Pulling Troops Out Of Afghanistan – An Overview With Chad Robichaux – The Biden Administration has announced a date for pulling our troops out of Afghanistan. The Taliban is already swooping down and taking over the areas we are pulling out of, executing our Afghan Allies. The situation is serious. Tune in to hear an overview from Chad Robichaux, and for how you can help pressure the White House to protect our allies who have fought alongside our own warriors for the past 20 years.

Call the White House line for comments: 202-456-1111

Call the line for Senators: 202-224-3121

Air Date: 07/19/2021

Guest: Chad Robichaux

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, and we are talking about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach, we’re glad you’re with us.

Be sure to visit our website as well, wallbuilderslive.com, where you can get archives of the program, you can make a donation and come alongside us and support us. And there’s also a lot of other great information on the website as well, wallbuilderslive.com. David and Tim, later in the program, our good friend Chad Robichaux will be back with us, of course, Mighty Oaks Warriors program, want to encourage people to visit that website today, donate to those guys, they’re doing incredible work at really ministering to our warriors when they come home, saving marriages, preventing suicides. It’s an incredible, incredible organization. But Chad is also a great advocate for our warriors. And today, we’re going to talk about and he’s going to be an advocate for warriors who came alongside us in Afghanistan.

David:

Yeah, and that’s an important thing. Because going into Afghanistan, that was a lot of fear and trepidation. There have not been many foreign nations that have gone in Afghanistan and been able to get out in one piece. I mean, just before us was Russia, and Russia never defeated the Afghans, they just withdrew because they were just getting creamed by the guys. They didn’t know how to fight in that region of the world. They didn’t have the right language folks. They just didn’t have the philosophy.

So when we decided to move from Iraq over to Afghanistan, man, it was with a lot of fear and trepidation, because nobody gets out of Afghanistan, it becomes a bug hole you don’t get out of. And fortunately for America, there were so many of those who lived in Afghanistan that wanted to be free of the Taliban, that did not want the kind of turmoil they brought, that they cited the Americans, they became translators and helpers, they became intelligence assets that did so much to help America do the right thing.

Tim:

Yeah, guys, we’re talking about nearly 80,000 individuals from the Afghans who are working with us troops. And that is a massive number. So when you think about how many American troops are over there, that is 80,000 is a significant force in and of itself, and they were very important allies to America, as dad, you mentioned, helping us know the region, helping us understand part of the enemy we’re facing.

And there were many times that Americans as an individual would be going into an Afghan group to helping train the Afghans, they’d be embedded with the Afghans. And so there’s so much connection, and we really can go through many different special force members that we know and many different soldiers we know who worked very closely with some of these Afghani people. And they speak so highly of them, and moments when the Afghan people actually save their life and help fight and defend them, and these were people who are very important allies.

And now we’re in a place where, first of all, the Biden administration is saying, we’re going to pull troops, we’re going to draw from the Middle East, you have people like George Bush, President Bush, who was there, the guy initially sending our troops over there, he’s looking going, man, this is a mistake, that this is not a good decision. On top of the fact when you are officially announcing a withdrawal date, you’re telling them exactly when they can have the land back. There’s just so many mistakes it would seem that President Biden is making and that his team is making in the midst of this withdrawal what they’re doing. But one of the greatest mistakes is they’re abandoning the allies that were so vital to saving American lives.

And guys, we’re talking about a time when we’ve never had more people illegally coming across the southern border. And in the midst of all of these illegal crossings, you have the current presidential administration that even though we’re having hundreds of thousands of people come across on essentially a monthly basis, and those are the people that we know about, not even the people that aren’t known. And there are estimates that there are four or five times as many unknown people coming across the border as the knowns that are being captured. So you’re talking about millions upon millions of people this year that will come across the southern border. And right now, the Biden administration, the Biden White House is not stepping up saying hey, these 80,000, right, relative, approximate 80,000 Afghani allies that we have, we’re going to bring them to America, we’re going to keep them safe. This is atrocious that we are going to abandon our friends…

Rick:

While we let 200,000 a month come across the border that we don’t have any idea whether they’re good or bad.

