this because you have been covering the war on terror for so long and been a remarkable investigative reporter for the new york times. it was on a one the other day. they acquired a bunch of documents about the reviews that went into airstrikes. this precipitated the monstrous lee awful airstrike that happened in the summer in afghanistan, in which it was essentially a case of mistaken identity. civilians were killed by us. and he s hidden pentagon records show that this was not that much of an anomaly, which is not necessarily shocking to those that have followed this closely. but this is some ways kind of a smoking gun. that s. right with the united states has been doing for years and years and, years in particular the time stamp that the new york times looked at, post-2014, after the first wave of the afghan surge in afghanistan and after the entire isis were starts in iraq and syria
annexed crimea. seven years later, post-2014, russia still controls this part of the country, calls it part of russia, even though the u.s. and the rest of the world s view, this is part of a sovereign nation of ukraine. russia is occupying a whole portion of the eastern part of ukraine. the sanctions applied for seven years since then has not changed the calculus on the ground at all. so the question is, what can the u.s. do to raise the economic price, the targets appear to be putin s financial assets and the assets of people close to putin. the big questions, john, are does the u.s. take an even greater step in terms of sanctions and that would be going after for instance the ability of russian energy producers to raise money in debt markets, that sort of thing. that s considered i don t want to use the term nuclear option but from a sanctions perspective, that would be considered an escalation. we know that s a possibility for
clinton s memoir. we re going to hear some of her thoughts on president obama, on marriage and on the times in her life where she s, quote, followed her heart. hello, i m whoolf blitzer reporting from washington. we start with president obama ready to set troop levels for afghanistan. the president was in the country over the weekend, talking with american troops. today, in just over 90 minutes or so, he ll announce a major step. joining us from the pentagon is our correspondent barbara starr, from the white house, our senior white house correspondent jim acosta. jim, to you first. are you getting indication of precisely what the president will announce? well, we won t have an advance preview of his remarks, wolf, but we do expect, from hearing from a senior administration official, that the president will lay out basically the plan for u.s. forces in afghanistan, post-2014. the president is going to come out and say that the u.s. combat
have said they will sign the security agreement, and that, of course, fareed, as we know will ensure that they have presence post-2014, and that is critical. general dunphy believes that it will happen, there will be an enduring force or perhaps after 10,000 american and coalition troops we ve got to go, anna. to ensure that this doesn t become a safe haven for al qaeda in the future. we ve got to go, anna. fantastic reporting. thank you so much. we ll be right back with a panel to discuss afghanistan, russia and middle east peace. fantastic panel. stay with us. when folks in the lower 48 think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. thousands of people here in alaska are working to safely produce more energy.
failure to sign onto plans that would protect u.s. personnel that would stay in the country post-2014. nbc s jim miklaszewski has just travelled to afghanistan, and he has more from the head of the joint chiefs, general martin dempsey. it is a statement that we have reached a point where we have to plan for other options, to include a complete withdrawal by the end of 2014. but it s not an indication that we re not continued to be committed to a mission beyond 14, because we very much believe that the afghans need our help. this wasn t supposed to happen. despite plans to end the combat mission this year, the u.s., the obama administration, had always intended to keep a few thousand troops there, as many as 10,000, for instance, in the country, to do two things help train soldiers and to do counterterrorism, go after any terrorist cells. to do it, the u.s. insisted that karzai sign a bilateral security agreement, bsa, to protect u.s.