and another problem. and he put the marines in lebanon and said it was the worst mistake he ever made. he would not use force until american vital interests were imperilled. jon huntsman joining the campaign next tuesday says if you can t define a winning exit strategy for the american people where we somehow come out ahead, then we re wasting our money and strategic resource. boy, congressman, again to you first. that is an astoundingly strong statement for a guy who s only entering the campaign and trying to get his footing. absolutely. the wheel dynamics have changed. let me tell you why. the war s gotten long. 6,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, $1 trillion invested. secondly, we re broke. we can t fight these wars anymore. we re borrowing money to defend europe, borrowing from japan to defend japan. it is over.
position to bring troops home as soon as possible based on what the generals tell him. this is not a national greatness, aggressive american act of abroad of defense of freedom. not the ringing statements you used to hear from john mccain and george w. bush. bret: it s not just mitt romney. we should point out it s all of them. bret: yeah. john huntsman expected to announce next week and said in an article if you can t define an exit strategy for the american people where we come out how we are wasting money and wasting strategic row sources. about afghanistan, it esa tribal state. it always will be. whether we like it or not, when we withdrawal from afghanistan now or years from now we ll have an insipidiary situation. should we stay and play traffic cop? i don t think it serves the strategic interest. that s clear. that is the arguments that
he would not. he used military force three times. grenada took about a day. he took out libya and another problem. and he put the marines in lebanon and said it was the worst mistake he ever made. he would not use force until american vital interests were imperilled. jon huntsman joining the campaign next tuesday says if you can t define a winning exit strategy for the american people where we somehow come out ahead, then we re wasting our money and strategic resource. boy, congressman, again to you first. that is an astoundingly strong statement for a guy who s only entering the campaign and trying to get his footing. absolutely. the wheel dynamics have changed. let me tell you why. the war s gotten long. 6,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, $1 trillion invested. secondly, we re broke. we can t fight these wars anymore.
more as in sort of world policing organization, i guess, but should tb nato or other verings of nato popping up? well, nato s proved to work. it made the decision in the early 1990s it would do something to resolve the crisis in the balkans, we ultimately did. that was in europe that made sense about european security. it was. but out of the traditional nato defensive area and nato wasn t attacked. nato made this important step of out of area. then only a step further to go to iraq which they didn t do and then to afghanistan. raptd united states brought nato into afghanistan without a success plan. it was more like, hey, we would like an exit strategy to the united states, so can we pass this off to nato and it has turned out to be quite a challenge. you know exover the weekend, republican senator lindsey
i would argue we can if you are willing to pay another quarter tril dollars to do so. if it isn t in our interest and a logical exit strategy and don t know what the cost is going to be in terms of money and human lives, then i think you have to say, it s probably time we re-evaluate this. if we can t make the strong argument to the american people. president huntsman would want to be out of afghanistan earlier than 2014? my hunch is the american people want to be out of there as quickly as we can get it done. you have to leave behind some presence. okay. welcome back to morning joe. top of the hour. joining the table columnist, peggy noonan. an msnbc contributor, ezra