Reflections on Afghanistan w/ Patrick Cockburn

On this edition of Parallax Views, protests against the Taliban in Jalalabad have been met with violent crackdowns. Hours before this development J.G. spoke with Patrick Cockburn, a long-time journalist at The Independent specializing in Middle East wars, about the future of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Given recent developments Patrick's thoughts, particularly his belief that the Taliban would engage in more violent crackdowns and had not moderated, seems pertinent and perhaps even ominous. In this conversation we discuss Patrick's experiences in Afghanistan, what intelligence agencies knew about concerning the state of Afghanistan and what it would look like after the U.S. withdrawal, the ethnic and community diversity within Afghanistan, what the U.S. withdrawal executed by President Biden means for America, what the withdrawal means for Russia, China, Iran, and other nations, what the U.S. got wrong about Afghanistan, how the Taliban managed to take power in the North, and much, much more.