soon which brightened if you knew the song from some stupid.

stunts on t.v. don't come. down to stop stories this hour as the war in afghanistan and as its tenth yeah the tables turned on coalition soldiers posting a battlefield media is on the internet a town about only using clips uploaded by allied troops to drum up support. also tension mounts ahead of this weekend's parliamentary elections in the politically divided kyrgyzstan curiously matches are being intensified across the country of what one. needs from the by going to cosmodrome in kazakhstan a russian soyuz rocket carrying a straight prove that the payload of navigation data systems is now on its way to

the international space station. as the headlines up next the value of the show and on the nice anniversary of the start of hostilities alluna dedicates the entire show that in-depth look at the war in afghanistan. well convey alone a show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey are coming live out of washington d.c. today marks the ninth anniversary of the invasion of afghanistan so we are dedicating our entire show to it tonight and asking the question of why this war is still going on going to speak with senior defense analyst at the heritage foundation dr james carafano to ask how anybody could justify our continued occupation of this country and the farce that it makes the united states more safe they will discuss the washington think tanks and neo-cons influence so much of us

foreign policy three think tanks in particular are launching a campaign to defend defense so that it isn't on the cutting chopping block so that america can continue fighting its wars but how do the troops the men and women who actually risk their lives feel about it afghanistan war veteran jake tiller barito will join me to discuss the issue and let's take a moment to talk about afghanistan's neighbor pakistan the past week has seen what seems like the souring of the relationship as pakistan closed a key supply route for nato troops after a helicopter trike helicopter strike so how do we fight this war if pakistan isn't going to be with us pakistani american writer osman i've known will share his thoughts on the region next we'll hear from voices on the ground the times correspondent jerome starkey is currently stationed in kabul and will fill us in on the war from the trenches and then we'll talk about the afghan civilians their changing opinions of u.s. troops during these nine years of war one filmmaker spent fifteen months in the country right after the invasion so he'll join me to explain how civilians thought

of soldiers when they first storm did but that's of the end of tonight's show now let's get on to the top of the story. today marks the ninth anniversary of the u.s. invasion into afghanistan the first day of the tenth year of this war. now we entered nearly a month after the september eleventh attacks that changed america forever u.s. military officials were hunting for the mastermind of nine eleven osama bin laden and in their search for this one man we created an all out global war on october seventh of two thousand and one a sunday afternoon president george w. bush announced to the nation the operation enduring freedom against the taliban regime and al qaida in afghanistan was underway. on my orders the united states military has begun strikes against al qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the taliban regime in afghanistan with. the joint us

british air assault would be followed within days by a ground assault and the initial attack did remove the taliban from power but since two thousand and six afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased taliban led insurgent activity record levels of illegal drug production at a fragile government with limited control outside of kabul now during the two thousand and eight presidential election then senator barack obama campaigned against the war in iraq calling afghanistan the right war the place where our focus should lie the central front in the war on terror is not iraq and it never was and that's why the second goal of my new strategy will be taking the fight to al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan. so when he became president he turned to what was until then the forgotten war and turned it into a quagmire that we'll never forget ten months ago obama announced a huge escalation with another surge of troops mentor and chief i have determined

that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional thirty thousand u.s. troops to afghanistan after eighteen months our troops will begin to come home. now despite that huge surge in troops and the promise of they'll begin coming home and eighteen months many of obama's generals say that that timetable is just a soft target so clearly this is now obama's war since the surge we now have about ninety four thousand troops in the country but how all of this serves our vital national interests has yet to be explained it's been three thousand two hundred eighty five days since this war began over the course the last nine years the death toll has steadily been climbing two thousand one hundred and thirty four coalition soldiers have been killed out of that number one thousand three hundred and twenty one of them were american and nearly eighty four hundred american soldiers have

