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[MUSIC]
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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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Our guys, we're gonna continue the botching Afghanistan series with one of our favorite
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guests that we've ever had on the show, and that's Taya Kyle.
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She is the gold star widow of Navy Seal legend Chris Kyle, who obviously served very famously
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over in Afghanistan.
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She was on episodes 183 and 185 of this podcast, and as per usual, guys, one of the reasons
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why we love Taya Kyle so much is because she does not hold back, okay?
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So we have a lot of people that try to be diplomatic and all let's think about both
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sides and let's think about this.
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Let's think about that.
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And you are never wondering what Taya Kyle is thinking.
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That's why we love having her on the show.
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So without further ado, let's get into it.
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Taya Kyle, thank you so much for coming back on our show.
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Again, as we've done with all the other guests on this botching Afghanistan series so far,
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we're just gonna kind of step away from the mic for a little bit and let you give your
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overall thoughts and take it wherever you want because obviously you are a gold star
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widow of a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict and fighting those evil forces that were over
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there.
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So you have a very unique perspective and we'll certainly get into all that.
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But just go ahead and start off with your overall thoughts as to what's going on currently
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and what has been going on in Afghanistan.
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Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's so much of this, I've talked to a lot of veterans
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and technically on the books, Chris was just in Iraq, but you're right, he was in Afghanistan.
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And you know, I feel so much for the veterans right now who are really struggling and they're
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struggling because they wonder was it all for nothing, the loss of life, did it, did
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it count for nothing?
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And I would say to them, the same with the widows who lost their loved ones over there.
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And of course, not of course, I should say it did matter.
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It did matter.
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Their service mattered.
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It gave these people years of a more peaceful existence than they would have had otherwise,
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right?
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And so I heard that 70% of the Afghani population is 30 years of age or under.
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That means for the last 20 years, from the time they were 10, they got a chance at a
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better life.
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They got a chance where they weren't under Taliban rule.
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Yes, there are terrorists and there was terrorism, but it's not at the level that it's going
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to be now.
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And so it mattered.
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Every little bit of hope we can put out into the world matters.
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The situation we're in now is catastrophic.
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It's devastating and there's no excuse for it.
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The people that I think are going to be really suffering are the people that had to fly the
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airplanes out of there with civilians hanging on the fuselage and begging to go with them
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and they had to fly out anyway.
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People who had phenomenal relationships with interpreters and allies over there, they're
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brokenhearted too.
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I've heard from some of them where one of them, they had a great relationship with an
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interpreter over there, but actually it was an army enlisted over there.
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High ranking enlisted and they had a great relationship over the years and his daughter
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had just been shot and killed by the Taliban when all of this went down and here he was
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trying to do the right thing for so long.
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So that's a lot in the first couple of minutes, but I just think there's an array of feelings
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and experiences.
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Well, let's get more into the relationships side because one thing I've asked of a lot
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of people and thought about myself is we, we took a lot of time and put a lot of effort
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into and frankly resources and money into building these relationships and building up
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relationships with interpreters and with informants and with people on the ground that we're going
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to be there for us and back us up.
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And then we leave in such a hasty fashion and we basically, we're basically, you know, I
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say we, the Biden administration is pointing the fingers at the Afghan people alone and
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basically saying, yeah, yeah, we did what we had to do, but it's their fault.
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What type of damage from your perspective do you think that's going to do to our overall
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relationships in the future?
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Because it seems like it's inevitable that we're going to not just have to go back with
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a few thousand troops, but have to go back for real at some point, whether that's, you
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know, within the next few months or within the next few years.
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How do you think how we left is going to affect our capabilities once we do get back there
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on the ground?
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Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a, it's a great point.
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And I think that how we left puts the Taliban in total control.
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It puts India at risk, China and Russia have pretty much a clear path to India right now.
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And that's super dangerous.
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They're a big player in the world stage and they're at risk.
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So with that and with, so the destruction of a good part of India, I would say is probably
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going to go along with it.
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I don't know.
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Of course.
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I hope to God that's not true.
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But if that's the case, the Taliban being empowered the way they're empowered, the forces
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are going to just ignite right China is going to, I think definitely go in to do some Taliban
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support, which means there will be so much more powerful the next time that we have to
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go in.
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They say the next time we have to go in because this has always been, and by this I mean terrorism.
