Bernie Sanders said about war in Afghanistan:
Anchor: you’ve been calling for the U.S to withdraw from Afghanistan for a very very long time but CNN has learned president Biden made this decision against the advice of some of his top pentagon and state department advisors does that at all give you pause
Bernie Sanders: No. No i think the president is right a wolf i think 20 years of war the longest war in the history of this country and Afghanistan. enough is enough i think 2500 brave men and women who gave their lives in that war is enough i think the expenditure of two trillion dollars is enough in other words enough is enough uh so I applaud what the president has done uh and in truth despite what uh Mitch Mcconnell was just saying uh what president Biden is doing is picking up on the negotiated agreement that president Trump uh put together i am not a great fan of Donald Trump and his administration but he was right in trying to end endless wars these wars cannot continue to go on forever and we’ve got to learn that in many respects diplomacy various types of educational aid health care aid is much more important and much more effective than an occupying force on the ground
Anchor: in a formal statement the U.S. intelligence community put it rather bluntly and i’ll read it to you they said the Taliban is likely to make gains on the battlefield and the afghan government will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support what do you see as the U.S role in trying to make sure that doesn’t happen what will the U.S role because as you know there’s a lot of concern what’s going to happen to afghan women and girls for example.
Bernie Sanders: there’s a lot of legitimate concerns about the future of Afghanistan a lot of concerns about a lot of things if we do not act in Yemen some 400 000 children will die of starvation or disease in the worst humanitarian disaster on earth there are concerns all over the world and i share those concerns uh but the bottom line is that what we need to do is understand that in Afghanistan today you have the Taliban they’ve been there for a long long time this is an extremely reactionary organization terribly anti-woman you got the afghan government which is corrupt and what we have got to do is do the best that we can in supporting the government supporting the afghan military but we do not need to spend huge amounts of money doing that we do not need to put american uh lives at stake
