 My name is Peter Bergen, I run the international security program here. Welcome to you and also the people watching this on C-SPAN. C-SPAN is covering this live. So when we get to the question and answer session, please want to make sure you identify yourself and also wait for the mic so the audience outside the room can hear your question. So today we're going to discuss Afghanistan 2017 and prospects for the future. And we have two brilliant panelists to discuss that. First of all, of course, Ambassador Moib, who is the ambassador to the United States from Afghanistan. He has previously worked as President Ghani's deputy chief of staff. He's previously also worked at Intel. He worked at the American University in Afghanistan. He's also a PhD from Brunel University in the United Kingdom. And he will speak first. And then after that, Yanni Koskinas, who's a fellow here, who has been living in Afghanistan pretty much since 2010. Yanni runs a company called Hoplite, which provides intelligence and security analysis to businesses in Afghanistan. He's also doing his PhD at King's College about the Afghan Civil War. He's a retired Army, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel in Special Operations, who worked for Sam McChrystal when he was the ISAF commander in Afghanistan. So over to you, Ambassador, and then we look forward to your comments. Thank you, Peter and Yanni. Good to see you again. I'm glad to have this opportunity to join you to talk about Afghanistan and where it is and where we're going. And what we expect from the new leadership here in Washington. I want to begin by addressing something that I think is at the forefront of everyone's minds that has been following Afghanistan, and that is the testimony before Congress last week by my good friend General John Nicholson. The big takeaway from his comments was that militarily speaking Afghan and Allied forces are in a quote-unquote stalemate with the enemy. I want to say something here about the National Security Forces, the Afghan National Security Forces. The high level of casualties of all soldiers that we're taking is not a sign of weakness. It is evidence of their resolve to win the fight against terrorism, not just for Afghanistan but also for the world. It is also a sign of the increase in the number of terrorist groups operating in our region and the advanced capabilities that they do have today. We're encouraged to see that the new administration is focusing on strategic goals rather than troop numbers alone. And taking into account the military needs of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in terms of enablers. The national security reasons that propelled the United States into Afghanistan 16 years ago are as urgent as ever. Perhaps more so with Daesh increasingly asserting itself on our soil in the resurgence of al-Qaeda in both Russia and Iran's positioning on the Taliban side of the equation. As ambassador, I get the same question a lot from people in Washington here. Are the Taliban winning? Is it true that they control more territory than at any time since they were ousted from power? I'm not going to exaggerate our victories but that doesn't tell the whole story of what is happening. It requires a change in mentality from focusing on not losing the war to focusing on winning. And it's testimony before Congress General Nicholson also called for a holistic review of U.S. relations with Pakistan. This is very encouraging to hear because you cannot talk about the state of security in Afghanistan without talking about the state of terrorists' heavens and support provided by Pakistan. The two are intrinsically connected. One is the cause, the other is the effect. And until the U.S. takes meaningful action to severe that connection, our two countries prolonged and costly joint effort against terrorism in the Afghans region cannot succeed. This isn't a subjective opinion. This is an objective fact. Victory requires a paradigm shift in American thinking about Pakistan. Finally, I want to talk about the trend line that is improving in Afghanistan. I realize that our security situation tends to dominate Washington's thinking and that the steady drumbeat of attacks sometimes make it hard to see the good things that have happened since the current government was elected in late 2014. And although we're making real progress in our very public, very robust campaign to root out and punish corruption, in 2014 when President Ghani took office, our assessment of the government highlighted that corruption was an existential threat to the Afghan government. It was made a priority of the new administration to bring about institutional and fiscal reforms. We have made much needed progress since then. Even so, you can't reverse decades of systematic endemic corruption in just 24 months or end a deeply ingrained livelihood of poppy cultivation in that short amount of time. In the attention those problems receive tend to obscure progress in other equally important areas. But President Ghani's roadmap to self-reliance is moving us in the right direction. Support to the government's reform agenda must also become an international priority. What we're telling our American partners and what I told President Trump when I had a moment of his time recently is that the groundwork has been laid for Afghanistan to emerge from years of war and poverty. The hard work has been done. We have democratic institutions, constitution that guarantees our citizens equal in human rights. A leader who is committed to good governance, accountability, education for all and jobs opportunities. And perhaps most importantly for Afghanistan's allies and partners. In addition to being committed to waging peace, we're committed to ending our dependence on the international community. We're closer than ever before to self-reliance and stability. It is our people's utmost desire. We see the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is still long, no doubt about that. But the light wasn't there just a couple of years ago. And we can't afford to let it go now. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I'll keep my comments very short. I think that with such a big audience, questions are probably more appropriate to take us in different directions than the comments. But I will echo this. I went to Afghanistan my first time in 2005. And I felt like I was late to the game in 2005, but certainly it got in me and I've stayed there ever since. I left the military in 2011 after spending a couple of years in Afghanistan working for General McChrystal twice. And I had a chance of working with then Dr. Ghani and one of the academics and enlightened people that had come back to Afghanistan to really make a difference. Spending a lot of time with Dr. Ghani at the time, a couple of times a week, several hours for about almost ten months, was actually one of the things that raised my awareness about how little I knew about Afghanistan. And in many regards, it made me commit myself to a lot of things. Later, in fact, Dr. Ghani actually pinned on my eagles, my colonel rank, when I was promoted to that. And he made the trip just for that to the states at a time when, you know, quite frankly, money was probably tight because he was doing a lot of things on his own. So I appreciated what happened then. And I mentioned this little vignette only so far to tell you that he was a big reason, one of the reasons why I stayed in Afghanistan. But in a lot of ways, the people of Afghanistan have been the reason why I've remained. And they are a willing partner for us. They're actually very much in tune with the idea of an American involvement in