afghanistan is on the threat. afghanistan faces terrorism, as a threat, on a day-to-day basis.i think there is no difference between myself and the afghans who got, unfortunately, got killed and injured in kandahar today. >> ahead, you'll meet sergeant first class josh burnt. his story is amazing. he is stationed at the station where a suicide bomber killed after are an american servicemember and three others. he will talk about why he feels it is important to be here. we'll play him a special message this holiday season from his wife and two children. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve. a

on the future of afghanistan.ant to welcome our viewers in the united states tonight, as well as around the world. thanks for joining us. tonight, violence rocks afghanistan. a sobering reminder of how america's longest war is still not won. we still do not have a secure afghanistan. today, just hours after i wrapped up an interview with the secretary of defense, leon panetta, in kandahar at an american base, there was a brazen attack just outside that base. a suicide bomber struck, the taliban had taken responsibility, an american service member has been killed, two afghan civilians were killed. three americans and 18 afghans were wounded in this attack today. now, a taliban spokesman not only claimed responsibility for the attack, but praised the, quote/unquote brave taliban fighter who carried it out. also here in kabul today, secretary panetta met with afghan president hamid karzai and invited him to washington to meet with president obama next month. now, the key question for these leaders is where do things

why not in afghanistan?ivilization. >> as a member of parliament, you're part of a government that is ranked 179 in corruption in the world, out of 180. that's a pretty terrible rating. and i'm curious, because, you sit here as someone who's trying to help your people, but does this mean that even you, who has been a hero for women and inspiration, a fighter, the world, the outside world, would they define you as corrupt, every member of parliament corrupt, given these overall numbers that we see? are we missing something? >> i think, yes. well, 20% of the fans who are coming to the government of afghanistan, 80% are being spent through the international organizations. so not only in the broader picture as the government of afghanistan, although i am not in power, in a way that i am not in position, we are the critics of the government, we are reformists, we would like to bring changes. i agree in a way that there is corruption. not only money corruption, but also political corruption, administrative corrupt

you don't have that in afghanistan. a lot of these people that come in and want to be soldiers or policemen can only be veted by the elders in the village. so you don't know who you are. what we tried to do was bring in bio metrics and you'll probably read about that now, how do we reset and establish a good background way to determine who should be armed and who should be in uniform over there and who shouldn't be and that's some of the things we were doing. corruption is very real. but it's acceptable. we don't like it but in afghanistan, people accept corruption as a way of life. so another challenge was how do we change the mind set, how did we make people realize it's not right to do the kind of things they were doing which was grafting, taking money and being a corrupt society, taking money from people just to move throughout their town. one of the ways we did that was trying to be sure we took people and spent time with the police officers themselves. we probably spent way too much -- too much emphasis on contrac

you don't have that in afghanistan. a lot of these people that come in and want to be soldiers or policemen can only be veted by

on reconstruction in afghanistan in one year.just in one little district in afghanistan, it's a place i visited many times, think of it as sort of a county level type place. we wind up trying to spend more money than the per capita income for every man, woman and child in that area. not surprisingly loud of exacerbating the very corruption we're trying -- >> what was the program and is that successful? >> it was not successful but there was one of those programs i was just alluding to there where we're trying to shovel that money into the country. in southern afghanistan where the bulk of the troop surge unfolded, the economy is principally agricultural. most men are working the fields or doing some sort of job that is related to agriculture. so the u.s. government concluded, rightly, that one key way to help the afghan people during the surge would be to assist them with farming, to try to provide them with some battersea's, fertilizer or in some cases doctors. try to improve what they were growing on their field so you would im

of afghanistan, the railway is very important and it's growing the economy of afghanistan. it's important and we needed this in afghanistan. >> for now the freight trains are mostly carrying imports. the carts traveling back across border to uzbekistan are usually empty. afghan government has plans to use railways to boost the country's export capacity. experts estimate afghanistan sits on a trillion dollars worth of natural resources including oil, iron, gold and copper. once mines and oil fields are activated, the government intends to export the resources by rail. afghanistan's expansion receives support from the international community. the age and development bank provides some $165 million for construction of rail link. next year it will fund another $2.7 million for feasibility study on expanding the network. >> we have roads that we have constructed. however, as you know, considering the volume of our demand in products, it's not going to be enough. the railway becomes an important component in the development of our demand in the industry. >> reporter: several proj

