Endless WOR

of land for zero. I'm tired of saying, ship, give me reparations. Bitch. Nigga's getting hungry in the streets, so we ate the rich cops trying to make a brother. Please, so I take the fifth, But I'm like CP three with the great assists. Bring the troops home. I got a new flow, but I'll be blocking on your ship like the new bowl wrapping so sweet. They're messing with my glue coast. I don't want Delta too close. Hey, what is happening? My name is Dope Knife, and you

are listening to Waiting on Reparations? Hurry up with my motherfucking check once again, I am all by my lonesome on this one. Well not completely, but I'm just without my co host still. Mariah is still on her leave. But good news is that she did have the baby, and everybody's good and recovering and getting to know one another. Don't you know. It's not even my place. I'm not talking about any about you know, I want to put

anybody's business out in the street. But y'all should go check us out on Instagram because you can go look at Mariah's baby picks. They're up there if you guys want to see how the baby's doing. But I can speak for all of you listening that lingua franca. We miss you and we can't wait to have you back on the show. Now. Um, what things to get into before we start with the episode? Um, you know what,

you know what I went and did. I went and listened to the new Kanye album Donda, because that came out, and I'm a rapper, I'm a hip hopper, and this is, you know, somewhat of a hip hop show. So I felt that I had to do my my part, and I guess I listened to it. I tried to nip,

you know, killed two Birds with One Stone. So I listened to the album while watching the live stream at the stadium because even though me and Mariah had talked about it before, I hadn't actually seen one of those I just saw pictures of it, but I actually sat down and watched I think it was like an hour and thirty minutes or something of a live stream just of the whole event, and it was interesting to say

the least. But I did you know, in that, I did get to hear the album, So I've got some thoughts on it, and you know, we'll we'll get into that a little bit in the episode today about what my thoughts on Kanye's Donda album is. Um, I'll give you a little preview of what my thoughts were. It was, Yeah, is I musically? Is I? But I, you know, I just I'm not in the position where I can consume Kanye on a strictly musical level. There's some baggage there,

So yeah, we'll get into that later. What we've got going today is we're gonna be talking about Afghanistan. Obviously, it's been in the news heavy for the last few weeks, and if you're going to be a prisoner of the moment and be caught up into political polls and stuff like that. It seems to be shaping the mid term elections how those are going to play out, or at

least what the narratives are going to be. And it's also, in my opinion, putting up as risk again of the Republicans kind of rallying themselves around US imperialism, which is no good for anybody with the Democrats doing bad in the polls. So so, you know, it's got some sentimental quality to it. Just yesterday, I think they pulled out or the last of the US troops left, and Biden gave a fiery speech defending his decision to pull the troops out. And you know, I'm a I was in

high school when we invaded Afghanistan. So it's just crazy to think of all the time that's past, all the people I know, like literally all the adults in my life somehow had those wars that we were in affect them and touch them. So that's what I want to talk about today. We're gonna be talking about Afghanistan. What the hell were we doing there? What do we accomplish? And uh, maybe looking into the future a little bit and seeing what's gonna happen and to talk about that.

I thought I might bring on a vet to come talk with me today, John Hannah, who is in fact a Afghan vette of multiple tours and a former army ranger. Now he's just I've been I've been coining him the lefty surfer Dad. But we'll see how he reacts to that when he gets on. But we're gonna have him on.

We're gonna talk about Afghanistan, and later on because he's such a hip hop enthusiast, he's gonna join me for the music discussion and we'll talk about out that Kanye Donda album and what our experience was like and if our minds are blown, we're gonna get into that after the jump. You'll stay tuned, all right, We are back. So Monday, right before midnight, the last of the U. S. Troops departed from Afghanistan. This happened just a few months shy.

I think actually might have been like a month with some change, Shy of the twentieth year mark that the United States have you know, been involved since the invasion of that country. It seems like the conflict went on forever. I know that it was going on for most of my adult life and for you know, obviously anybody who's my age to kind of feel the same way. Now.

The US first engaged in this war in the aftermath of the September eleventh attacks, the attacks that led to the creation of a slew of new federal agencies, including ICE, Homeland Security, the opening of Guantanamobile Prison that's still operational to this day. There's people still locked up in there with you know what, doesn't seem like any you know, forward progress in terms of them getting uh their due

day in court. Um. It also opened the doors for the military industrial complex to have twenty years of pretty much just the buffet of defense contracts. And we can't forget about the other country that we ended up invading in the aftermath of September eleventh, which was Iraq obviously, but back to Afghanistan, with President Biden pulling the trigger to pull troops out. It appears at almost every aspect

of corporate media is trying to make them pay for this. Politically, obviously, the Republicans are pouncing on it, whether coincidentally or it's because of the rise of COVID, or if it actually is a result of what people are seeing on the news. Biden's polls are taking a dip since the Taliban and

started taking over everything. Um A pair of suicide bombings killed more than a hundred people, including thirteen U S Service members and ninety Afghan civilians, and at the Cobo Airport, as expected, one of the US parting gifts with the country was a revenge drone strike on a vehicle and

Kabbol that killed ten people, including seven children. This whole issue has the Maga Republicans and the neo cons of the Bush era kind of finding a truce and they're all kind of going after Biden and pretty much pushing that we shouldn't be getting out of Afghanistan. In what was almost a comical turn, Mitt Romney was on CNN. I think it was on Sunday, but he was on one of those shows, and he was actually advocating for endless war. Like he he was straight up saying that.

