From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the Daily.

Today, the president says things are going to be different in Afghanistan.

No more nation-building, just killing terrorists.

But a closer examination suggests this new strategy looks a lot like the strategy of the last 16 years.

It's Wednesday, August 23rd.

Can you remind me when you were in Afghanistan?

So I was in Afghanistan in 2002 for a little bit in and out and then 2008 to 2014.

Right. You were basically stationed there.

Yes. I covered Afghanistan in 2008 to 2014.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

I was in Afghanistan in the Marine, maybe because of the hair, but now I remember you were actually just a reporter.

But that's all I looked tough, but I'm not.

I think you're pretty tough.

Okay. We're jumping in. Matt Rosenberg, what is the theory of nation-building in Afghanistan?

How and when did this begin?

So, you know, you've got some time we're 11 attacks.

Today our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.

Within a month the U.S. is in Afghanistan. It's pushing to help kind of house the Taliban.

America strikes back. Afghanistan is pounded with bombs and missiles from the air and sea.

That doesn't take very long, but by the middle of 2002, things are the Taliban's gone and countries stabilizing.

The liberation of that country was the beginning of the long and unrelenting struggle we have entered.

But what the U.S. inherits there is a country that doesn't have a functioning government. There's nothing to take over.

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