 Good afternoon everyone. I think that with the music volume down it's a signal to us to start and I have to make a disclaimer here by saying that none of us and neither in New America nor ASAP planned this event in this talk to take place on Halloween day it was just pure coincidence even though things may look scary in Afghanistan for some people but we are part of I'm assuming that we will be discussing Afghanistan in its entirety to the extent possible and mostly focusing on the way forward but in my opinion looking at the way forward means that you have to also look at where you're standing today and to some extent look at the way that you have traveled over some time to have reached this place and and what are the different ways that are ahead for Afghanistan anyway my name is Omar Samad I am currently a Central Asia senior fellow here at New America I left the Afghan government about two years ago my last posting was as an Afghan ambassador to France I was with the government for 10 years as a diplomat since December of 2001 when I went back and became spokesperson for the foreign ministry but I am very happy today to have a very distinguished panel with us today discussing the issues that each and every one has a lot of not only interest but a lot of experience in I know all of them from the past near and in afar and I've worked with Sam closely and I think that they will provide you with a lot of food for thought today and hopefully our goal is to have you engaged and hopefully have a discussion on the issues that will be addressed today here I will ask everyone to obviously turn off their cell phones if you don't mind this is an on the record discussion some people are even taping it and it's webcast so for all of those in the on the web world we welcome you as well I don't want to spend too much time here with the introductions as you have seen you have the short bios of each of our panelists today but each comes from a specific background and have as I mentioned been quite involved in Afghanistan issues regional issues as well some in government some outside of government and so we will give each panelist somewhere around seven eight minutes hopefully to give us their latest thoughts to share the latest thoughts with us and we might have a question or two within the panel and then we will turn to you this should end hopefully around 145 I don't know about the others but I have to go and get my two little kids to wear something scary and so I have other duties to Afghanistan is going through as you all know a transition and not a very simple one not a very easy one and it's multifaceted multi-dimensional and there is a lot of angst but there is also an underlying level of I think expectation and maybe even even though it's not very palpable but it's there's also a certain level of hope that if things turn out right then Afghanistan is probably saved and as a result the investment made over the last 12 years or so will not be would not be in vain and the sacrifices as well so the Afghan people and as an Afghan speaking as an Afghan and we're happy to have one other Afghan speaking today as well who came yesterday from Afghanistan we are you know we always say people say the Afghans are very tough and they're resilient it's true we are tough and resilient I'm not sure how the last 12 years have impacted that resilience but we are survivalists and we deal with issues and challenges as they come but we also have learned over the last 35 years and I'm old enough to remember very well the last 50 years so over the last 35 years we have as you know undergone several phases of problems and instability and chaos and war and displacement and so on and so forth and for a country that already was a very poor country it really has had quite an impact and this is why the last 12 years in comparison to most Afghans looks very unique very special and it's not all bad and it's not all good it's not black and it's not white and somewhere in between some for some people it has been very lucrative and very positive their lives have changed positively for the better and for some it hasn't changed quite and and they understand what the challenges are so it's in that context that this country is going through transition and at the end of the day it will be very interesting to see how the Afghans themselves cope with this and then what role will their friends play in what role will some of the spoilers and those who are not so much inclined to help Afghanistan come out of its its issues how what role will they play and so within Afghanistan of course you have the young and you have the women and you have the men and you have the traditionalist and you have the modern society that has evolved it's it's it's a mixture it's quite a mixture of different trends that have evolved over the last 12 years unfortunately that reality has not in is not being captured the way we we those who deal with these issues on a daily basis would like to to capture it I don't think they are being portrayed as as realistically in as as accurately as they are and this is why there is a a new thinking in town at least here that we need to make sure that the narrative on Afghanistan is not does not become a negative one or a positive one that is that is it's in in tune with realities of Afghanistan and that we need to find and portray Afghanistan and under a realistic light and I thought I think that for that purpose what I would like to do is have one of the co-sponsors of today's talk and someone who represents that new group give talk to you for two three minutes explaining what this new initiative is to try to make sure that the narrative in Washington and beyond on Afghanistan is the right one and no one is trying to you know trying to shape it in an unrealistic manner but it's the right narrative that we deal with so before we go to the discussion I would like to ask Scott McKee who represents the new newly formed alliance in support of the Afghan people to introduce himself and to tell us what ASAP as it's known now is doing and what it tends to do within two minutes if you can Scott thanks briefly though my name's Scott Mackey and to begin with just want to thank New America Foundation for their willingness to host this event with us today we're very excited to be here but the alliance in support of the Afghan people is a new effort we just went public last week and it's a partnership between Afghan civil society leaders and many within the US and the international community who have a shared concern that we together need to highlight preserve and protect the gains made in Afghanistan by the Afghan people over the last 12 years Omar talked about many of the transitions that the country and the people of Afghanistan are facing now into 2014 and beyond and if we're joined together for one thing it's to say with mutual voices from Afghanistan and from the United States that it's vital that we get this transition right that as we've gone through the last 12 years not always in lockstep but certainly walking together that we must continue to stay engaged constructively into the future the policy points of that are not my own but we're very excited to be working and we think that's a very important endeavor and excited to be here today thank you Omar thank you thanks Scott so with that now I will turn to my left to David Sidney who is in American until very recently worked at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense in charge of the office for Afghanistan Pakistan and Central Asia a very important region but David and I go back to the early 2000s when he was stationed in Kabul as the number two of the embassy and and but he has also served on the National Security Council so he I hope that David will give us his views on what he thinks the security framework looks like how as we move forward and especially there's so much talk and the whole much interest on the BSA the bilateral security agreement between the US and Afghanistan that's in sort of holding mode and and not signed yet but being being reviewed as we move forward in relations with between Afghanistan and the United States David please thank you thank you very thank you very much Omar I'm gonna take one second beforehand to follow up on Scott's announcement about the alliance and supported the Afghan people and for those in the room here I've tried to pull up and it's hard to see the website afghanalliance.org I urge people to if you're in the audience now to go ahead and dial it up take a look at it it's I think important because of the both the the visuals that it presents the wide range of people who have signed on to support it and information that's available through it and that is why I am a part of this organization and because my experience over the last really 30-plus years of my service in the state and defense departments but particularly on the issue of Afghanistan I've seen that if a story is 100% negative then the media is 100% negative if a story is 50% negative and 50% positive then the media is 100% negative if the story is 90% positive and 10% negative the media is 90% negative and 10% positive in other words there's a huge negative bias in the way our media reports and that means there's a huge negative bias in the information that the American people have that the members of Congress and their staffs have when they're making decisions and in the case of Afghanistan that bias has become dysfunctional our major our major media outlets and I've spoken to them directly on this present such a warped view of Afghanistan that it's not possible for our political leaders currently to make an intelligent informed decision since I left the government I've been speaking to a number of groups from all over the United States and I find repeatedly that people have a very very inaccurate view of what's happening in Afghanistan so you can get the negative view in Afghanistan from the Washington Post New York Times etc etc but what you'll get from us is a balanced view what you'll get from me in particular is a balanced view that's very balanced on the positive side and why is that well I spent the last four years of my life