CLAY: We bring in now Sean Parnell, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, but before that has been on ground and has been through scenarios such as these that are chaotic and unclear and uncertain. Sean, I want to start you with this question. What now? We’ve been afraid of this happening, of terror attacks that might occur outside the walls of the Kabul airport. That now has happened as a mass casualty event. What happens to the 5200 soldiers of the United States that are still on the ground there? What do we do from here? And thanks for coming on.
PARNELL: Well, first of all, Clay and Buck, thanks for having me. Look, my fear… (sigh) We’ll see what the president says this afternoon, but I don’t have faith because I think he’s been wholly uninvolved and detached this entire process. He totally underestimated the threat on the ground in Afghanistan — and I’m not even exaggerating — every single time he stepped up to the podium, he’s done nothing but lie to the American people.
You know, so the reality is is that if we had a real president — and I’m not even approaching this as a partisan — we would have been, from the moment we landed on the ground in Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul, running aggressive operations to extract American citizens. And then the next phase of that operation is extracting our allies. But what concerns me the most, Clay and Buck, is that we haven’t done that at all!
You know, I’ve got contacts on the ground right now in Afghanistan; they’re not even active government military. They’re just there doing everything that they can to help. And they’re sort of blown away that our military isn’t doing more, and our troops on the ground are blown away that they’re not doing more. So this is a tragedy in every way and one that I think anyone that’s spent any time in Afghanistan saw coming from a thousand miles away.
BUCK: Sean, my friend, it’s Buck, And I just want to know what you think. if we are looking at an administration that has now a surge of suicide bombing attacks on its hands at Kabul International Airport, which seems highly possible, maybe even probably at this point, meaning we’ve had these two strikes; we have days left where the deadline is still ticking down.
There could be more of these complex attacks. “Complex attack,” for everybody, just means multiple attackers, multiple targets, really, and a level of coordination. It’s the term people use for these things. But, Sean, what could be done, in your mind? Having had to work against some of these terror cells yourself, having gone toe-to-toe in the AfPak border region with Haqqani Network assassins, what do you have to do here to try to provide security or keep people safe? Is there anything that can be done?
PARNELL: Well, I’ll tell you what. At least at a minimum, let’s start with projecting strength and not relying on the Taliban to evac our own people. That is the most absurd thing that I think I’ve ever heard come out of the mouth of a president, because the Taliban, when you talk to them — and I have — they talk out of both sides of their mouths. So of course, yeah.
They’re gonna give assurances to the president that they’re gonna do everything they can to evac our people, while at the same time providing those exfil routes to the Haqqani Network, ISISK, Al-Qaeda, anybody else who would be setting roadblocks up in Kabul that would prohibit the movement of American citizens and our allies. And in fact, that’s happening, Buck.
Like, just last night we’ve been working around the clock to try to get our people out of there, trying to shepherd them through these checkpoints all the way to the airport, and our people can’t get there! They are getting shot at by the Taliban, Haqqani Network, any number of global jihadi All-Star Teams. Our people can’t get to the airport — and make no mistake about it.
The Taliban is deliberately doing everything that they can to flood Abbey Gate, which is the primary gate to Hamid Karzai Airport. It’s crowded with people, right? As of last night, there were thousands of people outside that gate. And as of last night, we were getting intelligence that ISIS was going to launch a coordinated suicide attack. I put something out about it last night on Twitter trying to warn people.
And what we saw was a coordinated suicide attack this morning. And I think the focus is… The next phase of this operation, gentlemen, is gonna be focused on the Baron Hotel which is right across the street from Hamid Karzai Airport which is where most Americans and westerners are holed up. I think you’re gonna see ISIS and other terrorist factions focusing on that hotel the next phase of their operations, and I hope that we’re prepared for it.
CLAY: Sean, what are the chances that Americans are gonna be left on the ground when our troops leave?