the region and the stabilizing of a region that's actually facing some serious issues with fundamentalism. But I'll tell you this, that I don't think we've done enough on our end. I'm not saying that we haven't spent enough, we certainly have. I'm not saying that we haven't sacrificed enough, I think we have. I've been to plenty of funerals and ceremonies in Lot 60 in Arlington to tell you that certainly our blood has been spilled and our money has been spent. The trouble is that I don't think we've ever considered return on investment as a prior priority in the way that we approach Afghanistan. We've used burn rate, you know, if we spend X amount of money, obviously we're doing something. We've used numbers in terms of troops. But in terms of the way that we approach things, we certainly haven't used return on investment actually as part of our commitment. So I hope that we talk about some of this stuff in our question and answer session. But I'll tell you that every day that I'm in Afghanistan, I'm reminded that our commitment can't be one year at a time. Our support there cannot be very veneer and surface, conditions matter, timelines don't. And I think that we owe a lot more both to the people who have sacrificed a lot from Afghanistan, but also from our troops and civilians to actually try to win exactly what you said rather than not lose. And quite frankly, we also need to talk about stain rather than, you know, talk about not leaving. So with that, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. And thank you for having me, Peter. So how would you characterize the state of play with the Taliban right now? I mean, what the United States generally says is that the Taliban controls or contests a third of the population of Afghanistan. Do you think that's more or less accurate right now? Well, what is talked about is not the population, it's mostly the territory. And what we stop to pay attention to is where those tactical wars have been leading. And since 2014, when the international troops withdrew, they also took their ISR and air power capabilities with them. The Afghan security forces to this day do not have the adequate air power necessary to be able to disrupt larger Taliban attacks. So what they were able to do in the past was small attacks in a small number of groups because the air power disrupted them. Now with that capability gone, they had the ability to be able to launch major attacks. Now they were not able to sustain it. They could launch a major attack, disrupt an area, a district, and then not be able to sustain it because the Afghan security forces would move in and take it back. So we have been tested and there are serious challenges that we need to address. But the focus here needs to be on how do we make sure that this capability is added to the Afghan security forces so that those attacks could be marginalized. In the past, we had smaller groups and smaller units that manned a small checkpoint post. And once the number of attackers became in the numbers in 200 instead of being six, this small checkpoint was no longer enough. So we had to retreat. We had to retreat into bigger units so that we can launch offensive. And that's taken as an attitude of Taliban controlling territory. They're not really controlling territory. It's just that we don't no longer man it. We're doing this in an offensive capability. What sort of air power are you talking about? The Afghan military needs? Close air support, helicopters. That's a must in the kind of terrain that we are fighting. And it's also a must so that we have eyes on the battleground ahead of us. Today the Afghan security forces, when they fight, without the close air support and the ISR capabilities that are needed, the Taliban are at an advantage because we're wearing a uniform where they are not. So they can hit us, identify us easier than we can because they could disguise themselves as civilians. Didn't the Obama administration change some of the rules of engagement around it, close air support, relatively towards the end? They have, but there is no replacement for the Afghan security forces having their own capabilities for those offenses. Specifically, what would the, when you say helicopters, what are you talking about? Well, combat helicopters. We're looking for combat force and also we're looking for enablers and medivac capabilities to be able to get air and lift. A lot of the casualties that we have had over the past year have been during transport. They were not being on the battlefield. They had been on during transport in our security forces being transported in soft vehicles that came under attack. They're in land mines and what they have today, those magnetic bombs that were attached to it that ended up causing us the most casualties. So air lift is an important factor for us to reduce that number. It also gives us the eyes and the ears and also gives us the capability to disrupt larger units from attacking district centers. Niana, you're a career air force officer. Do you share this assessment? Actually, I was listening and saying, what do I add to that? And there isn't that much I can say. I think that's a perfect assessment. The one thing I would add though is that, well, two things actually. One, air power takes a long time for it to reach its potential. Whereas you may train ground troops in six, seven weeks or you can specialize them in a few months, get them even more seasoned over a year. It may actually take a year plus to get a pilot trained. It may take a year plus to orient somebody to a particular airplane. Look, for example, General Nicholson mentioned in his testimony that there are U.S. helicopters that are being considered to go to Afghanistan. But the process of getting these helicopters there may take up to two years. So when you're looking at these, the long lead time for the air power has been part of the problem. Anybody who has been in Afghanistan during 10, 11, 12, you start looking at bulldozer airplanes over to one side of the airfield because we picked the wrong airplanes and then we sold them for scrap for a few cents to the dollar. So these mistakes are costly when you're looking at how you're able to project air power in the long run. And if I may, one more thing about this is that the trends are something we can't deny. When somebody says, how did we do in comparison to 2015 to 2016, the numbers come out rather quickly. But as the ambassador mentioned, context matters. These trends are not just a figure that just lays out there by itself. It has to be put in context. And even the number of districts or centers or population centers that the Afghan government controls, even those are troubling. So we have to look at the context that he's mentioning. Percentages are like an old friend of mine used to say about 74% of us statistics lie. So those are something that you should take stock of. So Ambassador, you mentioned Pakistan and you're a diplomat. But what would you say, you mentioned that the administration might be taking a look at the relationship with Pakistan. I mean, what is your assessment? Because of course, anybody who spent any time in Afghanistan knows that most people say, well, if only Pakistan would stop harboring these groups, our problems would be over. Is that a reasonable, I mean, that seems simplistic to me, but what is the role of Pakistan? Is it getting better? How would you assess it? Well, every neighbor can play two roles. In this case, either a spoiler or can remain neutral in many cases, if not helpful at least. In this case, it's an active spoiler in Afghanistan and being able to provide sanctuaries, support. We have witnessed in the