Surprisingly to me, with all of these uh, multifronted criticism that's coming at Joe Biden's way, he stood firm by his decision. Uh Per CNN. President Joe Biden on Tuesday offered a vigorous defensive of his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, defending the chaotic withdrawal from Kabbo, day after the last American military planes left the country, marking the conclusion to the US longest war, nearly twenty years after it began, he said, my fellow Americans, the war

in Afghanistan is now over. I am the fourth president who has faced the issue of weather and when to end this war. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today I've honored that commitment. I was not going to extend this forever war. This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It's about ending an error of major military operations to remake other countries. So for cat like me on paper, that's literally the sort

of ship that I want to hear. But we'll see, we'll see. You know, politics will determine what all of these cats do at the end of the day, and numbers don't lie. And Joe Biden's taken a hit. Now, the voting public's memory can be short, and you know, there's still got some time before the mid terms, and you have obviously have more time than that before the next election. So will this affect them if that is what's making the numbers dip. I don't know, but hopefully

he keeps this tone throughout it. Now I'm gonna bring on our guests who's gonna help me try to talk about the complicated situation that is the US involvement in Afghanistan. We're gonna be talking with a former specialist in the one seventy five Ranger Regiment who between two thousand and one and two thousand five did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and Small Line Squad, heavy Weapons Squad, and

as the armory officer. These days, he's pretty much a lefty surfer dad and hip hop enthusiasts, and he's a good friend of mine. Uh, gonna welcome John Hannah to the show. I always I always do my introductions like this, Hannah, like in a way like there's an audience or something that's gonna go yeah, I like it. How are you doing, man, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. That was that was good? Is I that? It was good? But uh good? Exactly what you said? Surf for Dad mostly Dad, since covid

U took both kids out of school last year. Um, because I don't trust Florida. As you can see, I was right. Um I put him back in school because the numbers dipped. I just took them back out of school because the governor threatened our school to take away state funding. And our school was like, yeah, we're just gonna do you know honor system. I'm like, yeah, I don't trust any honor system. That is insane. So it took them out. Um, they'll be going back to school tuesday. Uh,

our school because the governor got sued. The santis is little. I don't know what you would cause like a mobster tactic, right, like a shake. I mean, it's not my fault. I killed the guy because I held the gun to his head. All you have to do is give me fifty bucks. That's what it feelt like. So for like you after after coming out of the year of like having the

girls to be out of school. Um, oh, one of one of his daughters is my god daughter by the way, full disclosure, But like are you more like what do you what are you looking for forward to? Do you want them to like be back in school or do you? Man? I can't wait for them to be back in school. I am not a good teacher. We need to pay them way more money than any corporate executive. I don't know that anybody realizes what it requires teach mathematics and physics to one and then to like A B and

C the other one. But it is impossible. I'm just I'm not cut out. Just all the tasks and my wife's full time works, so but it's all at home. Yeah. Well, I mean you guys are maintaining though, right, Oh yeah, yeah, we're doing good. We're making it. I skate a lot more because there's no kids at the skate park, so

ghost town. Well, so I brought you on because obviously with everything going on in Afghanistan, and I mean one of the things that, you know, one of the things that was kind of kind of shape my political awareness and identity was you know, around the time when I met you and you were just getting out of the Rangers and stuff like that. So just, you know, for for due diligence, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you ended up getting into the Rangers

and subsequently ended up in Afghanistan. Of course, skipping the norm small town trying to get out of here story. I ended up in range of Reattalion after the normal selection process and the moment I got in, I got out of airborne school. We get to our unit and they're like, hey, you need to get on this helicopter and here's some AMMO and here's this film of what happened to the twin towers. I'm like, oh wow, they're

really into this. The whole like production values insane and I'm like, wait a minute, this is fucking live ammo. This isn't one of our normal you know, jog for twenty miles and may get to a shoot house type of deal. Anyway, it actually caught me by surprise. I missed whatever the public saw, right. Uh. I caught the second tower falling because of the first tower video, and we were like booted and suited, ready to go, and I had just gotten there. So from two thousand one on, uh,

I don't know. Oh, from October on, I had been in and out of Afghanistan for our tour was ninety days there, ninety days Hong, which was just preparation to go back. So it was just I don't know how many times I've deployed, but it's a lot um and then we took on a second mission to Iraq after that, but because Afghanistan felt squandered after a while, we had been doing a lot there that seemed odd to imagine jumping out of an airplane and landing in like Midwest USA.

