The War
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The Washington Post
4.1 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
In the second episode of our October series about President Biden and the War in Afghanistan, we look at the years after the Sept. 11 attacks when Biden called for a major nation-building effort. Over time, though, he begins to doubt his own instincts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello out there and happy holidays. As you wrap up your year and hopefully take some time to relax or be with your loved ones, we wanted to resurface our best work of 2021. Maybe you have a long car trip ahead of you or just some extra time to listen. It might be a great chance to hear or hear for a second time our series on Biden and Afghanistan. We'll republish that here over the next few days. |
| 0:23.1 | And after that, we'll be back with fresh episodes in the new year. |
| 0:26.2 | See you in 2022. |
| 0:33.3 | Welcome, fellas. I don't know why you're here, but it's nice to see you all here. |
| 0:36.9 | Thank you for being here. |
| 0:38.9 | On September 10, 2001, Senator Joe Biden spoke to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:46.0 | My dad has an expression. It's better to be lucky than good. |
| 0:51.0 | By this point, Biden was a Senate veteran and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. |
| 0:55.6 | It had been just a couple of years since Biden had encouraged the U.S. to carry out military missions in the former Yugoslavia. |
| 1:03.2 | In this speech, he argued that the country should continue to use American power around the world to spread what he called American values. |
| 1:12.4 | Now, the spotlight remains on us and is brighter than ever. |
| 1:17.4 | We're at a pivotal moment when American values and principles have taken center stage like |
| 1:22.7 | no other time in our history in the global theater. |
| 1:27.0 | How we perform on that stage is as much about our honor, our decency, our pride as it is |
| 1:33.8 | about our strategic policy. |
| 1:36.9 | He also warned that we needed to shift the way we think about the country's national security. |
| 1:42.8 | He said the next threat to America wouldn't come in the form of traditional warfare. |
| 1:48.7 | The real threat comes to this country in the hold of a ship, the belly of a plane, |
| 1:54.7 | or smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack. |
| 2:00.7 | And it turned out, Biden was right. |
| 2:04.6 | This just in, you were looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. |
| 2:08.6 | That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning |
... |
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