the united states chose to interpret that as a significant victory. the canadians have always said it was a great victory because they repelled the american invader, and that's what they celebrated extensively this year since we're in the bicentennial year itself now, and many americans don't appear to know this, and the british said they forgot all about the war, and they never even remembered it. that doesn't say much one way or the other, but if you press them hard, they say, well, we certainly don't think the americans won, so there's all jokes that goes round which sources the americans are happy because they think they won the war of 1812. the canadians are even happier because they know they won the war of 1812, and the british are the happiest of all because they forgot the whole thing ever happened. >> host: where did you grow up, professor? >> guest: in new zeal land. >> host: in new zealand? >> guest: yes, in christ church, and americans if they read, they know it as the city that had 10,000 earthquakes over the last year, and that's gained

the united nations led by the united states helped us through that dark hour.y came to us to rescue on the brinks of collapse. forever after the united nations has been a beacon of hope and still is for billions of others around the world. whenever i see all of them who are looking to the united nations, i'm humbled just thinking that what kind of a support i can bring to them. today as then, i believe the united nations can and must be the solution to the wars' great challenges. engagement through the united nations is the way forward to share the costs and responsibilities of leadership, to uphold universal values and to steer the world through this great transition. that is why in january, as i begin my second term, i set out a road map for my five-year second term as secretary general. there you need five imperatives for collective global action opportunities to create a future we want. how to fight climate change and chart a new path of sustainable growth and development. how to conflict and better response to natural disasters and other humanitarian emerg

we are sharing the technology with the united states. we have developed drone aircraft, drone aircraft are going the skies above american servicemen and women serving in our region. we are involved in th the war against drugs. way to buildnt

and with the united states, the immigration since then. we have progressed in our relations with israel significantly. it is a friendly country. and the visa with each other. russians go to israel. >> i think you probably have to switch the microphone on. >> and coming back, russian origin. coming back with ideas. with sometimes, money, technologies. to work in the country that they know very well. and that is quite normal. i would say that we have -- normalcy in our relations with israel but we do not have normalcy, relation in the particular field with the united states over the issue that is no longer. by all standard. still there because there is a political context for this. and probably we will see, hear it a lot. debate to whether russia can graduate from jackson/vanek or not. in terms of russian economic interest, the condition of negotiations, offen tr entry, ie wto, give us an opportunity to become a member pretty soon befrp the e before the end of the year. if it is not granted to russia that means, kind of it isresip r recip re

its leader bin laden should be a priority for the united states. president should spend some time thinking about bin laden. that was the sharp break proposed by the new president after george w. bush. in all honesty to the chagrin of people that had been alarmed by executive power in the george w. bush administration. the obama administration has not represented a significant break from that. they expected the use of assess nation by drones. the number of drone strikes spiked in 2009 once obama took over and in 2010 those already spiked numbers from 2009 doubled. this was not going to be a more pacifist approach. president obama tripled the number of troops in afghanistan. the obama administration has not thrown less american weight around and not thrown it away in a less unilateral authority. the obama administration has thrown american weight around in a much more specific direction. it was not a difference in aggression. it was a difference in focus. for this president it makes sense that on the anniversary of bin laden's death, he would put hims

once the war is over, the united states and the soviet union decide to divide korea with the united states being in control of the southern part of korea, the soviet union is going to be administering the northern part of korea. eventually, both u.s. and ussr agree that we will withdraw and allow the koreans to have some degree of self-determination. we're going to pull out, soviet union's going to pull out. the koreans will be able to determine their future and their fate. and we both did. the difference is, when we pulled out, we basically took everything with us. when the soviet union pulled out, they left behind a stockpile of weapons. the most modern military technology that they had at the time, and that's the temptation that was going to be used the following summer, 1950, north korea with the use of soviet military armaments and try take possession of the entire country. this is exactly what kennan warned up about the soviet union is not content. they're going to expand into other areas. this is expansion trying to take over the southern part of korea. we must respond. he doesn't g

