i m back now with carter malcasian. he served as a civilian adviser in iraq and afghanistan and was the senior adviser to general joseph dunford, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from 2015 to 2019. he s also the author of the book the american war in afghanistan. carter, thank you so much. i appreciate you joining me this evening. you ve spent so much of your career focusing on afghanistan, especially the afghan military. why did they feel so miserably? thank you for having me on tonight, don. so one of the reasons there s many reasons, but one of the reasons we should focus on just from the get-go is that the united states in afghanistan, we were essentially occupiers. and the afghan forces were fighting alongside us, fighting alongside and for a government that was very connected to us.