Top General Claps Back Against CIA Leaks

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley had some words for the media regarding their coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He said multiple intelligence assessments were presented about Afghanistan, and not one of them showed the rapid takeover of the Taliban in less than two weeks. The general certainly bears responsibility for the chaos of the withdrawal, but we should also recognize that the CIA and other intelligence agencies are cherry-picking their reports and leaking them to the media to suit their own agenda. We stream our live show every day at 12 PM ET. We need your help to keep providing free videos! Support the Majority Report's video content by going to https://bit.ly/3j23y4C Watch the Majority Report live M–F at 12 p.m. EST at youtube.com/samseder or listen via daily podcast at https://bit.ly/3szmLxE Download our FREE app: https://bit.ly/3AYhClO SUPPORT the show by becoming a member: https://bit.ly/382kkdB We Have Merch!!! https://bit.ly/3sBBPuB LIKE us on Facebook: https://bit.ly/38hwIqp FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MajorityFM SUBSCRIBE to us on YouTube: http://youtube.com/SamSeder Emma: There's been a bit of a scramble by members of the intelligence community to point fingers at other people namely the binding administration for the chaos that has ensued in the bloodshed following our withdrawal from Afghanistan, the swift rise to power by the Taliban, and all of this finger-pointing which is taking place in the press it leads back to the inevitable conclusion from these intelligence community people that we should be in Afghanistan longer. Right, that's what they desire and so what they're leaking to the media is all designed to bolster that fairy case. Matt: They meaning particularly the CIA. we knew this was going to happen and we had to look at this file we found that can prove it. Don't look at us for you know this complete failure which is of course in large part due to CIA and military intelligence. Emma: Right and the fact that intelligence is often contradictory. And they can pull out that one file that totally rips into the Biden administration wow we knew this would happen how could you do this. And then they have a million other files that would be more favorable. They strategically leak this stuff in order to maintain u.s imperialism in the case of war legacy media is reprinting these cover your beep cya efforts as if they're fact. Which we know they tend to do and they lean on intelligent sources that are cherry-picking this intel. So that they can back up their own desire to remain to occupy Afghanistan. So chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley who recently went viral for his response to a question by Matt Gaetz about the military learning about critical race theory. Which was pretty good. he chose to respond to some of those claims yesterday. Gen. Mark Milley: Let me make one comment on the intelligence. Because I’m seeing all of the news that there are warnings of a rapid collapse. I have previously said from this podium in sworn testimony before Congress that the intelligence clearly indicated multiple scenarios were possible. One of those was an outright Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of the Afghan security forces and the government. Another was a civil war. And a third was a negotiated settlement however the time frame of a rapid collapse was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure. There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days. Emma: So I actually do believe him. I think part of the reason that presidents didn't make this call, and we've covered this extensively on the show, to withdraw from Afghanistan was because of what they perceived as a mountain of blowback from the media. which we're seeing now. And intel in the intelligence community that was always going to do this because they work backward from their desire to remain in the region. That's just how they operate. And Biden made the correct decision here. And it's deeply sad that the Taliban’s taken over but you know I actually believe Milley there. and it's not because I trust government officials or the Biden administration inherently. It's because I inherently for good reason mistrust our intelligence community. Matt: Well yeah there's a structural problem with military intelligence. Which I mean is evident in the mike hastings book on and reporting on standing the McChrystal. which is there's a whole bunch of things stopping the worst news from getting to the top and the denial of basic reality is baked into these intelligence assessments. So I think it's probably true but I think that points to a like you said a larger failure in our ability to confront reality when we're you know killing lots of people with our war machine.