the united states was attacked from afghanistan. we set out not just to get rid of the taliban but to make sure afghanistan could never again become the place from which the united states and other countries could be attacked by a global terrorist organization. to do that, we and our allies around the world determined it would be necessary to give support to democratically elected government that needed outside help. we invested an incredible amount of resources to give them a chance at doing that. i started with what president obama inheritance. i cannot speak to decisions made before that. his view was clear. we did have a chance to succeed in this way. he increased our military efforts in the short term in order to enable us to get out of afghanistan and the longer term. that is exactly what he has been doing. the surge that the united states undertook to reverse the taliban's game has taken place and we are in the process of turning over responsibility to the afghans. it has been a long and expensive investment. the president's v

but the united states commitment to its "ally," is not ending. with us now the pulitzer prize winning journalist judith miller, a fellow at think tank the manhattan institute. not all that surprising, certainly, unannounced and frankly, politics aside for the moment, at least, an important agreement. >>guest: absolutely, this is part of the victory lap of the year anniversary of a great event which was good for america, the killing of osama bin laden and the president has every right to make the most it which he is doing. >>shepard: and one might come to the conclusion that would be a good thing for americans, as well and i don't know about you, and we will get to the rest of the breaking news that is coming, i happened to be out of the country, in europe and came back to the country and there was a sense of unity that i had not felt in years in this nation. all politic was on the floor. this man had orchestrated the murder of our relatives and our neighbors, the tallest and many ways symbolic buildings, and america stood as one. and a year later

needs the united states? now, cast your mind back a decade ago or little over a decade ago. that question would have seemed absurd. the united states was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, the most powerful country economically, politically, militarily. why on earth would it need anyone, let alone a continent known for its economic crises, its political instability, for having almost no global clout? well, how times have changed. and how used we we have become o the fact of change. there's an old jewish joke that i heard probably about 5,000 times when i was growing up, and it's set in eastern europe in the 19th century in a period when borders were changing very rapidly. and the story goes that a woman is pegging up washing, and a kazakh soldier rides up and declares, old woman, from this day forth, this land is no longer poland, it is imperial russia. and then he rides off. and she watches him go, and she says, thank god, i couldn't stand another polish winter. [laughter] thank you for laughi

and we share our intelligence daily with the united states. and i know personally from being an ambassador that it is deeply appreciated on both sides. you get an army. the israel defense forces, which is highly motivated, highly trained, very sophisticated. which is larger than the british and the french armies combined. and it just happens to be sit waited at the strategic nexus between africa, asia and the middle eastern area. it's an area where america does not have to deploy a lot of troops there paubecause our tro are there as opposed to the persian gulf where there is a large american military presence. it gets technology. we share our innovation with the united states. every american military aircraft, whether it be fixed wing or helicopters, every single one of them fly with israeli components and with israeli concepts. i can't go too deeply into that, but trust me, they have all got israel inside of them. israel and the united states together have developed the most advanced anti-ballistic systems in the world. and they are multi leve

eastern time here in the united states. let's go straight to our white house correspondent brianna keilar. for this president, this is a huge deal. set the scene. >> reporter: this is a big deal, wolf. a trip by the president of the united states to a war zone like afghanistan is extraordinary and this is only the third time that president obama has made this trip. it's been over a year. the last time he was there was in december 2010 and furthermore, at the presidential palace which is where he is right now for brief remarks with president hamid karzai and to sign the strategic partnership agreement with afghanistan to talk about the u.s. relationship with afghanistan beyond 2014. that's extraordinary. the last time the president was in afghanistan in december of 2010 he could not make that trip from bagram air force base which is about 30 miles or so north of kabul to the palace because of weather concerns, and certainly security is always a concern as the president is in the comfort of the air force base. if you look at p

from within the united states. one of the classic examples of searching through and figuring out who was involved. the husband and wife team, ethyl and jewulius rosen berg. i decided to put it first. alphabetically. they will be charged separately and both convicted of espionage along atomic secrets to the soviet union in 1951 and executed for espionage in 1953. this is serious business now. the us has been infiltrated by spies. nothing more serious than the weapons program and the rosen bergs paid the price. what we have then in the united states is a full-fledged red scare. we talked about this afterworld war 1 in the 1920s. this is really a second red scare. we are afraid that the united states, here on our own shores had been infiltrated. we are suspicious of everyone and everything. your next door neighbor might be a spy. it's your american responsibility and duty to support the activity. the band leader synonymous with the red scare and flushing out the communists, wherever they might be is this fellow. recogn