at the Department of Defense as the ambassador was saying working on helping the number one job there was to help to build the Afghan security forces well we have just finished what is euphemistically called a fighting season in Afghanistan in other words a period of time when the Taliban and their allies launch attacks from across primarily from across the border in Pakistan into Afghanistan and try and take over the country of Afghanistan overthrow the leadership and put the Taliban back into place as they have in the previous 11 years they failed but this time they failed because the Afghan security forces not only took the lead but were entirely unilaterally responsible for security for their own country and well over 95 percent of the operations in Afghanistan if the Afghan army the Afghan police and the Afghan intelligence service had failed to perform this summer then Afghanistan might have fallen to the Taliban but in fact they did not and this was contrary to the estimates of many in the u.s. government outside the u.s. government in other countries many believed when this transition to Afghan leadership took place a transition that most Americans don't even realize took place but actually did take place this year many believe that when that transition took place that Afghanistan would become much more chaotic much more lawless that the Afghans would seize large swaths of territory would seize district centers would see some provinces not only did none of that happen but the Afghan security forces not only held all the gains that had been made in the previous 10 years by international forces and Afghan forces working together but they made progress including into some areas where international forces and u.s. forces had pulled out of in prior in the prior three four or five years the Afghan army went back into some of the toughest areas in the Konar-Noristan area and took back areas that we had unilaterally ceded to the Taliban three or four years before this is a story that I think very few people in the United States are aware of they're aware of problems with casualties in the Afghan services because that's reported and yes the Afghan military the Afghan police the Afghan intelligence services have suffered much greater casualties as they've taken the lead at the same time of course casualties suffered by foreign forces u.s. casualties casualties from our neighboring from our partners in NATO and the non-nato partners in operation enduring freedom our casualties have gone down dramatically over the last two years as the Afghans have picked up that burden my own experience in dealing with the Afghan security forces with people at the leadership level ministerial generals the colonels and down to people serving as privates while they are very concerned by the level of casualties every individual death every person who's wounded every person who is incapacitated is an individual tragedy Afghans by and large in fact I would say in the military and security services very large are proud that they are now fighting for themselves and that we aren't fighting for them it's been the goal of those who've been building the Afghan army for the last ten years for that to happen for Afghans to be responsible for Afghan security and that's what's happened now now that's happened because great sacrifice and great contributions in many ways by the people of the United States the military the United States the people of our NATO and other allies and the taxpayers because the Afghan security services still require a large amount of funding billions of dollars a year of a year of a year support from outside of Afghanistan and will continue for a number of years but this is an untold success story if we were sitting up here today and talking about all the gains Taliban had made I would admit it I would say there'd been a failure but there's actually been a great success here but that success is fragile the Afghan security forces next year will face as Mullah Omar said when Senator Secretary Kerry was in Kabul and signed the made the agreement with President Karzai to move forward in the bilateral security agreement Mullah Omar came out with a statement saying watch out Afghanistan we're going to start fighting even more we're going to send more people in to try and kill more people in Afghanistan and try and destroy the Afghan security forces that's going to happen the Taliban does have resources as I said their leadership training and financing are primarily in areas in Pakistan that it's not possible to go after because of geopolitical realities so that threat is going to continue violence unfortunately is going to continue in Afghanistan until the Taliban realize that they have a that their effort is futile but the performance of the Afghan security forces I will predict with a great deal of confidence based upon the reality of the past 12 months the Afghan security forces will get even better now again that doesn't mean they don't have problems there are serious problems and I'm happy to address questions about those but to me the important thing for the American people to realize is that that has been a success now as I said that success depends upon continuing support and that is where one reason what where I have great concern US policy towards Afghanistan I believe in the recent years has been somewhat of a drift the support from the American people has gone down the support of Congress has gone down and we have mixed signals from the leadership of our mixed leadership from the mixed signals from our leadership in the United States on how long and how serious our commitment to Afghanistan will be particularly in the military and security side we have succeeded in so much we have the opportunity to have Afghanistan which has been the subject of contention for centuries and been in the midst of a series of violent conflicts for the last 35 years we have a chance for that all to change but we can also lose that if we don't have that if we don't have a continued commitment that commitment needs to be that commitment needs to be financial it needs to be political and but it also needs to come home from the from a clear understanding of what the stakes are involved and what the commitment will cost but also what the benefits will be not just for the people of Afghanistan and the region around there but the United States and the sad reality is on the security side is that al Qaeda remains a threat al Qaeda in the Afghanistan Pakistan region continues to be active at levels that if military pressure is not sustained will become a greater a great as greater threat to us as they were 10 to 15 years ago so we have a national security interest but I would say beyond that we have a we have a moral and we have a moral ethic and value-based reason to stay in Afghanistan we supported the growth of a military that is unlike any military the afghanistan has had before when it's responsive to the will of the people we have equipped that military very well if we don't continue to support afghanistan politically we will have introduced a military force into a region without the kinds of controls that are necessary for it to behave responsibly there are many many bad paths that can result and the best insurance against those bad paths is a continued u.s. commitment on the afghan security front I think I've taken my seven minutes Omar knows I could go on forever but I will cut myself off here thank you David thank you very much well as we mentioned earlier security is is one of the important items of transition in Afghanistan and for the international community as well and there are others and and social mobility in Afghanistan the the role of the of women and youth is is another and we have seen tremendous progress I mean I'm a critic of the government this is why I have no longer a government I can afford to to be critical but but I I do admit that the Afghanistan the society that we have today the mobility the access to information media youth movements the women working studying is nothing compared to what we inherited in 2001 and the challenge is how to protect these gains and at the same time make sure that there is no backtracking and that it advances so I will turn to Eleanor Smeal I had the privilege of getting to know Eleanor in 1998 when I accompanied by three other Afghans two ladies and one gentlemen went to her office and asked them if the feminist majority knew it was doing anything about Afghan women and I have to say that ever since then Eleanor has been a champion of the Afghan women's cause besides the fact that she is a champion in a very well-known leader of women's rights in the United States and across the globe so it's an honor to have you here Eleanor and thank you for everything that you and organization have done so far but the question is where do you think we stand today to the Afghan women stand today and how would you like to see the process move forward for them thank you very much we are supporting this effort for many of the same reasons that David just said is that we think that the picture that's being painted is is is only the negative and that there is much positive but let me just go back a little bit about why would us why would the feminist majority which is principally a domestic group have gotten involved we we got involved actually even earlier than that meeting we got involved in the late 1996 after the Taliban took over Kabul and I just want I always try to remind people where we were then and where how bad's the situation was we when we noticed and and it was very small articles that women couldn't be employed couldn't go to school I could go on the list I don't even think people realize that by the firing of all women nurses for example and doctors and my understanding we were a good percentage of the doctors and nurses we helped to collapse they collapsed the health care system of Afghanistan which at various times in his history was quite advanced for Central Asia and and basically one of the I don't know which particular thing just said we got to do something but not even infant girls could be seen at hospitals let alone adults it was a