is flowing out of afghanistan is also coming into afghanistan is asserting it's a story that requires more investigation if i may for a moment here just to shift gears a moment barack obama has invited him and karzai to the white house in january of course u.s. troops are due to leave afghanistan in two thousand and fourteen any expectations from the visitor karzai once again invited to the white house. i think there will be some expectations first of all the u.s. will probably be heading towards a new. inauguration a new cabinet and a new secretary of state which presumably is mr senator kerry and senator kerry's relation with mr karzai is very close so we will expect some new changes and also i think air the u.s. will probably announce after that visit the number of troops and the duration of those troops staying in afghanistan so we the afghans and the international unity should expect some new announcements but i don't think there will be too many details in a very near future that we would know about it will take time for details to emerge all right adel sultanzoy a political ana

drug fighters had reason to be happy in two thousand and ten when afghanistan's opium production hard however the amount of all produced did not doing do due to measures taken against them it was plant disease which wiped out almost top the crop in two thousand and eleven opium production rebounded seventy thousand tons were produced globally to two thousand and twelve. well drug report states that use in production of illicit drugs has remained stable over a decade one in every two hundred people worldwide is a drug addict when of all levels of cultivation and production of opium and coca use there's always a rise in levels of synthetic track production in general whenever a drug is banned a new one emerges very quickly to burgeon in international trade is only to the advantage of drug traffickers is hiding our cortex within the massive global movement of goods is becoming easier. this year we'll turn to. food exposed to say or of governments and the un to win the global war on drugs the report says a hundred billion years dollars using only spent on inforcing to weren't drugs despit

in afghanistan.he russians had quite a time where they eventually withdrew and lost the war. so it has proven the afghans are good fighters, if nothing else, and that the terrain is such that it is a difficult environment to fight in. host: pat is calling from medford, new jersey, a republican. caller: thank you so much for c- span. i have a question about the news media and why we have not heard more from them about this. host: about what specifically? caller: about the corruption. i have read bits and pieces, but i have not seen any blank the articles. -- any lenghy articles. i think that it warrants major reporting. is this a product of a whitewashing? is it your perspective that not enough is being written about about what you've written about in this book? guest: to a certain extent it has been an under reported story. although i do have to say there's a mountain of government reports and data that the inspector general's of the major agencies have rolled out a very thought-provoking reports as

military will be in afghanistan. totally turned around, what's the role of the army of afghanistan is over this all-consuming conflict? i don't know, i mean, are you going to be preparing to deploy to afghanistan or a different position? how's the army as a whole as an up and coming 06, how's the army going to have to institutionalize some of the things it's learned over the last decade plus, and another area is change and move on to a different set of missions? >> i'll give you my opinion on this. this is my personal opinion. you can draw some parallels, lessons learned from our experience in southeast asia in the '70s and what we did as a military to focus on the greater threat at the time, the soviet union and the german defense plan and give us tremendous institutional focus. we also rebuilt ourselves as an institution professionally with the volunteer force, instituting that, getting rid of the draft. all of the military did. this whole air/land battle concept plan, building the systems and platforms, the bradle

i'm very pleased to talk to you about my year in afghanistan. i'd like to thank the san francisco fleet week association, lewis loeven, specifically, major general myat, always a mentor, former secretary of state schultz and mrs. schultz, mrs. perry, honored to be in your presence. the uss makin island, chief of the fairest city in the world, san francisco, and he esteemed professionals. this is nice, i'm going to move south of here and take you to afghanistan. as you know we have marines, soldiers, sailors in afghanistan currently, but i'm going to bring you to when i was there during 2010 and 2011 after the president decided to surge the forces. first marine decision, first marine expeditionary force forward entered southwest afghanistan during 2009. we arrived in 2010 so it was a bit more stable. and we went straight to helman and nimruz province. very complex dynamic environment that we were operating in but before i begin it talk to you about the operational picture, i just want to give you a snapshot of afghanistan. when we got there i wan

so many of us have traveled to afghanistan and traveled as women to afghanistan and have begun to look to this country from the eyes of wanting its survival. a young girl is not from afghanistan but she symbolizes the essence of this motion to instruct. she's from pakistan, but many of you will remember that she took more than one bullet as a young girl who fought and stood up for girls being able to be educated. in my travels to afghanistan and the many provinces, you would hear stories from women as have been evidenced about the inability to serve, the inability to express themselves. in meeting with a group of women afghan parliamentarians, interestingly enough they would indicate how they wanted to serve their constituencies but how difficult it was and dangerous it is to travel as a woman to their particular province to serve their constituents. that is not the nation, that is not the basis of the principles of which our soldiers have fought and died for. america has wonderful principles and i'm delighted this motion to instruct focuses on providing the safety net for girls and wo

