in 2007 there were no girls in school in southwest afghanistan. the taliban ran the medrossas, those are gone now. currently if you walked into southwest afghanistan you would see many marines but you would also see 25,000 kids in school. you would see close to 3,000 girls. there is a teacher's college that has been renovated in the big city and there are aspiring teachers studying at that college. there are women's centers established in two of those districts and there are afghan parents and educators involved in their local schools. and to just pull a thread on what many of our senior leadership has said throughout the couple of days, indeed the u.s. military is a global force for good and we will always seek opportunities to leave every place better than when we arrived. and i appreciate your time, appreciate your attention. thank you. . (applause). >> thank you, nita, following along we're going to have colonel barry newland. >> thanks, lewis. i'd like to thank nina for doing a great job of setting the stage so i don't have to go through and

southwest states of mississippi and alabama, just incredible. at least ten people were injured. >>> just ahead, president obama plans to announce the withdrawal of more than 30,000 troops from afghanistanof the union address tonight. so what else is on his to-do list? we'll take a look. >>> plus, the world all over -- all atwitter over the pope's abrupt announcement. he will step down by the end of the month. but will his abdication usher in a new, more modern pope? we'll take you to rome, next. we've all had those moments. when you lost the thing you can't believe you lost. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home... as an american express cardmember you can expect some help. but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership. ♪ it was the best day ♪ ♪ it was the best day yeah! ♪ it was the best day ♪ because of you [sigh] [echoing] we make a great pair. huh? progressive and the great outdoors -- we make a great pair. right, totally, uh... that's what i was thinking. covering the things that make the outdoors great. now, that's progressive. call or click today. >>> mr.

southwest of kabul. jenna: so he's tarnishing the name of our special forces for his political gain in afghanistan.ld be our response? >> well, our response should be to maintain the course. i mean, the alp, these local militias, are proving to be extremely effective. why? well, because special forces selects the heeders of these organizations -- the leaders of these organizations based on their ability to lead and fight, not on their allegiance to karzai. so these are very effective. in addition, remember, we're pulling out of wardak next year. to leave something behind that's going to be lasting, the best choice is to pick militias who live in the village and are likely to stay there and remain loyal to their village chief even if the central government's authority over wardak begins to fray in the years ahead. so this is an american investment that we have paid for, and so far at least seems to be working well which makes it so strange that karzai has turned on american special forces in wardak in order to try the get the alp out. jenna: it doesn't sound strange if what you said is true, which i

integrated fix towers, we're going to get a lot of equipment from afghanistan and iraq we've already paid for to redeploy to the southwestre we get that done, the more people on my side of the aisle will be more willing to have that debate about immigration reform that we need to have. i think we all recognize that. knowing who's coming and going is critical if you're going to do a guest worker program. >> which by the way right now the unions don't want the guest worker program. i think that's going to be part of the final package. you know what's so ironic, mike, is republicans right now are wary about immigration reform for a lot of reasons. they think it's going to pass. but you talk to them about what scares them the most. talk about the plan that reagan passed. which was amnesty. and it actually attracted even more illegal immigrants after the reagan plan passed. he said, listen, if we're going to pass reform, let's pass reform. but let's make sure we don't have a repeat of the reagan episode. >> yeah. and what kind of a threshold are you looking for that you'd feel comfortable with in terms of the technology that

and a lot of the guys who he served not only afghanistan but iraq, guys made the trip here i should say. they had flights donated by american airlines, southwestjetblue, they had hotels donated by best western, they are here, celebrating with him. they are reunited and decided after soul searching he'd rather spend time with his buddies and family as much as he knows this is an honor. this has always been a guy uncomfortable with the limelight, uncomfortable with having his heroics praised and that makes sense to me. >> you can tell he was uncomfortable yesterday. jake, good to see you. fareed, as well. state of the union, president's state of the union tonight on cnn. special coverage at 7:00 p.m. eastern. >>> of course, not just a hot b button issue here, france could get a step closer to making same-sex marriage a reality. not everybody is thrilled necessarily.e! a ha ha! ha ha ha! no no no! not today! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! jimmy how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? happier than dikembe mutumbo blocking a shot. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. constipated? yeah. mm.