Facebook, and twitter, and we sit down with john sopko, the special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to talk about the latest report. Host good morning on this monday, november 27. Congress is back for what is expected to be at least three weeks of work. Some are calling it a year and yearend sprint of work. President will be meeting with congressional leaders early this week to talk about all of it. At the same time, plenty of news from overseas, including one headline that says victory or failure in afghanistan . 2018 will be the deciding year. That is our focus for the full washington journal. Should the u. S. Stay or leave afghanistan . If you think the u. S. Should stay, call 202 7488000. If you think they should leave, 202 7488001. We have a separate line for afghanistan veterans. We look forward to hearing your opinion. Your number is 202 7488002. If not by phone, weigh in on social media. cspanwj is our twitter handle. Also post a comment on our facebook page, facebook. Com cspan. To start us off on afghanistan theamela constable, afghanistan and Pakistan Bureau chief for the Washington Post. Howt us off by reminding us long the u. S. Has been in afghanistan now and what is the Current Situation . Guest well, it has been 16 years since the taliban was overthrown and the u. N. Brought in a new government, which in 2002. Y took office the fighting was actually a bit but it did of again around 2005, 2006. We are really talking 11 years of intense conflict against the taliban insurgency. Ups and downs. There have been a lot of difficulties getting the Afghan Defense forces in shape. The United States has sent militaryof dollars on aid, military troops being there, as well as aiding the government to simply support itself over these many years. The taliban are still hanging in acrossnd causing mayhem the country. Now we have this new policy, what with a new president and new generals, trying to ramp things up in a way that has not been done in a while. We do not know how things will go. Haul. Will be a long it will be a tough battle. I do not think any american official, here or in washington, thinks otherwise. It is not an easy fight, and it is not over. Host how many u. S. Troops are in afghanistan at this point . What are their current roles . What will be the biggest single challenge moving forward . I would not say how many there are today. It is supposed to go up to about 13,000 it is physical up to about 13,000. Tois probably on the way 8000 or 9000 or more. They will particularly focus on recruiting and training and expanding the size of the Afghan Special operations forces. Who are working a lot on counterterrorism, which means against the Islamic State specifically. And also training them to work to fight against the taliban. Another thing they are doing is trying to expand and professionalize the afghan air force. The United States has provided many aircraft. They are in the process of bringing in more than 150 black hawk helicopters to train afghan pilots to fly them in a combat field. And a number of other things. One thought is by adding more troops, they will be able to advise afghan troops at a more basic level and in the field, so to speak. It will be mostly advising and training rather than engaging in direct combat, but working much more closely at a lower level with Afghan Forces themselves. Nother priority, which does directly involve the troops but is a top priority for both the afghan and the american governments is improve the leadership of the afghan military, particularly fighting corruption and poor management at the top of the Afghan Defense forces. Plate. Very full again, a remains to be seen how far it is going to go. Certainly, the u. S. And afghanistan are very much on the same chart at this point. They have worked out this joint roadmap for the next several years, which theyre are working very closely together on. Ofthe last administration president karzai, there was not a good rapport the two governments have now. Host explained the stability of the government explain the stability of the Afghan Government. It is stable in the sense that i think it is not going to collapse tomorrow or the next day. By it has been really racked internal division. It has a lot of serious problems. As you may recall, when the government took office, it was not the result of a clean and clear election, it was the result of diplomatic negotiations essentially forced by the United States. That has not gone well. The two people in power have not gotten along. They have patched things up recently, but the divisions within the government and the political atmosphere surrounding the government is still quite fluid. There is tension. There is a lot of pressure. There is a lot of political machinations going on right now. Everyone is in a preelection mode, wondering what is going to happen. The current government essentially is no longer outlivede, because it its mandate. Its mandate as a temporary joint government ended after two years. The parliament has also not been legitimate the last two years, has outlivedoo, its mandate. Basically, you have both the executive and legislative branches of government not enjoying constitutional or legal legitimacy. There is a great deal of public lack of confidence and disillusionment in that situation. It will not collapse tomorrow, on track to to get transition to another government in the future. Host we appreciate this update and set up in afghanistan. We should point out you are in pakistan. There is this headline that you wrote antigovernment protests in pakistan enter a second day, but most are peaceful. What has been happening in pakistan and why is it significant . Guest what has happened is a religious group has launched some protests weeks ago against ,hings they did not like changes in a political law. We can go over those later. Startedy, the protests several weeks ago and i was allowed to keep