but in afghanistan itself the impact of the war has been absolutely disastrous it's one of the poorest countries in the world it's basically got one of the nodes life expectancies instance. mortality and it's lost ten years of its development prospects as a result of the war so yeah seventeen billion pounds badly badly strained. every government has a defense budget surely that spending can be justified in some way defense spending can be just after this is seventeen billion pounds over and above the existing british defense budget so it's money which they specifically use in afghanistan and that is money which they need to be accountable not just for the british people but also to the people of afghanistan and the people of pakistan who also suffer as we've seen great a regional instability as a result of the war what about the british public they've got austerity measures at home that is set to last much stronger than first predicted how do you explain that spending to a public that's undergoing very difficult budget cuts i mean well that's absolutely right and even before the auster

tragedy in afghanistan.ing rescue to free a doctor in afghanistan has cost the life of a navy s.e.a.l. petty officer firstclase nicolas check was killed saturday. the doctor had been kidnapped by insurgents on saturday. he was part of the same elite unit that took part in the raid that killed osama bin laden. barbara starr is out front with the latest. >> reporter: it was a brutal firefight between navy s.e.a.l.s and insurgents. the s.e.a.l.s moved into afghanistan over the weekend to rescue a kidnapped american aid worker. by the time the firefight ended, 28-year-old petty officer first clasnicklaus check had been killed. check, a 10-year navy veteran, part of the elite team six, trained for the rescue. this person was part of three staffers from morning star development. >> we're really hoping we can instill hope into a country that has been dealing with conflict over the past 30 years. >> he and the others were kidnapped last wednesday while returning to a visit to a rural medical clinic. they were stoppe

the dollar cost of the afghanistan war to the u.s. taxpayer, over half a trillion dollars. $641billion by the end of 2013. okay, the worst toll. the human toll. to date, americans killed in afghanistan, 2,156. americans injured or mentally ill, 18,109. suicides, nearly one a day. and in 2012, more active duty military kill themselves than were killed an afghan battlefield this year. question, drift. is the time to cut and run like now? ryan? >> it was yesterday. the president of afghanistan blames us for all of the instability. the afghan soldiers shoot at our men and women over there. there's nothing left to accomplish. just go. >> you're talking about karzai. karzai sometimes impresses people like a worm. because of the way he is treating us, what we've lost, what we've lost over there. >> it was just revealed that he and his family are running the central bank, that is a complete ponzi scheme. and he responds to that by blaming the united states for it and the rest of the instability around the country. >> you've defended karzai, h

get started by spreading corruption in afghanistan by.employing private security firms who became older all and do it was a very strong perception to some of the interesting yes. so here to talk about america's strategy in afghanistan and what the solutions are going forward i'm joined now by about brown brookings fellow and author of aspiration and villains strategies and realities of counterinsurgency and state building in afghanistan thank you so much for taking the time to come over here so you just heard karzai what he had to say do you agree with the perception that afghans think that the u.s. is creating instability there in the region well i do not agree with that and that is the strand in the political system in afghanistan that believes the president karzai finds it very convenient to use that line and he is right that there is tremendous amount of. rule of law and afghanistan there is tremendous amount of corruption the blame lies firstly and foremost on the shoulders of this government and. yes there have been problems with ho

last week, i made my trip to afghanistan. i had a chance to sit down with all our military commanders. i went to kandahar had also had the opportunity to meet with afghan leaders as well. all of them believe that we have fundamentally turned in that effort after years in which we lacked the right strategy and necessary resources to strive to achieve the mission we embarked on. we now have a plan in place, indorsed in chicago by nato that has strong international support. we reversed the five-year trend of growing violence. the taliban to this day has not been able to regain in the of the territory they lost. we are building afghan security forces that are on track to take the lead for securing the entire country next year. we continue to transition both governance and security to the afghans. 75% of the population has not been transitioned to afghan security and control and next year, we will have 100%. but we have also made clear that our commitment to afghanistan, as we got down by the end of 2014, our commitment will conti