Tim:

Exactly right. These are people that we know on some level because they work to help defend American lives. And me guys, it’s just it’s so crazy. And as you mentioned, dad, Chad is somebody who does so much to help with the military in general, does a lot to help with veterans. He does military readiness now for the Marines. He’s on the marine basis every single year, several times a year talking to the new soldiers that these new Marines that are coming in to join the military and actually as they finish their basic trainings or boot camps, the different things they’re doing, Chad is very involved in this.

But one of the things that Chad is very outspoken about now is looking back and seeing these Afghan allies we have saying we need to do something, we need to help these guys. American needs to do the right thing and stand up and help defend them. Because at this point, there’s already videos being released of Taliban coming in and literally murdering, just lining these guys up, capturing some of these soldiers lining them up and just executing them. And this is where America has to do the right thing and get involved.

David:

And this is such a weird time to be kind of closing the borders down to these guys. These guys have already been vetted. There’s no way you work with special forces and work with army and military guys without having been vetted. And so these were our allies. These were guys that we knew. We check their background. We knew they were strong. You can’t afford to have someone among you who you don’t know who might end up killing everyone in the unit. So these are guys who have been checked out.

And it’s significant too that, I mean, Tim, as you’re missing how the Taliban is already lining some of these guys up and taking them. We know that Taliban is already taking major provinces, major parts of Afghanistan. And we have the intelligence that says that right now, for example, in Iraq, we chased ISIS out of Iraq, there’s no longer Caliphate there. Yeah, since we chased it out, there are now more ISIS fighters in Iraq than at the time we chased the caliphate out. They’re coming back in droves and droves, we’re pulling out. We’re just turning it back over to the same instability that that’s been there. And that becomes the same cesspool from which mosquitoes attack the United States, so to speak. I mean, they’ll end up being over here doing things to us, again, just as they have for all these previous decades.

So it really doesn’t make sense to just completely walk away, turn our back on everyone there all the things going on, not try to help those who helped us. This is a time where we’re going to ask you to really weigh in with the White House, the White House is getting a lot of pressure now, even Democrats are pushing on the White House. But they need to hear from the American people that we need to do the right thing. We need to bring these guys to safety. They helped us they save countless American lives. These are the kind of folks that have already proven themselves to love America. I mean that’s who you want here.

So call the White House, email, the White House, whatever, but make that contact, they need to have a lot of pressure right now. Chad will tell us more about it, but just already, I mean that this is a really important issue for us right now.

Rick:

Chad does so many different things, and we’re thrilled to be able to get some time with him. We’re going to take a quick break, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Our good friend Chad Robichaux is back with us from Mighty Oaks Warriors. And by the way, got a great event coming up in Texas in October. Chad, before we get into our very serious topic for the day, not that the dinner is not serious because you guys are saving lives and saving marriages, it’s hugely serious, but it’s also really fun. Tell us about the dinner in the fall and then we’ll get to our topic for the day.

Chad:

Yeah, October 16th in The Woodlands, Texas, we’re having our annual gala, it’s the 11th annual gala. And this is the one time a year where we’re going to hit the brakes on our operations, but a big fundraiser of the year, we celebrate what we’ve done, and then we cast vision board to what we’re going to do with all our supporters. And we try to raise a bunch of money to scholarship these warriors to come to our programs. You know, for the last 10 years, we run programs absolutely free for active duty service members, veterans, spouses, first responders. And we do about a little over 3.5 million dollars year programming for these guys, and cover everything include travel since we raised most of the money to do that.

And this year, we have Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby, and the founder of the Bible Museum, he’s going to be a guest speaker. And amazing man, we’ve been blessed to know him this year. And I’m super excited that he’s going to be there with all of us for the full event.

Rick:

Love it, love it. And just to give, if any our new viewers are not familiar, you all have had, I mean 4,000 program graduates 150,000 resiliency event attendees. You do about 72 events a year for these guys. I mean you all are having a massive impact. I mean you’re reaching tons and tons of people.

Chad:

We’re doing a program here at five different states now around the country, so really six branches, two and two, those branches are here in Texas that we’re doing the programs that in fact we’re graduating program today. There’s Warriors in Junction, Texas graduating a program, and it’s incredible. If you want to get tickets though, mightyoaksprograms.org/txgala, is where you get tickets. And then mightyoaksprograms.org is our website.

