under taliban mortar fight. he went from there to kabul where he and hamid karzai signed that strategic partnership agreement. it prom is american suppo supposupport for afghanistan through 2024. the president excuse me, 2014. the president made some brief remark, headed back to bagram for a rally with the troops. the vast majority, about 90,000, are american right now. a short time later, just about half an hour ago, mr. obama spoke to the united states laying out his vision for ending america s longest war. saying afghanistan is where the war began and where it will end. here s a portion of his address. today i signed a historic agreement between the united states and afghanistan that defines a new kind of relationship between our countries. a future in which afghans are responsible for the security of their nation and we build an equal partnership between two sovereign states. a future in which war ends and new chapter begins. ten years ago, the united states and our a
the zone. from there he quickly went by chopper to kabul, another war zone where him and president hamid karsai signed the strategic partnership agreement. it promises american support for afghanistan through 2024. ten years after the last american combat forces are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2012. excuse me, 2014. the president made some brief remarks, then headed back to bagram for a rally with the troops. more than 130,000 men and women serve in afghanistan. the vast majority, about 90,000 are american right now. a short time later, about half an hour ago the president spoke to the united states laying out his vision for ending america s longest war. saying afghanistan is where the war began and where it will end. here s a portion of his address. today i signed a historic agreement between the united states and afghanistan that defines a new kind of relationship between our countries. a future in which afghans are responsible for the security of their n
agreement. it prom is americansupport for afghanistan through 2024. the president excuse me, 2014. the president made some brief remark, headed back to bagram for a rally with the troops. the vast majority, about 90,000, are american right now. a short time later, just about half an hour ago, mr. obama spoke to the united states laying out his vision for ending america s longest war. saying afghanistan is where the war began and where it will end. here s a portion of his address. today i signed a historic agreement between the united states and afghanistan that defines a new kind of relationship between our countries. a future in which afghans are responsible for the security of their nation and we build an equal partnership between two sovereign states. a future in which war ends and new chapter begins. ten years ago, the united states and our allies went to war to make sure that al qaeda could never again use this country to launch attacks against us. despite initial su
Most dangerous places. signs are positive? guest: well, we are moving out of a combat role and moving into a training role so the taxpayers are putting up $43 billion to create 400,000 cops and soldiers to keep afghanistan going after we leave. when you look at number of soldiers we are training and the number of fatalities it is minor dent but this is a hot button item. so the image we get here every single protester and shooting we are not seeing the full spectrum of training and support we provide. shepard: but all the experts we interview around here and the folks we talk with, in the field, suggest there is not that much left to accomplish. the afghan government is what it is. we are not really making any progress at all. guest: the myth is we are trying to create a western-style army in a tribal-style army.
The news in here, it s been moved up a year, we won t be in combat operations, but we will still be in afghanistan at least through the end of 2014. we ll still be there, 2014, and probably if we can arrange it with the afghan government, we might be there longer in an advising and training role. indeed i would argue we should. this not so much moves it up, it gets specific. the administration never set a date when combat operations were going to end. what they decided quite honestly years more of combat were not going to have results that would be worth the cost in american lives and american money. and i think what this is a realization of that. combat ends a year and a half from now and then we move into sort of fighting side by side with afghan security forces through 2014? through training, more advising, exactly, side by side, and a slight scaling down of the afghan security forces. a realization that an enormously large afghan army is probably not realistic to sustain. h