on afghanistan, we have to decisions to make. first of all, the decision about the drawdown between now and the end of 2013, and what the -- of 2014, and what the defense secretary would announce is because of the success of our forces and the afghan national security forces and the fact that we are moving from a man during a battalion level to mentoring at a grade level by the end of 2013, will be able to see troops come home in two relative even steps, leaving about 5200 troops after the end of 2013. compared with the 9000 we have now. it is to pay tribute to the incredible work they have done, tour. this book with particularly -- they were impressed by the afghan national sources -- those who i spoke with particularly were impressed by the afghan national forces. no one in a combat role, nothing like the troops we have now -- we promised the afghans who will provide the officer training academy have specifically asked him some other issues above and beyond that, but that is the starting baseline. >> ed miliband. >> can i thank

afghanistan is rich in natural resources. its deposits of crude oil, ian ore, gold, copper and other resources are estimated to be worth nearly $1 trillion. the government has set its sights on developing mines and oil fields and exporting resources to neighboring countries by rail. but the countries aspirations go even further. it hopes to eventually extend rail links as far as pakistan and iran. but afghanistan's geographical features such as high peaks and rugged grounds are -- a chinese farm that conducted preconstruction railway between pakistan and afghanistan returned negative results. >> translator: the company informed us that its initial surveys revealed problems over the expected route. >> reporter: security is another concern for the project. afghanistan is still rocked by attacks from the anti-government taliban. during the period, afghanistan thrived as a hub for economics at the center of asia. now they want to the boost reconstruction efforts by once again -- and the railway still will be key. nhk world, kabul

the people of afghanistan the bank boss that nearly took down afghanistan so there's a report out by the independent joint anti-corruption monitoring and evaluation committee that sounds like one of these out of poverty buried sort of groups they released a report on the collapse of khalil bank and the report found more than ninety two percent of the banks loan book or eight hundred sixty one million dollars was extended to nineteen related individuals and businesses which ultimately benefited twelve people the remaining seventy four million dollars was extended to legitimate customers in loans so it makes sense that here you have you know a country which has been invaded and then all these think tanks and poverty baron sent there to tell them how to run their business then you see ninety two percent of the loans go to twelve guys you saw that in ireland you saw that in iceland use see that probably here in the united states. and the u.k. is there to bring people freedom and afghanistan but they don't tell you is that they're there to bring free money to these twelve people who are g

we have another story from afghanistan. the country has high hopes for the future of its railway system. currently there is only a single line in operation. but there are plans to drive post-war reconstruction by building an extensive railway network linking afghanistan with its neighbors in central asia. nhk world reports from kabul. >> reporter: afghanistan railway started service earlier this year. the 75 kilometer line runs between the northern cities, linking the country with uzbekistan. it is used to transport food and supplies needed for reconstruction efforts. now officials are planning further lines. in an interview with nhk, the minister said afghanistan is planning new routes. >> translator: we aim to build links with two neighbors by the end of next year and we hope to start construction soon after. >> reporter: the asian development project is aexpected to overassist us. the head of the office, it plans to offer $240 million to help finance the project. afghanistan is rich in natural resources. its deposits of

envoy to afghanistan and pakistan. but first, the other news of the day.e's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: as judy just mentioned, the u.s. ambassador to the u.n.-- susan rice-- withdrew her name from consideration for the office of secretary of state today. president obama released a statement saying he'd accepted her decision, but regretted the unfair and misleading attacks on her in recent weeks. rice has come under criticism from congressional republicans for not immediately calling the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi, libya a terrorist action. in her letter, rice wrote, "the position of secretary of state should never be politicized. i'm saddened that we have reached this point." in u.s. economic news, the number of americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell sharply last week to its second- lowest level this year. and retail sales rebounded in november, rising 0.3% but that seemingly good news did little to help stocks on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average lost almost 75 points to close at just under 13,171. the

specifically on afghanistan we have to decisions to make. first of all the decision about the drawdown of troops between now and the end of 2014, and what the defense secretary will announce is because of the success of our forces and afghan national security forces, and the fact we're moving from mentoring and a battalion level to mentoring and brigade level by the end of 2013 will be able to see troops come home and relatively, to relatively even steps, 2013-2014, leaving probably around 5200 troops after the end of 2013 compared with the 9000 another it's a good moment to pay tribute to incredible work they have done. many of them going back for tour after tour. the ones i've spoken to recent have been particularly impressed by the capacity of the afghan national forces. in terms of post-2014, we haven't made final decisions yet. we have said very clearly no one in a combat role, nothing like the number of troops there are now. we promise the afghans we will provide his officer training academy they specifically asked for, and we are prep

military prepares to pack up and ship out of afghanistan several big franchises are looking at the country as an investment opportunity we'll tell you about the efforts to commercialize kabul. it's thursday december thirteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for example and you're watching our t.v. while we are winding down two thousand and twelve and you know what that means lots of looks back at the last twelve months the best dogs worst most significant events and people of the year well here it are to you we decided to put together a list of our own of the most influential people of the year our intrepid producers put together a longer list of about twenty three people and every member of our news team chose their top five finalist was compiled from the winners and losers so here is our top five most influential people of the year or five german chancellor angela merkel not only is she the first woman to hold the top german political post she's also consider the de facto leader of the e.u. an organization that holds the economic fate of many countries and its so-called hands.

