Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast #244

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 28, 2021

Duration

2h 42m

Channel

Lex Fridman Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Robert Crews is a historian at Stanford, specializing in Afghanistan, Russia, Islam, Central Asia, and South Asia. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

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EPISODE LINKS: Robert's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertCrews22 Robert's Stanford page: https://profiles.stanford.edu/robert-crews Afghan Modern (book): https://amzn.to/3nYL5rX PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:19 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan 15:08 - September 11 32:43 - Bin Laden 1:08:12 - Withdrawal of U.S. troops 2:00:24 - War 2:11:39 - Leadership 2:27:49 - Afghan people 2:37:18 - Rumi SOCIAL:

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• Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Lex Fridman

  host

• Robert Crews

  guest

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring Lex Fridman and Robert Crews, Robert Crews: Afghanistan, Taliban, Bin Laden, and War in the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast #244 explores historian Explains How U.S. Misread Afghanistan, Taliban, and al-Qaeda Historian Robert Crews argues the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was a panicked, ill‑conceived response to 9/11 that conflated al‑Qaeda with Afghanistan as a place and people. He traces Afghanistan’s modern history—from Soviet occupation and the mujahideen to the rise of the Taliban and bin Laden’s limited, largely symbolic role there—showing how Afghan civilians repeatedly paid the price for great‑power politics. Crews dissects bin Laden’s ideology as a modern, political, and global discourse rooted in grievances about imperialism and Muslim suffering rather than classical Islamic scholarship, and explains how the “war on terror” often amplified, rather than eliminated, such movements. He closes by examining the chaotic U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban’s clerical‑military rule, looming humanitarian catastrophe, and the rich, often unseen cosmopolitan and cultural life of Afghans beyond war narratives.

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