It's a bunch of farms. There's a bunch of people that are looking at you like what are you doing. You're like scrambling to get all your squad mates up. You're in a line and you look to your left and light right through nods and there's people coming out of their house like who that? Who dare? Like what the hell is? What is all this? Right? And then We're just going to some objective we have and I'm just like looking around, like, wow, this is a lot

of crops, right, and some of its mountainous. I don't know. I was on the board of Pakistan a lot of the time, and that's I didn't get all the intel, but what I knew, I'm pretty sure we were there because we knew Osama bin Laden was there the whole time, and most of the objectives were just taking out al Kaeda operatives. Whatever was the top of the blacklist at the time. We just knocked them down and there would be a new name. Um, everybody knows some of them,

like Ali Quari or Alazari. There's a lot um Alilaki right, UM, I don't know. It changed a lot depending on Okay, well this target is no longer accessible, new target, so the list just constantly revolved. So like if between Afghanistan and Iraq, which one did you spend more time in? Um hm Afghanistan just because the initial invasion to Afghanistan, I was gaining a foothold. So if you can imagine, we only run night operations, but someone had to get

there first, takeover bases, make bases. There's not a lot left there. If you know the history of Afghanistan, they've been through tons of wars. Basically, UM communist regimes have shut up set up like tiny little hotspots where you could start an army base, but that was destroyed in some other regimes attempt to take off take over Afghanistan. So UM, we just had to like build areas where we can go from one spot to the other fast

and that took a lot of time. So one of the main things you know that makes people paint the whole conflict that's being like this endless war is the whole notion that the mission, at least what was stated as the mission, was kind of accomplished a while ago, you know, before this like current pull out. So I'm just curious because if you got out in two thousand five, was the mission was accomplished by the right technically technically, yeah,

but um it wasn't. Just so, I don't know what everybody's idea of the mission was, but it seemed to me it's not like anybody gave a really good statement a fact of like step one, do this, step two, do this. I know that. Uh. The main mission seemed to be to remove any elements that could operate from Afghanistan as a jumping point to do terrorists operations. Right, that seemed to be the focus. Um. Other than that, I mean, it was just like high value targets is

what they would call them. Anybody that seemed that they could either take over or had already taken over. Um, anybody that was like a local warlord was probably I don't want to say paid, but you know coherst by our government to to kind of act as a de fact of government. We would usually run through them. They seem to know the area better, and for the most part they are the government in these small little townships

because like I said, it's mostly farms. I mean, imagine like Aztecs step pyramids filled with crops on those steps of each mountain you run across. That's most of Afghanistan except for Kabul. But I don't know. Kabul is like a range of architecture, like you can tell the Russians were there. You can tell it was like Indian inspired. There's Buddhists like what looks like used to be Buddhist temples there. It's pretty pretty insane how modern and old

and multicultural it seems to be there. So it's you know, one of the things that gets left out in a lot of the media coverage of it is just the Afghan The afghanis themselves, you know what I mean. It's like just even when talking about the bombing that was at the airport, you know, all that they mentioned is the U. S service members they get killed, and they've

they've kind of like aghanis exactly the hundred others. Just like as a footnote, So just for for you and your experience like that, how did you feel that the find that the Afghans responded to y'all in y'all's presence there, whenever you did, I don't know, I have a biased view. Any time I met Afghanians that weren't part of a mission, or that were part of a mission, it was at nighttime and they were super scared, um obviously or fighting us.

That the only two only two options. There wasn't like, oh my gosh, it's you guys, but right, um. But then during when we were in like Kabul, we did a lot of to get from one point to the other. Like day operations, they looked similar tonight. It It didn't look like we could stop and talk to anybody. They were going about the business and the bull but and

the farm areas they would run. And the reason why is a lot of them have weapons, and not like big arms, but like old World War two weapons and maybe an a K but for a whole huge like farming, single family area. If we run across them, the first thing we do is searching house, even at night, day, whatever,

And that doesn't matter what unit is. So if you can imagine the next house that has weapons in it, we find a weapon and we're about to question and bring in an interpreter and talk to everyone in their family. How many farms in the midwest of the United States has weapons in them? Exactly? Right? Like now, imagine being in the middle of the desert where there's Bedouins and the Taliban what we call all Kada. All of those

people are coming in left and right. I imagine most of them had weapons, so it was just like a lottery for them who was going to get messed with? Next that it seemed like we caused more fear than help. Did you feel kind of like a cop? Yeah, a lot like a cop. I just tested the feeling. Yeah. Later, like not at first because it was mission mission mission, but then like later, like I started to get the idea that wow, like if this guy's name was Gary,

