I'm jordan heath rawlings. This is the big story. Stephen save holds the patterson chair and international affairs at carleton university. Among the books he's written is adapting in the dust. Lessons learned from canada's war in afghanistan. And he also co hosts a podcast about canada's national security called the battle rhythm hasty. Hello i'm doing all right like many canadians. I kind of spent the weekend. seeing progressively more and more disturbing images coming out of afghanistan especially kabul and. I'm i'm wondering if you could maybe describe what we're actually seeing and hearing about in afghanistan right now. Well it's the collapse of the government that we've been trying to build for the past twenty years The taliban were kicked out of the country by american forces and then in two thousand and two There developed a un effort that became a nato effort called isaf the international security assistance force along with a variety of other international partners to try to build a self sustaining afghan government. And then two thousand fourteen. Nato largely pulled out three years. After canada pulled out of combat and for the past seven years there was a nato effort to train the afghan army and last year. Donald trump Negotiated deal the taliban that would vote the remaining few americans that were left in afghanistan out before this summer there about two thousand five hundred americans soldiers mostly doing training and doing coordination type stuff and So that was Trump's decision last year and then when it became president there was a question about whether he would live by the deal which had a deadline of may fifth at all. Americans are supposed to be out by may fifth and the by racial thought. That would be too fast. That that we would be able to get our stuff in our people out in his In his mind and so they sent the data september eleventh and over the course of the summer The taliban made a series of deals with a variety of actors within afghanistan that led to the collapse of the afghan national army forces that were guarding a variety of places around the country until the only thing that was left was couple which fell this weekend.