch this, you know, you think of like literacy rates. Literacy rates are imperfect in people who study medieval or modern Europe talk about how no one could read and there weren't many books, but if someone had a book it would be read aloud to a whole village potentially or gathering. So there wasn't much, you know, so these metrics don't get what people actually receive as information or exposure because there's a magnifying power of open spaces and hearing radio and group settings, seeing television group settings.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a show by an independent television network that did drama. It did kind of infomercials for the government and huge American investment in it. So it wasn't politically neutral, but it did talk shows, did all this kind of stuff. But it did the singing show that became incredibly popular, modeled upon the British American Idol kind of stuff, you know. And you can vote. So how to kind of democratic practice element. But it's fascinating to see that.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you think of the cycle of the Taliban being in power in 2001 and the way in which that affected women in particular, half of the society, right? Then you think of this 20-year period of violence and missed exits, right? And repeated tragedy, but also it created a space. I mean, it created a space for a whole, I'd say generationally. It created a space for people to realize something new. I think so we have to attend to the dynamism of the society, right? Yeah, this happened mostly in Kabul. Other big cities, Mazar Sharif, Herat, and Kandahar. But you can't limit your analysis to that because things like radio, television, everyone got a TV channel. There's a wonderful documentary called Afghan Star that I recommend to your listeners and viewers that it's about a singing show, a scene contest show. But you see, just for some of these things about connections, I mean, it's a...”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Used to mean a lot more in the 19th century, right? So a lot of like the nuts and bolts of history is about conceiving of these kinds of distinctions. But I think that if one has the privilege of traveling a bit, you see that urban areas are fed by rural hinterlands. And if you think of who actually brings the bread, the milk, you know, the pomegranates and so on, it creates these networks. And then mobility channels information and so on. But yeah, but your broader point about the tragedy of this, I mean, I guess if I can quote a brilliant student of mine, an Afghan American woman who just received her PhD, who's now, you know, doctor, who's a great scholar, we've done several events now trying to just think through what's happened. And where she's very emotionally affected by it, and she continues to ask a really great question, if I can get her phrasing right.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another way to put it is this I mean, yeah, there's a range of knowledge, and you're right, the information flows are peculiar to particular geographies and histories and stuff. And I think that plucking out one sample from some fairly remote area, from one like follow the agricultural products. I mean, and this is where, you know, I think urban rural divides.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wasn't something you got from a book, right? This was like hard knock life. I mean, one friend was from a wealthy family in this trading diaspora. And he was imprisoned. I mean, they sent him to prison in Pakistan. And he talks about how he started running in the jail, you know, taking cigarettes to people, doing little things. These are not stories of like, oh, I went to Harvard, and so I'm so learned because of this. It's a whole range of experiences.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think a lot of them are going to tell you what's happening in the world and why, right? And it's just part of their thing, right? You can find out in Ghana. You can find that in Mexico City, right? You find that lots of places. So I think. Afghans are part of a very sophisticated kind of mapping of the world and where they fit in. And a lot of them remarkably have done it firsthand, which is what struck me so much. And relaying my experiences from the 1990s and Tashkent places that these guys that already lived in more countries than I'd ever been, they already knew half those languages. I mean, this one friend's Russian was impeccable. And of course, it helped. They had Russian girlfriends. They mixed”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were saying, you know, ha, look at this. And that exists. I mean, I think I could go to my Stanford classroom and there'd be a lot of kids who wouldn't know where Afghanistan is too, right? But I wouldn't use those metrics to suggest that this is a place that doesn't have a sense of its place in the world and of geopolitics. I think if anything, being a relatively small country in a very complicated neighborhood, I mean, everybody, every cab driver, I mean, people have a, I mean, this is where America is different because I don't think Americans have this sense. We're talking about Moscow and stuff. I think, you know, Moscow cab drivers.