I had no Gary. He looks real familiar to me, and I feel really bad about the face he's making right now. Yeah, just a long time. So how how

did that make you feel? When you're like in in the like like, for example, if you're you're doing something and you've got to like question some poor guy at night, you know what I mean, and he's fucking scared to death because there's commando's armed to the teeth, Like questioning perfect, I've actually so it's like compartmentalized, sure, like anybody would expect, But have you ever heard of like, uh, so, let's say you have a rat in your farmhouse and instead

of killing the rat, you just shoot it away. Now, that would seem compassionate and helpful. Um, you didn't harm the rat, and he's not in your stable anymore. But what you've effectively done is you move the rat, and if there's another homestead anywhere near that farm, it's now infested that area. So it was just in the farm, you could have filled it, you had access to it, and now it's in your house and now it's making babies and it's hard to get to and that's a

much harder area to clear it from. So you've created a bigger problem. That was basically what our mission felt like, is to like not exterminate, but basically rude out any instance of this. I don't know, that's kind of what

it felt like we were doing the whole time. It felt like that's what I was And I guess that's how it was compartmentalized, right, Like, sure, this person seems innocent, but he might be one of those get back into your house rats and to make sure we need to make sure he doesn't have anything of value here that could send a message to al Qaeda and let them know where we're at, or maybe give them intel. Okay,

so it's searched the whole place. And if you do that to every single person that you run across, right, I don't know. It made me feel probably a lot like they felt. I mean, that doesn't sound very compassionate, but obviously they felt worse, but now worse, then not so bad about it. In that same way that I described, I was thought I was rooting out a bigger problem. There's some collateral damage along the way, but I thought

it was for a greater cause. So when you got out, or not even when you got out, but when when did you start feeling like that? In Afghanistan it was like holding a family at gunpoint hostage and finding like a single bolt action rifle, No ammo, and it's got um. There's something we call the jangle truck and the reason why they had bells and these really pretty Muslim like um, they can't write the word God on things. It's kind of blasphemous in the way that having a picture of

Jesus would be for some Catholics. Um. So they have this really specific Muslim design they have in a lot of scarves, and this one of those cars were tied on the end of the barrel. I remember really vividly, um. And that's what we find after holding the kids at gunpoint and they're screaming this. I mean, mind you, we only lay it on a helicopter at nighttime, so they heard a helicopter maybe for a second. We fast roped down from six ft above them. We ran into their house.

We held every male at gunpoint, ripped females out of their beds that were cowering, pulled their children out of the rooms, told them all to like calm down, then got an interpreter once we had them all isolated in quarantine, and then the interpreter talked to them one by one while you hear them all screaming through the house. It sounded like a horror movie in a way that I hadn't.

I had experienced gunfire, We've had plenty of any enemy interactions. UM. I mean, nothing was worse for some reason than feeling like I was holding a family at gunpoint on that moment. I don't know that was the moment that I was like, oh my gosh, we can't. I can't do this anymore. And uh I had I was required to do it for the most part. So in the and I mean, I would imagine that that just bad after that. So like that's that same that scenario that you described was

probably repeated. And before that it happened an times. I don't know how many times. But and we weren't really an enter a room in clear building and then go house my house unit. We had a target, we thought they were potentially okay, affiliated we landed at nighttime. It was really well orchestrated. Um, we were a Jaysack unit, so we were proud of the Joint Special Operations. Um, it was a really big deal if we went to a place. So we took it all seriously. So they

were all serious to me until that one. And then seeing that they didn't even have like a computer or any magazines or any weapons or really that that's his account. He didn't even have a round for the thing. They cleared it right in front of me and it was like click, like, oh my gosh, this is like a decorative thing they found on the wall that's in We did this to that whole family kids are crying. It's like two or three, I don't know what time in the morning, but oh man, it was awful. But that

one pretty much kind of set me for life. I think, like, this is none of this is right. I don't know what we're doing, but this is not like selective and focused enough for what we think our mission is. Yeah, so I mean so then, I mean, I know we kind of glazed over it. But you know, how did you how did you end up joining the middle? You know, because because obviously if you if you joined before even happened, then it wasn't like a reaction to time. It was

I do a lot of things for the moment. I don't think I have anything diagnosable, but I am very I don't sit down. Uh. I have a watch, like a Samsung watch my wife gave me. I get like twenties steps today minimum. Um like top one per cent when you like check it on the phone. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've always been like this. Um. I felt like I was stuck in Sebastian, Florida, and I didn't like see away other than college. But that was such a long road to get out of a town, right.