PARNELL: A hundred percent, and that’s the biggest travesty of everything, because as a veteran, we don’t leave our people behind. From day one — first day of training — it’s woven into the very fabric of our DNA that we don’t leave our people behind. And I have no confidence whatsoever in the Biden administration’s ability to bring our people home or even that he’s up to the challenge.
This is a guy, right, that doesn’t know where he is half the time. How are we going to expect him to evacuate thousands of Americans that are in one of the most complex, rugged, hostile nations on the planet when he doesn’t know where they are? So I think that he and his entire administration are… I’m telling you: They are woefully out of their depth on this one. This has become the greatest foreign policy disaster certainly since the Vietnam War, but perhaps ever in this country. And the worst part about all of it is I think we’re just at the beginning.
BUCK: Sean, I was gonna ask you: What do you think the chances are here that…? And I know this is… We gotta deal with a lot of very uncomfortable things right now as possibilities. We have Americans in harm’s way. We have U.S. military, thousands of U.S. military that are very much in harm’s way as well. We have American civilians. We have Afghan SIV — essentially green card holders — who are trying to get out of the country.
And we may be facing a wave of these complex attacks in Kabul. For anyone who’s joining us, 13 dead, 52 wounded in these dual Kabul explosions at the airport, right next to the airport as of right now. Those numbers probably gonna go up and it’s likely there will be more attacks. There’s already specific threat reporting about that. Sean, people are looking at this saying, “If this really gets out of hand that let’s say we end up leaving a sizable contingent of Americans behind, is there a possibility there’s gonna have to be another deployment of U.S. troops to go and get them?”
PARNELL: Well, yes. Well, you know what? In a perfect world, if it were me making the decisions, absolutely. You know, I think right now the only option that we have — and then again, this isn’t to stay in that country for another 20 years. But I think that we need to go into Kabul — and this is not me being a warmonger. I hate war. I’ve seen it up close and personal. Anybody that’s seen war hates it.
But at this point, we’ve got to go into Kabul with overwhelming force and we have to get our people. I mean, because right now our troops are in a static defensive location. They don’t have the combat power to really do anything but really be trapped in that airport totally — totally — at the behest of the Taliban, right? They can’t do anything, at what patrol, they can’t go anywhere.
They can’t even protect the people outside of Abbey Gate right now. And so I don’t want to see us bogged down in another war there, but we have an obligation to protect American citizens who are trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. I’ll tell you what: Nothing is more insulting than the Biden administration inferring, just yesterday, right, that American citizens who are trapped in Afghanistan and desperate to get the home, “Ah, they don’t really want to come home anyway because they didn’t heed our warning,” right?
Joe Biden for the last six months has been telling the American people (laughs) that everything’s fine in Afghanistan! So no wonder we’re in a place right now where thousands of American citizens are trapped and a president that doesn’t have the spine to actually send people after our citizens to get them out of there.
BUCK: Talking to Sean Parnell, former Army Ranger, 10th Mountain Division, deployed to Afghanistan, author of the book Outlaw Platoon about his time fighting along the AfPak border along the complex zone. Sean, what do you think’s gonna happen in the next couple of days?
PARNELL: (big sigh) I think that that Hamid Karzai Airport will close — and I speak, I’m just guessing. Just by having watched how the Biden administration has handled this, I think all gates to Hamid Karzai Airport are gonna close. I think they’re only gonna start evacuating U.S. military personnel and equipment and I think that you’re gonna see a complete drawdown of U.S. Troops by the 31st.
And I think that every American there is gonna have to find their own way out, and every one of our allies is gonna have to do the same thing. And it pains me to have to say it because it shouldn’t have to be this way. But nothing that Joe Biden has done from the very beginning of this botched surrender — nothing that he has done — has made any sense. And so I think that he’s gonna adhere to the 31 August withdrawal.
CLAY: We appreciate your time, Sean, and we appreciate your service. We’ll talk to you again soon.
PARNELL: Yeah. Thanks, guys.