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being a world center is also quite strong. So another way to frame that question about do the Nobout 9 11 would be like, why should we know about 9-11? Because we are at the center of something important, right? We are the center of Asia. We are the heart of Asia. We have a kind of historic greatness. We are a proud culture of our own achievements, right? So we're not worried about that, right? That said, I mean, sure, there are different narratives about why Americans are there, why people are being killed. Of course, you'd find, you know, they want to convert us. You know, they want our gold. They want our opium. They want X, Y, and Z, right? There was a recent story about a Taliban official sitting in an office in Kabul in a journalist asked him, can you find in this rotating globe, find your country? Find where are we sitting right now? And he was filmed not being able to do it. And so a lot of race-fiscated Afghans that asked.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Dress or whatever, right? You think of technology, you think of the mud compounds and so on. You think of animal drawn transportation, that kind of stuff, right? Or the motorbike, right, at most is what they have. But in fact, if you follow this families, their trade is taking them to northern India for centuries, right? The trade has connected them to cosmology centers. Say they have a scholar in their family. That scholar may have studied all of the Middle East, South Asia, right? Their ancestors may have been horse traders who went all the way to Moscow, right? I mean, we have a sore record of all these people traveling across Eurasia, pursuing all kinds of livelihoods. And so Afghanistan is this paradox of visually looking remote and looking like it's kind of stuck in time. But the family trajectories and the current trajectories are astoundingly cosmopolitan and mobile. And so, and a conception of”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He may speak five languages. And this is all things I'm not saying. These are just because people have money can go fly around. I mean, they're people who are displaced by war from late 1970s, right? Even already in the early 70s, people were traveling by the tens of thousands to Iran as labor migrants. And once you get to Iran, once you get to Pakistan, once you get to Uzbekistan, you then connect to all kinds of cosmopolitan cultures. In fact, I think one of the themes of the book that you may or may not have read, it may put you to sleep. Afghan modern was about conceptualizing Afghanistan as a cosmopolitan place where for centuries people went on the move and trade in this area. You think of, you know, I think this mischaracterization of places like Helmon and Kanahar, you fly in or you're part of a marine battalion and you see people there and they look different. And I think in our imagination, if I can generalize, they look like they've been there for millennia, right?”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, east coast, west coast, all that stuff. Those are all part of the mix here. So you ask about Kandahar and Helman, then I would say. If you go out to a pomegranate field, you'll meet a guy who may reckon time differently from you and me, who may not be literate, you may not have ever had a geography lesson. But if you go one door over, you may meet a guy who His life path has taken him to live in six countries.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am, one parent is Haji, one is Pashun, right? Or I'm Pashtun, as I mentioned before, but I don't speak Pashtun, right? Or I am Hazara, but you read about us as Shi Hazaras. In fact, I'm a Sunni Hazara. Or I'm a secular Hazara, or I'm an atheist Hazara. I mean, everything's possible, right? One of my friends, if he were here, he'd say, I'm Kabuli. I'm from Kabul. So if you think about it in Russian terms, it means a lot if you're a Moscowic, you know, if you're from Pisutur or Mosqua, I mean, you know,”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The trick though is let me, I don't mean to be evasive, but just to convey some of the complexity, one quick answer as well. There are majorities and minorities. I mean, one finds that a lot along with those maps. But I would say suspend any firm belief in that because that could be entirely wrong, in fact. There's never been a modern census of Afghanistan. So when journalists say Pashin's a majority, they're the biggest group, I would say not so fast. I would say not so fast because of migration is one major issue. No major modern census. Actually, the Soviets got pretty close, but didn't quite find something comprehensive and didn't publicize it, knowing that it was in modern times, ethnicity can be the source of political mobilization. It's not innately so, but it's been part of the story. But then you have mixed families, right? So a lot of people you'll meet you'll encounter in the diaspora and around. I mean, well,”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they're all indigenous things. I mean, there's a kind of mythology that some groups have been there longer, right? So they have a greater claim to power. But historically, I mean, it's like, you know, ethnic groups anywhere, people have different narratives about themselves. But many, many Pashtuns would tell you, not all, but many would say, we are the kind of state builders of Afghanistan. The dynasty that ruled much of the space that was born in the mid-18th century that ruled until 1973 more or less, generalizing was a Pakistan dynasty. The Taliban have definitely said to some audiences, we are the rightful rulers because we are Pashtun.