Rick:

Alright, mightyoaksprograms.org, and the tickets are still available, not sold out yet, you guys typically do, so I encourage folks. And if you can’t come to Texas and go to the dinner, you can at least go online and sponsor the dinner. Great time to make a donation like Chad said, this is the big one every year that really helps fund operations throughout the year. And man, they’ve had so many great speakers and folks in the past. So become a part of this, folks go to the website today mightyoaksprograms.org. Chad, let’s get into it. Man, so you were talking about the fact that now, we’re basically repeating history where we’re leaving behind a lot of the guys that helped guys like you that were there on special operations and we’re just abandoning them.

Chad:

It’s an ugly part of our history as Americans. I mean, obviously, I love our country. I hate anytime I have to say anything bad about our country, but you know, it’s one thing we have not done well. As American military forces, when we go in and fight these wars in foreign lands for the people abroad that we’re defending, and for our own national interests, we have a history of leaving, and leaving behind those who fought alongside of our troops. We did it in Vietnam. I’m sure we’ve been in other areas. We did it in the Gulf War. We did it not Iraq, during Operation, Iraqi Freedom when we left our set Air Force Base, and just left our gear there and left our allies there.

And now, this administration has just announced that we’re going to leave Afghanistan in September. They give a date, which is terrible thing to do to give a date. But they give a date, they’re going to leave us September 11tth. And the problem that we have here is that over the last 20 years, we’ve had 80,000 Afghans who have partnered with us forces and served alongside of us, fought alongside of us for the last 20 years, 80,000 of them.

And right now, the administration, which by the way, the pro-immigration administration, not being petty here, but you know, they are camping the pro-immigration administration, they have only allowed for a total of 26,500 Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who served with us. So 26,000, when it’s 80,000 of them, is a huge deficit.

And what’s happening right now as US forces are starting to draw back and leave and there’re words out there they’re leaving, the Taliban has already overtaken 30 provinces, the people are panicking, they’re starting to rat each other out, their own family members rat each other out, because they’re getting so desperate. And they think if I tell on my brother, if I tell on my cousin, then the Taliban is going to favor me, because I have to survive now. And that’s already taken place. These people will not just be killed. There’ll be tortured. I mean, just to not sugarcoat it, their wives will be raped, and tortured in front of them, their children will be killed in front of them long before they’re killed. The Taliban does this in such a terrific way to make example so that they don’t ever betray the Taliban again.

And that’s what’s going to happen in September if this administration doesn’t extend the courtesy of giving more special visas to these Afghans that bought alongside of us. And look, I was there for eight deployments four years. I know people right now, because I’m in communication with them, Afghans that fought alongside me, and I know a few in particular that literally saved my life. I wouldn’t be in this phone call with you right now, I would be a dead man rotting on the side of a mountain Afghanistan somewhere if it wasn’t for these individuals that saved my life and saved my friends live multiple times.

And they’re there right now, can I get these visas, particularly the ones that were in Special Operations, because they’re in classified programs so they can’t? And they’re there right now. One of my buddies who’s there, he’s trying to get back and his family’s already ratted him out. So him and his wife and his kids, he’s like, we’re going to be killed. We can’t get out here.

Rick:

And that’s going to happen because of the fact that they came alongside you guys because they helped the United States?

Chad:

Absolutely. I mean, we went there, just like we told the Afghan people that we were going to liberate them from Taliban rule. And these are Patriots that love their country just like we love our country, and they believed in why we went there to eradicate the Taliban from Afghanistan. They believed in it. They believed in us. They fought alongside of us for the last 20 years. And most of them that have been it, that’s been there. They didn’t do it for like, I’m going to go on a deployment like we do. They’ve done it for the last 20 years. Most of them have done it have done it the last 20 years…

And so you’re not just talking about their livelihood being taken from them, because that’s been their job, but their dreams of fighting back for their country, their sense of patriotism, that’s being taken away. And now their safety of not just themselves, but their wives and children is going to be taken away, because the Taliban will make an example of them to never do that again for fighting with Americans. And as you know, they’re going to kill them.