horrific separation of the sexes in fact we began to call it gender apartheid in which women could not really our girls have any education employment etc and we began to study the situation which we found horrific and we're very upset by the fact that although there had been a fourth United Nations conference in 1995 in Beijing in which our own first lady at that time Hillary Clinton had declared women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights here all basic human rights were being taken away from all of all females and nobody was saying anything and we try to get other groups going but everybody wouldn't didn't have room to put this on their plate first we decided that if they got a if this if this became recognized it would be horrific for the woman of Afghanistan and the woman of the world in essence our rights would come for nothing human rights and basically what really horrified us is that we learned that United States and United Nations was going to recognize the Taliban government and we didn't know what to do but we knew we had to do something and I won't go through everything but I'm very proud of the fact that we let an anti stop gender apartheid campaign which hundreds of thousands of Americans became involved in all kinds of celebrities we had over a hundred major celebrities and I know that our campaign helped to make it so that in March 11th 2000 and not 2000 1998 the president Clinton Reno then who was Attorney General Madeline Albright Secretary of State and Kofi Anum who was then Secretary General of the United Nations had a press conference and I think the date was very important because they were celebrating International Women's Day which is March 8th and they announced that they would not recognize the Taliban well and I do believe that part of it a major part of it was the treatment of women and the campaign that was now international we were working with the European Parliament women's groups all over the world well then it only got harder and things kept going down and the reason I'm going through this and I'm looking at my clock because I got to do it very fast is that we have to understand where we were when the Taliban fail I mean yeah the Afghan people were facing starvation we as a movement were begging the World Food Program to get in there and get more food there's been a major drought things were horrific in every way from then to today and that's why I say as compared to what there's been major advances are they what they should be or is everything per I wanted a Marshall plan for Afghanistan we had been calling for even much more greater civic development than there has been but let's go to where we are today right now women girls are about and and no numbers are perfect we're going to put on our website we're doing a whole revamping the website it'll be up in a couple weeks numbers that we think we can trust but you know let's face it there really hasn't been a census it is very difficult to get numbers but we think that somewhere between 35 and 45 and 40% of the elementary school age children that are going to school are now women are girls I mean and and that we're a lesser percentage of the high school but certainly there now for neither boys nor girls as life perfect we only have about 60% of the eligible of the age group of boys in elementary school and about 40% of the girls in other words of all students so there's a way to go but in fact it's an improvement for both boys and girls I mean because remember during the Taliban only about a million I think was only about a million kids were in school they were all boys today it's something like seven million and in primary school obviously a lot less in secondary school but they exist one of the surprising things I tell people is do you realize how many colleges or institutions of higher learning we now have operating not we but the Afghan people have operating and they know always they don't even realize they have colleges operating but it's 57 institutes of higher learning that is a big leap of that course women are not half the students but we're at least 25% of the students are somewhere thereabouts we're certainly now about 22% or that's what the government says of the civilian workforce in the government you know but again the numbers that might be not be perfect but there we are now in the employment workforce and so it in every measure we're better off I think that a hopeful thing occurred this summer we have been begging and begging for more funding of women's organizations indigenous women's organizations in Afghanistan and I am very happy to say that we have one remarks in these last years but the biggest breakthrough was this summer when USAID announced a four hundred and sixteen million dollar civil society for women program that's huge over five years of which United States was going to pledge over 200 million immediately this was and it was not only to help on the civil society but to help build women's organizations right now we estimate well let's set it this way the Afghan women's ministry they have two hundred and forty eight women's organizations that are being built that are there already but forget numbers we are also very in touch with the heartbeat the women's groups are are all over the country there is a women's movement that is blossoming I like we we sponsor some 30 Afghan women going to college here in the United States a year our kids that go back the reports they give me are so enthusiastic they have no reason to exaggerate either they're going back to their home province they see I'll never forget this one kid that had gone to back to Bamiam and she said Ellie the midwives are really being trained I've gone into small little provinces and they have medical facilities they never had this before and what's the result of having trained more midwives again the numbers are not sure but somewhere near four thousand the maternal mortality rate has gone down appreciably it's been cut into you know and it's one fourth of what it was so there's real gains in health care there's gains in education and there's gains in employment now do if could you flip it and say the bad things of course but you got to look at you know what's going on also we're very worried about violence towards women they're still reporting something like 85% of women suffer violence where we want more protection etc and certainly more security but I would say there has been in some areas significant gains we have a lot to fight for I think this is no time to desert the Afghan people I think in fact we should be providing more on the civil society and building the civil society and we're right there we certainly aren't going anywhere I believe that women's groups throughout the world would want to help the Afghan women if they only knew how to thank you thank you thank you so much the the other dimension obviously of this period of transition has to do with issues very much on people's mind in Afghanistan issues such as governance state building and institution building and so the economy also sort of is is connected to all of this and and people are very worried about what might happen when money dries up or shrinks to a level where it's much less than what they have been accustomed to over the last 12 years or so and Afghanistan in the views of some Afghans is not yet on its own feet and its domestic revenue levels are still low and the insurgency obviously has had an impact on economic growth and development and investment so to address all of those issues within seven minutes we have Claire Lockhart and Claire to me is a is in a half Afghan she has caught the Afghan bug she I first met Claire in Kabul when she was an advisor to the Minister of Finance and ever since then she has been an advocate and and has focused on state effectiveness and she's the director of the Institute for state effectiveness effectiveness and we're happy to have her here today Claire please thank you and like the other speakers I really welcome both this panel and the formation of ASAP like the others I see and I assume many of you we've seen after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 a period of years when the press was actually quite relentlessly positive and some of us actually came to meet some editors and say you've got to start reporting on the negative as well otherwise we won't be able to get the change we need and they were very skeptical they said no everything's perfect and then it never rains then it pours and then we've now we've had five years of relentless negativity and striking that balance is terribly terribly important both to get the story accurate but also as as Mr. Sidney pointed out to inform those decision-makers so they can make the right decisions one of my my colleagues and friends as a civil society activist who's just completed a book called let me breathe and he argues the last decade has actually been a chance for many citizens literally to breathe and to find a new life and has he's tried to paint that story and I'm thrilled that others are going to be trying to do so I'll put my own bias on the table I spent several years in Afghanistan working with the UN and the Afghan government and I was part of with them the efforts to build institutions but this meant I was a witness to it and when I read the negative stories in the media I don't recognize the country that they're describing what I saw was something fundamentally different so contrary to this picture of failure there's been incredibly impressive successes with institution building led by Afghans at the beginning in 2001 to two many outsiders spoke of either a blank slate or lawless land the reality was very different there was an administrative legal structure that had actually withstood two decades of war and conflict a leak a structure that was quite robust 240,000 civil servants in place around the country carrying out their functions reviews by the IMF and the World Bank in 2001 showed that Afghanistan actually had some of the best laws in the world or budget law and so on and since then building on this basis there've been some extraordinary successes the Afghan National Army that