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, sorry, yeah, yeah, sorry. So in cities, you'll find everything, right, that is in Afghanistan. You'll find Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras. These are people who, Uzbek is a Turkic language, right? Most Uzbeks live in what is now Uzbekistan, but they form majorities in some northern parts of the city. I'm sorry, of the country of Afghanistan. You can find online an ethnographic map of Afghanistan, and you'll see green where Pashtuns live, red where Hazars live, orange where Uzbeks live, purple where Tajiks live. Then there are a bunch of other smaller groups of different kinds. There are Nurasanis, there are Baluch, there are different religious communities, there are Sunni, Shia, different kinds of Shia”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Supposedly in this piece, were sympathetic because they lost family members and all the violence and the idea kind of was that, you know, we haven't thought about that at all when in fact, you know, of course, we have and lots of people have. But I think if you're just dropping into the conversation, if you look at the media arc of coverage of Afghanistan, the United States, I mean, arc went from lots of coverage during, of course, 9-11 and its aftermaths of coverage during Obama's surge. And then quickly dropped down the last decade has been almost nothing. So if you ask the same question about Americans or of Americans, I'm not sure what they would say to you. What percentage would actually know why the US is an X, Y, or Z either, right? But I think on the Afghan side, just to return to that for a moment, I think that we can fetishize these provinces. They are kind of a place where Taliban support has been greatest. Also where there's been the most violence where the Americans have been most committed to”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certain kinds of ignorance, I think. But I think what I would say, and then there's also, I mean, a companion point maybe that in thinking about the withdrawal, the collapse, the return of the Taliban, there's been a big conversation about, you know, what do Afghans think of us really? And this famous piece in The New Yorker was about how many people liked the Taliban, that many women interviewed.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. I mean, my gut response, not knowing the details of this actual poll is, so that's a very... Unhelpful way to think about how Afghans relate to the world. And I think it could be, you know, if you go to my hometown, North Carolina, if you knock out some doors, you may meet people who don't know all kinds of things. I could probably walk around this neighborhood here in California and there'd be all kinds of people who don't know all kinds of things. You know, Kyrie Irving apparently thinks the Earth is flat. I mean, you know, so we could make a lot of...”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even if Afghan poppies don't make it to Hoboken, they're not the. Source of American deaths They are part of Universal market, a global market, which I think any economist would tell you is part of the story of our opium problem.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As I kind of like massaging negotiations, they kept talking about bin Laden, but they also wanted them to stop opium production. I mean, Afghanistan, throughout all this period, we've talked about is the global center of opium production. I mean, over the years, more and more of Afghan economy continue to today is devoted to the opium trade.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From security people, from diplomatic circles. And they're counting on things being different this time. I mean, the first time around, the only people who backed the Taliban by recognition, giving them dramatic recognition were the Saudis, Pakistanis, and the UAE. And because of Al-Qaeda, because of opium, because of some of the human rights stuff, the US pushed everyone to like, you know, let's not recognize the state, even though the US did. I mean, Colin Powell famously summer of 2001, we did give a few grants and aid to the Taliban.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fighting this war, we're not stupid about that. I mean, they got the human dimension of that. And yet, no one got off the exit, as you said. People kept driving. But going forward now, internationally, it's critical that they have, I mean, they've had meetings. I mean, what the top line have done since August 15th is the law of diplomacy. They've had meetings, they've had people, they've had Touchkent come, they've had Beijing come, they've had Moscow come. I mean, they've had major visits from Islamabad.