missouri's own harry truman now becomes president of the united states. very interesting circumstances, obviously. we are just about to wrap up the war in europe. we are i land hopping our way into japan. i mean, it looks promising and yet, there are all kinds of pot holes along the way. we still have to finish the defeat of germany. we still have to finish off japan. how we do that, when we do that, and what are the consequences of what we're doing, that's the rest of the story. truman is going to meet with stalin and churchill in potsdam, germany, after hitler is defeated. i mean, it's a new big three now with harry truman being the president now instead of roosevelt. truman's attitude is going to be very different from that of roosevelt. and some indication of that change of u.s. policy comes right away. remember i mentioned to you that even vice president harry truman had not been kept informed of the manhattan project. one of them is, there's a few things you need to know. we've been working on a bomb. it's the biggest, baddest bomb around. here in po

the united states has three summit objectives. number one is charting a clear path for the clegs of and reaffirming afghanistan. the second objective maintaining the poor defense capabilities during this period of austerity and building a force ready for future challenges. finally, deepening the engagement of hibernations. mr. chairman, i would like to end here. i look forward to a good discussion. thank you very much, sir to townaccepted, we will have that, i'm sure. let me ask you quickly if i can before i turn the gavel over. first of all, what sort of reaction to the european -- generally to the obama administration's decision to take two of the four combat brigades, army brigades out of europe. and what's the impact? >> i appreciate the opportunity to address that because i think we have been quite successful in explaining what was thinking. i've been in berlin, lithuania and copenhagen. to think about it even with people imagining it somehow we were reducing our presence in europe. the fact is those brigade combat teams have

any royalty fee does not go to the united nations. it goes into a fund for distribution to parties of the convention and we were we actually in the convention, would have a permanent veto power over how the funds are distributed. and we could prevent them from going anywhere we did not want them to go. i just want to underscore, this is simple arithmetic. if we don't join the convention, our companies will miss out on opportunities to explore vast areas of continental shelf and deep seabed. if we do join the convention, we unlock economic opportunities worth potentially hundreds of billions of dollars for a small percentage royalty a few years down the line. i've also heard we should not i join this convention, because, quote, it's a u.n. treaty. and, of course, that means the black helicopters are on their way. well the fact that a treaty was negotiated under the auspices of the united nations which is after all, a convenient gathering place for the countries of the world, has not stopped us from joining agreements that are in our int

in 1949, 1950, this is panic starting to envelope in the united states. we have stopped the spread of communism in europe, but look what happened in other parts of the world. we have to respond, some way, somehow. this is containment. instead of containing in europe, we have to contain it in another part of the world. what do we do? we simply refuse to recognize the legitimacy of moo. they will not have a diplomatic relationship with china. we will continue to recognize the chinese government as the legitimate government of china. that doesn't hurt them much. but we have to find a way to stop or contain communism in this part of the world and need a new best friend. one of the strange ironies is the nation that we have just nuked into the flintstone era is our new best friend. by 1950, we will start rebuilding japan so they can help us stop the spread of chinese communism in this part of the world. then finally, there is a document. it is known as nsc 68. a national council report listed as nsc 68. it will outline what the united states should do as we tur

the united states does. he treaty specifically says that the state members pay that and the taxpayer will ultimately pay it. i just want to make a few points and asked a short question. of course, 160 other nations want to send this through. we need to think it through as has been said, maybe we have a lot to gain, but we will pay more than any other nation that is part of this agreement because of the royalties that have been discussed. of course, they want to have us in this. they also get to define the rules of engagement for the u.s. navy all over the world. that may be a theoretically a good idea, but there has been a lot of testimony that the international rules of engagement on the ground troops in afghanistan have put our folks in harms way. we do need to debate that. and we do know from the treaty that very clearly subjects are states, are electric utilities, our businesses to environmental lawsuits that will be arbitrated by panels that could be slanted against us. it is very clear from the treaty,