Rick:

You know, this is a part of what happens that most of us, if we hadn’t served, and we hadn’t been over there, we have no clue. I think the only way I became familiar with this was reading Marcus Luttrell’s book “Lone Survivor”, and he talks about the family that saved him. Same thing, he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for them, and they stuck their neck out in a big way. You lived it through all those deployments multiple times. What is the right policy? Like how far should we go? I’m assuming there’s a vetting process or some way, you know, for people that are saying, well, we can’t just letting everybody because how do you know if they’re actually the ones that helped us and the ones that didn’t? Aren’t we able to verify that even if it was a special ops mission? You know, shouldn’t the military be able to confirm this is someone that was friendly to us for all those years?

Chad:

Well, the problem is in the vetting process. The vetting process is already in place. I mean, the 26,000 that are being allowed over, they have the vetting process in place to make sure that they’re actually who they say they are. They provided a service to this that they have and they don’t have to terroristic ties or anything like that and they qualify to come over to be in the process to eventually become Americans and immigrate legally. So the process is in place. It’s the number that’s the problem.

Rick:

So while they’re letting hundreds of thousands every month come in illegally, they’ve got a problem, this administration meaning they’ve got a problem with allowing these tens of thousands coming in legally that we know who they are, we’re vetting them, and they put their lives on the line for us.

Chad:

For us, yeah. I mean, these guys have been, look, you know, people probably have a hard time understanding if it had been Afghanistan, but US troops would not have been as successful as it were in Afghanistan without the alliance of the Afghan people. Osama bin Laden knew this. If people, look at the history of it, Osama bin Laden knew the importance of the Americans have an alliance with Afghans. That’s why he assassinated Ahmad Massoud the day before 911. He sent in people to pose as journalists, killed Massoud the leader of Northern Alliance, because he knew that Americans would need Massoud in the Northern Alliance and Mujahideen to about to fight back in. So he took out their leader to fracture the Northern Alliance so we wouldn’t have the allies. You know, bin Laden  knew that.

And so we he was right, we needed them. And many of them came alongside of us and served alongside of us. We would not have had this success we’ve had. We would have had so many more casualties of American troops without them. We owe it to these guys. I believe in the vetting process. And I think the vetting process should take place. But it’s not an issue because it already exists.

And if we’re allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal across the border, why not allow tens of thousands of the people who served us the last 10 years to come in>

Rick:

The kind of people you’d want, right? I mean…

Chad:

The kind of people you’d want.

Rick:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chad:

Yeah. I mean, these people, and I’ll tell you, they love America. I mean, in their, obviously, the type of people who are willing to assimilate, because they learned our language to be able to serve alongside of us. They have a have a heart for America, because they served with us. And that’s what the vetting process is all about. But up the numbers, President Biden can simply sign executive order, or he could have this number moved from 26,000 to 80,000 with a stroke of a pen, and be the pro-immigration administration that he claimed to be. But it’s not as popular and it’s not what the mainstream media wants to see. They don’t want to talk about this issue, but it’s the right thing to do.

Rick:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ve heard none of this being reported yet. So thank you for bringing it to our attention. Obviously, we want encourage people to spread the news and let people know, send the communication to the White House asking them to do this. And I’m assuming, Chad, a lot of military guys like yourself that were there that experienced this are doing that.

Chad:

They are. Yeah. The military right now, you know, I’m hearing it because I’m obviously members of the military community. I know guys that are, you know, and I won’t go into details of that, but I know guys that I served with in Special Operations community, they’re trying to figure out how to get their guys out. I mean, these are guys like that people like me feel like I owe my life to. Like, my wife has a husband at home because some of these guys. My children have a dad because of some of these guys.

And so I feel like there’s some of them that I owe my life to. And there’s others that feel that way. And some of us that we feel like we owe our lives to these guys are trying to find ways to get them safe, you know, legal ways to get them safe. You know, obviously, we’re not smuggling people in our country or anything like that, but we want to get them out of there. But the best way to do it is for us to talk to congressmen and push the administration to do the right thing.

This issue right now, to me isn’t a bipartisan issue, or I believe this is a humanitarian issue. I believe everyone on both sides of the aisle should be stopping up and down to do the right thing on this; is the humane thing to do; is the right thing to do. And I think our country has a chance right now to do it better. We learned our lesson. We didn’t to the South Vietnamese. When we left Vietnam. We left off Vietnamese there who helped us just to come to the iron Fist of the North Vietnamese. And we did in Iraq. And here we are, going to do it again. We have a chance to know, some of learners lessons of history, we have a chance to do the right thing.