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Taliban fighters over the last 20 years, but they just sprouted up again. And part of that was the kind of solidarity culture, the male bonding of martyrology, of martyrdom, and of revenge and a sense of the foreign invader. And I've heard, I mean, I haven't taught a ton of U.S. military people, but through the Hoover, they put officers in our classes sometimes. met a few wonderful army and marine officers who I really enjoyed. We came from the south like me. Always had great rapport with them. And they expressed a range of opinions about this. I think that, you know, I learned a lot from some of them who said, yeah, I mean, I get that they hate us. I get why they're still fighting because last week we just killed 14 of their fellow villagers. So the officers, the guys on the ground.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Countless civilians. The U.S. never counted for that. We never encountered. Trump escalated the civilian casualties by escalating the air war. But a lot of this was very ugly on the ground, you know, night raid stuff. You drop into a hamlet and massacre people. And then you're not honest about what happened, right? So that dynamic continued to fuel the growth of Taliban from below. So the foot soldiers, they never ran out of foot soldiers. I mean, the US and its allies killed”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Central Asia. It's sitting on a couple trillion dollars probably in mineral resources that China would love to have, of course. And so people are looking at Afghanistan. There was immense human suffering, incredibly violent. The world did not start counting civilian casualties in Afghanistan until 2009. Think about that. The war went on for eight years. The Taliban were never really defeated. They just went to Pakistan. They went to the mountains. They went to the woods. And so all these different American operations, as you noted under Bush, Obama, Trump, and so on.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They had their own law courts, and they would creep into a district, assassinate some people, the local authority figures, men of influence, Talk to local clerics, either get them on board or kill them, and say, you know, this date is corrupt, but we're bringing you justice. This is our calling card. We're bringing public morality and justice. And then to a broader world, they said, yeah, things didn't go perfectly. A whole Al-Qaeda thing, you know, wish we could have a do-over on that. We're not going to let anyone hurt you from our territory. We just want to rule. And people like us and look. And so if we look at the neighborhood, Iran, even the Central Asian states, after a while, recognizing they can make some money. I mean, one of the one thing that expects Don likes about the current arrangement or they're not hostile to is that they have all these contracts. They can potentially make some money from the pipeline dream remains alive, running natural gas, oil to, you know, in which the Indian Ocean to markets, you know, be”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And also, kind of hinting that we have a website. I mean, the whole digital angle is amazing because they began to, and this is important actually, they had a website which grew more and more sophisticated again after having shot televisions and these kind of ceremonial killings of these infidel devices, right? They said we have a government, we have commissions, we have a complaint line. lifted all this technocratic language that you get from any UN document about good governance and all the kind of generic language that the NGO world has produced for us, right? In English, they reproduced that in five languages on their Tablan website. I'm not saying even believe this, but it was like, you know, just put me in coach. You know, I know the playbook. I know how to run a government. And look, we have an agricultural commission. We have, you know, a taxation system. And again, this idea. And then on the ground.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Summer for the last year or two, they've been talking to China, right? So the photographs of senior top line figures going from their office in Qatar, which was a major, major blow to the US-backed government, the fact that they were able to open up an office in Qatar, at one point began to fly a flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that basically said we're a state in the waiting. The US backed Afghan government failed and failed and failed at ruling two, right? As they showed how corrupt they were and as they really alienated more and more Afghans by committing acts of violence against them, by stealing from them, by basically creating a kind of kleptocracy, we are pure, we are not corrupt, and look at us. We're winning on the battlefield internationally. Look, we're talking to China.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bunch of troops sitting in Tajikistan. I mean, one Ford base that Russia still has in Central Asia is in Tajikistan. And so the Taliban were always a worrying point, but also useful because they could say, well, in case the Taliban get out of control, we need to be here. And so Tajikistan said, okay, you're helping secure us. And yes, it impinges upon our sovereignty, but it's okay. So Putin said, you know, let's give another black eye to the Americans and let's, you know, treat the Taliban as if they're the kind of government in waiting. Let's have them come to Moscow multiple times.