the guys in las vegas flight around for a day or so and return control to the guide in kandahar.they will look for enemy activity. >> did you get a chance to look at the imagery? >> yes. they have a high-fidelity radar. it takes snapshots of terrain. what you do is in the morning you take one snapshot. you come back in the evening and take another and you compare them. you see differences. you might have spotted a roadside bomb. the taliban come in and did. when you are not looking, but if you have the snapshots you compare them and they call it change detection. that is a lot of what they do. they revisit areas to take these radar snapshot. they send in ground teams. >> you were with several units in different places. what sense did you get from soldiers of up to redeployments, the multiple deployments to afghanistan? >> a lot of the guys i was with were fairly young. many of them were on their first deployments and have only been in the army for a few years. as you get older soldiers, they have been at this for quite a long time. i hear a lot about droppinmorald it seems like t

the army handed me off again to the air force in kandahar. they flew me back t kabul -- to kabul for my flight. >> how big is it, how many units are there? >> is big. a lot of the soviet infrastructure is still there. it is the biggest military facility in afghanistan by some measures. population lies, tens of thousands. i am not sure of the exact number. it is the main logistics' up, so is a lot of aircraft flying in, unloading things, reloading things, flying out. it is sort of a buzz of activity, like a gigantic fedex facility. >> also nato troops stationed there as well? >> whether they be afghans [unintelligible] >> how closely do they work together? >> i find that the troops work fairly closely together. often when u.s. troops go on patrol, they bring along a bunch of afghans. this sort of sliding to the u.s. organization. they don't have the same capabilities in a training. a lot of the coalitions are divided on national lines. >> it is exclusively theirs? >> not exclusively, but american operations are mostly american. afghan forces s

i would rather go to kandahar quite frankly.and i will say to young people i keep coming with heroes, and i know i have conjured up in the mind of a young person the image of somebody wearing a spandex suit and a cape. but that's not the definition of a hero. the definition of a hero is a person who has put himself at risk for the benefit of others. that's basically all i do. i know that some of my colleagues at fox news.com and the rest of the so-called mainstream media don't get that. i tell them every once in a while that the military and the media have a lot in common. they both take casualties. they do. and the military we all know what that is. to me is when they fall off their iqs. [laughter] >> both the military and the media rely on feedback. in the military, the feedback is the enemy advancing or is he in the wire? or have they retreated. that's the back. the effectiveness of what you do. the effectiveness of what we do in and broadcasting in the media more broadly, is measured by whether people buy your books or peopl

. >> my second trip was to kandahar about 2 years ago. i wanted to go back to the south and see if i could detect progress and to see if things had gotten worse. and also to explore areas of afghanistan that i had not seen before. i spent all time in kabul, -- spent time in kabul, also. >> are there commercial flights that go into afghanistan? >> they fly into kabul, or less requently, in -- less frequently, into kandahar. it is still a typical commercial flight. >> october was the deadliest month for u.s. service troops, how concerned are you for your own personal safety? what measures you take to protect yourself? >> your required to wear the same things that they do, armor plating and helmets. they do not provide it. you have to go online to buy it. it is basically law enforcement here. you have the same protective measures that the u.s. forces do. it is sophisticated stuff. i don't worry too much about my own safety. the logistics of the trip are far dicier than the physical danger. >> why is that? >> just moving around afghanistan do

. >> canadians are withdrawing combat forces from kandahar in 2011. it is right next door to helman. as my friend spoken to steven harper of canada to ask and to reconsider? and what does mr. stephen harper say? >> i did speak to him at the commonwealth conference. we had a discussion with other countries including australia and new zealand who are also present -- who were also present. in my view that in both can the car and helman there will be a greater number of troops next year than this. while some countries have made difficult decisions, over all the numbers in both places will rise. >> in the few months the afghan national army will be bigger than the british army. the prime minister has made reference to the 43 nations in the coalition, but he must accept the vast majority of our major european nato allies have not contributed troops on the ground. could i ask him one specific question which i believe will be a great help for our service men and women? that is the deployment of more unmanned aerial vehicles uav's to help detect terrorist acti

someone has been gone for a long time, and you see him, very often you will say to him, were you in kandahar? [laughter] meaning, you were on the moon, and that is often the way it is the. i don't want to get into it now because i am really not so authoritative on this subject but the way the iranians and afghans looking at each other is probably the subject of a whole nother book. >> in early in washington the victims of the lack of historical perspective? [laughter] >> god forbid. >> what is the relevance of opp ahmadinejad's stated belief that the imam is on the threshold of-- and another question about sanctions, a long one. many politicians believe then sanctions. what is your opinion? >> okay. on sanctions, you know, in theory, these things should work. is the beginning of pressure but we have had the u.s. sanctions on iran for 30 years. i haven't seen, i haven't seen them do much but what they have done i think, whenever their economic effect, the iranians don't like being single out. i.t. offence i think a sense of self-worth and self-esteem. they don't like being put in the same boa

so i turned out by the time i got down to see my boss in canada -- kandahar, it was september 11.ost: as always, we welcome your phone calls and e-mails. you can log on to twitter.com /c-spanwj. the democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a comment first and then a question. my comment first is that where i stand at, i don't want either war, iraq or afghanistan. i think we need to be out of both of them because it has trained us financially and plus i don't see an end -- i'm almost afraid it's going to be like another vietnam. that's my comment. my question is, as we get out, i don't see where we can win either one of the wars. can we get out of it somehow and don't look at being, you know, a failure, even though we don't complete the mission that the president wants. we are engaged. can we get out of both of these wars without -- like we just took out and you know, left the country to do what they have to do. because there's so much crookedness that seems like it's going on in that we're not getting the proper support that we need from the president there in af

someone has been gone for a long time and you see him, very often you will say to him, were you in kandahar? meaning you were, you know, you were on the moon. and that is often the way that it is viewed. i don't want to get into it now because i am really not so authoritative on the subject, but the way the iranians and afghans look at each other, is probably the subject of a whole other book. >> are we in washington the victims of a lack of historical perspective? [laughter] >> god forbid. >> what is the relevance of mahmoud ahmadinejad's stated belief that the hidden imam is on the threshold of a hearing? and then a question here about a long one, many politicians believe in sentient, what is your opinion? >> okay. on sanctions, you know, in theory these things should work. pressure, but we have had sanctions, u.s. actions on iran for 30 years. i haven't seen them do much, but what they have done i think, whatever their economic effect, the iranians don't like being singled out. it offends i think the sense of self untrimmed self worth and self esteem. they don't like being put in the sam