I was like, Nope, joining the military, and and that wasn't enough in my head. I was like, what's the hardest thing you have? And they were like rangers. I was like, dope, that's what we're gonna do. And I was like, oh my god, what am I thinking? And I had like all these bonuses contingent if I made it, which is a good incentive, but I didn't care, Like

that's not why I went there. And it all kind of played out like I imagined it minus kind of the ending right, Like I never would have thought that i'd feel remorse for like representing my nation in some way. I think I might have been more patriotic then. I don't know. So you've been out, Well that's good. Tu we're gonna get back to that. That's interesting. But um, so you've been out since two thousand five. That's a long ass time that that war has still been going.

I mean we're literally sitting here involving five that you got out and the war just ended Monday. I bring this up like every day. I don't know how to other people to about it. What did it feel like? You know, just year after year and like we we both you know, we both have mutual friends who had to go back when you were out that they lost

their lives that didn't come back. You know what. So what has it been like for you in the last what is that fifteen sixteen years to have to just like see year after year like, oh man, this ship is still going on sho It seemed every incentive possible seems like it was moving us towards just living there. By that, I mean, I can't imagine a contract or

contracting company. I mean imagine the airplanes being built for the mility like I couldn't like at the scope of it seems so large that I thought that even when Biden said that we were getting out, when Trump said it, when Obama said it was like no way, there's no way. There's too much of our economy is tied in this, and I thought that no president would ever be able to follow through like gets almost political suicide. And the

way that Biden, I think, is experiencing it. And I can't imagine it would go different no matter who made this stroke. Well, I don't know. I feel like if Trump made this choice, it could have gone way worse. Oh yeah, I feel like to pull out on this would have been like see you when I see whoever, American troops, American people who helped us, doesn't matter. They all would have been left there to just no negotiation.

I don't know, man, I can't wait to ask you about some of the political implications of this whole ship. But um, so, you know, the war has been going on, it kept going on over all the years and everything. How difficult is it for you to like keep a line on on things that are perhaps going on or is that something that you just kind of close out of your head. Have you tried to like keep tabs on what's going on in Afghanistan in the last like

six years? It doesn't exist. Trump just engulfed all of the media in a way that kind of sucked up any valid story. Like uh, I would literally like I was literally just about to say that, like I w was.

I did used to follow it actually quite closely until Trump became president and then it kind of and yeah, like it's impossible it was And I would have to go through like al Ja zero a lot to get any updates because they seem to just you know, they are also paying attention to American politics, but they would give you a little third party view of it, so sometimes you would get more information, but um, other than that, yeah, it seemed like we just that was what us is.

We occupy Afghanistan as a as an identity. Yeah, you know what I mean. So what do you what do you think about the the chaos that's going on there now with the with the troops pulling out in the Taliban taking over again, Like, for example, you have like a lot of national security specialists and experts and analysts that are on the Big three networks seven that are like, hey, man, now you're about to create a playground for al Qaeda

and K pop and nothing hurts. Generation X is gonna come in there and everyone's gonna take it over and the whole entire ship is gonna be like like Afghanistan is going to be escaped from New York. And it's disgusting. It's a really fucking disgusting How can they they know the implications of what they're saying. They know that they're

saying that we should be an endless war. What they're not mentioning is a single life on either side, whether it's the troops that pay the price or for this nation or the people that we invade on the other side or occupy, because that's that's the dirty truth. It doesn't matter if we invade or occupy, people are gonna die. I don't know what anybody thinks is gonna happen. War hasn't been a pretty thing ever, and it won't be in the future when it's just drones in fucking robots.

Whoever doesn't have those will die. I don't know what anybody thinks it's going to be. And it's never been better than the people online in the Civil War shooting muskets at each other. It's the same ship. It hasn't changed. It's just new ways to do it, and they figure out some of our ways, so the numbers kind of feel the same, to be honest. And it's disgusting as fun to me that all of these people and I don't know what their financial ties are, and I feel

like saying that out loud. I should probably look into this, but I feel like it's gonna anger me more. I feel like they're gonna be tied to in not in a conspiratorial way, but the everything is because they're contracted now the military industrial complex and not like Jimmy doer. I'm just gonna blame everything on them, but I mean anything that's a part of their media, right, right, any part of Like if you're advocating for what we've been doing to save human life, get the funk out of here,