once again the united states worked very closely with its e.u. as part of, and in this case the oecd to make sure during the recent election in serbia that serbian citizens with the dual nationality includes those living in kosovo would be able to exercise their right to vote in the serbian parliamentary election. the e.u. facilitate a dialogue and provided the means for the two countries to address issues that complicate daily life for ordinary citizens. but only to the extent that the parties implement the resulting agreements. although we are still assessing but -- in the broader region, we welcome his stated commitment to serbia's european future of work constructively with the new government to achieve that goal. in that spirit the united states and our european partners need to work together with leaders across the region on new ideas to resolve the challenges in northern kosovo, in line with kosovo sovereignty and territorial integrity. in particular, we need to help develop a framework and permit normalization of practical neighborly relat

what's the worry that catholics have in the united states? go ahead. >> only listen to the pope. >> that they'll only listen to the pope, that they're loyal to the pope before and instead of being loyal to the united states, and you can't be a good citizen, particularly if you're overly obedient to the pope and the clergy you can't not independent citizen required in the american public so this is a way of saying, hey, we're being good citizens and participating in the war effort even as we are still overtly practicing our catholicism. more of these kinds of expressions of dual identities. fast forward after the civil war a little bit. this is a famous st. patrick's day parade again in new york city in 1871 and where else have we seen a picture of st. patrick's day before? anyone remember? >>> 1867, the day we celebrate. a lot different. that was a picture of a drunken riot. this is the opposite. it is orderly, calm, peaceful, and that's not a coincidence. the irish are very conscious in the public displays as anyone vofltd and sending a messa

can the united states also have a voice? lingness of the united states to see turkey played a leadership role. final point is that, and fred alluded to this, we need nato not to be global in terms of its membership, but global in terms of its political orientation and capacity to act. some of our best allies in afghanistan are australia and new zealand, and the united arab emirates and jordan. and so nato has been constructing a partnership program that would bring nato to more global orientation, and that's where nato needs to go in partnerships. australia, japan, south korea, bea you, jordan, morocco will not become members of nato but they can deploy with it and they can exercise and train with us and nato needs to encourage them to do so. so in other words, we can think of ourselves somehow is just an organization that just exist in north america and western europe. it's an or decision has to ask the capacity to act globally. that's in the report as well. in terms of how we put this together i do want to thank our review

well you can look at the united arab emirates which arguably is the most western facing a nation in the gulf it too has at this sort of effort anniversary of the spring decided to make sure that citizens and expatriates know that it is not looking for an. important question to answer your question first i would like to put arab countries governments monarchs and regimes into three different categories on the one hand we have those arab governments who've faced citizen revolves operas eating citizens who are seeking rights of freedom dignity or equal opportunity and did not want to to introduce political reforms and the people who are able to to overthrow those regimes to evict their rulers from the office these are these governments you can name egypt tunisia and libya and a second group we have those arab governments who or monarchs who. wanted to introduce some political reforms when they faced our prizing they introduced some independent investigations for some atrocity which was committed by security forces and they had some legitimacy within their own people i think you can name bu

and the united states is not contributing largely to that population. if we destabilize the amendment, we will be part of the problem. >> although we have a considerable number of people in this country estimated from 10 to 12 to 14 million who are in an ambiguous state because they were not born here and they were born in the united states without proper documentation. but the principle of the 14th amendment means that their children are recognized as citizens of the united states. >> so it stops with one generation. and we hope we can figure out what to do. >> i wanted to ask you a little bit about the book that you've written on women's rights, women's citizenship, the book of no constitutional right to be ladies and the obligations of citizenship. and in publisher's weekly, i was reading some of what they had to say about your book. they say that you link the women's exemption from civic duties, such as jury or military service to the denial of women civics rights such as suffrage, a jury by her peers, aid, citizenship and even her body. expand on th

