midterm politics and democratic efforts to target open house seats and vulnerable gop house members in 2010. later, the president of the american association of homes and services for the aging looks at the current need for long- term care. "washington journal" is next. . .

if you have called this program or others in the past 30 days give us a chance to foment this morning. you can always reach us by e- mail or send us a sweet -- tweet. we will get to the afghanistan story in a moment. this is the from page of "the wall street journal." deadline -- iran sanctions yield little.

and this is inside of "the wall street journal." karzai slams the west again, is the headline. something from president karzai. here is the story.

looking specifically at some of those statements that president karzai made, "the washington post" this morning, the headline there is -- karzai's defiance the stance concerns u.s. and afghan officials. we pull our question from a news analysis in "the new york times." she writes that some western

critics of mr. karzai believe that the west has no choice but to threaten to leave. there is no point having troops in a mission that cannot be accomplished, says peter w. galgrave, former special representative for afghanistan. our question for you this morning -- is president karzai that credible local partner? michael, southampton, new york, on independent line. caller: good morning to you. you have a wonderful show. i wanted to give a quote from donald trump. he was on tv doing an evaluation of the iraq-again

stand war. his quoted to larry king was, he said, within 24 hours of leaving these countries will go back to civil war. they are involved in a religious war that has gone on for the last 304 hundred years. he said it was a waste of $2 trillion or $3 trillion over the last 10 years. a one of the points i really want to point out is use common sense. 80% of the people in prisons are power when the users. colombia produces cocaine, canada, california, mexico, use marijuana, but 91%, as prime minister blair said. 91% of the heroin produced worldwide comes from afghanistan. a and the situation is, this is a narco state. as a matter of fact, wasting all

of the police money, breaking into homes in the ghettos and inner-city is, you are walking past 91% of the heroin. this should be burned. if this is destroying the lives of 2 million to 3 million, maybe 6 million children in the united states, in the eu, and in russia. torched the drugs. this argument -- they can't find another crop. let us say i am producing heroin in california and the rest me. i say, well, i can't make money on corn or wheat, i have to do this. the logic is not there. trump is 100% right. host: henry in jacksonville, florida. go-ahead. caller: i am calling because howe has been the investigations about the elections been raked in afghanistan? like the previous caller, what

democracy ever work in these countries? host: back to the article. "the washington post" article. hank in troy, michigan. caller: i think the drug problem is a serious one. i am here in michigan where we have all the militant groups organizing. this is a result of the lsd

culture back in the 1970's. host: tie that into afghanistan. how are these militias relating to our question this morning about afghanistan? caller: it is the same thing here in michigan as in afghanistan. these people are dangerous. we have people in our own country walking into churches and murdering people or spitting on people on the white house steps. people putting our elected officials in their gunsights. host: let us hear from marathon, florida. caller: i have a question. is this gentleman is credible, what makes incredible? president obama speaks of many things and why things are credible. i would like to know, if he is critical, -- credible, and 1 cents. i did not see him as a credible partner at all. i do not think he is a true person are good for his word.

host: what is the most distinctive thing about him not being a credible partner. what does he have to get right for him to be credible partner? caller: i think he has to stay on target. many people don't. he have to stop -- has to stay on target. what is his purpose? i would like to know if he is going to go side by side with president obama, like he says, or if he is running independently. if he wants to have a partner then he needs to speak up and say what he needs. host: a question this morning. is president karzai a credible partner for the u.s. in afghanistan? some financial news from "the financial times." the front page of of the "the financial times," they write that --

all so they write about a series of witnesses and hearings coming up this week on a financial crisis, and we will be covering some of this later this week. the headline is rubin and greenspan --

again, those hearings are later this week. i believe they start on wednesday, here on c-span fullerton, california, on our republican my beard this is helen. caller: talking about president karzai of afghanistan. an earlier caller was going on about, afghanistan being beat unique supplier of heroin and so forth. but one thing we have to realize is we tend to view this part of the world through our western 21st century eyes. i work -- with a nurse in 1980 from iran, a public health