the other top stories from al jazeera -- another insider attack in afghanistan. the u.s. contractor is killed. plus -- india's prime minister appeals for calm after a second day of violent street protests. plus, bringing life to the desert. qatar brings ca hopes for those struggling to grow their own food. syria's president bashar al- assad says his government will do whatever it can to end the crisis in syria. his comments on state tv followed a meeting of the u.n. peace envoy to syria lakdar brahimi. he also says he is cooperating with lakdar brahimi, who is on a two-day visit. it coincides with a missile strike. scores of civilians killed in the attack. in the northern city of aleppo rebel fighters say they captured a military base. russia's foreign minister says he received guarantees from president assad he will not use chemical weapons against rebels. >> i met president assad and we exchanged views on the next steps that can be taken to move forward. the president spoke of his viewpoint and i told of what i gathered from my many meetings i of that indifference citie

so famously in the afghanistan invasion in december 2001, the u.s.ad two drones that were flying over afghanistan. one was armed, one was unarmed. today we have 7500 drones. >> the use of drone aircraft, as opposed to thousands of troops on the ground, maybe more effective in eliminating terrorists. >> the last i counted there were approaching fifty countries, that either had or were developing drone attack capabilities. >> but drones have little influence over the latest battlefield of the 21st century, computers. >> certainly the most consistent, persistent and potentially disruptive threat is a cyber attack. potentially dismantling your financial service system, having an impact on utilities, i mean, across the board. >> i think the greater threat to all of us is going to be directly a dagger at the heart of our economic interests and certainly i would start with the cyber. all the other threats are still going to be there, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, all the things that we're dealing with today. but in the end,

but afghanistan has been in this situation before. in a new book, the author, an afghan native, he writes about the misunderstood a history of the country and what it suggests for the country prepare -- for the country's future prepar. >> what i want to say is that it is not a case of the afghan people are one group and the taliban as another entity over there. they have been engaged in a long struggle between its own tendencies toward wanting to open up to the world and move the country in that direction, and those forces that want to entrench and reject that role and become more locally world. you know, verify and confirm the power of grass-roots clerics, grass-roots elders, that is the tendency in afghanistan. it is true that is very much associated with islamic, what we would call, conservatism. >> is that the dynamic that foreign powers have failed to understand, whether it is the brits, the soviets, and now americans? >> it is a dynamic that foreign powers have failed to understand, and at the same time, it is a dynamic that in

reveals the war in afghanistan has cost more than seven hundred billion times but that figure expected to rise before british troops are withdrawn. alone a very good evening chief you've just joined us here in moscow my name's kevin zero in coming to you from the r.t. new center but i'm a poet and slammed america's human rights record citing indefinite detention and sanctioned torture in overseas presence while speaking to journalists the president defended moscow's response to the washington's decision to sanction russian officials. listen to what president putin at a sec. the president slammed the monied ski act passed recently by american lawmakers saying that it's a continuation of a series of anti russian laws like the jacks and then it act which was abolished recently and putin says that the us as a country which is still uses prisons like i will agree with one time all were good relations of human rights have been on a daily basis has no rights to criticize the human rights situation in russia at your. our u.s. partners and their lawmakers say they are concerned about human righ

, the american troops die in the war in afghanistan.n 2000 american troops that have died in the war of afghanistan, of the more than 2000, more than 1200 of those, more than half, have died since the start of the surge in 2010 in just last few years of an 11-year long war. as the white house decides what happens in the last two years that they have slated for continued combat operations, there is this very pressing question. not for what happens after 2014? for what happens after now. how big are you going to let the number get? we need to talk about what's going to happen after combat is over in 2014. it is 2012. there is two years between now and then. what happens right now, at the end of 2012? what happens in 2013? 2013 starts in two weeks. joining us now for the inview is democratic congresswoman shelly pingree. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you very much and thank you for bringing up this topic. >> let me ask in my summation, it is hard for me to talk about troop deaths in terms of their statistical manifestation ove