Mr. Sidney has described the health program the national solidarity program you've been at elections in now over 30,000 villages and a hundred thousand women have had leadership positions on the village councils across the country the formation of the one-stop shop for business registration I said the telecoms and so on we know and these stories are now quite familiar to us but they're real and many of them a large scale and many of them are hailed within the development world some of the best successes in South Asia or even in the world an extraordinary statistic is Afghanistan since 2001 has actually is actually the country that has grown furthest and fastest up the human development index of any country in the world so these successes are real and for those of us who've had the privilege to spend time in Afghanistan and see it they are real now of course there are also some significant challenges the some of the corruption that has set in is is also real and particularly you know this came to a head with the the Kabul Bank and the failure of the central bank the police have had particular challenges and there is something of a centralized administrative structure that perhaps doesn't provide the citizens with the right accountability mechanisms but contrary to popular perception this isn't written into the Constitution by contrast the Constitution mandates for example elections of mayors in towns and cities it just that they haven't happened so there has been an over centralization the subnational governance law that was meant to allocate functions to different levels was written in a very centralized way and some of those changes I think are for the next generation of Afghans to to debate and and change but it's it's something that struck me is there wasn't recently a Pakistan delegation of civil society representatives and village leaders from Pakistan came to Afghanistan and at the end of the trip they said you know we're really angry with our leaders in Pakistan because they've told us for years that Afghanistan was this backward lawless country that couldn't govern itself which is why Pakistan has to govern it for them but what we've seen is in many respects Afghanistan's institutions are better functioning and more advanced than ours and we're going to go back with that message to Pakistan some reflections on institution building I think you know where's it gone wrong in the last years one is that it needn't cost money it's really a question those initiatives that work were a question of getting the design right and the ones that work for the most part didn't cost the billions of dollars that we've we've read about and those initiatives that did cost the billions of dollars didn't work and I think there's a real imperative now to try and learn the lessons about which institutions and programs do need preserving because they're providing real value to citizens and are worse a commitment and which ones have have been more wasteful and need to be cut back but the biggest tragedy would be cutting off the funds altogether and seeing the tremendous gains dwindle because there will be a need for continued financial commitment so the burden really is getting on the design of engagement right in the post 14 era second institutions are composed of people and are deeply informed by politics and we all know that coming up next spring is the next Afghan election so getting that election right who will leave which but which what political mandate what team of leaders will be leading those institutions is going to be fundamentally important to the future of Afghanistan and then the what the US and other external supporters can do is is really to support the the fairness the openness and the credibility of those elections and institutions are composed of the people who'll be staffing them and here the tremendous successes of a next generation coming of age will hear from the 1400 group as one of the tremendous successes amongst that this is what gives I think a lot of us incredible hope for the future finally complimentary to governmental institution building the institutions of the economy in the market and of civil society as if not more important and investing in an Afghan economy that can generate its own revenue can provide jobs for the next generation and foster a legitimate economy is also going to be very very important and here there's a good there's a good new story the 80% of the people in the country working the agricultural economy the agricultural economy in the supply chains have grown but it provides 20% of the GDP continued support to building those value chains in agriculture will be fundamental to Afghanistan self sustainability the industry and light industry the construction and the story of mining it's not the magic bullet for sure that some some have said but getting this sector right is going to be of a real key to Afghanistan's future the estimates of one to three trillion worth of oil gas and minerals are probably in my view an underestimate and so getting the governance of that right to unlock Afghanistan's future financial sustainability so that Afghanistan doesn't need to keep coming back to the US and other taxpayers to support its institutions will be the key to keeping the lights on Afghanistan in its region which was some people called the new silk route to the Chinese say the old trunk road but really the picture of Asian economic integration is another part of Afghanistan's future sustainability in in closing I think one of the most important measures to continue to support will be the education system and not training thousands of people in PhDs for the sake of it but certainly going beyond primary education so that Afghanistan itself can can have the officials the technicians the entrepreneurs to sustain itself so again that they don't need to rely on on the large s or technical assistance from abroad and finally that we should move away from having an either or picture of security or development I think as anyone who lives in the country it's the the institution building and the economic development is going to rest on continued commitment to security to see the gains gained sustained and 2014 such a key opportunity to learn from mistakes and get the engagement going forward right thank you thank you Claire you did very well covering a lot of issues that are critical and since you did mention the new generations we're very happy to have straight from Kabul a member of the new Afghan generation that is extremely dynamic I would say and a generation that is very thoughtful and for once I see critical thinking in the amongst the youth in Afghanistan and those who have been exposed to education and exposed to globalization after years of living in darkness so having Haseeb Humayun here with us is a an honor and he is a member of Afghanistan 1400 a civil and political organization that wants to enable and create a platform political platform for Afghan youth and the new generation for the future they have a role to play today so Mr. Humayun tell us what role do you see for Afghan youth and especially in the context of political transition especially with elections coming up and and to some extent their views maybe also on the reconciliation process and how to end war if you don't so you have seven minutes to cover that please thank you thank you Ambassador thank you for that kind introduction it's great to be back in Washington and one of the upsides of being on such a distinguished panel is that a lot of the big issues get covered so I'll be very pointed straight I'll talk about largely what was being called the new generation but as a whole the whole transformation of the country in the past 10 to 12 years I think one thing that gets underestimated by people outside the country and even internally inside Afghanistan what has happened is the sort of the gradual transformation of the country in many ways is a historic Claire gave an idea of file in terms of numbers in terms of institutions that have been developed but largely what we're noticing is the transformation of our social fabric new ideas new legs of concept you well are being internalized things such as democracy human rights women rights or the the role for youth of the country or being more prominent these are largely in a society that used to be pre 2001 governed by our traditional systems they're new they're new but they're being internalized in particular to that what I will focus and I'm it's very difficult for me coming from Kabul today to avoid that is the whole in some ways election mania that's that's what's going on in the country be it in Kabul run the outside Kabul elsewhere the crucial factor in it is that democracy the constitutional order in general is increasingly being internalized the presidential elections are often very much talked about in international media and people have a lot of assumptions or predictions attached to it but what's being missed from the equation is the provincial council elections on the ground in the country there's a very in many ways what what I would call a prospering and in some ways a promising marriage of the presidential election politics with local provincial council elections for the future of democracy in the country previously what you used to have what the two elections we've had experienced with presidential and provincial council was there was a disconnect between people who are setting themselves up for provincial council seats and those who are running from the center on tickets for presidential in 2013 what we're noticing increasingly is there's synergy between these two camps that younger more ambitious folks on the ground and far off provinces or districts who want to become who want to get legitimacy political legitimacy through getting public votes or coming to the center allying themselves with a particular ticket but also the center people in the center were interested in the political future of the country or who are running on tickets reaching out to folks on the ground who are identifying them either as potential provincial council candidates or who already exhibit ambition and allying them so there is essentially