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>> My name is Sean Meskow [phonetic].

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I'm a 2004 graduate of Penn State.

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And I work at the U.S. Department of State.

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And the special representative for
Afghanistan, Pakistan's office.

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I'm a special advisor, and I
work on issues related to trying

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to achieve a political settlement
to the Afghan conflict.

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And also to shape the trajectory of
our relationship with Afghanistan

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and Pakistan following the end of
our combat operations there in 2014.

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Obviously, it's something that
when we come to work every day,

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you never know what's going to happen.

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You never know what issues you're
going to have to deal with.

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But, overall, I think the
trajectory is one of improvement.

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We have changed fundamentally, the
situation on the ground in Afghanistan

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and the Taliban's momentum has been halted.

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And similarly, in Pakistan's travel areas, we've
been very successful at targeting and removing,

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as a threat, people from Al Qaeda.

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Which was the organization, of course,
which attacked us on September 11th.

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Well it's definitely not 9 to 5.

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If, you know, being several time zones away from
Afghanistan, Pakistan, it's where leaving work

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at the end of the day, they're just
waking up there going about their day.

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And as we've learned over the past few
months, you never know what's going to happen.

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You come to work one day thinking you're going
to focus on trying to finish a certain project,

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a meeting that's coming up at the
White House that you need to prepare.

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And so it's a matter of scrambling, trying
to assess what is happening on the ground.

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Getting all the facts right.

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And then, you know, working to shape and
develop not only the policy response,

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but the public response that the administration
and state department and others will have.

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So that's a big aspect of what I do.

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But then, you know, there are also sort
of long term projects that you work on.

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There's a regular rhythm to have a national
security bureaucracy work in Washington.

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Regular meetings at the White
House that people like my boss,

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Ambassador Mark Grossman, are going to.

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And it's just a matter of helping prepare them
and making sure that they have the information

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that they need to have an informed discussion.

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And helping really frame and prepare the process
to make decisions when it needs to make them

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to continue to advance our policy.