past, at least in the past two years, if we're not going far too far behind, we've noticed that the Pakistani leadership travel under Pakistani passports. They're provided with hospital and medical support. Would you say Pakistani leadership, the Pakistani Taliban leadership? Pakistani Taliban leadership. The Afghan Taliban leadership that in Pakistan, that travel under Pakistani passports, those are things that have come out. They cannot be hidden. We saw where the head of the al-Qaeda was. And those things highlight quite a few important factors. That is, the shift of making it sound like the blame game is no longer viable. This is objective facts. All of those things have happened. And if they've all happened in the recent past, they cannot be forgotten so quickly. If Pakistan wants to, I think, wants to save itself, what we're worried about is that it affects Pakistan's future itself. Those terrorists do not recognize those boundaries as the restrictions to them and would soon turn their own weapons on Pakistan. So what is happening to us today can become the future of Pakistan. And for that reason as well, I think it's in the interest of the Pakistani administration to assist us in eliminating the terrorists from that region and sincerely assist, not just say and talk about it. We need to see some actions. Pakistan has always had good words from Pakistan and it continues to be the case. They speak about cooperation and they always have very good ways and words to put it in. It's just that it never materializes in action and that's something we would... Well, I mean, the Pakistanis did do a major operation in north Waziristan, right? Yeah, they did. But on elements that they considered a threat to themselves, not a threat to Afghanistan or the region. And this is where I think that distinction becomes, I think, the issue that's why we are focused on do not distinguish between terrorists. It's not whether they're our enemies today, they will soon turn and become your enemies tomorrow. So let's look at this from more strategic objectives. Pakistan wants to be able to make a good friend out of Afghanistan. This is not the way forward. This is not a way to create influence in a country. And what about ISIS? Go ahead. Thanks, sir. The one thing I would say about Pakistan is a lot of people want to group Afghanistan and Pakistan together. The reality is that we have to look at them for their own interests, for their own personal, you know, for their own national agendas. And where we don't want to have conflict from an American perspective is when it's conflicting with our national interests. And when we're talking about fundamentalism or the operation that they held in north Waziristan, obviously it was a significant event because they dealt with their own, you know, terrorism problem along their borders. The problem is when you're looking at our national interests is that they also bulldozer over a lot of, you know, elements into Afghanistan, which obviously caused a ripple that we saw in 2015 and 16 that we're still dealing with. In some ways they displaced the low-level sanctuaries inside north Waziristan and, you know, put them in place as sanctuaries in some places, like that we mentioned earlier, the percentages are, you know, that they control some territory. So when you're looking at those things, you actually have to put again, put it in context. A holistic review of Pakistan should be a holistic review as it relates to our national interests. And what I mentioned is it's contrary to our national interests. What is going on there? Their behavior is contrary to our national interests when it comes to our people getting blown up. When you actually map out where some things came into Afghanistan from, whether it's, you know, IEDs or whether it's, you know, funneling of personnel or whether it's, you know, kidnapped victims going out to, you know, with the Hakanis in the tribal areas, there is a connection with a lot of the stuff that goes on in Pakistan. My trouble is that, again, we tend to not understand the dynamics of the region. So we just group things together. We formulate what we believe is a joint sort of effort, how to counter problems together. But in reality, we just, you know, we just turn the page and just not really address anything. Ambassador Mohi. And also, Janne, I mean, so ISIS, is there a problem in Afghanistan getting bigger, smaller? Al-Qaeda, a problem bigger, smaller? We've been able to target ISIS because of the, again, rules of engagement with the resolute support. We had the capabilities to launch several offensive attacks. So we have seriously disrupted the operations of ISIS and their strongholds there. But they still exist and we cannot underestimate what they can continue to do if we divert our attention for the time being. We're able to contain ISIS and it's because we're focusing on it. Is there any evidence of people from ISIS leaving Syria and Iraq and moving to Afghanistan or Pakistan that you're aware of? I'll let the non-diplomat here. Yeah, look, I think what you're talking about is dozens, if it, in fact, is happening. I would answer the question slightly different with a different perspective. We talked about a little bit of Pakistan, but, you know, when you talk about ISIS, again, there's a Pakistani element to it. I mean, they all started from that side and migrated into Afghanistan. A lot of them are Pakistani. They've created some, you know, they've established a base in Angarhar and controlled multiple districts. But in reality, you know, that is not a ground, it's not an element that's, you know, native to Afghanistan, if you will. The Taliban, on the other hand, are. And so what we're looking at in 2016 is, you know, from 16 to 17, we can't tackle the problem in 17 as we did in 16 because it wasn't that successful. We did put some pressure on them, but they were still able to create attacks in Kabul and elsewhere that, you know, killed hundreds of people and actually fomented some ethnic descent. If anything, you give credit to the society in Afghanistan that it did not react violently to those things. But I would tell you this, and this is actually going back to your previous question. When you're looking at holistic approaches, we're also not taking holistic approaches to Afghanistan. New administration, so we have to give them a little bit of time, but there is a stand-in ambassador there. There is, you know, we lost the ambassador at State Department that dealt with Afghanistan-Pakistan issues. Nobody is actually at the Pentagon or, you know, with any level of authority or, quite frankly, as it happens with every administration, they turn over so we don't have anybody there. So when General Nicholson is at the hearing and somebody asks him, you know, what's going on with 300 troops going into Helmand, are you looking at, you know, counter-narcotics? He says, that's not my area. You know, counter-narcotics is not what I deal with. Fair enough. I mean, that's a whole-of-government approach. We need somebody else to mention something about narcotics, but that's a big deal when you're going into the highest percentage of, you know, opium producing is in Helmand, so you kind of have to think about how we approach this. Then we talk about should the Taliban be labeled a terrorist group? Okay, just let's, I'm not the diplomat. I'll say yes. Okay, 100%. The Taliban are a terrorist group. They've been behaving in terrorist activities. They should have been labeled years ago. And some absurd notion that somehow, if we keep them off the list, somehow they'll want to talk reconciliation more is about as naive as I can, you know, possibly