distribution points. the other key land route starts also in karachi and runs to beluchistan province, crossing the border again. just to give you the idea of the territory we re talking about. from there the trucks enter into the afghan provinces of helman and kandahar. there is also one more by air, and that is right here at the top of your screen. this is the only u.s. base in central asia. weapons, ammunition and troops are flown from this base to kabul and to kandahar. we gave you some perspective on what we re dealing with there, especially our troops, and the major supply route here, the territory. my question is, what do you have on these new reports that eight suspected german militants were
lifelong. if if ear going to fight two of the longest wars in american history and fight them simultaneously and have a tiny proportion of the population doing three, four, five combat tours, we owe it to them to understand what they re lives are like at war. what s being asked to them and what s the strategic justification for putting them through this. that s you re mission here on the trip. we re here to figure out as much as we can about these two questions, about this american war. does this make sense? what s it like here? we start here at kandahar airfield which they say is the busiest single runway airport anywhere in the world. kandahar has both a military side and civilian side, so we started off the fourth of july by flying commercial from kabul to kandahar, a fairly atypical fourth of july at least in my lifetime. we landed here. the flight took about an hour. last night before we came down here, i had dinner with richard
with the cabinet. president karzai will be here in less than a month. the relationship is in good shape. the issues are difficult, and we ought to focus on those. this is a very difficult situation. but i want to draw your attention to the fact that for the very first time in this war, thanks to the leadership of general mcchrystal, president karzai has gone and visited the troops in the battlefield. he s made three trips with stan mcchrystal in the last few weeks, oneonta same day i just described. he s gone to kandahar, hel mund with mcchrystal. he told me enjoyed those trips and was going to do more of them. that is an investment of karzai in the overall strategy which you vice president seen before. so let s use your television program to bury this myth and get on with the all-important job of achieving our national objectives in the most challenging of circumstances. and ambassador, you re a special envoy to the afpac
mike emanuel, the only tv reporter traveling with secretary gates, and he s streaming live to us from camp egg s military eggers military base in kabul with more. hi, mike. reporter: hi, megyn. yeah, secretary gates has talked about the need to get out of the bubble, to get out and speak with troops about their concerns, what they are seeing and to talk about what they feel about how things are going in terms of recent operations. so today we flew with secretary gates to kandahar. if that name sounds familiar, that s because a major offensive is going to take place there in the coming months, and secretary gates awarded the silver star to two american soldiers for their bravery in comments. he took questions from soldiers and marines during his different stops, shook many hands, posed for lots of photos with our troops. so much is about thanking the troops for their service and expressing gratitude to their families for their contributions and sacrifices. secretary gates also prese
said, in the last hour is we re coming perhaps next to kandahar, which is just the epicenter of the taliban. and this is just the prelude to that big battle. okay. very quickly. so, if u.s. coalition forces succeed in this, could this be a game changer? i think it s going to start the momentum. it s going to be the first of a series of very important battles leading up, as i said, to kandahar. kandahar is the capital of what we have to really seize and control. and the afghan forces of course providing security with the aid following, a new government in place, that is going to be ultimately the game-changer. all right. lieutenant colonel robert maginnis joining us live with lots of great insight. we appreciate it. you re sticking around this morning. talk to you shortly. thank you, betty. we ll never be too far from that afghan story this morning. also got to keep our eye on the weather. we ve been talking about the northeast and getting so much of the big snowstorms.