people and that s the big, big unknown. and that s what may keep us there years longer than even the president thought we might be there. but right now, over the past month, americans have had great success tracking down the taliban, right? arresting taliban members and killing taliban members. yes, we have had great success. and i mean the administration again to its credit is being moderate about it. it s not pumping its chest and saying we re doing extraordinarily well. they don t want to no mission accomplished banners yet? not yet, joe. and the other thing we found out i m no military expert the taliban do melt back into the countryside. this he do have some support among the people. one of the things our story talks about is how in fact, you know, before the invasion of marjah, general mcchrystal actually did a poll of afghani people in marjah to see whether they would support a new government and a u.s. presence.
so we re being very, very careful and even careful about stating victory. andrea mitchell? and you know, they ve got problems and challenges on both sides of the border as you know and as your correspondents in the field know full well. one of the things in the new york times points out, in pakistan where they ve had some extraordinary successes with the isi, the pakistani security operation working with the c.i.a., they re interrogating together some of these taliban, pakistani taliban that they ve gotten and some al qaeda operatives, but at the same time watching each other so closely because there really is no thrust, or not as much trust as they would want to have between the pakistani intelligence and the c.i.a. that, our story goes into that as well. the u.s. has been, has been trying to effectively seduce the pakistanis into cooperation. but andrea, as you well know, you never really know. it s a very dangerous business and we ll have to see. thus far, there have been so
costs and the democrats claim that their plan looks at the outyears and does bring down those big medicare costs. let s bring in our next guest. we can talk about this and also what s on the cover of time magazine. time managing editor, rick stengel is here to reveal the latest issue of time magazine. rick, what s on the cover in. the cover is taking on the taliban. it s about the u.s. operation, extraordinary u.s. operation in afghanistan and a little bit in pakistan as well. and how that s working. operation masthariq, the invasion of marjah. we have our reporters on the ground there. it s written by a great former baghdad bureau chief. and basically to me the story is so much about what the president has always said he wants his policy to be. do not clear and hold what you can t build and transfer. they are being successful at clearing and holding parts of afghanistan. i mean they telegraphed what they were doing. the question is, can we really build a society there and tr
we appreciate that. that of course is the cover of time magazine, the latest issue, taking on the taliban. thank you, rick. it s lonely here without you. i ve got the whole set and nobody else is here. we ll be back soon. here s the problem first of all, let s salute general mcchrystal and of course my god, it looks like once again, petraeus, just a master there. the president for empowering his generals. that have just got to say, i think pat, you probably agree with me, andrea, even if we win in afghanistan, they go across the border. this is pretty easy. if i am a, a taliban leader, and americans send 100,000 troops, 200,000 troops, and i get on my mule and i go across the border. okay, i m just going to sit it out here in pakistan. lay low, and when americans leave, because they re going to leave, we ll go back and take
the question again, bill, is then what? because general mcchrystal s plan relies on protecting the population and not on killing taliban. is he deemphasizing that question, can we win any kind of war without killing the enemy? two, when we secure marjah, can the afghan government of president harmid karzai come in with reasonably honest police, reasonably effective military to protect the surrounding territories and provide worthwhile honest aid programs to locals. let s assume that nato will keep a garrison in marjah and helmand province because they will. they will. they will keep a thousand soldiers there or whatever and marines to make sure that the afghan police don t run wild and things don t deteriorate. now, they also have control of these poppy fields that no longer is the taliban going to get this enormous amount of