Like that's it, Like you're fucking gross. Get the funk off the air. What's wrong with you? It's already happened. Why can't It's just like the anti masks though, the reality is there's a virus. The reality is we pulled out out of Afghanistan. What do we do now? Like that's it? Just is I don't know what to tell you. I can't make it go away. It happened. Can we deal with it better? Sure? Maybe I don't know. Um, let's say Trump pulled us out of Afghanistan. I thought

about this a lot when Trump was running. I think me and you even had an argument around that time where I was like, maybe something's aren't as bad. He sounds like a normal Republican to me, and the way that I hate them, and he sounds disgusting, um man, I've said that a lot. Sorry, um, and I don't know. You were right, he was more disgusting, and the thought of him pulling out of war is not the same. Um, not the same at all. Uh. There's like a key

and Peel skit. I don't know if you've seen it recently. It's got like Neil Degrass Tyson in it, and it's like, hell, Neil Degrass Tyson is at home and you know they're doing their normal key on Peels stuff, and that's fine. But at the end of it there's like a part where he's been you know, there's been a bit of infidelity, and he goes on to explain how the universe works to get out of it. And I was like, Yo, that's hilarious. But if Sean Hannity did this skit, it

would be like super racist to me. And I just I don't give him that amount of credibility. And that's kind of I don't know, I've seen Trump in the same way, like it doesn't matter what he does, I just don't give him the credibility to have handled it. Well. Well, I mean the thing now is that at least from at least from how it looks to me, it looks like the Republicans are really about to go all in on we should be going to war more you know what I'm saying. Yeah, man, even Socrats. I mean, you

just brought it up. But like obviously if I mean, here's the thing. The thing is, we know that the Big three are going to push it just as hard. We all know what their incentives and motivations are. And the Democrats who are out there talking that ship, we know what's up with them too. But what I'm saying is the Republicans, by like definition of being you know, bizarro Democrats and everything that therefore we're against, they're kind of like straight up being like, well they pulled out,

Oh well, then we think we should go in. And if that ends up being the fight, I don't know that. Like three years is a long time. Three years is a long way away. But if the next whoever is running for president, if it ends up being like the Republicans are like, yeah, we should go to war, I don't know if that's a good political strategy. I think

that might be taken. The owning the Libs thing that's going to make them lose a lot of a lot of elections if they're like really gonna be running on yo, we need to go back to Afghanistan to own the Libs I don't know if that's it's not. I don't think it would fly. I didn't even think about it in that way. But that's it's hilarious. It seems like Trump's whole presidency was let's own the Libs. That's all that was. Like, it felt like it was nothing else.

And if it was like like ruler that just happens to go authoritarian, Fine, We're cool with that, even if it's super hypocritical, even though I realized now that they're just about power or not, like they don't care about how prophecy in the same way, well straight, just like Jennison, a congressman on the left, like, oh you looked at a picture, NA get at here. That's that's it. They're they're not The Republicans are not like honest actors and not at all. So what do you think you know?

Just from from as much as you have been able to keep up with Afghanistan over the year since you've been out, just like and from what you've seen in the news of what's going on today, where do you think it's headed? Like, what do you think is gonna happen? Do you like, do you think do you think that in two years. Do you think of two years that we're gonna have to or at least the powers that we are going to present that we have to send

troops back. Do you think it's gonna become a terrorist haven? But no, I don't think it will be an all right. I don't think it will be any more of a terrorist saving than it is than it was before we went in. And I don't think it was any more of a terrorist saven then than surrounding six countries in the Middle East were at the time that we chose not to invade, including one of those being the Like was it the people who flew the planes into the twin towers in the first right, I was trying not

to be. I was being a little coy, but yes, right, So, I mean I don't know. Um, I think it's gonna end up exactly like it was. I think that. So if you don't, I don't know. Do you know a lot about right before all this happened, even like the eighties? Right, Um, there's like a there's a lot to happen in Afghanistan. For everybody's heard that, like, uh, A lot of countries have gone into Afghanistan and like not withstood Afghanistan. It's not just like a harsh environment. It's just that so

many countries have had interested in it. From Persia, They've been Persian twice, they were part of India once, they were part of Britain once. Um, the Mongols destroyed all of Afghanistan at one point. But that's nothing compared to they had like a feminism before feminine feminism was cool, like so in the sixth season when it was big here, they had kind of a communist movement there. And who glomed onto that were the younger people in Afghanistan. And

who noticed that was Russia. Who noticed that was China. They got tons of money at the time. And I'm not sure how much of this is just PBS history that I've taken in over the years, and so please do your own research on this. But as far as I know, like, uh, there was once the king was deposed at the time, was taken over by a mostly communist government of people who didn't know what to do with the country at the time, that had hell of funding. Um,

they didn't handle it well as you can imagine. It was the first time taking over their country. Um, mostly rural. Like I said before, even back then with just Kabul being like the New York of all of Afghanistan, and that's who was ruling it. So most of the rural communities did what our rural communities are southern rural communities like to do and make little posts of people armed

to the teeth, spouting like crazy extremist fundamentalism. And then they just took back over the government from them people. And then the Communists came back in. They're like, oh no, we're not gonna take that. At the time, I think we called in the Mujahadeen, and then Americans were like, oh well, let's keep communists at bay. Were super anti communists, and then we threw them money to keep Russia at bay, and then they became al Qaeda. That's who we know today.