nurse. she went out and did the best she could in outlying villages and the very poor areas of iran. what happens is, if you don't have any help service or very little health service, you have to get through the day. a lot of times the only thing these people have our pain killers -- opiates, heroin. a lot of times these people who are poor, if you hurt, a common debilitated by disease, and you have to get up and literally physically work of just to get enough to get through the day, then you are relying on substances that will kill the pain. that is one thing i learned from her. this is back in 1980. i do not think it changed a lot in afghanistan and those other poor parts of the world where opiates are available. they use them to survive so that they can work and not feel any pain. but as far as karzai is concerned, i blame president obama for keeping him installed as president of afghanistan. it is common knowledge that if

it was not for the presence of obama having u.s. troops there to enforce democracy, karzai would never have been allowed to be president. it is common knowledge that that election was rigged, that karzai is a drug lord, that he is corrupt. and i don't know why we are supposedly fighting for afghanistan's democracy and why don't -- obama it is spouting this new bill on in the middle east and changing the old way of american imperialism in the middle east when he is doing the same thing bush has been doing, that we have been doing the last hundred years. host: you are calling in all the republican line. you did not support our afghanistan efforts under president bush as well? caller: please, don't ask me about bush. i don't consider him a republican and a true sense of the word, either. as far as i'm concerned with bush, he was nothing but a little bit more precise -- democratization of the world empire building. he had very little regard for

americans and for foreign policy. it was just do what is expedient and what will make him look -- what is going to maybe put some money in his pockets. host: thank you for calling in. baltimore, kenny from baltimore on our democrats library caller: good morning. i just wanted to say this is what happens when we prop up governments in other countries because, you know, bush had put him in their and he has just been corrupt and now he knows what americans' mission is over in afghanistan. it is not about killing the caliban, it is about oil. and we have to remember that our country cannot talk about no raid in elections because we

have no credibility over here. our government is just as corrupt as afghanistan government. thank you very much. host: here is a tweet from cindy. john from sebring, florida, republican column. is president karzai a credible partner to the united states? caller: no, he is not credible and what they need to do is get the troops out of afghanistan and iraq and put them on our mexican border and in our country because we are in a war with them, the drug dealers. we need to get out of there and put the troops in the borders out there to protect the united states instead of everybody else's borders. host: he talked about troops on the borders. it from page of "the washington times." national consensus does not exist anymore.

stephen diamonds article in open "the washington times." >> is a viper, ky. -- host: next is a viper, ky. are you on the democrats and republican my question of caller: i was trying to get in contact with these through the democrats' line. i would like to respond to some of the comments that were made from some of the other callers. first of all, helen, she made a very good view about the fact

that it was president bush that backed up the afghanistan government that is now in effect. the only thing president obama is trying to do is basically stand upon the ground of that situation. the whole ideology of this entire war is that we went into this war under the concept of freeing the terroristic acts against this country. now, within the whole premise of our own mentality, we did not take into consideration that we are not fighting a war on the same conventional means of which we see a standardized army corps standardized enemy. we are fighting a war of ideology, we are fighting a war of culture, as stated from the last caller from california, where we are fighting the war in the true premise of which these people have a totally different perspective and point of view that our western culture.

the problem is this. who are we to sit and say that their ideology is any more superior or weaker than our own. and the same hand, ok, who are we again to put forth our own laws and democratic roll over their entire process. now, you have to also take into existence that these countries have existed far longer than we have. if you look at the countries of the afghanistan, iraq, iran, they will part of the medes and persians empire that is been around for thousands of years. host: do we pack up and leave? caller: the biggest problem in this whole instance is this. if you pack up and leave, it will create a complete quagmire in the middle east. they will have more interest in to the fact that the sovereign countries -- it could fault

under attack by this country's once the overran by these militant governments. host: thanks for sharing. independence, jamal from pittsburgh. caller: my first point was that basically prior to 2001, he was on an oil board with president bush. host: who was on and will board? caller: karzai. he was basically there to put an oil pipeline through his country. only being less than 100 al qaeda in the country and being the only controls the capital we are actually gaining territory through our military effort to block the country so that he can control, at that we do not know you will be the control of the future. host: "the new york times" writes that the battle with al

qaeda. we go to st. louis and on our republican mine is randy. what do you think the u.s. should do with president karzai?