what I'm trying to suggest here is that democratic process says that right people's right to vote as well as people turning to the vote of the public for legitimacy this is being we've this fabric is new and this is now increasingly becoming a lot more internalized one of the indicators of this internalization of democracy or of our elections and this in some ways take it as a joke take it as a reality of it is in 2004 and 2009 a lot of people in the media or in the public sphere were speculating about who's America's candidate the question was who was who will the United States back so then the perception then followed from there that that person will eventually when today very frankly nobody's asking that question no one in the country is asking who's the United States candidate candidate in the race but one question people are asking absolutely is who's Ahmed Karzai's candidate now that change that shift it has its upsides and its downsides the way Ahmed Karzai the president has played this he's been very very sharp in not making it look like he has any favorites in the race so everybody's out there guessing who his who his favorite this but to us as people who are active in the political space what it indicates largely is that people are now turning to democratic contests to this process one crucial lesson again one other indicator of where we are as a generation and what was out there for us in the future is we tend to think and maybe there's a level of hopefulness in this attack that certain characters of the past 30 to 40 years of our mayhem in the country this election in some ways is the peak for them that they are testing both their options as well as testing their popularity some of them may wake up to a very unhappy picture in April to the six thousand and fourteen where they're embossed image of the past in twelve years may not prove to be real what that are in the ballot boxes some of them may end up getting more votes than they expected but in many ways what that to us means is that there are people now accepting the constitutional order and the democratic contest that it has set up as the only game in town and this has been gradual this has been gradual I have talked about this in the past that in the 2010 parliamentary elections if you contrast the people who ran for office in the 2010 parliamentary elections with people who ran for office in 2005 you'll see that in 2007 then you have a higher pool of more powerful local actors running for office in 2005 they had opted to stay out of democratic contest they had thought that the power they had or the guns and guys and all they had around them was good enough they did not need to become part of a system that was constitutional for five years afterwards I think what they realized was that both prominence prestige as well as even access to business access to even immunity and protection comes from being part of the system that's built through the 2004 constitution so they have started playing game they've started to even somewhat at least nominally disarm and nominate themselves for offices that trend is largely continuing for us for the new generation ambassador if I could tie to this question of peace with Taliban or the question of largely what do you do with people who are outside the system and throwing stones at it is I think I represent the sentiment of the new generation that there is a negotiated settlement between the people of the country and that negotiated settlement is the 2004 constitution that constitution represents the wall of the people it has a fairly wide array a space for people to operate the net beat who will whichever group and in some ways I think we're getting that since the indicators of it that even people who until a year or two ago were fighting that order with bullets or with IEDs and bombs are now coming around to it's among among the 10 people that are the 10 candidates who were vetted by a preliminary process they're now into the election complaints commission's process one guy I think it doesn't get international media attention Qudbuddin Halal used to be the deputy of Qudbuddin Hikmatiara at least until six seven months ago and he is married to Qudbuddin's daughter so very much representing one faction of the armed opposition or the insurgency to the central government in Kabul what has flickered this change in Hikmatiara and Qudbuddin Halal's calculation I think is largely it's a growing confidence in this constitutional order that this is to remain this well stay here and this well in many ways shape the country's future now that's the optimism to us largely there are tests associated to this optimism I think the presidential election is in many ways the biggest test of this constitutional order we have to get it right there for a long time there was both internal and external pessimism about whether we would even go into an election season whether president Karzai has the political will to conduct elections or not do we have the administrative capabilities for holding elections given the insecurity and all know the other challenges associated but increasingly we're getting signs that at least on the administrative side and on the side of president Karzai's political well there are positive news to be heard the electoral calendar that that was announced by the previous election commission is being at year 2 with minor one to two or three days of changes back and forth but that's that's always understandable knowing that again we're still we're in many ways an infant democracy if you want and what we will need to be watching closely is how the political contest and I could close on this is how the political contest unfolds the way the tickets have shaped they're largely aligned in adherence to the constitution but there are also in many ways people are testing new ideas new ideas new compositions new formations of who's on the ticket and who's not we have about two months of campaign period that begins in late January and February and goes on all the way to April how people position themselves what kind of the narrative that comes out of that whether people get mobilized to come around and vote I think remains to be seen what I can report is that in many ways compared 2005 and 2009 in particular there's much greater interest today for greater interest in participation in the elections in part power perhaps because the president in 2009 and at least we had the incumbency factor there was the perception that president Karzai is the incumbent with access to state machinery and a lot of prominence name name recognition and that he need not be campaigning a lot mobilizing people this time around we have about 10 people at least as of yesterday on the ballot many of them with prominent none with a grand national appeal but many of them with sort of segmented constituencies that they will mobilize on their own and as a whole it adds up to much bigger mobilization than previous elections in the country for again the elections the trans political transfer of power this test of the Constitution that's coming up largely well dictate the path the future for our generation and for what's going to happen to the country the biggest at least the one agenda item that's prominent for our generation for groups like 1400 and others is that we move away from personality-based politics to more organized politics that this election and this practice of democracy not turn certain what's being called in the international press and elsewhere as vote banks or some king makers and others not turn them into much bigger one person less reliable less predictable figures in the political space than they are today so how and that will again that achieving that result will largely depend on how we behave within the next six to seven months another encouraging factor related to elections is and this in particular to provincial council as well as presidential is that we've about 320 women running for office around the country for provincial council that's despite in some places the challenge of insecurity the challenge of even resources access to resources for women compared to male candidates for the first time also in the history of the country on a mainstream ticket there's a VP as that there's a woman as a VP on a ticket that's being perceived as one at least one of the top five and largely so in some ways these are indicators that the country is moving forward granted again we get the elections test right and we also have some results or we have we close the discussions around BSA the bilateral security agreement with the United States that agreement largely is mark the markets stability money staying in the country as well as people investing is very much tied to this question of what happens to the BSA I think as of as of last week the perception in the country the general sentiment around it is that is in the last stages that secretary carries visit the discussions with president Karzai and then the following press conference all of it have in many ways narrowed down the differences going into next to the November 19 to 21st loya jerga I think the outstanding questions are much fewer than they could have been in the past what what I can report you from on the ground is the larger question that remains and for for the people and there's clarity emerging around it is this question of whether the United States is asking for impunity or is it asking for jurisdiction the perception was and this was largely at fault of our own political actors our own public space even analysts and others they were they were playing with the word immunity too much that a BSA with the United States means that the US troops will have immunity on the ground and no matter if they commit a crime they will not be charged either here or elsewhere but as of last week there's a greater effort to try to define that what is being coded in that in the document and what is being asked for or being granted is not immunity but as jurisdiction that why even if a crime is committed it will be prosecuted and the laws in the US by the United States and that's what the US is asking so I think going into the jar got the outstanding