And some of it have to do with real and substantive issues that have created a sense of a disunited government and not a unity government. It was supposed to be a political marriage, of sorts in the modern sense. One side is playing a very traditional role in this marriage. Traditional in the afghaneastern context. Trying to dominate, trying to push, trying to impose. The other side again in the eastern sense accommodate, the flexible, to that extent possible, given its own political limitations. You have to realize that this is not just a marriage between parties or factions or individuals that fought in the elections. They are made up of a conglomerate, each one. So this is very difficult to handle. We did try to bring everyone under the tent, with very few upset with very few exceptions. Issue. But now once we had it, this is going to be a sort it was the only alternative. The tragic part is there was no other alternative but to create such a unity government, with the two top vote
Now convinces us that the dynamics in the National Unity government significantly improve. The taliban are probably not going to comment to the negotiating table. The Afghan Security forces will not be the miracle we had hoped and to some degree convinced ourselves it would be. And elections will probably not happen in 2016. That leaves us with no real way out of what was supposed to be the beginning of an emergence of a slightly abnormal constitutional situation that we are in now. That is why we are looking at alternatives. We have run out of the optimistic scenarios we once had. That is what is sinking in and making 2016 a particularly challenging and different year, even though the fundamentals may not change that much. Mr. Kugelman i imagine we will discuss how things are going to be getting worse, etc. , which is true. But to start with context, things are bad, but it is not all bad. There are plenty of people that did not expect the National Unity government to get as far as far
Training and readiness. Lets take an air base. At an airbase, the air bases are open. They have guards at the gate. They have people in the tower. They have people in the fire truck. The lights are on. Were spending the money for all that. Where can you stop spending money quickly . Painting the buildings. Mow the lawn less often. That kind of thing. Importantly, you stop training. When you stop training, you have stopped readiness. We are protecting those in as we know are going to afghanistan and would be in a fight tonight on the Korean Peninsula if god forbid we ever had a wart on the Korean Peninsula. Were trying to protect the units most likely to find themselves in combat. For the others, we cannot afford to train them. That is risky because if something happens, those units will not be fully ready. Then we get to the civilian personnel part of a week ago, furloughs began for many of our civilians. Were far from washington, but our civilians live all over the country. They are n
Then the announcement about the posts 2014 engagement in afghanistan was somewhat preceded by the other views that came out about the business that took lace. Were going to see all of that in the context of relations in the week forward. We are happy to have a ofmidable panel here individuals who are not only expert but who have worked as petitioners as well to share as their views. There is news from afghanistan that eats popping a, i watched this morning Suicide Attack on one of the brothers. Thankfully, it failed. Are dead andians many injured. I would like to start by panelists first. Then we will have each one of them give their presentation for a few minutes. Afterward we will have an opportunity to have a discussion amongst ourselves if anyone feels the need to do so. We will turn it over to you for questions and answers. Please, turn off your cell phones if you have not already. Live in america and by cspan1 i believe. Everything that you say is on the record. [laughter] let me
Member of lpr 2011. I would much rather hear you speak than joe biden, so thank you. That bar is not very high. The real question is, from our perspective, from my perspective here out in the real world we hear about all of these investigations by the house and by the senate and all these hearings and all these hearings and all these hearings and nothing happens. At what point, what needs to take place to actually have an independent investigation on benghazi . Yeah. I think the answer is we are not going to get to the truth, real truth of benghazi anytime soon and there is two reasons for this. The first is the administration truly has something to hide. The first thing, i think what is indisputable or not perfectly provable in court of law, what is indisputable the entire response to benghazi was framed by the politics t was making sure that the president didnt look bad. That bass the first and most important thing they were concerned about and they never want to admit that. The seco