imagine. But not that I'm upset about it, but the point is when General Nicholson has asked that, he also can't give an answer because there's nobody at state that could actually possibly answer that thing. So we have to have a holistic approach and review, not just in Pakistan, but also in Afghanistan because we can't expect the brave troops that have been taking so many risks. Our folks that are taking so many risks, albeit not as many as not as much as the Afghans, you can't expect them to go into battle with uncertainty of, you know, where are we going with this in 2017. So I'm enlightened. I mean, I'm, you know, emboldened in some way that we're going through this journey right now where it's no longer what about leaving, but we have a lot of work to do, a lot of work to do. Can I add one thing to this, the movement part? Yeah. The narcotic trade creates a smuggling route, and this is not just used for the smuggling of heroin. It's also used for human trafficking, for weapons smuggling. So whether people are moving in one direction or another, they're using the same routes and the same networks that are providing that capability. And once again, it becomes an important area to focus on because it's not only providing funding to the terrorists. It's also providing access to them to be able to move fighters along and have that human smuggling going on. Reconciliation, peace talks with the Taliban. Is anything happening or what are the prospects? Well, the Afghan government has always had this stance that our doors for reconciliation with those elements of the Taliban that would like to in our Afghans and consider Afghan priorities are open, our doors are always open to them, but that's, but we have to at the same time defend our population from these attacks. You saw the number of civilians that have been targeted over the past, just this past week alone. That's not acceptable. Okay, we're going to open it up for questions. If you have a question, wait for the mic and identify yourself. We'll begin with Christina Lam with the Sunday Times. Where's the mic? Christina's here in front. Yeah, I just wanted to ask you on reconciliation. I mean, given the progress that the Taliban have been making militarily, is it realistic actually to defeat the Taliban or does there have to be reconciliation? And I wondered what your views are on the Russian initiative to have peace talks. As I said in my comments earlier, we need a shift in mentality from not losing to winning and we must and we have to win in Afghanistan. You don't win in Afghanistan. We don't win in Afghanistan means insurgents across the world will get emboldened and be given the opportunity to consider that they can bring down legitimate governments and terrorize the world. So it's not whether a question of whether it is a question of whether we must do that. And yes, the capabilities exist and we can defeat the terrorists in Afghanistan and there are a few things that we need to do going from what we have already been doing and that is increase the capabilities of the Afghan security forces, which we are. There is a strategy for the next four years to be able to increase the units that we use in offensive operations, increase our intelligence cooperation amongst the internal A&ESF so that they can target the enemy much more precisely and at the same time disrupt their channels of funding and other sources that are coming. That requires a diplomatic effort where we need the international community support and putting the kind of pressure that's necessary on Pakistan to be able to eliminate those safe heavens but also to come up with ways together to end those sanctuaries. What we were talking about is the conditions earlier. If we're talking about troop numbers, we're missing the point. What we need to be able to address is what is it that we want to achieve in Afghanistan and that goal should be the right answer would be we want to win against the terrorists. We want to bring stability to a country that has been at war for close to 40 years. Once we have achieved, once we have come to that conclusion, then we need to set what are the targets and what are the responsibilities of the Afghan government, the Afghan security forces, the international community and our neighbors to be able to achieve that goal so that we create a positive consensus instead of our neighbors being busy trying to convince Russia that they need to support the Taliban, that they need to be paying an active role in defeating the terrorists that are killing the Afghan people and our American allies. When you say the Russians are supporting the Taliban, what do you mean? We're not supporting. Publicly we've seen some rhetoric about Taliban being able to or at least any kind of talk with the Taliban that gives them any kind of legitimacy. That beats the point. Our goal and the international community's goal, the entire world's goal should be to beat terrorism in that region and the only way to do that is through legitimate sources of the people, the elected government of the people that can beat. So any kind of support that is provided in ending terrorism must be channeled through the Afghan government. So Russian freelancing, what are you specifically referring to here? Any country that perhaps makes notions that there may be any other alternative, I think makes that point. I think in some ways Russia would be probably interested in containing the Taliban issue in a place like Afghanistan so it doesn't spread into Uzbekistan or some of the other areas that were formerly in their control. They're concerned with Islamic fundamentalism coming in from the south into their territories. But in the end there's not that much that they're doing in Afghanistan. Another aspect of it that I think that's, to answer your question, Christina, if I may, the reconciliation is this thing that we've sort of kept out there in case it catches. And of course it has to be out there. You always want to have that dialogue open, you want to have the ability to do that and the Afghan government has been open-minded in that. My approach to it, however, looks at it again from return on investment. We've spent a lot of money on it. We've put a lot of stock in some of these activities, both in time, bandwidth and money. And it just hasn't yielded anything. So the idea of continuing down that path with zero chance of it materializing, again, I'll keep it open and I would recommend that they would. But again, I don't put that much emphasis on it. The last thing I'd say is all roads don't go through Islamabad. So when you're looking at, you know, peace negotiations, the idea that somehow you don't have them in a neutral place, whether it's Switzerland or whether it's wherever, you know, and you're having them in Islamabad, to me that's just naive. And from my, again, I use the word naive not because it's not well-intentioned. It's just that nobody has paid attention to the fact that, hey, we've had the Peshawar Accords, we've had the Islamabad Accords. That was back in the day when we were dealing with another sort of reconciliation effort and it failed because people have their own national interests at play. It's not about Afghanistan if it's being held in Islamabad. I'm sorry, that's just not there. You know, so reconciliation is a good idea. I hope it eventually happens. It's the only way that these things sort of end, but they linger for a while. And I don't want to spend any time on something that, quite frankly, is not bearing any fruit. Just like they're doing in Syria, just like they're doing in a lot of places, and most of it is to give us a black eye more so than have any