The War on Terror: How Long? Ted Koppel Investigates, and Tells Me About It.

Bring home the troops, say many Americans.

But when each and every one comes back home, does that mean the War on Terror is over?

U.S military officials say forget that.

Just look at what al Qaeda is doing: gearing up to take on the U.S for the next hundred years. That means generations to come will have to fight an unconventional war.

Outgoing Centcomm commander General John Abizaid coined the term The Long War to describe the coming struggle.

Ted Koppel examines this in his third special report for the Discovery Channel, airing this Sunday at 9PM.

I talked to Ted on Monday morning about the program, Our Children's Children's War.



Ted was anchor of ABC's Nightline for 25 years. He's now a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (here's his NPR bio) and managing editor for the Discovery Channel.

I admit to being nervous before speaking to him, but once the interview was in progress became so absorbed in what Ted had to say, and settled down. He made a point of asking how to pronounce my name, and addressed me a few times during out chat. In addition to the riveting subject, Ted's beautiful, clear and unhurried manner, plus that rich, sonorous old-style delivery, can really hold your attention. We only had 10 minutes. Each of his answers was substantial. There wasn't nearly enough time to ask everything I wanted.

A seven-minute edit aired on Northwest Public Radio Friday during Morning Edition.


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Here's the audio and transcript of the unedited interview.

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This is the third special report Ted's done for Discovery. The first one, aired five years after the September 11th attacks, was The Price of Security. In conjunction with that program, NPR jointly produced a town hall meeting with Discovery.

Above: Ted Koppel hosts the town hall meeting in Silver Spring, Md., Sept. 10, 2006.

NPR blogged about producing that event for TV and radio simultaneously.

Here are questions and answers from that town hall meeting.

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NPR's interview with Ted Koppel on the same subject aired on Morning Edition on Friday. Read or listen to it here.

More Barnyard Animal News Today,

Will those wisecracking California cows be TRULY happy at this news?

California Dairies Inc., a huge Central Valley dairy co-op says it's going to stop using BGH, Bovine Growth Hormone, in its cows.



Suddenly conscious of animal welfare? Health concerns?

No. It all boils down to MONEY.

As San Jacinto dairy farmer Sid Sybrandy tells the Los Angeles Times, any increased production wasn't worth the expense of the drug and the extra wear he saw in the animals.

"If it is 40 cents a cow per day, times 1,000 cows, it's $400. After a month, it is an extra $12,000," Sybrandy said. "The dairy industry would have been better off if the product would have never been used. We all would have made more money."

Further, California Dairies Inc. said its biggest customers such as Vons and Safeway didn't want it in the cows. The co-op also supplies brands such as Foster Farms, Knudsen Farms and Producers Dairy.

Then, there's Starbucks -- we think of its coffee, but did you know it is one of the biggest sellers of milk in the country? That's a lotta latte. They've stopped using milk from cows injected with the hormone from more than a third of its establishments and plans to gradually increase that to at least half of its U.S. company-operated coffeehouses.

BGH is made by Monsanto.

Read the Los Angeles Times article.