the united nations, led by the united states, helped us through that dark hour.hey came to us to rescue on the brink of collapse. forever after, the united nations community has been -a beacon of hope and is still is, billions of others around the world. when ever i see all of them who are looking to the united nations, i am humbled. what kind of support can i bring to them? today, as then, i believe the united nations can and must be the solution to the worlds great challenges. engagement through the united nations, share the costs and responsibilities of leadership for all universal values and to steer the world through this great transition. that is why in january, as i begin my second term, i sent out a roadmap for my five year second term as secretary- general. they are in effect five imperatives of collective global action, opportunities to create the future we want, how to fight climate change and chart a new development. a path of sustainable growth and development. how to prevent country and response to disasters and other humanitarian emergencies, from

missouri's own harry truman now becomes president of the united states. very interesting circumstances. obviously. we are just about to wrap up the war in europe. we are island hopping our way to japan. i mean, it looks promising and yet there are all kinds of potholes along the way. we still have to finish the defeat of germany. we still have to finish off japan. how we do that, when we do that, and then what are the consequences of what we're doing, that's the rest of this story. true man truman is going to mee with stalin and churchill in germany after hitler's defeatedh stalin and churchill in germany after hitler's defeated.truman stalin and churchill in germany after hitler's defeated.truman stalin and churchill in germany after hitler's defeated.truman stalin and churchill in germany after hitler's defeated.ruman i stalin and churchill in germany after hitler's defeated.pgermany after hitler's defeated.pogerma defeated.tsgermany after hitler defeated.dgermany after hitler' defeated.agermany after hitler' defeated.mgermany after hitler' defeated.pots

in other words, you could come to the united states. but if you were chinese you could not be naturalized and become a citizen. but what did that mean about children of those people born here. and the courts ruled eventually the 14th amendment applies to them, also. >> and that is a really -- it seems to me, a really important decision that we should be teaching in our schools. it's in some ways the proud counterpart to the dred scott decision, because at the time that he was demanding recognition of his citizenship, there was not only an impossibility for his parents to become citizen, but there was so much anti-chinese sentiment in the united states. there is vicious anti-sentiment. which some members of the u.s. supreme court personally shared. but the issue or reining opinion that says that birthright citizenship is what it should do what it was meant to do, in the debates over the 14th amendment, there is a senator from -- there were several, but one i remember particularly from pennsylvania who says in congress, okay, in effect, ok

we welcome our viewers across the united states and around the globe to the special report, president obama addressing the american people from afghanistan, talking about the future of u.s. troops there and we are going to bring that to you live. >> lots of news happening now, dramatic developments covering the president's surprise visit to afghanistan like no one else can. we have our reporters in afghanistan, in pakistan, in washington, in new york, we're watching all of this unfold, our own john king will give us an inside look at what it's like to be on a secret presidential trip to a war zone. he's been on one before, our own erin burnett looks at al qaeda's future and our christiane amanpour and fareed zakariazaka. >> the president took a helicopter to kabul and signed a strategic partnership agreement with president hamid karzai. it could mark the beginning of the end of the war there. listen. >> neither americans nor the afghan people asked for this war, yet for a decade we've stood together to drive al qaeda from its camps to battle an insurgency and to give the people of afg

the brazilian president was coming to the united states very soon. i think it would be a very good suggestion to back brazil for a permanent seat on the u.n. security council. and i think it would show an attempt that the united states wants to engage in building a partnership to make this more of a region -- a coherent region, not where we tell them what to do, but where we listen to each other and back each other up and back of our aspirations. >> questions from the audience. if you have a question, raise your hand. >> thank you. because you touched on cuba, gives me away -- >> even if you hadn't gone away -- [talking over each other] >> yes, particularly, we have coming up the summit of the americas coming up in april. in many ways, the last summit was obama's high point. i mean, he sort of came onto the scene, he acknowledged them as hillary clinton did that cubans were doing all this great health stuff and i didn't know about it. and he was polite to president chavez. it sort of gave everybody a sense that oh, yes, something different was happeni