sort of result. David Anstle from the Atlantic Council. I agree with what I take from all the panelists, a sense that the U.S. needs to re-examine its policy towards Pakistan as part of the way forward. If you had a chance to talk to the current administration as it starts to get its act together on this issue, how should the policy change? What are the pressure points? All this blood and treasure that's been expended, and many efforts have been made to convince the Pakistanis that this policy of harboring Taliban leadership is not in their interests. They continue to do it anyway. Where are the pressure points? How can the U.S. get to a policy that might bring change in this area? Well, we have a list of activities that we'd like to share with them, which we'd like to keep that way, on what can be done that is with evidence. But it's also in the interest of Pakistan, as I was alluding to earlier, that we end terrorism. It's hurting Pakistan more than in their future, their economic future than it is right now. The damage that was done in Afghanistan is pretty much at its peak. It cannot be. It can only go positive now. But whereas it's going to impact Pakistan, and we would like to see a peaceful and a stable Pakistan, because it's also in our interest. Our neighbor, any in that region conflict, is something that we would like to avoid. We have seen it. We've witnessed what conflict does to our country and what it does to its neighborhood, and we do not wish it on anyone for that matter. So we have practical recommendations for both the U.S. government and also for Pakistan on what needs to be done. It's also impacting the illegal economy that we were talking about, those illegal routes. Now, the drug trade may be bringing in a small amount of money compared to how big of an income that is worldwide, which is $120 billion a year. A small amount may be channeled to the Taliban and to the terrorists for fighting in Afghanistan, but a big amount of that is somewhere else because the processing of opium happens not in Afghanistan and its transport to the rest of the world also doesn't happen from Afghanistan once it's shifted. What can the region do to eliminate and to change that illegal economy which can become a threat, is a threat to their own stability? Absolutely. I actually think that, first of all, when we talk about the Taliban, the Taliban are not recognizing the Durand Line as a border and therefore, you know, well, the truth is some others don't also recognize the Durand Line as a border, but the point is that we should be targeting them on both sides. My advice would be that for selective targets, as we have seen, the fact that we killed the leader of the Taliban in Balochistan, that should be something that we do again and again as necessary. We have to raise the stakes in terms of negative behavior instead of always looking for the carrots that we can offer them. There should be some very distinct sticks that are associated with our policy. But I would argue, and you'll hear me keep on bringing this back towards Afghanistan, we also need to reassess our approach to Afghanistan and how it relates to Pakistan. You know, I was hoping that we'd address it also. Look, we're not good friends to people, okay? That's part of our 12-step process to recovery is to say that we have a problem. And the problem is we're not very good friends when we're actually not supporting our, you know, the people that we've committed ourselves to supporting. And sometimes you have to actually pick your friends and your enemies. And if somebody's behaving as a friend, you treat them as a friend. If somebody's behaving as an enemy, you treat them like an enemy. So we have to look at that. And quite frankly, in Afghanistan, I'll use the example of we were signatories in the national unity government, you know, and I've heard people, senators, talk about certain issues with General Nicholson that quite frankly, I wish they would be asking the ambassador that would be there, but he wasn't. They're asking about some things that almost putting the blame on the Afghan government on what's happening. Well, we have not actually honored our signatory commitment to the fact that we have to advance the national government, unity government agenda. We actually have to help them as they achieve things, hold certain things that we've signed that we're going to do. So before I start talking about Pakistan, although like I've mentioned, there are some very specific things we can do, we also need to reassess and recommit ourselves to what we've signed on the dotted line for Afghanistan. Gentlemen here. Ambassador, thanks. My question will be. Can you identify yourself? Yeah. This is Kasim Iyer with Anadolu Agency, Turkish News Agency. Sorry, with what? Excuse me. Turkish News Agency, Anadolu. You mentioned about Russia, but I believe General Nicholson also talked about Iran's malign activities, legitimizing Taliban down in Afghanistan. Could you comment on that as well, the Iranian role in their connection with Taliban and their legitimizing role there? Thank you. To echo what Yani said earlier, there is a lot of rhetoric, talks about what is provided, but in action, that can be interpreted separately, but what we are, our key message to all our neighbors and in the region is to work with any group that's not a state actor, that's not a government of the people, is a threat to what kind of precedence it sets for cooperation. So it's important that we work with those legitimate entities, and that would be the Afghan government if there are concerns. Our concerns are the same as those in the region to eliminate terrorism. If that's the point where, like I said, we have hit the highest number of casualties, we're determined to end terrorism, continue to do so for whatever it takes. And it's also not just the government with the Afghan people and their desire. So to comment on what perhaps the Taliban today are, is what they used to be the Mujahideen of the 1990s. They have its criminal gangs that control a small area, each one of these, the only thing that is central about them is their communication because it's in their interest they do illegal mining, illegal logging, extortion of taxes from people. They're not a group that can provide any kind of alternative and anyone treating them as such would be a big mistake. Marvin Weinbaum, the Middle East Institute. Is there another dimension to winning against the Taliban? Of course, you've spoken mainly about the military side of it. But doesn't it also require that at the same time that Afghanistan demonstrates that it is a viable, that there is a viable government which is preferable. And in that respect, I'd like to ask whether the absence of unity, political unity, within the government at the moment, to what extent is that a drag on the struggle against the Taliban? I'd like to take that, but would you want to comment on that? Yeah, I'm happy to. I keep on throwing you first, then I'll just add something brilliant at the end. I didn't want to overpower. Okay, so exactly, you've noticed today my talking points here were focused on three areas. Security, Pakistan, and the reform agenda. The Afghan government is extremely determined to bring that exactly that point on board, and that is a legitimate government must be able to provide its people with the services they need, the rule of law, and for people to be able to rely on it. A government that steals from its people doesn't instill confidence in it. And for the Afghan people to be able to have the confidence and support, it will also attract some of those maybe low level insurgents who are perhaps who join the Taliban