is he a credible partner? caller: let's just hope he is. back on 9/11 when we got attacked from bin laden, it was out of afghanistan. he had to be taken out. they are still after him. whether they give him or not, i don't know, but i think we slowed him down. the country -- afghanistan as a country did not attack us. iraq did not attack us. but president bush had enough smarts to know that he had to go after all of the terrorist regardless where they were and if we want to wipe out iraq first and taken our iraq and that is stable, where what the terrorists have flopped? saddam hussein would have opened his arms up to bring in the terrace to fight the infidels, which they say is us. president obama -- he has to pull up by the bootstraps and keep going and quit being such a wimp. he will go down as one of the worst president of foreign policy in defending this country

that -- then i think we ever had. host: broaden that out a little bit. why do you say that? caller: as far as president obama? i will admit he is doing good of the drone attacks over there in afghanistan but he is dropping the ball on iraq right now because they just got attack yesterday, a whole bunch of terrorists. the iraqi government is in the paper today, that they are looking to iran now for government support on how to help set up their government and do better things. president obama has to be working with iraq over there to keep things going the way we have but you never hear nothing on the news. you never hear of nothing on the news about president obama and the iraqi war -- sure, he is pulling the troops out of that was all president bush, his whole plan, obama is just following it. he can't lead. president obama can't leave. i hope he gets his act together a little bit because we are a strong nation but he is taking us down a path.

host: he had mentioned the bombs in baghdad. the bombings in baghdad yesterday. here's the story and open "the financial times." the headline -- suicide bomb to raise tensions in baghdad. to buffalo we go. joe on the democrats' line. caller: i don't agree with the previous caller. i think we should get out of there and we should get out of iraq and we should get peace going in israel and the palestinians. i think that the foreign-policy of this administration is the same policy that bush ran, and until we decide that we should

have peace like the russians decided to get out of afghanistan, the british got out years ago, and our policy is a failure policy. host: you see it as a continuation of the bush administration foreign policy, particularly in afghanistan? caller: yes, i do. on top of that, i think hillary and our secretary of war -- russians back there in the middle of the night -- keep rushing back there in the middle of the night shows the fallacy of our policy. it is a total failure. and the cia is trying to say we are winning the war but in the final analysis, if you read between the lines, it is a failure and we should pull out. host: thank you for sharing that, joe. a tweet --

host: we are pulling our question from a news analysis from alissa ruben from "the new york times." she writes in here about some options and had, what the u.s. and its allies can do. interviews, she writes, with diplomats, afghan analyst, an ordinary afghans of just three options -- dallas, texas. good morning to teddy on our independent line. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i was watching your program just to say what i feel. i am an immigrant from ethiopia

and i love america, living in america for about 27 years. but both party systems, democrats and republicans, -- they take the policy everytime. i don't think karzai is a good partner for our interests. ante is another -- like in yemen and somalia. really wondering why our policy makers keep taking the wrong and double standard policy -- the american people we have our own problems. 17%, 40 million people uninsured, go down the list.

obama it is taking a very wrong policy as george bush. he is supposed to pack and get out of the country. thank you. host: thank you for your call a story about the the nuclear arms reduction treaty that the president will sign later this week in prague on thursday. this is from "the christian science monitor." nuclear stand down, is the headline.

to new york city we go, a team on our republican line. caller: i just wanted to say, yes, president obama needs to step up to the plate. and republicans need to be more -- what is going out here with us in the united states. host: the union president karzai should step up to the blade or president obama? caller: obama needs to step up to the plate. just like the rest of them said. he is not doing too much. you know what i'm saying? the other one, he is not a good candidate. i would not even that a thousand dollars on him. that is being real. we -- take our men out of afghanistan and send them home. i have spoken to troops who came back home to visit and they want to come home. obama is not doing what he said he was going to do. that is wrong.

i voted for the man. oates catena, thanks for the man. about 50 more minutes -- host: tina, thanks for the call. about 15 more minutes. this is from the associated press, 0 "the washington times." this is a little bit about the politics that need to happen. the ratification of the treaties in congress once the test ban is signed. the items -- the administration hopes the success with russia on a replacement of the treaty would give momentum for winning senate approval of the comprehensive test ban treaty. both treaties must be ratified to go into force, the time constraints mean that the senate will only consider one of the two before the november midterm elections.