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of papered over the differences, they allowed the Taliban to open some offices on Iranian territory, likely shared some resources, some intelligence, some sophisticated weaponry, and then the Taliban went to Moscow. And for the Putin administration, they've long been worried that they see the Taliban as a kind of disease that will potentially move north, infect Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and maybe creep into Russia's sphere of influence. Maybe that's why they have, you know,”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So everyone in the neighborhood has wanted the US to leave, right? If we go back to 2001, there were Iranian and American special forces in the north working together against the Taliban to displace them using Iranian, American, and then Afghan resistance forces against the Taliban. And that was a real moment of rapprochement. If we go back to it, that missed exits. Neglection with Iran could have been different at that moment, but the US under George W. Bush devised this axis of evil language. Them together with their enemy Iraq and the North Korea. All that went south. That was the most opportunity. But in recent years, the Taliban and Iran have”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is very important for a Pakistani elite that, of course, is looking toward India. They want to have their rear covered, right? They want to make sure that these Pashtuns don't cause trouble for Pakistan. And they like, I mean, for some of the security forces, they like this vision of the Islamic State, the Taliban are building there because they're not citizen from their views of what Pakistan should be. But the Taliban have been smart enough to kind of diversify their potential Natasha allies.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They will be able to use eventually. But still, basically, it's a story of AK-47s, some American small arms and mines. So it's very Ho Chi Men, very old school, guerrilla fighting, right? And they defeated the most powerful military alliance in world history probably. So that has not yet sunk in and what that means for American and global politics. And now they're trying to rule, right? They know they need international support. Most consistent backer has been Pakistan, who sees them as an extension of Pakistani power.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but I think that when the cameras retreat, and that suck could happen, it's going to get much worse, I think. That the challenge now is, you know, can the top line rule? And then this is where the diplomacy is so important because the Toplan can't rule in isolation. And they know that. And part of the success is due to the fact that they became very good at talking to other people in the last, I mean, it's been building for the last decade, but I say the last five years, they always have Pakistan's backing. And so the Taliban are we noted they're a military force, very effective guerrilla force. They beat NATO. I mean, this is still hasn't sunk in. I mean, the fact that they, with light arms using suicide attacks, using mines, improvised explosive devices, machine guns. In recent years, they got sniper rifles. And from the summer, they got American equipment on a broad scale, right? They have airplanes. They have a lot that...”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they don't know what to do with being yelled at and having someone stick their fingers in their faces. I mean, this is not what they've imagined. And at this juncture, there are still foreign cameras around. So they have committed acts of violence against women, against journalists. They've beaten people. They've disappeared people”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and they've walked into Kabul and other major cities. Some of them are young. They didn't know those places. Very important obstacle for them is that Afghan society has changed. I mean, it's not what even for the older guys, it's not what they knew in the 1990s. Some always had some ambivalence about the capital, but now it's totally different. I mean, they've been shocked to see. I think to me, one of the most striking features of the last few weeks has been that. Women have come out on the streets and have stood in their faces and said, you know, we demand rights, we demand education, we demand employment. And these foot soldiers are paralyzed. They're not sure.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think to any religious person, I mean, it's not a bizarre idea. I mean, it animates so many global traditions. When you try to sell like an army colonel, if you were to have a conversation with a U.S. Marine about this, I mean, some would get it from their own religious backgrounds, but I think it's an alien idea, but I think it's essential to kind of stretch our imagination to understand that's attractive. And now one of the dilemmas going forward is that. They've got to pivot from martyrdom, and some have been, some have told foreign journalists. I mean, it's good that we're in charge now. We're going to build a proper state, but it's kind of boring. I want to keep fighting. Maybe I'll do it in Pakistan.