What the end of the war means for Afghanistan’s future

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Now we mark this Memorial Day with three different looks at the recent wars that have shaped our nation in this still young century. They have taken the lives of more than 6,800 Americans. We will look at the toll that's had on the loved ones at home and one man's mission to memorize the names of the dead.

  But, first, we focus on Afghanistan, the longest military conflict in U.S. history.

  Here's William Brangham.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Thanks, Judy.

  American forces have been in Afghanistan for 14 years, now, and with the Taliban starting its spring offensive, those U.S. forces will again be under fire.

  To better understand the larger context of our involvement in Afghanistan, we turn to Charles Sennott. He has reported extensively across that nation for The Boston Globe, as co-founder of the international reporting site GlobalPost, for the PBS NewsHour, and most recently for what is known as the Ground Truth Project, a journalism nonprofit that is training the next generation of international reporters.

  Ground Truth has just published a project called "Foreverstan: Afghanistan and the Road to Ending America's Longest War."

  Here's a clip.

• NARRATOR:

  The Ring Road, 1,300 miles of highway that circles Afghanistan, this road was built by international donors, including the U.S. and the World Bank, with a price tag of more than $3 billion.

  It's also carried a higher cost. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, hundreds of soldiers and civilians were killed along this highway, the targets of roadside bombs and ambushes by the Taliban. The Ring Road provides a metaphor for the U.S. presence here, an effort to link the major cities in the country badly fractured along ethnic lines and through decades of brutality.

  Our journey along the Ring Road starts in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The Ring Road circles Afghanistan and it comes to Mazar-e-Sharif. Just off the dirt off, you come to Qala-i-Jangi fortress. And that is where we are now.

  This is where one of the biggest battles happened in the immediate days after September 11, 2001, and this is where America suffered its first casualty in what would become America's longest war.

  Along this road, we looked at a girls' school and how the return of the Taliban had threatened advances in education. We looked at millennials, the young people who were born after 1980, the year the Soviet invasion got under way. It's a generation that's known only war, but it's also the best educated generation in Afghan history.

  And we looked at the military handover, how the U.S. is handing the war off to Afghan troops, and what that means for the future of Afghanistan.

  For those fighting in this war and those trying to live through it, it seems to go on forever.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Charlie, welcome back to the NewsHour.

  These three very powerful sets of stories you tell, about the girls school, about the young millennials in Afghanistan, and about the Afghan forces, help me understand, why — why did you pick those three stories?

• CHARLES SENNOTT, The GroundTruth Project:

  We wanted to go right into the future of Afghanistan.

  This has become America's longest war, and it feels like we have been there forever. But we wanted to look at, what happens when it ends? What happens after all these years of fighting? What is there?

  And so we thought, beginning with a girls' school was very important, because that is one of the great accomplishments of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, one that is really fiercely defended by most of the Afghan people, who want to see those schools stay long after the U.S. forces pull out.

  We also wanted to, of course, look at the handover, because that is such an extraordinary moment about the fate of this country. How will the new Afghan army and the new Afghan national police take over in the future?

  So, our photographer Ben Brody has done years of documenting that, and I think it really comes through, just how perilous a moment it is right now, as this handover hopefully will take place next year, in 2016.

  And, of course, we wanted to look at millennials because that is a generation that is the future of Afghanistan, so we really wanted to key in on not just government officials, but also artists and schoolteachers and people who are even construction workers, people who do all walks of life in Afghanistan. What does their future look like?

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Speaking of that future, the founder of the school, the girls school that you feature, she says at one point in the film — and this is a woman who powerfully believes in the importance of education for Afghan girls — she says, she thinks the U.S. will never leave, or at least not for a long time.

  Do you think — is she right?

• CHARLES SENNOTT:

  I think she is right.

  I think we have seen reason for her to feel that way, certainly. The Washington mention has been that this pullout will happen any day now. And we have heard this for years, literally. It's been postponed time and time again. So I think we can understand where she's coming from in that sentiment.

  I think there is something inside that expression that is also a yearning that the United States won't leave. Knowing Razia Jan and getting to know her through the filmmaker Beth Murphy's work over years, you hear in Razia a sense that the United States forces are needed to protect these schools, because there is a great fear the Taliban will return.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  We have obviously spent a great deal of time and money trying to train Afghan forces to take over when we do leave. We have seen a lot of examples recently of Iraqi forces who we spent a lot of money and training to try to get them up to speed, and that hasn't worked out very well.

  What is your sense of how well the Afghan forces could do if we leave?

• CHARLES SENNOTT:

  They're worrisome.

  The Afghan National Army, in the assessment of the reporters on the ground, would be, they're very ill-prepared. I think that's borne out every day. Look, it's not for lack of trying and certainly not for lack of spending money. Many would argue that there's been profligate waste of this money put toward training the forces, given where they are.

  That said, I think it's fair to say there is improvement. But you do come away from that experience — Ben Brody, our photographer, spending years with these forces — wondering, are they ready? And the sense, is they're not. I think that's a fair assessment from the ground as a reporter.

  I also think there's a need for the Afghan National Police to really step it up. Corruption is an issue, is a big issue. And we're going to have to just be sure we stay on these troops to make sure they're ready to take over, because they are the future of Afghanistan.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  After all of your reporting that you have been doing there and all your colleagues have done, what's your sense of that future? Do you think Afghanistan is on the right path?

• CHARLES SENNOTT:

  That's a hard question.

  I think that question really depends where you are in Afghanistan. You know, the Ring Road, which we focused on, in the north is Mazar-e-Sharif, and then at about 3:00, you would have Kabul. At 6:00, you would have Kandahar. If you were going clockwise, at 9:00, you would have Herat.

  And in every corner of that Ring Road, I would say to you there's a different story. You know, Kabul, recently, the security situation is disintegrating. Kandahar, it's almost impossible. But Herat, it's relatively safe. Mazar-e-Sharif is the same, although, when we were there, the Taliban was even stepping up its attacks in Mazar-e-Sharif with an attack on the courthouse there.

  It's very hard to say. I think, in the aggregate, coming back to this northern corner of Afghanistan, after not having been there for 14 years in that northern corner, I was amazed at the progress, a new airport, smoothly-paved roads, and a lot of progress in trade.

  So it is definitely a mixed sense of what the future holds. I do think there's some room for hope.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  OK.

  Charlie Sennott, the Ground Truth Project, thank you very much for joining us.

• CHARLES SENNOTT:

  Thank you.