question will be this question of immunity versus jurisdiction and whether people will vote for it or not remains to be seen but broadly the sentiment against again the fundamentals into the election in the future of the country or one of one stability a continuation of the order that we've established in the past 12 years letting it mature and test itself and the other is gradual reforms within our own system and I'll close at that a message thank you thank you very much Mr. Humalyun very insightful and useful information and views since we have about half an hour left I think it will take advantage of this time and to open up to the floor here and please do introduce yourselves and ask the question as briefly as you can and we will start over there please there is a mic going around yeah Hi Doug Brooks at the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce I get asked a lot about the the warlord culture and where that's going and is that going to be something that's going to surface again in the future and should we not have done something about this 10 years ago so I just wonder if I can put that to the panel and see their thoughts on it okay let's take a couple of more questions and then we'll let me go to the back the lady right in the middle sorry can you raise your hand again she's here right now not in the back sorry in the middle my green fur from word the world organization for resource development education word actually just recently did a study across about 15 provinces in Afghanistan looking at these kinds of peace building initiatives that are being carried out by civil society organizations tribal elders and religious networks across the country so I really must say I do applaud the efforts of ASAP because I think the future of Afghanistan lies within the hands of the Afghan people and it's important to share the positive stories of what's been accomplished over the past 13 years so that we can continue the investments in this region so my question is how do you recommend to the international community those who are interested in partnering with civil society how do we engage Afghanistan civil society when reports are indicating that after the international community's troop withdrawal that the security situation will make things increasingly difficult for us to carry out these types of partnerships thank you and one more here and then we'll go back we'll come back to you right here thank you uh william brie from dinecorp international first it's nice to hear the head class have full story you're right we don't hear it very often here I'm an optimist I think that Karzai and Obama will reach agreement on the immunity question and there will be a bsa and there will be a a small international troop presence and the international community will continue to provide aid but obama in his uh state of the union speech said the u.s. roll after 2014 is going to be training equipping the an s7 and doing some uh counter counterterrorism but I see the that c-sticca is currently just dismantling the the training for the an s as fast as they can and I'm beginning to think that the training which I expected we would be providing to help the an s continue to mature is really going to be tiny after the after 2014 I can see this going in two ways the an sf you know figures out how to do this themselves they build up the things that they're weak on now and they'll go in the right direction I could also see it sort of being a downward spiral I just wondered with the glass half full you know which way you think that would go and I think it ties into the last question about support for uh for assistance organizations thank you let me let me throw the first question to uh Mr. Homoyoun about the warlord culture subculture past culture future culture sure I I tend to avoid that word uh I have to be honest with you commanders if you will are people who come from a time where uh where we had more on conflict in the country now what's happening to that culture several things I think one of them and I I have to report to you is that the generational shift many of them over the past two three decades they amassed resources they amassed a lot of both financial as well as political clout they used it to educate their own kids so what you call with that the commander class in many ways they now have sons and daughters who are graduates of NYU or JNU in India or Sorbonne and France and elsewhere they're coming back with much different lenses about what ought to happen in the country or in the world and how the country needs to be positioned or even questioning the legacies of their own parents some of them that's that's a fact that's a trend that's developing in certain other ways a few of a few other of these characters are positioning their own their offsprings for taking over and being more and more essentially aligned with their way of thinking the question remains again what will happen once they are less important and that the generational shift happens elections again becomes a key indicator in this one of the questions for us in 1400 for our generation largely is how do people vote or how do we mobilize in 2013 and in 2014 in the elections that the way people vote does not turn people who are more leftovers of a different kind of politics and conflict in the country into bigger actors after 2014 than they are today now that risk is obviously there because one of the things we kept insisting as a group in 1400 but largely the younger generation in the country what two political actors who are involved who are involved in government on our side was to start mobilize to start reaching out to the people as opposed to make meetings in the back door and try to create what was at that time being perceived as a national consensus or a big ticket where everybody saw themselves that was a unlikely to happen be what it did was it strengthened the hands of people who had inherited power from the years of the conflict so going into elections a lot of tickets in many ways have had to take them into account they are a reality in the country that again will gradually transform with their own generational shifts and our own generational shifts in the country and how people vote in 2014 and remains to be seen I think one of the key indicators to watch in 2014 is what happens to this question of vote bank and personalities dictating much bigger space and politics than organizations what thanks Claire and Eleanor both of you or either of you would you like to address this issue of security and civil society activism well security is a major issue for women there's no question about that and violence and my opinion is that for afghan society and this whole future development it depends largely on women I don't think we should be viewed as the marginal class or it would be nice if women have rights I think we have to have a bigger and I was sort of going to the second question a bigger part of the peace building process and obviously there's no one no single group more opposed to the commander culture than women they were left out of that culture and they want to play I think that it's very encouraging that women are now getting law degrees medical degrees there are some women judges they've been very courageous in the drug courts and basically young women want a modern life but I also think their mothers want the young women to have a modern life too and I think many fathers and I hear it over and over again from the young people that we are in touch with and so I'm very hopeful that that culture is a thing of the past but it won't be overnight obviously we're in a transition time but I really feel that one of the disservices and I'm looking more at what we're doing is that this constant comment that they're in the 14th century it's just wrong it's wrong it's elitist and it's American-centric somehow we're got all the answers which we you know and I think that part of it is lying with us I can tell you that young women and the women of all ages are performing at a higher rate and this is going to be a weird thing to say but women leaders are being assassinated as you well know I think it shows how seriously they're being taken by the opposition that women leaders are provincial women ministries which is tragic that these women are being assassinated they're not a lot of them but they're certainly but that means they are seriously doing something and I always say when you're being targeted there's a reason and I do feel I'm very inspired at the courage and the competence of Afghan women and in every place they are they're real it's so admirable what they're doing under very hard conditions and we should stop putting people down and look at not only the realistic but the aspirations and the hope and I so anyway I don't know if that answers your question but I do feel that we must have a serious part of the peace progress when I say we Afghan women and that which should be recognized how they are moving forward and also recognize that there was a day when they were for it remember in Afghanistan we were 40 women were 40 percent of the doctors before the Taliban era I mean and I can't get over the performance under very hard circumstances of Afghan women it is really a sight to behold and to be admired so I think that the I'm hopeful for the future but they need a lot of support and I think they need a realistic analysis and right now I do feel that we are not pushing hard enough for them to be a part of the peace process and I really think this business of negotiating with the Taliban has to be only under the one condition that women's rights will be treated seriously and that we're not going backwards and that the constitution will be recognized as the as the bottom line if there's any negotiations at all true before clear I just want to add that in 1964 my great aunt became the first elected woman member of parliament but elected from from Kabul so so that history goes back it's not just recent Claire would you like to add anything on on this just a couple of things one I think we have to I mean your question implied that security will get worse I think we should be operating on different