Matt Stoller: Consultant class should learn from mistakes of military operations in Afghanistan

Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Tuesday that the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan following a 20-year war should force diplomats and other policy consultants to work on implementing reforms to how they address conflicts. 

In an interview on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” the researcher argued that the rapidness with which the security situation in Afghanistan devolved following the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country has fueled questions of competency among the management consulting class. 

“I do think that losing wars… forces us to look at who we are,” he explained. “And we may choose not to do anything about that, but what was really interesting about the withdrawal is that there was so much anger and bitterness by this kind of management consulting class of consultants and diplomats and military people.” 

“They were so angry and embarrassed, but they were angry and embarrassed because they got exposed as incompetent fools,” Stoller argued. 

“Now, we get to look at them and say, ‘Is that what we want?’” he added. “And we may choose to do nothing about it, but we may actually choose to engage in some form of reform.” 

Watch part of Stoller’s interview above.


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