long run, when we get to the general election i hope, i think, i believe they have to come to a party position on what we should do in all these foreign interventions and what that means for identity of the party an candidate but we re not there yet. until more people start to demand that the republicans come to a unified position on these things, then they are going to avoid it as much as possible. i think that is a lot of what we re seeing. briefly, josh, in terms of this recent incident this weekend, i think it should be seen in context, a lot of horrible things have happened on all sides of this war and more than a decade an you can do an atrosity list in terms of civilians being impact and crimes committed on the battlefield in addition just to the horribleness of war, you could go on and on. the latest atrosity in southern afghanistan, it s so awful, and the description of it is so gets so much worse the more detail you read about it. do you think it will have an impact on ho
police officers as they slept in their beds. a lot of troops being killed and wounded are doing the things we imagine them to be doing when they are in most danger, out on patrol and frontier fire bases, dealing with the dangers of ied s, confronting enemy fighters. but at this point something like one in five nato fatalities in afghanistan this year, one in five are at the hands of what is supposed to be our own side. the afghan forces that we are arming and training as the core justification for our continued presence in the country. nobody was under the illusion there were not horrible costs to this war as there are to any war. but this news this weekend out, coming out of the accumulated ro hor roars, makes it crystal clear how long the human cost continues to be. and therefore, have solid, how worth while the justification has to be for staying. given this enormous cost. when you talk to policy makers
to see her standing up in the way she did is moving. thank you for doing that. thanks, rachel. thanks for staying with us for the next hour, that will be on our blog, soon. nicolle wallace one of the central characters of the movie game change is here tonight. the return of best new thing in the world at the end of the show. looking forward to that. we ll talk also about newfound competition for the title governor ultrasound. all planned for this hour, it will be a great show. we have to start tonight nine years ago. nine years ago this week, then president george w. bush issued an ultimatum against iraq. he told saddam hussein and his sons they needed to leave their country or face an imminent u.s. military attack. he called it a moment of truth for the world. that was nine years ago this week. eight years ago this week, eight years ago today, in fact, that war that president bush ultimately launched was
describing it. i guess my question is whether you think it ever will be or the issues from here on out will never be worthy of that partisan fight. we re witnessing here the internal struggle in the republican party to resume its national security identity, republicans are supposed to be the tough party, the party willing to make sacrifices on behalf of defending freedom. the wars in libya, afghanistan, drone wars, these are all divided the republican party and there are people on both sides and they are confused and there is no messaging, nor do they feel it s in their direct political advantage to take a stance one way or the other less the war go badly or one way or the other and they are forced to change it over and over again. the basic stance is avoid these issues in the republican primary debate, as long as possible, hoping that the american people are not really tuned in to what is going on in syria, afghanistan, pakistan, that is an untenable position in the
campaign. your opinion on the iraq war, look, in like there is a mirror in the middle. your opinion on the iraq war in 2004, whether you were for it or against it was entirely determined by which party you belonged to. if you were republican, you liked that war. if you were a democrat you did not like that war. full stop, that is how it was in 2004. that is not of course how it is now. president obama ended the iraq war in december, and americans are very happy that he did so. overwhelmingly in large numbers in a not very stratified way, there is a con census it s good it s over. the numbers are not as partisan as the eye iraq war. majority of the country says the afghanistan war was not worth fighting, majority of the country wants troops home now, troops home now faster than president obama s 2014 time