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A moral judgment, it's simply, I think, a fact. It's a fact of their appeal that they promised young men who have known nothing else but studying in certain schools, if at all, but they've known fighting and they've known victimization. And this isn't, I'm not asking for sympathy for them, but I think the reality is that a lot of what we know about the kind of foot soldiers is that they They lost families and bombings and airstrikes, in night raids. Orphans have always been a stream living in all male society. Not knowing girls, not knowing women, hearing things from outside about places like Kabul. And so there's always been this kind of urban rural dimension. It's not just that, but I think there's a whole imagination that being Taliban captures. And the whole margin thing is really it's...”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On like sexuality and on public morality and really being the core of like, you know, we're going to restore order and public morality and how that translates into governance is something they've never sorted out. I mean, how do you run a banking system? If your intellectual priorities are really about, you know, the length of a beard. And then their path to power in a kind of abstract sense. I mean, a lot of that was very much driven by... You like propagating the promise of martyrdom. And that sounds, I don't mean to say that in a way that to make it sound ridiculous, make it sound like it's”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cohesive and disciplined, I'd say. Right. So I think that a lot of the polycentrism, blah, blah, some of that stuff was a way to fight a war. They are fundamentally a guerrilla movement. They see themselves as kind of pious Robin Hoods. Rhetoric is very much about taking from the rich, taking from the privilege, giving to the poor, being on the side of the underdog. Fighting against evil. And so, I mean, their bag, if you like, their thing. Their central theme, their brand is about public morality. And so their origin story, going back to 1994, is that they interceded, they broke up a gang of criminals who were trying to rape people. And so there's a very interesting kind of like.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Taliban tried to mobilize other Pashtuns with limited success, but their core membership is almost exclusively Pashtun, and they say Nana, we represent Afghans, we represent pious Muslims. And so in recent two, three years, they've gone further to say, no, we have ethnic groups, we have Uzbeks, we have Tajiks, we have Hazaras. And in the north of Afghanistan in recent years, they did do a bit better at drawing in people who were very disaffected because of the government. And they were able to diversify their ranks somewhat. But if you watch 15 and who they've appointed, what language they've used, how they've presented themselves, it's clear that they are Pashtun, they are male, and they are extremely ideologically.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Language is a kind of core element of that identity, but it's not universal. So, for example, you can meet people who say, I am Pashtun, but I don't know Pashtun. As you claw away at this idea, it's amorphous. It also means different things, different people at different times. So saying the Taliban or Pashtun requires lots of qualifiers because lots of Pashtuns will say, no, no, I have nothing to the Taliban. I hate those people.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, so just to rephrase people say, oh, the Deobandi school. I'm like, what is that? I mean, the Taliban are, they're an ethnic movement. They represent a vision of Pashtun power, right? Pashtuns are people who are quite internally diverse, who actually speak multiple dialects of Pashtun, who reside across the frontier of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are Pashtuns who live all over the planet, right? There's a community in Moscow, California, everywhere, right? So it's a global diaspora of sorts. Paschuns have a kind of genealogical imagination so that lots of Pashuns can tell you the names of their grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. And that's kind of a sense of pride in that.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, pop on. Scratch in my teeth. Let's scratch that for two because I think Stanford's more like MIT than you might imagine.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But if you look at their teachings, it's very clear now, I think, that these labels, it's like saying, you know, you're in MIT guy. Well, what does that mean? I mean, MIT is home to dozens of different potentially kinds of intellectual orientations, right? I mean, attaching the name of a school doesn't quite capture. I mean,”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was very skeptical. How did they know this? I mean, this is an organization that doesn't want you to know where that money comes from and so on. But I would say now that we have a clearer picture of what has happened, I'd say they were astoundingly well organized clerical military organization that has a very cohesive And enduring ideology, which is quite idiosyncratic if we zoom out and continue the conversation we're having about Islam and how we think about radicalism and who's drawn to what, people throw different terms around to describe the Taliban. Some use the term that links it to a kind of school of thought born in the 19th century in India, the Doha Bandi school.”
2021-11-28 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #244 – Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source