oining us from columbus, ohio. caller: good morning. my question would be for the overall outcome of afghanistan that you think we would have achieved the same results by doing what the brits did in the region in the 19th century which could be sum rised as finding the militia powerful enough to have control giving them guns and money and letting them run internal affairs. guest: interesting question. among other option we might have had this is one. we could have gone in, stayed very light. effectively subcontracted out afghanistan to local war lords. and some would say that we did a fair amount of that. a lot of afghan leaders, including some of the people who are going to be running for the presidency in early april of this year were former war lords. so a lot of that subcontracting out of responsibilities as a practical matter has been done. president karzai is somebody that we picked up, saw him to be useful, effectively put him into power with the rest of the international community, and many willing afghans, and so in some ways w

oining us from columbus, ohio. caller: good morning.estion would be for the overall outcome of afghanistan that you think we would have achieved the same results by doing what the brits did in the region in the 19th century which could be sum rised as finding the militia powerful enough to have control giving them guns and money and letting them run internal affairs. guest: interesting question. among other option we might have had this is one. we could have gone in, stayed very light. effectively subcontracted out afghanistan to local war lords. and some would say that we did a fair amount of that. a lot of afghan leaders, including some of the people who are going to be running for the presidency in early april of this year were former war lords. so a lot of that subcontracting out of responsibilities as a practical matter has been done. president karzai is somebody that we picked up, saw him to be useful, effectively put him into power with the rest of the international community, and many willing afghans, and so in some ways we have