Rick:

Amen, that’s good, that’s good. Chad Robichaux, man, God bless you, brother. Keep up the great work. Make sure folks know about the dinner coming up in the fall. And even outside of that dinner, just on a regular basis support these guys, mightyoaksprograms.org. So many of our warriors that that need this help, and Chad has a winning formula, a biblical formula that has absolutely changed thousands of lives in a very, very positive way. So check out that website today. Chad, thanks so much, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Chad:

Absolutely. Thank you, man.

Chad:

I very much appreciate Chad Robichaux and all that they do at Mighty Oaks Warriors program. David and Tim, you know, we’ve had him on a lot. You could hear it in his voice. I mean, this is breaking his heart and causing some righteous anger rightfully so to well up. And this interview, I mean, he’s basically saying, look, we did all of that time, these people put their lives on the line, and they’re going to die as a result of supporting the United States.

Tim:

Yeah. And as he pointed out, the only reason he’s still alive and in some of these scenarios he was in was because of the people of his friends that were over there literally saved his life. And so this is the next level for him, because this is not just some kind of hyperbole if we need to save people, and it’s important. No, these are people he knows. These are his friends, people that that literally fought and bled beside him, people that, you know, they would have seen people die all around them in the midst of this.

And this is something that right now, you’re already seeing some talk from the Biden administration, there’s some news reports out there that Biden has said, hey, we’re going to do what we can and, you know, we’re going to try to help get more people in. But right now, it’s mostly rhetoric, because they’ve not increased the number of people they said they could come. The number is nowhere near even like 25% of these Afghanis who really need help.

And so instead of saying, hey, 80,000, right, approximately 80,000, no big deal, you guys apply, right. And if there was a concern that maybe some of these guys that are applying or not the real guys which, first of all, I don’t know how there would be a concern with these people coming in when there’s not really concerned with who’s coming across the southern border, that seems super inconsistent, and hypocritical.

But if there was a concern, you certainly can have these guys vetted, right. You can go to some of the troops that were embedded with them. You can do basic follow up on this to make good on this. But right now, the Biden administration is not standing up and helping these people. And guys, you know, I know that this is not really talking about the Biden ministration. But we’ve seen this with the people of Cuba that are dealing with a communist nation there and really the Biden administration at this point is taking more of the side of Cuba than the people who are being oppressed by the communist regime.

Biden at this point has just seem to take all the wrong sides in this scenario with stuff unfolding. It’s one of the things that we’ve heard other people say that for the last many decades, Biden has not made a good foreign policy decision. And man, I’m a little nervous that if we don’t get people involved, and we don’t get enough pressure on him, that this will be another bad decision that will cost a lot of lives.

David:

So here’s the way you can get involved. One is you can directly let the White House know they need to step up and do something, they need to get those numbers up, and they need to do it really fast because executions are already started. So here’s the White House line for comments, call 202-456-1111, again, 202-456-1111. We’ll have that up on the website so you can go there and see the number. But at the same time, both parties are leaning on the president to do something, even Democrat Senator Pat Patrick Leahy is all over the president to get those guys out of there before they all get executed.

So call your senators as well, and tell them we got to get these guys out of there. So the phone number for all the senators is 202-224-3121. When operator answers, just say I want the Senator from Texas and the Senator from Mississippi or wherever it is, and they’ll connect you. So senators, 202-224-3121. And the White House is 202-456-1111. Make the calls, we need to protect these guys. If we ever have to go back into Afghanistan again, you will not have a single ally help if we can’t protect those who stand by us.

Rick:

And other countries are watching as well, other places that we would have to go. And Tim, you nailed it. I mean, it’s every decision. It’s the opposite of what we were saying just four years ago, and three years ago, and two years ago. You remember guys how many times we said wow, the moral clarity I did not expect from Donald Trump, the decisions about who to support and what to do on foreign policy? We were just shocked over and over and over again the opposite is happening now. It’s the opposite of moral clarity, choosing all the wrong people to support and not supporting the right people and that’s that lack of, man, I mean, lack of wisdom would be the nice way to put it. But it’s a spiritual thing as well. And it’s going to cost a lot of lives. So let’s try to mitigate this as best we can. Make those calls. We’ll have them today at our website at wallbuilderslive.com. Thanks for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.