Can we win the war in Afghanistan?
President Obama made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Friday. The trip comes one year after ordering a surge of 30,000 additional troops into the fray; but also on the heels of the the deadliest year to date for U.S. forces in the region. In 2010 over 450 U.S. troops were killed, pushing the total number of forces killed to over 1,300. This has lead many to wonder: can we win the war in Afghanistan? And what does “win” mean in the current conflict?
We speak to Larry Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, about the strategic and diplomatic challenges still ahead for the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. We’re also joined by David Loyn, world affairs correspondent for our partner the BBC, and author of “In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian, and American Occupation.”
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