What the taliban takeover looks like to me is local afghans knowing how to survive invasions. Oh yeah absolutely you figure out which big dog is leaving and you make nice with the next alpha dog in line and afghans have been doing that for decades listening there were there were reports their stories about this even now this late date. A lot of afghan farmers thought that the us people who were there were russians. Wow when they. They never quite processed that the russians had left a long time ago. But you know to them. There's no difference americans russians. They're all outsiders. And of course the soviets left in eighty nine. So yeah it's been maybe before some of these. These farmers were little kid now. It was but you know i. It's almost it almost doesn't matter from their perspective. There is no difference. Both both groups of outsiders came in and said we're gonna make a better future for you. You know the soviets did we're gonna we're gonna to clue you in on the glories of of international socialism We came in and said we're going to clue you into the glories of freedom democracy and modernity it was all nonsense to them. It had nothing to do with anything about their everyday lives. Fred kaplan thank you so much. Sure my pleasure. Fred kaplan writes the war stories column for slate. His latest book is the bomb presidents generals and the secret history of nuclear war on monday afternoon. President biden said. He stood by his decision to withdraw. Us troops from afghanistan and added that the us would move quickly in coming days to help transport afghans with visas out of the country. The truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what's happened. Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The afghan military collapsed sometime without trying to fight if anything the development of the past week reinforced at any new us military involvement afghanistan. Now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dine in a war that afghan forces do not willing to fight for themselves. The show what next is produced by the amazing davis. Land daniel hewitt carmel. Shad and elena schwartz. Alison benedict is the executive editor of slate. Leash montgomery is executive producer of slate. Podcasts i am. Mary wilson filling in today for mary harris. We'll catch you back here tomorrow. Thanks for listening..