marja. some are not going as well but generally speaking, as petreaus correctly _, we are seeing some progress there. does it really address the question of whether we have a strategic partner in president karzai and whether we can use the current government as reflecting a enough of a consensus among afghans to be a basis for moving forward? steve always has the right and tough questions and i do not have quite as positive and overall bottom line there. i remain hopeful but i do not know. i would explain my reason for hopefulness without trying to disagree with steve, because i share his concerns. instead of putting too much emphasis on karzai, let's think about the afghan people. they are adamantly anti-taliban. the only support in a taliban is among the past tense -- pashtun, and only a tiny sliver of them agree with them, and more are afraid of them. how do we change that perspective? that is more a limited problem that we see in other insurgencies around the world where there's a fundam

. >> how many insurgence are left in marja? >> i do not know.will put it in a couple of hundred freudenthal it is not significant. it is makes it tough to root it out. >> emitting conditions is the key to deciding whether to its concerts are pulling out. what conditions would you look >> a military force shapes the informant. we cannot fix the economy or the government. what we can do is affect the security. but for all intents and purposes, we shape the environment that allows these other lines operation to take place. initially, in iraq and afghanistan, we have had to do that and start by ourselves. but increasingly, our doctrine calls for turning that over to host nations. that is why we are partnering right now almost on every patrol with afghan security forces when we go out. that is why we want to posture the police so they can be successful. the shipping operation is a transition. transitioning host nations to the point where they can do those things. that is what we hope to a accomplish. when we have sufficiently beaten down the insurgen

>> first of all, we took some losses early on through active snipers in marja and other places. the best counter sniper system on the battlefield is another sniper. our snipers are very good and we have taken down that threat significantly over the last several months. secondly, we are impacting supply lines and our read as we intercept and question and interrogate is that the enemy is having a tougher time getting the elements of the ied's in place and being able to attack us through that system. no, security has not turned sufficient for us today that the afghan security forces can take it. we have the momentum. we have the initiative. that is different from declaring that security positions are changed dramatically. >> let me bring you back "don't ask, don't tell. " you said some marines are skeptical about this. you said the moral perception that marines have of people serving in the marine corps who are openly gay -- what do you mean by "moral perception?" >> we have some people who are very religious. we will have people in some estimates is that said that homosexuality is

. >> how many insurgence are left in marja? >> do not know.t it in a couple of hundred freudenthal it is not significant. it is makes it tough to root it out. >> emitting conditions is the key to deciding whether to its concerts are pulling out. what conditions would you look at? >> a military force shape the environment the the what w can do is aid inhese other things. we shape the environment that allows these other kind of operation to take place. initially, we have had to do that by ourselves. increasingly, we call for turning that over to nation's security forces. that is why it is so important. the host nations to the plan where they can do those things. that is what we hope to accomplish. when we think we have sufficiently beaten down the insurgency in the area, yt built up the afghan capability. then i think we have done the essence of what we rescind their to do. one of the things he mentioned was that the afghan security forces, one in 10 show sign of the drug abuse, one out of five are belligerent. is there any indication to you tha

. >> i was in marja three weeks ago, very dramatic trip because our use pray got hit coming in and there were some people in the marketplace who had designs on us but we never got to the market pace because our schedule changed. in marjha the u.s. and the nato command, british particularly went into an extremely difficult area. but one that had had a long pro-american tradition in the kennedy and johnson administrations. they were greeted as liberaters. thank you, you're back. we remember the americans. we want agriculture, we want security, we want roads, we want culverts, we want seeds. with the troops came our civilians. we have some of the braveest civilians, unarmed, working these streets, they're not even streets, they're just dust bowls. the dust is so fine in marjah that it gets through every mesh have you ever seen. it is astonishing and it is hot down there and these joint civilian military teams are extraordinary. the process of bringing in the afghan government officials behind them is slow and difficult because of mobility. it's really hard to move down there without securit