scenarios I think there is a scenario with successful elections and the country running together where security doesn't get worse but certainly we should be prepared for different or Afghans need to be prepared for different situations second I think is as Anna said continued commitment to security so that Afghans can defend the constitutional order that they've already agreed on and that's the thing that's going to preserve the space for civil society perhaps more than anything else that can be done from the outside and then third I agree that the more is needed we need to look again at how engagement works and perhaps move away from this this model of and not that you're advocating it from big contractors that need these security contracts and things and have much smarter ways of engagement working through and with in partnership with Afghan domestic civil society organizations including businesses and professional associations including for example the village council the now more than 30,000 village councils across the country the NSP women's groups and universities so more moving to this this model of partnership and including using technology that doesn't always require delegations to visit Afghanistan they can now now we can communicate without traveling absolutely David let me ask you and repeat the question on BSA but also about ANSF since you've worked closely at the Pentagon on this issue how do you see the future of training and help and assistance well I think these questions are inseparably linked the issue of security the point that was made before about the concern that security will get worse as foreign forces pull down and the issue of continued commitment and training for the Afghan security forces and this goes back to the issue of political will and political direction here in the United States currently there is no decision on what kind of commitment the United States will have after 2014 certainly a bilateral security agreement is necessary for that but that's it's not it's not it does not define that commitment I think the bilateral security agreement will go forward if the people of Afghanistan wanted to I appreciate it very much the very correct distinction between jurisdiction and immunity and the bilateral security agreement provides for jurisdiction as similar agreements that the United States has with other countries around the world where when there are problems criminal acts committed U.S. servicemen are tried in U.S. military courts they're not immune they're just tried in a different system and we've unfortunately seen some some of those cases recently where those trials have taken place and been carried out very professionally however while I'm optimistic and I think the performance of the Afghan security forces is as positive as I mentioned it before and it continues to be fragile and the point made before about anticipatory drawdowns based on lack of political direction uncertain political direction movements in the United States Congress to condition or cut the necessary military assistance those kind of signals are are highly important determining people's behavior so you mentioned NGOs acting on the assumption security will be be reduced well if they act on that then that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that's why it's so important for people in the United States to have the have accurate information but for also for people to have to act to pressure the elected officials in the White House in in our Congress to go to preserve the investment we've made in Afghanistan to preserve particularly on the security side because I believe that security is a foundation I was one of my penultimate actions when I was in the executive branch as I testified before a panel of the Congressional Armed Services Committee and one of the members told me that it was very important that we guaranteed the future of Afghan woman but she said I support a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces that can't be complete withdrawal of U.S. forces abandonment of the United States pulling out of the support for Afghan security will lead to disaster you can't preserve the games of Afghan woman of Afghan of the rest of the what the rest of the panel has put forward without that continuing commitment it doesn't have to be 50,000 troops and and 10 billion dollars but it has to be enough troops and it has to be enough money to ensure that the Afghans themselves believe that it's serious otherwise as Mr. Hemayoun was saying people will move their money they'll leave they'll run to other countries and disaster is possible this is a determinant of time the next few months decisions will be made or not made and it's really important that people advocate for continuing the kind of success that we've had that I believe will lead to both better security for the United States and an opportunity for the United States to fulfill its values in Afghanistan along the lines that were discussed before Thank you we have time for one more round and I think somebody gentlemen here please Ken Meyer Gord World Docks we'll come back to you I've read that almost half of all Afghan diplomats don't go home upon completion of their assignment overseas is this a simple metric we could use to we observers could use to judge conditions in the country over time okay let's come back to the gentlemen here please thank you thank you Mike Kurtzik what you've told us today is something that we don't know I would say the American to people are sick and tired of the war of Iraq and so on they're concerned with Obamacare with their own employment their own welfare and what you've said to us who even follow it is a complete revelation so how do you convince a nation that first of all doesn't know where Afghanistan is give them a map they have no idea where Afghanistan is and number two they have no idea that we're at war some of them have the idea but I can tell you from my own teaching many of them don't know what do you need to do to convince them in a time with very difficult budgetary situations and interests of this country to convince them that this is a worthwhile enterprise after 13 years and we should continue to be there thank you two more just one here and one right there yes thank you Farhad Pashrak with the Booz Island Hyberhaus just to pick on the comments that you made there's a great deal of fatigue in the international community when it comes to Afghanistan and a great deal of the discussion here is focused on security and politics I would say that economics is an important pillar of transition I wonder what your thoughts are on economic future of Afghanistan the latest World Bank report says that Afghanistan's economic growth is going to slow down considerably in 2013 from about a 14% growth in 2012 to about four to five percent growth and that's a fairly optimistic estimate and depending on the amount of security spending and the delivery of international aid there's a real danger that economics could become the biggest crisis in Afghanistan I'm just wondering what some of your thoughts are looking at the fatigue of the population here in the US in Europe as well as some of the concerns about the lack of private market growth in Afghanistan thank you very much last one and then we'll wrap it with answers please you'll have a chance to discuss any questions you have with the panelists afterwards David guys Craig Hart from Carpology.com I was just wondering first on the agreement probably the best argument to the Afghans for getting this agreement through and even for Americans is what's happened in Iraq since the agreement didn't go through there as David will know well my question is just a short one for us you mentioned that people are asking now in Afghanistan who does President Karzai support now is that because they would support that candidate or because they would vote against that candidate okay thank you so much let me take let me take the first question about diplomats since I may have a bit of interest in there and I was quoted in New York Times about that saying that almost 60% are not going back home after their assignments end I'm probably part of the statistic but diplomatic core is very unique at the same time it's it's in okay it's an opportunity for some people who are uncertain about their future or who see better chances for themselves and their families under the conditions that exist it's very unfortunate that the numbers are high I run two embassies and most of these numbers are very high in western nations and especially those who still accept refugees countries such as the Scandinavian countries Canada Australia and others their restrictions in other places but it's an indicator it's a small indicator there are a lot of other indicators as well I mean there are people leaving from all walks of life or wanting to leave from all walks of life and what we need to do very quickly and I hope that the political process and the political transition and the elections but in particular and the BSA will have a huge impact if all of these elements are managed somewhat properly relatively speaking that the BSA the BSA is signed as soon as possible you will see that it will not only will the price of homes start to increase again in Kabul whether you rent whether you want to buy but the price of commodities will go down and people are going to think twice about leaving and probably refrain from and decide not to leave so the diplomatic court is just one indicator there are many others for example foreign investment while you have the world bank saying that you know the growth rate is going to be at such a level there was another report today saying again from the world bank saying that investment in Afghanistan over the last 12 months has increased I mean it might be mind-boggling but it has so there is there are those who still think that there is hope and that there is a future and there is a tomorrow and that investing today actually would be beneficial and there are those who who don't think so but over the next six months we are going to reach a point where it's going to be either or and the BSA is going to be one element the