What's up, you beautiful bastards, I hope you're having a fantastic Thursday morning,

these extra morning news videos, a lot of the audience is actually, initially overseas.

So hello to whoever, wherever, whenever you are watching this.

But main point, what we're going to be talking about today

is the longest war in American history.

It has been more than 17 years since the US and its NATO allies

launched a war in Afghanistan in response to the attacks

by al-Qaeda on 9-11.

And the nation seemed clear, eradicate Al-Qaeda and

dismantle the Taliban, which was the ruling leadership of the country that was

providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden. But the pursuit of that mission has

come at an enormous cost. Nearly two decades later more than 2,200 US soldiers and

40,000 Afghans have lost their lives, which I mean that doesn't even

include the 28,500 Afghan security forces that have been killed

just since 2015. Also beyond the loss of life the US has now spent

more than one trillion dollars in Afghanistan and currently has 14,000 troops

still in the country and with 2018 seeing record levels of violence the push for

a peace agreement between the warring sides has become more and more urgent.

In fact, so urgent that the United States is now engaged in direct talks with the very enemy

it once sought to destroy. And to dive in deep on this story and its developments, we had Cody Snow,

one of the writer researchers on the team

jump into it. Thanks to our military and our allies and the brave fighters of

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