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answer senator jeff mark ladies region as senator from oregon
and uh... one of the one of the best numbers they nancy sent mud humble
opinion is on the line with us in our market welcome back to the program
technical markets gregory without thank you you you have of
plot thirty you often op ed piece of real hard and posed
and i'm assuming that this is part of a larger
uh... strategy or campaign that involves lobbying
the other members of your caucus and of congress about what's going on in
afghanistan absolutely what i put up to do about uh... three weeks ago was to
have a large number of senators quote sent a letter to the president
saying please this moment
we need to have a shift in strategy we need to have side of the beloved
sustained reductions in forces in afghanistan with the goal of kidding all
of our combat forces
out of that country
the result was that uh... last week we were able to send a letter to the
president uh... with twenty-seven members on that letter a twenty-eight
join the day after
and for an issue with this complex sets its eyes will number of senators saying
we've looked at the fine print of the letter
uh... and we
agree that shift in strategy in c is necessary and we were combat troops out
front and hopefully that the president ah...
picked at the heart yancy uh... develops and and and out of shortly his his plans
now there's been a lot of speculation about this is you know how many people
he's going to drive down we have sab about a hundred thousand nastiness
entrances yes
and this morning when i woke up
bug when i got up idealize described the financial times new york times horsham
posted and financial ties that article saying that the best guess was used to
pull down ten thousand which was about twice what was expected just a few weeks
ago
and then uh... you know i i get in here the radio studio pulled the daily beast
and there's an article they're saying that you know he's gonna pull down
thirty thousand which was the amount of the so-called surge
uh... is there
any sense of what the real numbers
actually are or for that matter
what they should be you know if you're in for your plan is follow your
suggestions taken
one of the best of all possible worlds do you think should be done
and how should it be done well i think we could have a drawdown overtly fifteen
to twenty five thousand the next six months
we need to keep in mind that not only was there the surgeon thirty thousand
but that was on top of roughly doubling the forces earlier in the bombing
administration
and so we've had a a dramatic increase uh... to uh... accommodate this strategy
of takin holding uh... villages
uh... it is a a strategy that the ultimately is about uh... creating a
nation building approach further than the counter-terrorism reproach
is inherently flawed and put in our folks at great risk ca
huge number of injuries large number of deaths
and certainly a huge *** a national treasury and uh... it's
as i said it's inherently flawed and we need to end it
serenity nation building
why not build a nation it cost a million dollars a year to field a soldier and
more than that to field somebody from black water or you know one of these a
private contractors and their numbers are about equal to our soldiers
and yet it only costs a hundred thousand dollars more or less to build a school
in afghanistan eighty three and it does know is to build a hospital why don't we
reallocate at least a good chunk of that money
to actually
building infrastructure for that country so when we step out
you know or or for that matter you don't the beds building afghan
industry they can build out like we do the marshall plan for world war two we
didn't go into germany and have american companies build builder infrastructure
we we
they'll gave them
more loaned them we get it was both
but the money is that so they can create their own cement plants in their own
steel factories their own their own machine tool companies and then they
could use that to to rebuild their highways to rebuild their hospitals
rebuilding schools
this is not a more rational approach to nation building or should we just get
the hell out altogether in
and leave it to them
there it is uh... payroll for economic development both in terms of uh... the
school side in certainly in terms of assisting businesses
but you do that by assisting folks in a direction they're inclined to go with
their on their own plans they're all investment
what we're doing is spending a hundred billion dollars a year on other planets
could be as high does as a hundred twenty billion a year in a country that
has an economy of ten billion
so this inherently corrupts the economy
warps it all kinds of uh... twisted ways from the afghan perspective here's the
moment where some foreign powers raining down money ups are responsible you grab
as much of it is we can for it as long as we can
that's not conducive to actually building the sustainable institutions be
that to temple businesses school system
certainly a government and furthermore the government strong central government
were building
if in the fortune to the people every position is sold from the governorships
on down as sometimes as far as a school teachers
and people buy these positions because they can exploit them exploitation makes
a government affliction if inherent contradiction we've tried every approach
to see if we can this trip
corruption from the system
it's not working it's not going to work and we need to recognize that were
building the a system that doesn't serve the people at in fact is a problem for
the people and it's quite frankly completely outside the the tradition
of the the afghan tribal uh... world uh... they do not want a strong central
government was fought in that way
as as well
and according to c_i_a_ snack both before we started buying askins tam
thirty p was to billion dollars
so were were pouring so much money and if we just
gave them a little bit of cash bid double a revision from agreed to do it
in north america if we had simply weren't up to the shanavas assisting the
successor bill clinton insisting the success of education
and then there would be local ownership
when you go in and you just
build something be it a highway or b-school
folks it is going to tear it right back up but they don't have a personal
commitment dustin said it was it wasn't there
their highway their their school hoping that their their heart is involved in
mile friend *** gregory back in the eighties we were flying to africa and
together and he made the comments as i do understand why america's run around
the world finish our way lifetime peoples
froze the barrel of a goddess isn't that something good you have to force about
people if you've got something good
they will steal it
and i'd find it really interesting
that in the future of disinformation to countries that we did not
they stole democracy
they went on got it on their own
where's the countries that were bombing
in a more console well is is there a fundamental re calibration necessary in
our approach to promoting democracy we have a minute left senator mark twain
well not only after this issue of corruption we've talked about but
there's also the problem that when people look out into a where a largely
upon the nation
we don't like having the country halfway around the world that is doesn't
understand our religious traditions coming in telling us how to operate
and uh... if that is inherently flawed and it's going to produce a rejection so
we'd we do need to
the be thoughtful about the fact that we can't just pulled up our model
and faith
this is the uh... the best way in the world height ticket and if you won't
take it will make a ticket bao ninh and even our models three different from
sweden source switzerland's their germany's error
the argentina startling given the profit from the u_s_ for that uh... really
uh... captive ponder whether we've got our the our system perfected etc which
we will have so i i i think every country every democracy in the world has
some work to do one
mister by step for you for the good fight you doing a great work in the
senate senator jeff markley the website markley any arcadia lee wai dot senate
dot gov is trading at sender jeff monthly fee at the conflict
senators there's so much for being with us on bakery truck