because they feel that the Afghan government may not be able to provide the services or it's corrupt. And that we are working on. It's extremely, if you pay, I mentioned in the beginning that when we did our assessment, we considered it as an existential threat to the Afghan government. So it is a level of priority and you would have seen that in the past two years we put a major focus on where those reforms were needed. First of all, monetary reforms that were necessary and those were in the areas of contracts. A big part of the corruption that was happening was in contracts. We centralized that. We formed the procurement commission that sits, the procurement council that the president and the chief executive and key ministers sit on was one priority to end systematic corruption in procurement in the Afghan government. The other was in the judiciary sector and those have been recognized by independent third party verifiers like the Asia Foundation survey of the Afghan people have seen that there has been reduction in both corruption in both of those areas but we are also bringing in systems and once you put systems in place it takes away the need for people so there has been for those strong men there so there has been fierce resistance to reforms in Afghanistan and again my point to it that the international community must support the Afghan government, its constitution and its own reform agenda and we can hold ourselves and our government responsible and our officials responsible for that. I would like to add one point around those. The international community put a huge amount of investment in the Afghan government for us to be able to create democratic institutions and I think sometimes some of the discussions that happen in a democracy in Afghanistan is blown out of proportion outside. And it needs to be considered that the Afghan government is capable it has again the constitution and the institutions that can handle those kind of policy discussions and those are mostly internal policy discussions perhaps best to leave them as internal policy without having external forces that try to shape and form on what the Afghan people or the Afghan government may lean towards because what we need to do is establish indigenous systems in support and what kind of policies those policies need to arrive derived from the Afghan people and their demands. And luckily today in Afghanistan we have the capabilities to be able to do that ourselves again the maturity of the institutions may not be where we wanted but in 15 years you cannot expect or 16 years you cannot expect them to be institutions that have the capabilities today to be able to derive indigenous policies that serve the Afghan people without a lot of input from outside. We still appreciate the examples from other places and we take that into account but it's time that the Afghan government takes all of its policies itself and drives them. Can I add something? Two things. In 2014 when this ramp down of activities in Afghanistan occurred for the US it wasn't just the troops that were leaving you also had a bunch of advisers that left the civilian surge at the embassy dropped significantly commercial attaché that was there departed a lot of people that actually had different departments that were in Afghanistan from our US government removed their people and so what you were left with was not if there was a ramp down and something that was supposed to pick up on the other side that wasn't what was happening at the time I was very much oriented towards the mining ministry ministry of mining and petroleum and literally it was you get in there and it's crickets the advisers left the money left and what left with them was the contracting capability so you had multiple mining contracts that were up for negotiations but you couldn't actually go forward with them because you were hampered in many regards with the fact that you didn't have the right tools to proceed forward so when we're talking about self-sustainment about mining or some other money making ministries doing well so we can reduce the funding that's going over there we're certainly not giving the tools to the Afghan government to support that sort of growth so instead of just talking about the number of troops that need to go back in there as advisers we also need to think about which other ministries and which other enterprises require that kind of advisory and I'm not talking about these ad hoc visits or overextended Westerners going in there with $20,000 a month jobs I'm talking about some kind of strategy that can build that capacity and have that number even start lowering and dropping so really we're not giving the tools in that the second thing for political issues look I think a lot of people comment quite frankly on Afghanistan without the reality added to the rhetoric and not user but your point has been echoed a bunch of times in Afghanistan from a perspective of you have this unity within the national unity government well you know guess what even the national unity government accepts that there's only one president the system doesn't have actually sign as the head of state except for one president and the chief executive is supposed to be there to assist this was a unity government but we make it sound as if everything is 50-50 it's not in the constitution that exists right now so as an observer of Afghanistan you're a participant in some ways but as an observer we put some false expectations in that system that I think ultimately end up being with disappointment on our part and confusion on their part so it's something that we've added some confusion more than solve the problem there okay this gentleman here and then we'll take some on the other side of the room please sir, thank you hello hello Richard Lee Smith from the British Embassy can I ask about the importance of economic aid international economic aid for Afghanistan and its economic stability and how you see that as complimentary to the security mission in Afghanistan is there a different model that could be pursued or do we need to maintain the current levels of economic aid, thank you can I take this or that way I'll give you some time to formulate the thought more I don't want to feel like I'm dominating no no no you're not look we tend to think aid and most people there wish they were we were talking trade in many regards we're not using you know something as a connector to something else you know and China goes in there and says China, Pakistan Economic Court or 50 billion dollars we're going to go from all the way to Waterport and they start mapping out different things that they're doing along the way they recognize that energy is a serious problem so they're going to focus on energy roads are a serious problem all the way to water and this is China U.S. U.K. western world and we're talking about you know can we have some arts and crafts classes you know for for for for Afghan youths you know about can we possibly have some scholarships which is important by the way for the American University which is a something that by the way needs to come back and needs to come back strong and needs to actually be secure and everything else but we're talking about scholarships there but we don't talk about creating a mining center there or creating an engineering program that actually can produce the you know the brains that are going to put some of these resources in Afghanistan to the place so aid is important absolutely necessary but it needs to lead to something else it can't be just a check that comes after a while and by the way we also have to ask the Afghans what they need you know instead of just