been wounded in action afghanistan the number of afghan daffs have been completely unaccountable and the cost to u.s. taxpayers is three hundred and fifty two billion dollars and counting all to serve our vital national interests i don't know you tell me because i couldn't tell you why we're still fighting this war what cause so many lives have died for the message isn't goals have changed throughout the years but the prospects of victory in any form are still nowhere in sight over the past two days reports have been coming out that senior representatives from the afghan government and the taliban are engaged in high level peace talks to put an end to this war now past talks like these have always disintegrated so doubt already surrounds the new round but if there is one little glimmer of hope it would be that once foreign troops leave that's when the taliban might actually be ready to negotiate let's not kid ourselves our troops aren't going anywhere and recent weeks we've seen a large part thanks to bob woodward's new book direct proof the transcripts and

conversations and meetings believing has never been an option for our military commanders but they will use our national security as a constant excuse to get whatever they want for however long they want. because terrorists are always lurking around the corner somehow nobody gets it through their heads their our actions our wars only create more of them more earlier i caught up with dr james carafano senior defense policy analyst at the heritage foundation and i first asked him to give me one good reason why we still should be in afghanistan. in two thousand what a what's the next question and so a since nine eleven two thousand and one what is afghanistan right is don't try to tell me that going into afghanistan has made us any safer well i would actually say that just last week they uncovered a plot where they had been planned in afghanistan pakistan in which planning of murdering people in the streets of european capitals and if american boots nato

boots were on the ground they would have gotten the intelligence they would have got the information and they would have been able to delay and disrupt those operations and this is you know this also answers the question because you say all nine eleven well nine eleven had nothing to do with afghanistan and pakistan that was either the nine eleven you know i don't i don't know that nine eleven definitely had nothing to do with iraq i'll stick with that i wouldn't argue with you but you know people say well the plans were in hamburg and you know some guy came from here and some guy came from there but nine eleven happened because al qaeda and the taliban had a sanctuary where they could plan to attack the rest of the world a sanctuary which they still have nine years later which is clearly proves that i have heard that i'm so far been futile but this is my problem with your logic let me just ask ok maybe a few tile is a little strong a word but i just don't see any end to this war yet or any kind of a victory will get into that but you're saying that you know last week they foiled another terrorist plot don't you think that in some way the fact that we've been

occupying not just afghanistan we also had occupied iraq that we have been occupying these two countries that that's what his cause to have been new networks just all the sudden spark up in a rise that are trying to mimic al qaeda that are trying to follow in them i mean this has created a. a lot of anti-american sentiment and resentment around the world so this was the argument before nine eleven which is just leave them alone in there leave you alone and we want up with a living so i mean i just don't understand if we just left them alone this would have happened what we did is now living anyhow there's a lot what's happened we've now affected an entire two entire countries two populations actually let's even bring pakistan into this let's make it three country civilian populations which are currently being bombed you know have drone strikes being dropped on them every day by our troops and so what's happening is these people start to hate us as well because you don't see how large your larger terrain is war bad war is bad yes there is value to literally and yet we

continually have wars know why is that and that's a problem and the reason why people go to war is because they're protecting the interests of themselves when you go to war for right reasons when you're hitler and you invade all of western europe it's not done for the right reasons you know when the americans counterattacked bad things happened you know we bomb cities in france and people died but you know you know people loud americans and they build monuments to them and they spit at the name of hitler and the question is why did as well because they did it for two very different motives a lot of i'm not saying that this is driving a lot of people out there spit at the name of americans also i mean this happens well my division is there not only that but it is in a bouncer you know we we went into afghanistan and we actually were able to get the taliban to remain and so why do we leave that why nine years later are we still there why now is the taliban stronger than ever with all of the momentum and we're the ones that really look like the you know to be honest it's our fault i mean what we did is we push the taliban back into pakistan and then we just kind of forgot