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It's always been a cancer that we can't totally eradicate because if we did, we would be taking
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out so many civilians, right?
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We can't just go in and be inhumane and clear the area because there are so many good people
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there.
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So we have to go in and do our best to cut back on collateral damage and focus on the
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terrorists.
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Having said that, it's like a cancer that we just keep cutting back.
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Not because we'll ever get rid of it, but because without that, it grows, right?
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I wanted to look up something.
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I had a friend of mine who served in a lot of different ways, a couple different special
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forces and he's just a phenomenal human being, big brain guy.
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And you know, he said this, he said, you know what, likely contributed heavily to breaking
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the Afghan military's will to hold on and fight.
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Over our middle of the night, complete pull out in the banum in a bag of airfield last
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month.
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Bogram, sorry.
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When the base commander didn't even notify his Afghan counterpart and we just abandoned
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the airfield under cover of darkness and left it to looters, that said all that was needed
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to for our Afghan counterparts about our level of trust in them and how the rest of the planned
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withdrawal would go.
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We began our exit by insulting and demoralizing them and abandoning our only regional airfield
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and hence taking away their only air support and protection from the Taliban.
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So to me, that just says it all, right?
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It says we set them up for a fall and we continue that by ensuring their fall.
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It's, you know, I don't think we can imagine what it would be like to be in their situation.
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We're so far removed from that kind of a threat that I think it's easy for people to disregard
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it and just say, oh, well, we should be out of there without thinking of the human cost
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and the human impact with people who are living their lives there.
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If they could even imagine being in their shoes, which I don't think very many Americans can
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or will take the time to do.
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Well, and here's the other thing, Taya, that I felt like was crazy because I feel like
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I'm pretty up on things.
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I read a lot of books.
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I pay attention to the news.
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I did not know until this debacle over the last, you know, 72 hours or so that we hadn't
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lost a soldier in Afghanistan for 18 months.
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I did not know that.
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And so when someone would say something like, Oh, we can't still be in these endless wars.
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Why are we still there?
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People are thinking of this like it's Vietnam.
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They're thinking of this like it's World War two.
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They're thinking of this like it's one of those conflicts where there's thousands of thousands
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of people that are dying every single day.
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But all it took was less than 3000 troops to basically tell a Taliban like, Hey, if you
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want some, we got 3000 troops ready to go and way more on the way.
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But I guess the big word that keeps coming to mind Taya is preventable.
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All of this, all the images, all the horrible images we're seeing, and we're going to be
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seeing pictures of people beheaded.
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We're going to see acid thrown on faces.
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We're going to see the worst things imaginable from the Taliban, and this was so preventable.
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So talk a little bit about about kind of what we've done.
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And again, you don't have to get as political as maybe I would want to, but I know you're
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not normally want to hold back your true feelings.
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But like the fact that this was so preventable and the wake that it's going to cause the negative
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wake of issues as we move on to the future.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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Well, I think there's, so here's a problem.
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We have these career politicians, right?
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And they've been in it so long that they almost, I think it's fair to say not even
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almost they become so detached from the human element.
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And they're all in this, this world stage is dangerous.
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So you have a career politician in Biden, right?
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Let's go back to Hillary Clinton.
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Let's go back to when she said people die every day who cares, like get over it, right?
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That's total detachment from people who are serving, that's career politics.
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And now we have Biden who has no experience in war.
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You know, he wanted to present himself as somebody who was an expert on foreign policy
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and really knew the world stage.
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I think what he's proving is that in theory, you can look at it from the outside for a
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long time.
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But if you haven't taken time to get to the human element of it, then you don't know
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what you're doing.
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And furthermore, you're going to make awful decisions because you're not considering
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the human element.
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You know, you can say what you want to about presidents who sent our troops to war, right?
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There were reasons and there are a lot of reasons that I'm sure we won't find out for
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hundreds of years, right?
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There was Chris, Chris found things overseas that weapons and mass destruction, things
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like that that they could never admit.
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And there were a lot of reasons for that.
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There's a lot of like a poker game going on behind the scenes between countries, right?
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So when you look at it that way, you say, a lot of times these career politicians in
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my mind get to a point where they go, ah, they're married and people don't know.
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They're just stupid.
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They don't know.
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You know what?
