Lawfare Archive: Introducing Allies: A Podcast Series from Lawfare and Goat Rodeo
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From May 16, 2022: Today, Lawfare and Goat Rodeo released the first two episodes of Allies, a podcast series that traces the U.S.’s efforts to protect Afghan interpreters, translators and other partners through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. That effort culminated in the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021, when thousands of the U.S.’s local partners were left behind. In seven episodes, Allies will take listeners through the decade-long effort to honor America’s promises to its Afghan partners.
Episode 1: “Faithful and Valuable Service” opens at the Kabul airport this past August, where the failure of the SIV program contributed to the chaos. Then, we rewind to just before 9/11, when the U.S. government had little regional, let alone linguistic, expertise on Afghanistan. After the invasion, that knowledge gap needed to be filled rapidly, so the U.S. began hiring local partners through military contractors. They became essential partners, and it was nearly impossible for any U.S. platoon, provincial reconstruction team or diplomat to operate without interpreters and translators. They were the U.S.’s eyes and ears.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Nearly every news alert in 2025 has raised questions, some old, some new, about the law and national security. |
| 0:07.5 | And now you get the chance to ask Lawfare directly. It's time for our annual Ask Us Anything Mailbag podcast, an opportunity for you to ask Lawfare this year's most burning questions. |
| 0:18.3 | You can submit your question by leaving a voicemail at 202-643-8474. |
| 0:26.5 | Or by sending a recording of yourself asking your question to Ask Us Anything Lawfare at gmail.com by December 16th. |
| 0:51.0 | I'm Isabella Royo, intern at Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare Archive for December 14th, 2025. |
| 0:56.5 | Following the November 26th, shooting of two National Guard members in D.C., in which the suspect is an Afghan national who was granted asylum, the Trump administration announced a suspension |
| 1:00.9 | of visa issuance for all nationals applying with an Afghan passport. This includes those applying |
| 1:05.7 | for special immigrant visas, which are issued to applicants who assisted the U.S. military. |
| 1:10.0 | For today's archive, I chose an episode from May 16, 2022. |
| 1:14.1 | It is the first episode of the Lawfare series, Allies, |
| 1:16.9 | and it describes how, in the wake of 9-11, |
| 1:19.3 | the U.S. government filled gaps in its regional and linguistic expertise on Afghanistan |
| 1:23.1 | by hiring local partners through military contractors. |
| 1:26.2 | The episode explains the roles Afghan interpreters, translators, and other partners played in helping |
| 1:31.0 | U.S. forces, the rise of the Special Immigrant Visa Program, how the Special Immigrant |
| 1:35.9 | Visa Program's failures contributed to the chaos at the Kabul airport in 2021 during the U.S. |
| 1:41.0 | withdrawal and more. |
| 1:49.0 | A warning for listeners. |
| 1:53.9 | This podcast features stories about war, terrorism, and violence. |
| 1:57.1 | It's important to hear, but it can also be disturbing. |
| 2:05.3 | After two decades, the U.S. was getting out. President Trump had negotiated a deal with the Taliban promising a departure of U.S. troops. In spring 2021, President Joe Biden let the whole world know |
| 2:13.3 | that he wasn't reversing course. American troops would be out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9-11. |
... |
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