whereas in previous generations, i think there were far more, given we had gone through two world wars, far more political leaders with military experience who had greater understanding of the sort of thing. colonel, i'm sure you've been watching things unfold over the weekend. you must have played through a scenario that you would have expected. what should have happened? well, my first point i think would be that we should not... president biden should not have made a decision to unconditionally withdraw. but given that's what he did back in may, i think that the real problem was the speed at which he did it. it was far too quick, and it didn't give time for the afghan government and the afghan security forces to readjust and plan and prepare for a totally different situation they were now facing in so many ways. secondly, he did it at the height of the taliban fighting season.