I don't think that our military presence in Afghanistan is the main reason why we're seeing these problems happening right now in Afghanistan. These problems existed way before our military existence in Afghanistan. That's number one.
Number two, when I met with the people--and I'm not talking about politicians now, I'm talking about people in the street, people you sit down with and have a meal with and you ask them questions from heart to heart--actually in the beginning, they had hope in us. Actually in the beginning they thought that we would be able to bring real changes.
The problem is that year after year after year after year--nine years--there is no change. What they found was that instead of us bringing a righteous government, a free government, a government that really wanted to work on the human rights issues and wanted to work on anti-corruption and anti-drugs and all of this, they find us putting a corrupted government. So they start to give up hope on us because now we seem like we are with the Hamid Karzai government in the mud; we are both together in the corruption.
So now, actually, our support of the Hamid Karzai government is the one affecting our troops and our image in Afghanistan. But in the beginning of the war they actually were hoping that we would really be able to bring peace, because they want to live in peace, and they understood the difference, that we are not coming like the Soviet Union. They understood that we were coming for a period of time and we are leaving. They understood. They are extremely smart people. They understood, but I think the main issue here is the corruption of Mr. Hamid Karzai and his family, not the existence of the foreign military troops in Afghanistan.