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We want them out.
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Pull them out.
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Who cares?
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So we lose some people, right?
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It's not so we lose some people.
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These are real lives.
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They are families forever changed for American soldiers and they are families forever changed
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and destroyed for generations in Afghanistan.
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This is not going to be okay for them.
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Like there's not, oh, they just go on, you know, status quo of whatever life has been
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for them.
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Absolutely not.
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If we can, I mean, Americans get so fired up about politics here, right?
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And who's got the right bathroom to use?
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And with all due respect, I'm not saying those aren't issues for people.
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They are.
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What it tells me is that it shows a total ignorance to what some of these real problems
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are for other people, right?
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The fact that they're truly under terrorist rule, if we're complaining about things like
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that, we have no concept about what's going on over there.
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We have no concept what tyranny would be like, right?
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What true oppression is like for women.
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We sit here and we have these rallies in the vagina hats and stuff like that, right?
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As if women are so oppressed here, go to a country where they're really oppressed.
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I'm not saying we shouldn't always get better.
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We should always get better.
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I love that we have freedom to gather, freedom to protest, freedom to speak.
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I love that we can continue to improve.
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I'm not one to accept the status quo.
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At the same time, have some knowledge of the rest of the world and what it's like out
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there, right?
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Yeah, sure.
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A lot of these women over here that are wearing those hats and going to those rallies talking
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about how they're so oppressed and everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're so brave.
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I saw a video yesterday of Afghan women without their hijab's on holding up signs, protest
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against the Taliban so that they could keep their rights.
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I couldn't tell how old these women were, but these might be the women you were talking
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about, Taya, that have lived in a country that's been free since the moment they've
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been alive.
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They've been experiencing a level of freedom that they would have never otherwise known
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had we not gone in there.
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It's shocking to me.
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Well, it's shocking that it's not shocking.
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Watching how the current administration is acting, you have Joe Biden that has to basically
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be pulled back from vacation and immediately gets back on the helicopter and leaves afterwards,
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and they're shocked that the American people are responding negatively.
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I'm like, don't contribute to malice, what can be contributed to ignorance, but I'm like,
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where was your head at?
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But again, I don't want to get off on my own tangent.
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We only have time for about one more question here.
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And this is where you have a unique voice in this space because you've been the voice
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for the voiceless in a lot of ways for Gold Star families because you are a Gold Star widow.
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That is the leader of a Gold Star family.
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And you have a high profile so that you can kind of be a model to other Gold Star family
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members.
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I know veterans are [inaudible] off.
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I know veterans are depressed.
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And I know there's a lot of emotions going on right now with Gold Star families, a lot
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of which members are listening to this podcast show right now.
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So Taya, what is your message to these Gold Star families that have lost their loved ones?
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My message is this, their loved ones lives mattered.
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They mattered.
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End of story.
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Right.
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It there.
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Nobody takes that away from you.
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Nobody takes away the nobility, the character, the love that they put into the world.
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In the military and out of the military, they served their country.
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They're an inspiration to a lot of people, things that their families may never know,
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right?
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People will do a good job in planning, but they struggle sometimes communicating the
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love and the impact that somebody else's life had on them.
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So with that, I say, do not let this erase all of the good that your spouse, your loved
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one, your son, your father, your husband did.
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They mattered.
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And for those people who lived a better life, all of that matters.
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I have this sense that from heaven, we look back and go, whoa, that was the ripple effect
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of my little life.
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And all of us have sort of a little life in this world, right?
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In, you know, in the scheme of eternity, this is just a vapor and it matters still.
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So with that, I would say there is so much out of our control, obviously.
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And then we can't decide, we can't change or impact really what the president does.
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There's going to be consequences.
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And we live through it, right?
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We just live through it.
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That's what we do.
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But we get to hold on to who our loved one was.
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We get to hold on to what they did that mattered.
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And it matters.
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People want to say that, oh, now that Biden did this, he raises all the good we've done,
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it will set Afghanistan back, for sure, but it doesn't erase all the good that was done.
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It doesn't.
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Those lives are forever changed.
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Well, Tae, I certainly appreciate your perspective and those kind words.
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I think that's a great message for a lot of people that are listening to this that are
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hurting and confused today.
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Thanks again for coming back on.
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Thank you for having me.