taxpayer. lisa sylvester, cnn, washington. we ll show you signs of broken government all week. tomorrow on american morning, a plan to fix the trade deficit. can the u.s. compete with chief foreign labor? tonight on campbell brown we look at the impact on the departments. later, contribution disconnects? lawmakers get money from toyota and now sit in judgment of the automaker. ac 360. a split second, a life in balance. a traffic cop, an icy interstate, an out-of-control vehicle and a life-changing exit strategy. n the aisle. choose any car? you cannot be serious! okay. seriously, you choose. go national. go like a pro.
in the last year or so and the pakistani government and military basically realize they created a frankenstein monster that s begun to attack them and willing to not only move against the pakistani taliban but with this news tonight against the afghans, so-called afghan taliban which is in fact headquartered in pakistan. robin, what do you make of this? let s talk about what s going on in marja. everyone said marja is going to be the big battle. what basically they were planning to do is go in and not leave like they have in the past but go in and stay and kind of bring in what they re calling a government in a box to basically try to take over operations and show the locals that the central afghan government actually can function and care about them. it s kind of an ambitious plan. it s an ambitious plan but it s clearly the only way the united states will ever be able to find an exit strategy out of afghanistan. this is the kind of plan that should have been tried a long time ago
taliban which is in fact headquartered in pakistan. robin, what do you make of this? i mean, when let s talk about what s going on in marja. when peter and i were there in september, everyone said marjah is going to be the big battle. what basically they were planning to do is go in and not leave like they have in the past but go in and stay and kind of bring in what they re calling a government in a box to basically try to take over operations and show the locals that the central afghan government actually can function and care about them. it s kind of an ambitious plan. it s an ambitious plan but it s clearly the only way the united states will ever be able to find an exit strategy out of afghanistan. this is the kind of plan that should have been tried a long time ago. it s taken eight years to recognize that you need something beyond just the physical elimination of your military opposition. you have to create an alternative economically for the people on the ground so that t
to find an exit strategy out of afghanistan. this is the kind of plan that should have been tried a long time ago. it s taken eight years to recognize that you need something beyond just the physical elimination of your military opposition. you have to create an alternative economically for the people on the ground so that they support the national government. and so this is a beginning. this will be a very important test case to find out if the new u.s. strategy will work. and, peter, how tough are the rules of engagement? we ve heard complaints from some marines about, look, you know, the idea here is protecting civilians. civilians are actually the goal here. not so much the town, itself, or any amount of land. it s protecting civilians and showing they re a priority. yet, that also makes for, i mean, it makes it difficult to fight because inevitably, you know, there s going to be civilian casualties. well, there have been two the last year or so, general mckiernan before genera
there were a fair number of civilian casualties. they re taking a different approach with this assault on marjah, which is still a major frontal assault on a somewhat large town. but it is being done in a rather different way. on the point you made about they re taking in a greater number of afghan forces this time, now, does that make a difference, are you saying just a matter of sheer numbers and that just helps with the military force, or is this more a point that the civilians there need to see more of their own, their afghan brothers out there as a part of this fight? i mean, i think the latter, t.j., very much so. the american and nato exit strategy from afghanistan is an effective afghan army. and so far we ve seen, i think, very limited evidence of any really effective afghan army units. if they re effective in this fight, that, you know, that s a good indicator of sort of progress on that front. how have you seen you ve been watching this as well. you talk about the tw