way. i will say no-fly zone really means that you are ready and willing to engage directly with russia because when i say no-fly zone a russianational flies into the zone. you have to be willing to enforce a no-fly zone, which means taking on russianational. i don t believe the west nato and the united states is ready to do that yet. let me ask you about, a question that isn t necessarily true. we know it s about president putin s state of mind. i am sure you seen the reporting around this, raising questions about it. what you can share with us about your assessment of that? well, over the last two years of during the covid reality, putin has become more isolated, more in the bubble. and i think that has created a lack of certain reality. i don t know anybody this his inner circle telling truth to a
contribute and we talk to them about the future. the fact you can use their air bases to strike operations kbru is no-fly zone a non-start forth administration we talk to them about all american of different ways that we can work together against isil. so i won t get into in i details on that, but this is an idea that, again, we have kick around before with the turks and just not actively in an under consideration right now. we are flying many air missions, as you know, over syria and we haven t met any resistance but the assad regime in any of the air strikes that we have been flying up in the northeast part of the country. all right. let s talk about afghanistan, because there are some troubling development there is with the taliban now making a comeback in a number of places, so, admiral, are we still on track there for a draw down of our forces? absolutely we are. we expect by the end of this month, the end of this calendar year that the combat mission in afghanistan will e
has been quickly acted on by the u.s. and france. the deputy u.n. ambassador for libya told me by telephone he s relieved that these strikes have occurred. he asked for the no-fly zone a month ago when he dramatically politically defected from the libyan government though he represented colonel gadhafi for many years and was aware of what kind of political leader he was gadhafi was. he says he doesn t think there will be an emergency security council meeting. he says there will be no one left to represent libya at the meeting and you have to be a country on the security council to start the process to have a session. now, russia, jonathan, has come out with a political statement saying this resolution was too hastily adopted, and that it calls for a cease-fire and an end of violence. but russia had to know this could happen very quickly and it abstained and didn t veto when it could have. of course, remember when colonel gadhafi dramatically was on the stage at the world arena at the g
hear a cruise missile. it has not hit air defense systems here yet. it s clear that french warplanes are in the fight around the city of benghazi. 20 french jets enforcing the no-fly zone. they have engaged one libyan military vehicle and they destroyed four government tanks, unfirmed reports. people are fleeing to the east as fast as they can. khadafy government forces are inside the city with tanks and ground troops certainly making the no-fly zone a much more difficult situation. as far as the reaction goes, official government reaction we expect to hear from colonel khadafy later on television. message is coming out and one of defiance, saying western nations are invading libya and there will be retaliation. as far as the situation here in the capitol, it was one of