growing. Several thousand protesters ended up blocking the major highway between the capital and its neighboring, large city. Stronger. Becoming the government is not doing anything about it. It has been forced by the Supreme Court to do something, so they sent in riot police early saturday morning. Demonstrators fought back and fought hard. Host Pamela Constable is the Washington Post afghanistan and Pakistan Bureau chief. We are losing connection, but we want to say thank you. Not sure if you can hear us. But thanks for the update. We are spending the full washington journal talking about afghanistan today. We are taking your phone calls and going through orchards of specter with the general for Afghanistan Reconstruction, john sopko. We will talk with him in person starting at 9 00 eastern time. Adam is our first call for this segment. Clayton, north carolina. An afghan veteran. Good morning. Caller good morning. Afghanistan, it is a complicated situation. There are many moving parts to understand. And how the provinces really feud back and forth with each other. The american infiltration into afghanistan has done many things to try to secure what they say is a freedom concept. But really, what it has done has just emboldened the groups that are there under a religious context to band together. The special forces, that unit disassembles constantly, because it is simply not held together , and quite often, they are infiltrated by people who turn green on green, afghan folks turning on each other. I will summarize this and just say if they take a lesson from the brits, who went through there i think it was general who said the less the Afghan People see of us, the less they hate us. They have been in war constantly, since genghis khan. That is the truth. We have no business there. We need to leave that country. The things that are the tantamount successes in afghanistan are not the things that are reported, because war is being perpetuated. As a veteran myself and as ofebody who has experience booze on the ground in afghanistan, i will tell you now remember this the less they cms, the less they hate us just the less they see of us, the less they hate us. Host joe has been waiting from silver springs, maryland. Do you think the u. S. Should stay in afghanistan . Caller i think we should stay. I want to make three very quick points. First is that place has been under war since 1979. It has been wracked internally by war and division. And war before that. It is a place it will take a long time for them to sort out a very tangled mess, for them to be able to organized affairs in a way that is not so complicated , is not so messy, and does not breed instability. The second point i would like to make is the place will collapse the same weight iraq collapsed the same way iraq collapse. We will be faced with a choice of either having to go back into deal with the issue or just let the region found fend for itself and deal with the extremism that comes out of a collapse like that. The most that can possibly be reduced is a positivenegative, which is essentially keep them from collapsing. , but that reevaluate is ultimately the choice, in my opinion. Host thank you for calling. Another viewer who thinks the u. S. Should stay in afghanistan is john. He is coming he is calling from new york. Caller how are you doing . For starters, we promised the thereis, when we went in in 2001, in exchange for information and be in on our side, we would not leave. Weve promised our allies we would not leave you here. We will not leave you and let the taliban comeback p that is st and foremost are you and let the taliban, that is first and foremost. Secondly, that is a place they will gather to project their hate america. Might as well be there. Kill them there than here. Overseas, a mole thousands of miles away from us. Thank you for listening. Host the words of john there. Here are some comments on our facebook page. Garland writes that you have to look at the geopolitical ramifications of a premature withdrawal of military forces. This is a much more complicated issue than you could imagine. Doug wrights we should first thoroughly listen to the best militaryom our best leaders. It is a convoluted conflict. , it mustide to leave be in the right manner. There have been too many lives taken and National Treasure expended for this to be a kneejerk political decision. Some of the details around the Afghanistan War it started on october 7, two thousand one. This according to the Inspector General, the department of defense. It is the longest war in u. S. History. Reconstruction costs since 2001 714 billion. 2350. Ead, u. S. Wounded, 20,000. For dline, victory the Trump Administration says it has everything it needs to win, but it needs to be proven right. U. S. News and world report. From st. Louis, what do you think about this . Caller i think we should stay, mostly. It is not a war you can win immediately. Fighting over troops and stability takes a long time. There is also a fact that a lot of the tribes do not like each other there. I know people who have served there. It will take a long time to get it done. Afghanistan afghanistan is an easy war afghanistan is an easy place to start a war. It is hard to get out. Host anthony is calling in. Caller i would draw your attention to an article in the New York Times by barbara crow 9 11. Four months after talibans baneads on opium, a success. Success. If you read further into that article, what it is implying is that if the invasion was all about the freeing up of the opium product. It is though it is as though this war was started. And look at the cities. They cured disease in our city. Look at where we are now. Ever since we got in there, we are protecting the production of opium. Opium cropworlds comes from afghanistan. And here we are, right after 9 11, what a great excuse. Not to mention the militaryIndustrial Complex. Donald trump just sold a ton of weapons to