in the mast 20 years. >> that's a very, very good point. i'm glad you made it. what do you say to the more hawkish critics of the president who say, look, leaving afghanistan, especially leaving afghanistan in this way whether we like it or not will embolden our enemies they say. will lead to afghanistan once again becoming a haven for al qaeda and other terrorist groups. what do you say to them? >> i would say a couple of things, that the drone strikes in the past couple of days have indicated the united states hats intelligence capability to identify threats and has the military capability to strike at them without troops. we have a lot of over-the-horizon capabilities and no doubt we will use them. you know, i also think that we have to be honest. the war on terror was not only a bad idea, it was a failure. when we started in 2002 we estimated there were 170 al qaeda operatives in the world. today there are tens of thousands and afghanistan is not the central haven for them, and