about afghanistan the taliban and al qaeda were able to rebuild their forces and come back during it's only having got involved in iraq than it would have been different than we went. today you know we'd all like do overs in history but you don't get any doors and i mean we are we are and i would take issue with your. point that you know things aren't different look who's the number three guy it ok to tell me well the answer is it's a very hard question to answer because he's the guy that always gets killed because the number three guy is responsible for operations and what we will we see actually consistently that we always get the new person to go ask you know and then another one keep us right back in the point as you know is that the end state you want of the answer is of course no but the point is while you're doing that you're not getting more nine eleven s which is a good thing that would you want to do is eliminate that problem forever and the only way you can limit of the only way you know you actually can eliminate terrorism forever i mean until you get a limit as a result of something that's been around since the beginning of time it's not something we're just going to you know i found we have no seals is world war two

a failure no absolutely not world war two is not a failure but this is not world war two well it's right here i'm going to need a global effort so you have to and you have to defeat al qaeda the taliban know is that going to end terrorism for all time the answer is of course tony there's another another i'm going to do everything for absolutely we can keep trying to defeat al qaeda and the alabama we can keep trying to send in special ops and using drone strikes but now al qaeda they're springing up there in somalia they're in yemen they're in northern africa al-qaeda is no longer just can't stand so i don't understand why we have to stay in afghanistan to prove a point when al-qaeda is no longer even there well you know why are we fighting in north africa germans were in germany we why re fighting in japan you know we were you have to go now so i don't think any of you have it yet so you rejected it we now you know we all we all know you are is everywhere where the enemy is but if you want to defeat the enemy in the end if you don't want to be fighting this political battles all over the place you have to go in you have to root the enemy out so until you're with the enemy you do have to fight this political but we're not

rooting the enemy out there that's not is it more enemies are being created around the world actually is in the sun i mean that's a statement by your reporting which we have to question the accuracy are there more enemies around the world are there more terrorists around the world today than there were three or four years ago. now is there data to support that i would argue no i mean i'm not privy to all the classified information that i'm for having the president is brito every single know they have but i have always seen have we seen terrorist cells pop up we have and when they pop up we go after them ok i mean this is a war war is not something you do want to note and object two sides are betting back and forth so al-qaeda is going to try something and then we're going to counter it that's just the way you are we going to keep countering it that's my question that's a very question because we've been here like i said this is the beginning of the tenth year of this war and that it seems like general petraeus sees it going on for his generation and as long as our children are alive he has no problem with us staying in afghanistan because he pretends that this is about nation building that

term they want to keep hearing you sound like the look in the back of the car like what are we going to get their daddy the answer is we get there we get there here we get there are we going to be expanded how much money how many lives. you could say that about any word look if you're fighting for the right cause and it's and i don't know anybody to tell me what the right cause well i'd like to go back to my live in two thousand and one look and lets you root out al qaeda and the taliban. you have to destroy al qaeda period the taliban you have to defeat because the taliban are pashtun there are many taliban and there's alabama and we'll just keep sitting around waiting for us to leave but i mean there are many well there's a difference right if you have a government in afghanistan that can govern and defend itself then the taliban have a choice they can they can do you disarm or reintegrate and then they can be pashtuns just like everybody else and that's and you don't have a government but i can honestly say i don't have a government that can run the on a nigerian through my question thank you that's what i do but they have the government is now supposedly negotiating with this taliban and we act like nothing to do with it ok we're out of time unfortunately but i thank you. so to come on the

show tonight why is defense spending ever on the table and why are we constantly in a state of war it's the washington war machine the think tanks and it runs our policy. well how does that make the troops feel when their wives are treated like toys or diver these are in just one. cluster is the same of you i can tell you that your father's in the market there's the taliban bad guys the so-called on terror as it failed to make failing to date on terror there's only increased violence around the world. hungry for the full story we've got it for us has the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. these days our politicians like to pretend that cutting the deficit is their top priority