the united states to distance about 4.8% of its gdp on defense. the alliance of original is about 1.6 and falling. the two per cent figure that we talked about there was only a handful of allies that spend that much and that creates problems. personnel costs remain about the same for europe they are funding operations out of their current budgets and like we do out of supplemental. what does that mean, their investment accounts are being hurt very badly that's about the future so they are cutting into the future. they are not being coordinated. with nato or many others these are national decisions and that has to change. we've done an assessment about the impact of this and we've seen what you might call horizontal cut initially where you are cutting across the force and that tends to hollow out and make the force's less ready and sustainable and now they are moving to vertical cuts where they're taking in tire chunks of capability out of the force. you see this with dutch and armor into the danish and submarines, you see it with the british and th

hillary clinton was at this new forum putting the united states in an active alliance with the g.c.c. this demonstrates a continued the of strategy where the united states is working with its so-called regional allies to maintain its own national interests overseas and in fact when there were protests against mubarak it was after frank wisner jr who was sent is the only boy to talk to mubarak and to try to find a strategy to lengthen mubarak's tenure not to ask him to step aside in fact frank wisner jr in his memorable television up link to the munich conference said that he had discussed a democratic transformation with saudi arabia you know all ironies intended imagine that that an american is talking about democracy with riyadh regarding a protest movement in cairo it's ridiculous. and you know where you come out on that because of course you know some countries some people in the arab middle east can have the arab spring the arab awakening but some can bahrain's a good example they can't ok so what that is again a good start is to power power and then go ahead sure it's a big. so

it doesn't get much riskier than sending the president of the united states into a war zone. president obama arrived at bagram airbase, afghanistan, under cover of darkness, with extraordinary security measures. reporters traveling with the president were sworn to secrecy. the secret service is prepared for anything that could happen. it starts with getting in, u.s. planes landing in afghanistan perform a cork screw type landing making sharp banks and turns to avoid heat seeking missiles. colonel mark tillman, now retired, cold wolf blitzer about secretly taking president george w. bush to baghdad in 2003 while combat raged. >> the challenge wasn't so much to get him in there because we easily fooled everybody and got him in there. the challenge was once he was on the grouped and everybody knew he was there to get him back out again, so we worked very hard to make sure he had minimum time on the ground. >> reporter: any longer and terrorists might be able to set up an attack. and over the years, bagram, right where the president landed, has come under repeated rocket and morta

the girl behind you could be future president of the united states. or even, better than that, the mayor of new york city. the guy to the right a future nobel laureate. okay. maybe not the guy to your right but certainly to the left. >> memorial weekend watch commencement speeches, politicians, white house officials and business leaders share their thoughts with the graduating class of 2012, saturday through tuesday at noon and 10:00 p.m. eastern. >>> congressman, people look at what happened with jpmorgan and say here is a company that made a stupid decision, did something dumb. lost money. didn't collapse,ed

some of them legalized the unit. others removed the kitchen or whatever violation they may have incurred that is a loss. i mentioned that we use the census as a baseline every 10 years. the census counts illegal units. it is a separate unit. when we are looking -- we count them as well. >> i know there has been a lot of talk about secondary units. what would be the reasons that eight units -- is its exposure? -- that a units-is it exposure? >> it could be that the zoning does not permit the density. it could be to debut of units, so you could not legalize the unit. it could be exposure, open space. one of the biggest roadblocks was parking. some of the amendments that the planning commission made make it a little bit easier for someone to get over that obstacle. that is the exposure issue. commissioner borden: is it's easier to legalize a unit? it is it's easier to take out a kitchen? >> it depends on the situation. often, the illegal units in place are minimal construction. maybe pretty easy to remove the kitchen cab

historically each time that the united states has entered into almost any kind of treaty we have been very acidious in doing everything we could to follow that treaty. we have not always been afforded the reciprocal courtesy. i suggest that a new start is a good example of what happens when we don't negotiate in a way that is only in the best interest of the united states. we in the first phase of new start reduced our strategic war head counts significantly without really impacting the russians a great deal when the tactical war heads were left completely out of the equation and part of that promise was that we would modernize our nuclear weapons capability. and it just seems like over time things degrade. and to give a president as flexible as this one the ability to enter into treaties without congressional approval on something as critical as our space assets and our space access is, i think, a foolish ernd on our part and i hope we suggest that. >> gentleman from california, five minutes. >> some time ago mr. andrews suggested that we try to avoid presidential politics as we cont

