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The remark a visiting Afghan intellectual made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff that John Kiriakou says stuck with him for over a decade — that the Taliban did not come down from outer space, that they are Afghanistan's own sons and brothers and husbands, and that if the country had not been secured after ten years of nation-building it was because nobody wanted the Americans there.
The Afghan woman’s lesson is a remark made to John Kiriakou and his colleagues during his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff, which he has since treated as the single clearest explanation of the American failure in Afghanistan.
The briefing
A group of Afghan women — intellectuals, in Kiriakou’s description — came to speak to the committee staff. He dates the encounter loosely, at “the last, what, 12 years” before the 2023 telling.[1]
One of them made the first point plainly: “look, if you haven’t been able to secure the country after 10 years of nation building, it’s because we don’t want you.”[1]
The part he says has stayed with him
What Kiriakou identifies as the more important remark followed. “She said, the Taliban did not come down from outer space and just land in Afghanistan. We are our sons and our brothers and our husbands. If the Taliban is ascended, it’s because we want the Taliban.”[1][2]
His verdict
Kiriakou’s assessment is unhedged. “And she was exactly right. We can’t understand how we lost Afghanistan. We lost Afghanistan because they never wanted us there in the first place. And that should be a lesson learned in foreign policy that we just have chosen to ignore.”[2]
He raised the story immediately after describing rival factions in Libya funded by different arms of the same government, and immediately before the interviewer’s summary that American policy picks regions by what lies under the ground — a summary Kiriakou did not contest.[2]
Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.
