the un secretary general has sent a special envoy to the region to coordinate humanitarian operations. we know that martin griffiths arrived in nairobi a short time ago. he called the situation catastrophic, stressing the need for humanitarian aid to enter the country. here s what we know about the situation on the ground. this is the scene in sudan s capital khartoum, this morning. air strikes have continued, despite a ceasefire. the army said it was attacking the city to flush out its paramilitary rivals, the rapid support forces. more than 500 deaths have been reported with the true number of casualties believed to be much higher. millions more remain trapped in khartoum. countries have been evacuating their nationals where they can. these pictures show us nationals boarding a military ship in port sudan. the first major aid flight, laden with medical supplies, has arrived in the country carrying eight tonnes of relief supplies, including health kits for hospitals. meritxe
And we will be talking politics. Will you be doing it during this thanksgiving holiday . All coming up on washington journal. You can send us a tweet. Good morning. We begin with afghanistan. American troops on the ground in what has become americas longest war. Joining us live is brig. Gen. William graham. Thank you for being with us on this holiday. Thanks for having us. Happy thanksgiving to you and all your viewers. Host he is joining us via skype. So there is a little bit of a delay. Lets begin with what is americas longest war. From your standpoint what are some of the Biggest Challenges on the ground . Guest in just a minute and we will get that out of the way. This is my second tour in afghanistan and what i will noisywith you as another helicopter flies past is that there is optimism here with the Afghan People. The new u. S. Policy and its our nato allies is playing well with afghanistan. There is true optimism here. By someed here today amazing american patriots. You guys ha
Increased focus on exercises that we have seen over the recent weeks and months as an effort to try to boost the effect of deterrent along with the diplomatic overtures that secretary of state tillerson has undertaken. Afghanistan, the same goal but different strategies under president s bush, obama and trump. As the current strategy working from your standpoint . Guest we have 4000 plus troops and i think we will see if that many surge many more were added in the obama administration. We will see that many surge has the desired effect. There is an effort to double the Afghan Special Operations Forces which i have observed over many and also to double or triple their air capacity and thats a very difficult thing, the air capacity. Because you have to have englishspeaking pilots. All of this is really longterm andlopmental efforts happening at the same time to the taliban of course has madeased its attacks and some major gains around the countryside. It is fair with all of this discussi
Of the United Nations which by the way seventy years of history here and in russia and so we were facing a catastrophic situation along with the fact that the number one donor into the u. N. System the United States was talking about cutting all the money so who would want that job well frankly if they persuaded you to take on that you certainly had some successes already here for example of securing presence chunk of g twenty pledged shelf six hundred fifty nine Million Dollars to relief famine in four african countries was that pledged on earth in full and how far did it go in addressing the problem well the United States is historically been a tremendous support of the World Food Program as has russia but the United States was giving about one point nine billion what i assume this role in everyone thought that it would go the other way zero out. Which would be catastrophic and in fact the United States went from one point nine billion to two point five billion in other countries as
Republicans together around hungry children and they laid aside their differences in made peace and brought four majors successes for the World Food Program but we want to take the same concept using food as a weapon of peace a weapon of unification as we do that with different tribes children from different ethnic groups trying to bring different sites is together terrorist groups like isis and alqaeda book Raman Al Shabaab they want to use food as a weapon of starvation a weapon of war or weapon of division and we see food as a weapon of opportunity of Development Sustainable to build a success from not just bringing in the Music Together but bring in nations together and so now correct me if im wrong but i think even after securing that on the part of the United States the problem before famine remains very very accurate were still talking about millions of people on the bring of not just starvation but on the brink of death and i heard you say that the only two solutions are number