ambassador of the united nations susan rice. ama administration's plans of last resort. >>> also, the so-called flame. the flame that could spark the next generation of cyber spying. so who's behind this very sophisticated new computer virus? and investigators are trying to figure out right now why pieces of a jet engine fell off in flight. new information into "the situation room" about air canada's scare ask what went wrong. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer and you're in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> the united states and its allies are blatantly accusing the syrian president bashar al assad of having blood on his hands right now, but any talk of military intervention at least for now is still just talk. the united nations observers report finding 13 corpses in eastern syria with their hands tied behind their backs. this only days after the massacre in houla that unleashed global outrage. russia and china made it clear they're staunchly

he is the commander in chief and the president of the united states. he goes around the world at risk he can dominate the news cycle. mitt romney was in new york with rudy giuliani might have gotten more attention except for this. >> he left around 11:00 p.m. eastern time last night from andrews air force base outside of washington and got there about 2:00 p.m. eastern time, about a 13 hour flight overseas, a very long flight. the president is walking into this location right now. here he comes. he is going to be speaking we assume for about ten minutes. here is the president. >> good evening. this outpost is more than 7,000 miles from home but for over a decade it's been close to our hearts because here in afghanistan more than half a million of our sons and daughters have sacrificed to protect our country. today i signed a historic agreement between the united states and afghanistan that defines a new relationship between our countries, a future in which afghans are responsible for the security of their nation and we built an equal partnership betwee

still, it is an important day for the united states. the president pointing that out in brief remarks when he landed. an important day for the united states and for afghanistan and the president's words. >> we're going to rely out for the rest of the hour. if you're just joining us, the president is marking the one-year anniversary of the death of osama bin laden with a surprise visit to u.s. forces in afghanistan. for more, we turn to nbc's reporter in kabul. thank you so much for joining us. what has been the reaction from troops and from afghans on the ground there? >> reporter: hi there. there isn't much of a reaction yet because it was a bit of a surprise that the president was coming here. the afghan did seemed to have leaked the information a few hours ago but they stopped reporting it because they did get phone calls from the u.s. embassy telling them not to report it for security reasons. it is surprising that president obama chose the one-year anniversary of osama bin laden's death to sign this strategic partnership. as mention

australia, the united states, and india deployed together. cause we had exercised and train together on the air and sea. you have been a stalwart ally in afghanistan, but you had to kind of do it on the run, not having worked much with european allies. you can call these patterns of cooperation and military training, but it confers no obligation. it is the best of both worlds, from my perspective. >> you are also hearing the most frequent point here being background from australian officials, more than happy to use our centers and resources, but we are not involved in the planning stage. we have problems and issues in our parts of the world, but if those two things could be resolved, it would be a qualitative change in the relationship. >> i would agree with fred. you had no say in the nature of the afghanistan operation. you should be there as part of the takeoff. there are two other countries, like denmark, seated in front of me, and finland, who has been great partners. -- sweden and finland. we are so strong in northern europe, they need t

now he's sought refuge from the united states. of course we have to protect him. we also have to try to encourage the chinese government to see this as an opportunity. i know that sounds a little naive, but there are many voices coming out of the top levels of chinese leadership right now that are calling for a nion underworld law. so this is the opportunity for the chinese government to show that it really is a nation that is ruled by law. >> ifill: sasha gong, a senior administration official said we're searching for the appropriate balance. in the past the appropriate balance has been to focus on discussions between the u.s. and china on trade or currency issues, not necessarily on human rights. is that even possible to find an appropriate balance? >> well, for human rights it should be part of trade, and economic relations. because you can'tay, ll, we developed trade and the economic relations first and the disregard of human rights, that's not who we are. we are the united states of america, and, well, i think what somewhat the voice of america heard is that o

the african union and others including the united states. e mission in liberia has been able to reduce the size of its force from some 15,000 to less than now 10,000 soldiers. some of the conditions that led to 14 years of civil still exist and in society could be exploited again to incite violence. that is one of the reasons why the government of liberia has asked to be praised on the agenda of the peace building commission. and that country is one of the si