I think it's just gonna follow the same pattern. Another nation's probably in a second when we pull out. Um. I think that we knew when we set up the Afghanian government it's not a well organized nation enough around the outskirts of Coble to ever have anything formalized that all the people around cable will listen to, because as we well learned with Trump, I think that we know now that a lot of stuff goes without saying in the United States that we we think the powers that

we are gonna like hold people to account. So we all kind of stay reserved and don't like flood in the Capitol. But some of us don't think that, and some of us believe all the lies and do flood the capitol. Like I'm just saying that, if you think that happens here, what do you think happens when most people don't live in a city and they don't get information, they don't have TVs. I don't know there, I think they We're just gonna go right back to how it

was before we went there. Word man, Well, thank you for talking to me about you know, we're gonna take We're gonna take a little break. But when we come back, since my man's you know, a lot heads don't know, right, Like the reason that I was able to get like that little bit of a of a start in my rap career way back in the day was because of this dude, you know what I mean? Like John is a huge hip hop enthusiasts, and we have endless conversations

about rap all the time. But we're gonna like talk about some ship that I mentioned at the beginning of the show. We're gonna do a little bit of a I don't even want to give y'all any false advertisement by saying this is a deep dive, but we're gonna talk about Kanye's Donda after the break. So y'all stay too, all right, and we are back. It is time for the music discussion. And I still got my homie John Hannah, who's sticking around with us. We talked about all that

Afghanistan death and raids and bombings and ships. So now we're gonna, well, I guess talking about Kanye West isn't necessarily better, but anyway, we're gonna, we're gonna, We're gona talk about the album Donda, So just generally, what are your thoughts? What do you think about it? Because it feels the other day like so I should feel like I should compliment Sandwich this by saying there are some

tracks I love, but it's just one second. I told him the other day, like, Yo, can you check out the album so that we can talk about it on the show. He's like, yeah, I got you, and then I hit him out. I don't know how long. How long later, I was like Yo, did you hear it? And he's like, man, this is like way longer than I thought it was gonna be, but we got we had to record this ship tomorrow. I can't talk about it now, but yeah, So generally, what are your thoughts?

What you thought? Man? All right, I don't want to be super mean, but compliments Sandwich. There's some tracks I love because he kind of seems to go like Southern trap in the beginning of it, and it's not so much religious in the beginning. I like that bit about it. Um, but man, it's a mess. I don't know. It's all

over a Matt dude. And then there's like something to bother me and like every track once I heard it, and like the third or fourth track, it's like there were cuss words in there and he cut it out like I got a Walmart album from a long time ago and I was jamming and I'm like, wait a minute, I don't like this, but all like it drove me nuts after a while. That might that might be there's there might be a little bit of trivia that you

are not privy to that would explain that. So he apparently did a thing where he's like, I'm only making gospel music and I'm not making secular music anymore. So the edited out curse words, I guess that's like how it is, right, but if you know you're gonna make it like I did hear that, and I knew that going in, and I was like, I don't mind, right, But then like he had the choice not to. You could have just done something else. Yeah, you could have

just not said it. But like at first I thought when I first heard it, I really thought that, like, oh, so like you could do had the edits in there, and just like it's meaningful, right, And in the first I heard it, I'm like, Okay, maybe he's gonna work this in. It's gonna be like meaningful religiously. Like no, he never references it. It just happens every not every track, but but there is Oh sorry, go ahead, go ahead, I'm sorry, banger. So I have I do have a question.

I didn't research it yet, but is Lauren Hill really does she feature on or is that just the same she's on with the whole track? For me, it was so good, I was so happy the most I smiled the whole album just for an explanation. Is there a little bit Lauren Hills. I know, but it was like she got a she got a verse on the New Nose. If you haven't heard, no, I didn't hear. Yeah, she drops like a full like sixteen or twenty four or something like that. But it's a pretty fire verse. It

doesn't sound like that just reminded me he has. There's a verse on a song, and I can't remember the song. I will will look. I wrote it down somewhere, but versu it's at the very end. He says that we know that Adam wasn't black because he would never have shared his ribs. And I don't know if you remember a conversation earlier, like I flipped. So it's not on purpose. It's not on purpose, but I flipped everything people say to me sometimes, like I'll reverse roles. It's like a

check on myself. Like if I say something kind of gross, I'll catch myself because I'll reword it. I'll be like, oh, if Max said that, it might have been all right, but that's disgusting. I can't believe I said that. When he said that, I was like, oh my god, I can't listen to like I don't know it, like fucked up the whole next song, I don't even know what like full song goes by and I'm just thinking about that verse at the end drove me nuts. And like again,

if said that, he would be canceled and justifiably. So I'm just saying, well, I mean, you know, I mean, look, this is you know, Kanye is like a recurring character on this podcast. Asked just because you know, oh the motherfucker actively was trying to help Nazis like months ago. Yeah, oh man, do you remember? All right? So when we just talked about Afghanistan, I brought up the key of Belski, same thing, like, I don't give him the credibility when

he says things. So when he said that line, it wasn't like if like Na said it, maybe I would have taken oh man, or like DMX, who handled two religious albums great, like nobody realizes that his first two albums were full of religious iconography and handled just masterfully right, um the Mickey skid or if nobody's ever heard it, like no little Nikki anyway, it doesn't matter, but I give him credibility when he says things. But when Kanye says it, I don't. I don't know I'm gonna come clean, Okay.