the the elections is going to be the other element okay so going back to let me start with Mr. Homoyoun on the president and on Karzai and the support that he may give to one or another of his candidates I think the that question again that I brought here being asked as to who's President Karzai's candidate largely you'll have to see it in the view of this general public sentiment about continuity about making sure that we don't get any abrupt any major break from what has been gradually built over the past 10 to 12 years in the country so when people are asking the question of who's Karzai's candidate there's some interest in trying to gauge who will represent continuity of that but there's also a background to it the background to it is that by by far and large he's he has emerged as the sort of in many ways the most prominent political actor in the country with access to a growing state machinery machinery that's largely at the service of his well of his administration so wherever he tells or how he plays in the elections will have an impact on results on people's on political actors prominence or popularity or even groundwork during campaign or even support yielded to candidates who will go out there to campaign so it's again it's a question but one thing that we're waking up to in Afghanistan I think we will increasingly others will wake up to this around the world is that the personality Karzai and the perception around them in the country while it often used to go between extreme negative and extreme positive over the past 10 to 12 years now that there's talk of legacy there's talk of him phasing out and transferring power to others people are starting to recount what has happened over the past 10 to 12 years and attaching a lot of positives to how he has managed things in particular when it comes to relations between different ethnic groups in the country how he has created a balance amongst people without being too favoring anybody too much to add the the states of the other but also allowing space one particular thing that he is increasingly being credit for is the open media and open sort of freedom of expression space that he has availed to the people over the past 10 to 12 years we have a very versioning media scene about over 60 70 private TV stations now in the country both local provincial level as well as national and in all if you were to screen if you to screen any of those channels on a daily basis the talk shows 60 percent of them will be they will have talking his being very harsh on the to the president and we have no history of him trying to take any of those people on the question now is being asked that come elections afterwards will we have the same level of patience and openness in the public space in the country or not and that's that's crucial so generally again the sentiment legacy nostalgia all these things will build up and then the role of state machinery in elections those are being coupled together and that's the let me go to you and I know by asking if how do you view the the impact of fatigue here in the west to what extent is it impacting your work for example on on the women in gender issue before we go to the economy well there's no question there is fatigue and and I think a lot of it because the there's such a negative impression that's been painted so one of my answers to your question how do you change this is I do think that if a more realistic picture was painted it would help a great deal I do think that the women's groups play a big role in this women's groups in the United States and in Europe and around the world as well as in Afghanistan because we can rally support and I I think this is a very crucial a period do I think it's possible of course I do I mean in reality we were able to do it with no positive press last time either I mean you know people I think there's much more knowledge today than there was back then of where Afghanistan is I think that there's much more knowledge about the country I mean we were dealing with zero knowledge but we do have to overcome the negative and I think that there is a picture here that's truthful that gives people encouragement but I also think it can't be just the United States I hope the European Parliament does more the United Nations must do more and Japan must do more by the way on economic growth I just want to throw this in the reason why I'm optimistic why did we get there in the first place I mean we're not just innocent bystanders in all of this we were part of the problem I think we even named this thing warlord I don't even think that that's indigenous to Afghanistan but why why were we so involved and I think a lot of it is the oil pipeline that's not going away I mean in other words all of the mining possibilities that's not going away there is a there's a there's a business reality to this and there's a geopolitical reality to it so I just think that for us to think oh this was there was a geopolitical reality that demanded us to do something and that is not going away I think that we have to make sure that the human rights component of it stays and that in fact that we are helping to build a civil society and institutions that can weather all the storms so anyway I personally think this is going to be very tough but it's very possible and it would be terrible if we deserted this human responsibility now not just here but worldwide David you want to add something before we go to Claire? Just to make the point that in response to the how is it going to happen it's only going to happen by people taking action in after 1945 there was a wave of isolation in the United States but we still did the Marshall Plan after 1953 in the Korean Armistice there was a wave of isolation in the United States but we still helped Korea along the path to the great country it's become today the American people have a history of doing the right thing and regardless whoever said it sometimes after trying many other things but it requires it requires leadership that to be frank we're not getting from our current current political leadership and that's why the reason for the formation of this group and if people here who have worked in Afghanistan but people who haven't I urge everyone who is here who is listening to this to become active yourselves people can make a difference in the United States we do have a system that that can happen and I find when I talk to members of Congress they're waiting for their constituents to speak they don't lead they follow and so it's up to people to lead Thanks Claire on the economy and that would be the last topic Absolutely and just on the the danger of this disconnect between the reality and how Afghanistan is viewed one thing that I observed is that the naysayers the people who wanted to promote this negative view were very organized they were connected to each other and they were running a campaign but the people who believe in Afghanistan in the next generation and have seen the possibilities weren't organized they're beginning to be organized the NASAP is part of that but as David said I think all of us welcome suggestions and ideas and participation and just as in the in Afghanistan there's a group of civil society activists coming together here I think it's going to be a citizen coalition that will change it rather than being government led on the economy I mean you know right or wrong or sadly there will be a contraction from the aid economy and this will have an impact but coming off the level of aid that's been around for the last years isn't inevitability and I think the first point is what measures can the be to mitigate this or to make it as softer landing as possible whether it's jobs programs and social safety nets and so on will be important in the coming years and readjusting people's expectations second imperative to preserve some of the key social programs especially in health and in education and then third how do we shift away from a handout mentality to an investment mentality so the support that does come and the policies for economic development how can they be geared to this opportunity for Afghanistan to increase its domestic revenue to make good on this incredible opportunity of the minerals of its situation at the heart of Asian economic integration one good with maybe just a couple of examples the blocks of gas that are now being tended out in the north if those go through and the level of interest that we're seeing from both Afghan domestic and international companies this could bring Afghanistan three billion dollars of revenue per year within a small number of years so this will fundamentally change Afghanistan's ability to pay for its own health care and education system but it's this critical next few years of holding the security and making these investments that will make that possible another example if the transmission line gets built from the northern stance through to Pakistan this will bring Pakistan power at two or three cents a kilowatt hour instead of the current 13 to 16 cents a kilowatt hour that they're bringing and make Afghanistan part of the solution rather than part of the problem for Pakistan so those are just two of the examples of the economic plans that are in place that are underway that again if they're sustained could see a real breakthrough in Afghanistan's ability to pay to pay for itself thank you so much so we've covered quite a wide area of discussion and topics on Afghanistan there's so much more of course I want to repeat one more time that this new organization the Afghan the Alliance in support of the Afghan people ASAP is now active and we wish it well and hopefully more Americans will tune in and and try to understand what it's doing and support it and if I'm not mistaken the the website is afghanalliance.org and I want to personally thank every one of our panelists David Sidney Eleanor Smil Claire Lockhart and Asif Omoyoun for sharing your time and your views with us and we look forward to more discussions of this nature they will be available for a few minutes as I run off to to disguise my children and they will answer your questions thank you so much for coming today thank you