believe what they try to tell their constituents and television audiences but there's always a one little thing that gets excluded from that umbrella of cuts and i think you know talking about it's our defense budget the same one which totaled a whopping six hundred sixty three point eight billion dollars just this year there's always that notion that not supporting america's war efforts is unpatriotic and of course the threat of terrorism that's lurking around the corner at every turn but it's not the people that are out fighting our wars that are going to tell you this it's not the troops that are on the ground sacrificing their lives every day you know it's the washington elite the military analysts and officers that make the rounds in the media the conservative think tanks the publish hair raising reports and defense contractors the fuel the machine with more money so what can we do to keep these warmongers from always having their way how do we stop the suits from throwing around the lives of our troops or joining me to discuss that is afghanistan veterans. i say back on the show we were just talking about this you

know a couple days ago you were on the show and how there is an op ed talking about defending defense spending and how the only way we achieve peace is through war i mean how does that make you feel do you think that these guys these neo-cons that work for it think tanks are really in the position to be making claims like that as their place well it's all about the guys that work inside the think tanks these are the people that can afford to put their kids in private schools these are the people that can afford high priced homes in arlington virginia these are the people that are the elite of the elite of the american class and there's nothing wrong with having money is not the world working on a think tank and trying to push policy but when pushing a policy triumphs over common sense is taking place throughout the throat the way in the united states we've got some serious ethical problems. just to give you an example one f. one f. thirty five is about one hundred sixty million dollars you can fund probably seven universities in illinois for instance with that money and as teachers are being

laid off as more kids are are less likely to graduate high school less people less go to college because they can afford all these things we don't see where are the priorities in the united states and i'm not saying whether it should be a government health care or not i'm just simply saying where are the priorities and of priorities are defense spending for large machinery that's really expensive that we're not necessarily using in the current war on terror it seems to me that there's a lack of judgment in priorities but it's one thing to be spending money to build up you know huge machines that maybe we're not using yet it's another thing to constantly be perpetuating the need for a war the need for our wars to expand from one border to another i mean these are a lot of the you're talking about these are human beings such as yourself these are the troops that actually are going to go have to you know go there and fight that war and i feel like these people they don't think about it to them it's just numbers and it's just money and it's just how long they can stay in power and how many people they can influence or maybe some of that i tend to think that

a lot of the folks inside of the think tanks are former military people they've served their time they come from a certain ideological perspective that says we need to have the fastest the strongest military in the world and fortunately you don't need one hundred sixty million dollar jet to kill one the bad guy that's in a cave in afghanistan so it gets a priorities do we need to be safe short do we need do we need a military absolutely and should we encourage our military system to be the most elite absolutely but there are cheaper ways to do it and there's cheaper policies to do it just to give an example when when the united states military says i need a hammer they go to a defense contractor and they say we need a hammer of these specifications they need to be like this because according to the manuals they don't just go to the hardware store and pay ten dollars they get a defense contractor to build the hammer that. fence contractor tells the partner defense how much it's going to be and it's not ten dollars it's usually one hundred times that as time goes on all of a sudden the budget starts to grow the amount of time that they need to make these weapons starts to grow really it is it's

a complete machine but i want to i want to switch topics a little bit and ask you how you think veterans that are returning from these wars both in iraq and afghanistan are treated in this country today do you think that they're getting the respect they need to you think that enough money is going into helping these people well one thing's for sure vets come home and they're not having the same situation that they didn't vietnam the american people have been very loving and welcoming of that so so the american people should feel good about that one of the problems that the vets face today there are long term care costs that we that inside the v.a. whether it's for p.t.s.d. whether it's for physical injuries emotional injuries and this cost as linda bilmes and joseph stiglitz testified before congress last week is going to exceed trillions of dollars to care for these people so there's six hundred thousand claims that were denied last year and so the v.a. so it's not about money but it's about providing adequate space and the the right territory for the vets to get inside the doctor what is sometimes about money to

