look at matthew akins. he s a rolling stone reporter. he s written for harpers before. he wrote a great story for rolling stone that won an award earlier about war crimes committed by u.s. special forces. and how much press coverage did that get? he s completely independent. he doesn t buy any line that anybody gives him. and the rest of the people show up to a press briefing at 10:00 a.m. and go eat omelets in the ba bagram airfield. they are reliant on the military for news. president obama said at that press conference earlier in the week. this is what happens at the end of wars. to me that s also the missing context in the past seven days. that s one of the things i want to say too. when michael was writing that
failed. the entire military exercise was one that caused afghanistan a lot of suffering. a lot of loss of life. no gains because the country is not secure. hit a new low when protests broke out in response to reports that a u.s. special ops rounded up and executed 10 afghan civilians and buried their bodies outside a u.s. base in kabul. the unsubstantiated reports are the basis of a piece called the a-team killing. matthew akins looking for answers. he joins us now. thank you for joining us. it s great to have you in the u.s. can you tell us what happened here according to your reporting and investigating? about a year ago u.s. special forces unit known as a-team showed up in this remote valley.
happened not just in this one isolated incident but sort of throughout the history of the u.s. and afghanistan. in the context of things that began in 2001 at bagram airfield in custody, continued through abu ghraib, continued instances in afghanistan and iraq where prisoners have been abused, killed in custody, where u.s. forces have turned a blind eye or been willfully complicit in serious human rights by afghan or iraqi allies. there s been no accountability for these incidents. we ve seen very few people go to jail or be held account able as numerous reports by u.n., congress, red cross pointed out. so this really fits into that larger pattern. karen, we ve talked about the armed services before, war in the middle east, the fact nobody really talks about it. part of the problem here in terms of transparency, congratulations to matthew. we thank him for reporting and investigating and being embedded there, thereto not a huge
conversation that is guaranteed to be as contentious as it is awkward. already insurers are rejecting the white house plan as are the state insurance boards. in just three hours after the president s announcement, washington state announced it would not allow insurers to extend canceled and substandard plans. that doesn t mean the effort is over. this afternoon the house is expected to vote on a bill from house democrats that is based on the white house fix but adds a consumer protection provision which allows the state and government state commissioners and government to go after bad actor insurance companies. the lower chambers will also vote on the keep your health plan absent of 2013 put forward by michigan republican fred upton with a straight face. it would allow americans to keep existing health coverage through 2013 while allowing new consumers to purchase the same substandard plans. writing in the new public jonathan cohn explains exactly why the upton bill is a te
right now the u.s. is trying to negotiate a strategic partnership agreement with the afghan government that will basically determine the status, legal status of afghan forces post-2014. right? so obviously, there s a lot of calls in afghanistan that this guy should have been tried in the country. it will make it harder to negotiate this, which they re trying to do ahead of the nato summit in may. let s not forget in iraq it was the failure to negotiate a status of forces agreement that led to president obama pulling out military troops early from that country. a good reminder there. do afghans view this, matthew, as an act of one rogue soldier or is this reflecting on the u.s. military presence as a whole? you know, as people have noted the reaction in comparison to the koran burning incident a couple weeks ago was a lot more muted. but unfortunately that s not a good thing because it does show how afghans see this as part of a larger pattern of the killing