saying well this is what you got this time you know this is what's in our budget and and then all of a sudden you know that's not necessarily what how they can apply it by the way so yes I agree with what Yanni said on the priorities and how aid should be distributed in Afghanistan the aid should be in alliance with the or in coordination with the Afghans needs in our own strategy I think there is a lot of comparisons and parallels drawn between Europe in Afghanistan and how much money has been spent in Afghanistan and what the Marshall Plan did for Europe what we miss in that connection is two things one there was no terrorism in Europe and we were not fighting so our money was spent all of the money was spent on development the second was all of that money was spent on how do we revive the European economy and spent in coordination with the where their governments to be able to present to turn them around that has not been the case in Afghanistan a lot of the aid spent is not on budget and it's not in accordance with what the needs of the government are it's always in many cases it is what the donor agency wishes to spend money on and a lot of the time that maybe that may be necessary but if it's even if they're spending that money directly if it's in accordance to what the Afghans priorities are in their own drive and plan then we can hold it the afghan government can sustain it as we go forward we've seen in many occasions schools built that were not on budget who for whom we didn't the afghan government ended up did not have the budget to sustain it and that's been the case with hospitals and many other programs which may have been nice to have but were not what we could sustain so aid in the afghan context would be a lot more efficient if we spend it on what the afghan government needs with the gentleman back hi Doug Brooks with the afghan-american chamber of commerce and I brought this up before in past forums but there would be a lot more direct investment if private companies were able to hire their own security to protect themselves it would also reduce the strain I think on the military and police which are spread thin protecting private assets as well as the public ones is there any sign on the horizon that there will be a change in the policy on the ability of the private sector to hire their own security monopoly over security is something that's important to us we need to make sure that it's only the afghan security forces that have that monopoly and not given to security contractors who in the past have done things that we perhaps do not want to repeat so while it's in our it's in our interest and we wish to continue to provide as much security that we can to the private enterprises it's not the main deterrent in a lot of the cases it's it's all in making sure that their investments are secure and we're doing everything we can to make enablers make it easier for businesses to do business in afghanistan and security is of course our priority not just for businesses that are coming or investors that are coming but for all of our population and we must do it in accordance to the bigger plan on how we can bring security to all of afghanistan not just sectorize it so there is every chance live lost is important to us and we must bring security to all of afghanistan not just to a few specific sectors David is here and then this gentleman David is be mr ambassador how are we going to regrow the afghan economy turn it around when since 2014 we've had the terrible revival of the brain drain many young people especially those with skills have left the country and many of them called me up looking for jobs what can we the government and the international community do to help turn the economy around well creating jobs is an important factor in the entry we launched a program called jobs for peace this is a bridging mechanism until we can create more jobs and then track more investment and some of those policies have started to pay off last year we had investments close to 1.1 billion dollars pledged and that included things like building factories which would create new jobs and opportunities for afghan so they can stay in afghanistan and have those economic opportunities for them in the country and that's the most economical version for anyone in the international community to be able to provide jobs within the country to afghans that also prevents that brain drain from happening people must earn a living if it's not in the country they will seek it outside and that's why we should create make our focus to be able to create jobs in afghanistan can I add one thing on that first of all real quick on Doug's point earlier on security I personally having experienced a number of companies that I brought to afghanistan I don't think security, physical security is usually the issue I find that we could find some ways of leveraging a combination of private and public sort of security the trouble most often is security in terms of their investment when they're dealing with the afghan government dealing with the area that they're in perhaps predatory practices but a lot of people don't take due diligence vetting local partners anything like that seriously so all of a sudden they blame what happens later to a security situation and quite frankly I think that's unfair to your point sir I think the part of the, there's nothing I can add on the growth of the economy but I will tell you that we the American government and certainly the American folks that were involved in afghanistan don't help the brain drain and I'll tell you why I keep on getting requests to sign papers for a whole bunch of people with the special immigration visas I can't tell you how many of them I actually say you never worked as a translator number one, number two you didn't even work for a U.S. company so why would I sign this thing for you except somebody else does because later I'll find them that they're somewhere in the U.S. dealing with something then that immigration visa has become a real sort of rallying point for everybody who wants to pretend that they care about afghanistan because they care about their one interpreter what about all the promises that were made to the villages to say look we're here we're going to secure your villas we're going to do this stuff but we left there are a lot of promises unkept and I much rather keep the promises to the country rather than a few individuals that's number one the second thing is not every time some bomb goes off you start thinking that okay well that group needs to be get some immigration visas the judiciary system has been just decimated with bomb after bomb after bomb the attorney general's office multiple times a couple of years ago the supreme court about a month ago guess what happens immediately after that thing you know those people need to get immigration visas and it's like how if you actually give immigration visas to everybody who's actually worth something you're not going to have anybody left so these people are taking a chance they're actually doing something for their country if you want to join the government by all means go join the government if you actually want to actually fight against people who are threatening your country by all means we'll give you all the tools in the world but if the answer to every problem is we'll even give you a way out that's not I mean I know this is a hard topic and people get emotional about it but at the end of the day we need to keep people there we don't need to we need to create opportunities for them to stay there we can't just keep on giving them the parachute because somehow some way that's tough now