because we've seen examples where for you know they are telling people they have personality disorders something that is a preexisting condition that you would not even have been let into the military with with this disorder and yet now when troops come home and they have something wrong with them they they deny them of all their benefits i mean that that's where they start to scrimp and you know try to save money that makes me sick yeah it should and i think i mean entire reform process i think that the united states should make a simple statement if you serve in the military you get an honorable discharge you should get free college you should get free health care for ten years should be it should be cut straight over this we want to deal with it you can have a system set up where you can predict you know what happens problem is there is abuses inside the v.a. and those abuses need to be cut down and there's also veterans who. have returned who are injured and haven't gotten the appropriate care that they i mean if you know if we say the defense is our number one priority our security is number one priority in this country then our veterans should also be a priority jake thanks so much which i mean for you are coming up tonight the high

ranking officers in the military are instilling a new regulation about leaking and for me the public but officers do it all the time so is this rule placing a bit of a double standard on soldiers and we're going to delve into the chaos not to stare at we're not technically fighting a war there but you could have fooled me so we're going to ask is the u.s. and pakistani relationship beginning to deteriorate and if so what does that mean for the war. every month we give you the future we'll do understand how we'll get there and what tomorrow brings the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join knology update on our g.

there's no way to talk about the war in afghanistan without bringing in its neighbor pakistan in its mountainous border with afghanistan has become a safe haven for al qaeda and for the taliban and mistrust between pakistan and the u.s. runs deep continuous drone strikes have led to high civilian casualties anti-american sentiment runs deep amongst the population and the secrecy of operations between the two governments makes the efforts to weed out terrorism a constant guessing game now the last week has seen that relationship sour as a u.s. helicopter strike killed two pakistani soldiers and led to the country closing a key supply route militants have taken advantage of this for days we've been inundated with images of burning supply trucks a total of seventy fuel tankers have been torched and just yesterday a driver was killed and then today the wall street journal reported that members of pakistan's spy agency are pressing taliban field commanders to fight the u.s.

and its allies so is this relationship deteriorating and what will that mean for this war joining me from our studio in new york to discuss it is. pakistani american writer and consultant for region consulting group thank you so much for joining us i just want to ask you first of all you know looking at the developments over the past week or so why do you think it is that the pakistani government decided to close off that key supply route. well it was a reaction that i think was expected by the u.s. government but. i think they said enough is enough. in terms of what they perceive as being pushed around maybe by the government but if you look at it from the united states point of view you know it was a big blunder and that kind of reaction was to be expected well it's been

a definite was a big blunder and the u.s. actually has apologized for that but in effect what's happened now is there have been seventy fuel tankers that have been bombed there have been people who have been taking advantage of these trucks and you know the notion or the perception you would hope is that pakistan is trying to help fight the war on terror and yet things like this happen and i think that you know as much as the sentiment for pakistanis is anti-american that this makes americans feel that pakistan is not interested in being a partner in the war. well the problem was from the american perspective. we felt that the pakistanis weren't doing enough to combat the extremists and that was your son region. and this mistake by the nato forces in that area really gave them an excuse to now to you know to take even smaller steps now to conduct military operations within that region. the blunder really was

extraordinary in now giving the pakistanis even more of an excuse to kind of side step operations within that in that region not to mention i'm curious when bob woodward's book first came out everyone was shocked to learn the cia in fact was running a three thousand man paramilitary of afghans who were constantly crossing the border into afghanistan to fight the taliban and how did that come across are people shocked to learn that. pakistan. i mean by that. i think pakistanis i mean my last time being in the region was about six months ago. and in that region conspiracy theories really run rampant so you know the ordinary pakistani really they expect a big there's blackwater running around everywhere they you know and blackwater now that they're called so i mean you know these kind of stories are really expected in

that area so when true story comes out it doesn't necessarily change anything i want to ask you something it really just really just reinforces their thinking are ready i want to ask you are currently you know there are supposedly negotiations going on between top high level officials in the afghan government and between the taliban but nobody is there from the network and so to you does that automatically paint these negotiations as something that the that aren't completely fulfilled the are doomed to fail. i really think the negotiations now with the afghan government and now the taliban. i think they really do have. i think they may succeed i really do because i think that the taliban you know.