I have somewhat of attained listen to this album because everybody was talking about the fun in live stream and the ship that they were doing at the stadium with the listening and stuff. And then I heard like the Baby and Marilyn Manson came out on stage, so I listened to the I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so I listened to the album like watching

the live stream of that stadium event. So I granted, I didn't necessarily get to like really delve into the minutia of the lyrics because I was, you know that I had the visuals with me, and I was like looking at the visuals and listening to the songs. My general I feel like the beats are really nothing right. The beats are knocking, and there's definitely some flows that I was here and I was like, hey, this slaps.

But here's the thing right, here's the thing right. It's like if my if if an artist that I like does something outside of music that's bad, there's certain times when I can come partamentalize it and it's like, oh, it doesn't affect how I take in their art. It's not that way. With rap, It's not that for me.

It's not that way with rapping or writers any anything that requires like an artist to be like to write, to be a writer, then your personality and your personal life kind of affects how I take in your art. That's just me. I'm not telling anybody now. Granted, I'm not the sort of person who's gonna be like this is just this is just me. I'm just being honest. I'm not the sort of person is going to be like, oh, man, um, this dude got a d U I So I'm not

listening to a ship anymore. That's you know. But if you tell me, yo, this dude was trying to help fascists take over the country, then I'm like, this dude was helping, you know, like helping the people who spread COVID disinformation and got six thousand people. For me, personally, your beats cannot be dope enough. I'm not gonna remember that. Man. I have to look for my list. Oh there's a dope song, all right. So full disclosure, I'm already biased

because I'm I'm atheists. I'm not at all religious in any way. In fact, I'm almost antitheists in some ways. But the Jesus Lives track, it's kind of dope. I mean, I don't it's not he didn't handle it well. I feel like in the hands of someone else. It's almost like the production of some of it is so good. It needs like another artist that I like. But man, that fired. There was a piano track that is ridiculous.

There's like all Kanye albums though, I'm pretty sure that at least for the next five years, you're gonna be here in different rappers spitting versus over these beats. So you know what I'm saying, you'll you'll get to do. That made me hopeful, That makes me unfortunately, I don't know. I feel like other people are gonna think it's hot. Honestly, I think other people are gonna love it. It's like it's the number one. It's it's like I'm not even saying that I don't like it. I'm just saying no,

I don't like Kanye. Yeah, it makes me not like it. You know now, now, just from what I heard objectively, if I did like Kanye, I would kind of feel like, I don't know, there's not I'm going on though, like we should eat time one day, maybe not live. But I have some thoughts because I mean I listened lyrically, I was really listening to it. I don't know. There's I gotta do another. He has no self awareness, is my problem. And every time he says something, it's like obvious.

Even if the song is about being enlightened and and following Jesus and emulating him, that's not what he's talking about in front of that, And then the hook goes into I don't know. I just it's too much my mind care. I don't know. I try to really listen when someone talks. I want you to tell me what part of Jesus's message is. Candice Owens tell me that I want it now anyway, if I had to give it a letter grade, if I had to, if I had to give my listen of Donda a letter grade,

I'm gonna give Donda a B minus. Personally, what are you giving it? And he thought he had better things to say about that. I didn't. He gave it a see and I gave it a B minus. So maybe I'm getting soft to other people gonna love it. But that is our episode today. Once again, everybody you know, go on Instagram, send your love and your thoughts to Mariah and the new bundle of joy that she's brought

in the in the world. And you know, maybe one day we'll have John back on and then the three of us can have an in depth conversation about Kanye just you know, I don't even know if I want to do that. We talked about Kanye to god damn much on this podcast. Starting to feel like the anyway. Uh, We're gonna end this the way we end everything, and that is going to be with some rapidy raps your Joe, can you kick a beat? Uh? Yeah, yeah, yeah? You

host this. Stevens a d o P with the E and a brock like and lou C d I use all three brains, long mouth, and I'm so dope that they stay strong out. Hey, don't shout. I want a little piece. At least we could just pull out the Middle East, but we probably won't at the will of the elite air prints Bush and all of these little creeps. Hey, this is dope Knife And you've been listening to Waiting

on Reparations, See y'all next week. Waiting on Reparations is a production of iHeart Radio for more podcasts and my Heart Radio check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. W