asylum seekers you know refugee status all that stuff that's a different entity of itself but when you throw out the parachute to everybody who is threatened you're going to have a lot of threatened people in Afghanistan Jaleel Afridi from the frontier post from Peshawar Mr. Ambassador my first question is with regard to it's been three years that the Pakistani newspapers are all banned in Afghanistan don't you think with the flow of information and the media interaction at least the misunderstanding that the two countries have will be decreased and my second question is do you ever see India filling the gap of Pakistan as far as the friendship is concerned do you see that India one day will take a place of Pakistan in the relationship that both Pakistan and Afghanistan has had for last many years and one question to Mr. Koskina is with regard to the drugs trade and the opium in particular Mr. Ambassador said that very little money of the opium trade goes to the Taliban could you tell us where does the rest of the money goes to and has there been ever any big arrests made like famous people being arrested in Afghanistan for drugs trade thank you on the newspapers Afghanistan has one of the freest media we do not put restrictions on any media in the country in fact in the region there is no propaganda on the Afghan media it's what the media wants to report I don't know I have not been to Pakistan so I don't know what kind of what gets printed there but we'll certainly look into if there is any post that you said is banned I have not heard this but I will certainly look into that and the other question was yes oh yes so if Pakistan wants to build better relations with Afghanistan they better do it through friendlier means there is a saying about Afghan it says you can take an Afghan to heaven if you ask him nicely but you can't take him to heaven by force I think what the Pakistanis have been trying to do is this forceful method which they know through history would not work and the other is the shifting of the blame a lot of what could have been Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan would have been the closer relation the boundaries the history together those could have been the sources of influence and I think it still can be a source of their own influence rather than the negative bombardment propaganda every time every time there is an attack in Afghanistan whether true or not that's which is true in many cases the Afghan people the perception is that Pakistan allowed this to happen if they didn't do it themselves what kind of friendship is Pakistan hoping to have in Afghanistan if that's not the case if those are not prevented because the claim is immediately by the Haqqani network sitting in Pakistan or the Taliban sitting in Pakistan make that immediate claim about the number of people killed Mr. Afridi when you when one of your own is killed in that it has a different kind of impact one of our diplomat recently was killed in one of the attacks in Kandahar he was there on a family visit I cannot begin to explain the mood in our embassy that has been since then it's not one person that you make an enemy the civilians that are dead their families their social networks if Pakistan wants to have influence this is not the way to make it and again investing in Taliban is wrong like I said criminal networks that are exploiting people extorting money from people not serving anything that's not a kind of network or any kind of influence that Pakistan should or can have just a friendly advice in my part we have six minutes left so we're going to bunch three questions at the back here and then we'll let the ambassador and Colonel Koskina answer them Mahdi Senglalkhi from CRDF Global my question is that is the war winnable in Afghanistan addressing Pakistan's support for Taliban and other terrorist organizations first if yes how if not what strategies what specific strategies do you suggest moving forward David Borden with stopthedrugwar.org do speakers have any recommendations for the new administration on how to approach the opium narcotics trade or other related criminal enterprises in Afghanistan thank you my name is Marzia Nawruzi and I'm with Feminist Majority Foundation so the government of Afghanistan and many others are looking in positive way with Pistil with leader of Islami but it concerns me and hundreds of other Afghan women many of these leaders they oppose even women's participation in their meeting how or who is going to make sure that they are not leading away our rights so we have Pakistan drugs and reconciliation with Gulbadi Hegmatia for those who don't know he was one of the leaders of the Afghan resistance the Soviets who's regarded as sort of a major human rights abuser talk with the ambassador it depends on who you talk about whether this war is winnable or not to the Afghan people there is no other option we must win we're not going to allow terrorism to win in that country and that's the result that the Afghan people have and will continue to have so I don't see any other option win is the only way forward on the narcotics trade I think we must take it as the ending the support to the terrorist one of the way to weaken them is to cut their funding sources and the narcotics trade as small as it may be in the global compared to the global take of the narcotics trade it's still one of the largest sources of their income and it must be treated as such so we can cut their narcotics trade and on the reconciliation front the afghan constitution guarantees all of our human rights and that is what we will never compromise on while reconciliation is important to bring security and stability to the country we will never compromise on the human and the basic human rights that we have been guaranteed by our constitution so first of all on the winnable thing okay first you know I don't think any of us would be here if we didn't think it was winnable so I think the strategy forward needs to be changed I don't believe in this you know population centric counterinsurgency it's a theory that quite frankly has been thrown out there as a doctrine but in fact it hasn't really panned out in reality so we need to check ourselves and have a heavy dose of introspection I think a good example of winning is what has happened in Colombia plan Colombia had $10 billion they've dealt with counter narcotics as a major issue they've dealt with training indigenous forces they've dealt with a heavy percentage of the country under insurgent control they've dealt with other malign actors on the borders that they had to deal with and safe havens so there are models we're just not really paying that much attention to it so I would say that that's there in terms of the training I think a lot of people think that we need to have more trainers out there in order to have more combatants out there and therefore we'd have more Medevac capability and close air support if our guys are there I think that's also false I think we need to be preparing to do the heavy lifting and quite frankly we don't need to be out there that much it's not going to eventually get them to the level they need to be if that's our game plan but we need to give them the tools the last thing I'll say and I think it's at the end so maybe I'll cut my commentary very quickly is let's not forget the advisors that need to be out there in a uniform we are desperately needing some advisors that focus on the money making ministries and an over concentration on purely the security issues has been a real problem for 15 years I hope we change that well thank you very much Ambassador Moib and thank you very much Colonel Koskina's