saudi arabia. They are the ones who attacked us on 9 11. Afghanistan have nothing to do it. I would ask you to pull of this article to discuss it. Host there is a related piece to what anthony is talking about. It is in the hill. It says the u. S. Has begun bombing the telegram, opium plant metallic an the plants inpium afghanistan. The military said it dropped bombs on labs where insurgents turned opium turned poppy into heroin. This from general john nicholson, the commander of the natoled operation resolution support. Taliban makes the yeartimated 200 million a producing opium. And the strikes took out 10 laps. We have mark from massachusetts. Market thinks we should leave afghanistan. Tell us why. Caller i am looking at a worldwide effective of how the world has been divided by the imperial period. And lines in divisions between countries go through ethnic areas. I just returned from tanzania. That wethese problems see around the world are due to the fact that these lines were drawn in berlin and paris and london and affect the whole world for decades. After theyes now were drawn. I do not know how to unravel them. I think that is the area that needs to be addressed more than dealing with the governments. Host thank you. Douglas calling from maryland. Douglas thinks we should leave. Tell us your view. Caller we need to learn from history and follow its lessons. The last call and the call from adam were very good. Us, the they see of less they hate us. Look at vietnam. We could have learned from that. What do they enemies call the vietnam war colloquially . The american war. Before that, they were fighting the french. Before that, the japanese. Before that, the chinese. It never works with outside invaders. People will fight forever. The same happened in afghanistan. They will fight us forever. They fought the russians forever until they gave up. They fought the brits forever until they gave up. Alexander the great gave up. It does not work. You cannot go in and tell people how to organize their country. The last call was great, because he point out the borders make no sense. Iraq is a country of sunnis, shiites, a few christians, and kurds. It makes no sense. That is truly what we need to work on, not invading and telling them how they need to organize and run their country. We are devoting the full threehour washington journal on afghanistan. If you think the u. S. Should stay, call 202 7488000. If you think the u. S. Should leave, it is 8001. 202 7488002 is a third line afghanistan veterans. Michael writes on twitter that the tribal nature of afghanistan makes westernstyle government and u. S. At best tenuous at best. Kevin writes if you cannot get it done in 16 years, it is not happening. Recently, the special investigator for Afghanistan Reconstruction the special theector, the sigar, general inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction john sopko. We have clips from a recent hearing he had on capitol hill. Had aboute round he his recent trips to afghanistan and what he thought the situation was. [video clip] you get to meet a lot of folks on the ground. Just the average american. If they were to come up to you and say what is going on in afghanistan, the elevator speech you give them . It is a stalemate. It aig question is is stalemate going down or is it a stalemate going up . I do not have a good answer for that, sir. Sigars Lessons Learned report what would you say the bottom line of that report is . The bottom line is the u. S. Government was illprepared to conduct a Security Sector mission. They did not understand the size and scope of what they were facing. Our normal Security Sector assistance is towards a developed country. Helping the turks with a new weapons system. Helping the koreans with a new personnel system. This was designing and building an entire military and police force. The other problem is we were totally misaligned and our capabilities with their needs. Disorganized. Lly understand and utilize nato for the things they could provide. Have detailed a number of problems with giving to complicated systems giving too complicated systems. Having u. S. Military offers trying to teach police. Having air force pilots Teaching Police. Having people who know nothing about personnel systems teaching ministries on how to develop personnel systems. That was the big problem we found. Those are the findings and lessons. Host that was john sopko, the special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Also this headline at nbc news. Still a stalemate. A top commander, general john nicholson, told nbc news the war remains in a stalemate, but the president s new strategy has reversed a decline. Into thisy 90 days new policy, but with u. S. Forces arriving and the new authority we have been given will put pressure on external enablers. Of the conditions to win. The article points out as well that nicholson called out russia and pakistan specifically for enabling the taliban and explain his decision to detonate the ordnancerdinance air blast bomb, known colloquially as the mother of all bombs. Jim on the line now. What do you think the u. S. Should do . Caller thank you for taking my call. I think we should leave afghanistan. War a 65yearold vietnam veteran. It concerns me that, as a nation, we did not learn any lessons from the vietnam conflict. For instance, once the United States places a troop on foreign soil, we never know how many troops will have to follow. I was listening to the comments that ms. Pamela constable was making. It brings back memories of the statesion, of the united trying to prop up a corrupt government in vietnam, which is what she was saying about afghanistan. What we am unsure about are trying to accomplish in afghanistan. What does success in afghanistan really look like . Host how would you answer that question . What do you think success looks like . Caller i am not sure. That is my question. I am not sure what ou