a hard one at that. does the battle change between nato troops and the taliban? let s ask major general spiedr r marks. he s ceo of envision, training products company. thanks for joining us. good morning. i want to ask your impression of this announcement of this hard deadline of 2014 and now the taliban s reaction probably not surprising. they say they re going to push to get us out even sooner. well, we ve had some hard deadlines before, obviously, in afghanistan and certainly in iraq. the president has indicated we ll begin our withdrawal by 2011 and that we ll have all forces out and that afghanistan will be in charge by 2014. well, really that s based on conditions, and i think it s important to realize nato wants out. it s leaving. the brits have indicated they ve got a hard stop around 2015. they re gone. they re beginning to withdraw.