Program Note: Watch "American Morning" all week for more reports from Dr. Gupta in Afghanistan. And don't miss 'Inside the Battle Zone' tonight on "AC360," 10 p.m. ET.

Think you know what it's like inside a hospital emergency room? You've never seen anything like this.

This one's busier, grittier – possibly the most intense ER on Earth.

Our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is inside an Afghan battlefield trauma center where soldiers' and children's lives are on the line.

Related: Video: Dr. Gupta arrives in Afghanistan

Dr. Sanjay Gupta arrives in Afghanistan to investigate how military doctors treat trauma patients.

Program Note: Watch "American Morning" and "AC360" for more reports from Dr. Gupta in Afghanistan starting Monday at 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. ET.

The top man in the military is painting a grim picture of the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Speaking of the situation there to CNN’s John King, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said, “Well, I think it is serious and it is deteriorating and I've said that over the last couple of years – that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated...”

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/24/corker.bob.art.jpg caption="Sen. Bob Corker visited Afghanistan during last week's elections there."]

Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker visited a voting site in Afghanistan last week. He spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Monday.

John Roberts: We’ll get your take on the elections in just a second here, but let me first of all ask you about this proclamation from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the situation there in Afghanistan is deteriorating. According to the New York Times, American military commanders told Richard Holbrooke they didn't have enough troops there to do the job. You were on the ground, had a good look at things, what's your assessment of the situation there militarily?

Bob Corker: I don't think there's any question that things have deteriorated. The fact that we were far more concerned about this election and security surrounding it than we were the election of 2004 to me is a clear indication. And I think no doubt we've had a lot of focus on Iraq, things have deteriorated. And I think the American people – we need to talk directly with them about it. We are engaged in Afghanistan, truly in nation building or state building probably is a more appropriate term. We're building a nation that candidly will not be able to sustain itself financially. And we need to be able to articulate to our troops what true victory is. We need to remember that still our enemy is al Qaeda. There are about 2,000 al Qaeda operatives around the world. About 500 of them reside today in the … areas of Pakistan. And that still is our enemy. And so this is getting particularly complicated, and I think certainly our troops need to understand clearly what victory is in Afghanistan.

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Read more: Engaging with Muslim communities

Programming Note: Christiane Amanpour reveals the struggle for hearts and minds of the next generation of Muslims. Generation Islam, tonight 9 ET on CNN.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Engaging with Muslim Communities

Eboo Patel's comments/recommendations

February 26, 2009

Increased communication and new technology has led to new forms of identity engagement amongst youth, which are less reliant on traditional nation-state boundaries and more likely to be influenced by transnational factors.

There is a youth bulge in Muslim countries. In Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip, the median age is about 17 years; in Iraq and Pakistan it is barely 20, and in Syria and Saudi Arabia the median is about 21.5 years. This trend extends all over the Middle East and North Africa – the median age is under 27 in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan.

These youth are faced with changing socio-economic factors that create insecurity. There is a clear lack of job opportunities and services to meet the needs of these youth. The unemployment rates in Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip have been estimated at close to 40%, and in Jordan and Iraq this number is around 30%.2 Without gainful employment and the potential for traditional social roles or upward social mobility, these young people are becoming frustrated and lost.

As of 2003, there were 15 million Muslims in the European Union (three times more than in the United States at the time). Moreover, in 2003 the Muslim birth rate in Europe was triple that of the non-Muslim birth rate. By 2015, the Muslim population in Europe will have doubled, while the non-Muslim population will have declined by 3.5%. Many of these European young Muslims face issues such as discrimination, economic deprivation, underemployment, and residence in ghettoized communities. Among native-born Muslims in Europe, there is often a feeling that they do not have a stake in larger society, and must choose between their religion and citizenship. On a recent trip to Europe, Patel's team observed a widespread sense of frustration amongst Muslim youth at their inability to freely express their religious identity, a feeling of isolation, and a willingness to identify oneself in opposition to the larger society.

Osama bin Laden is a brilliant youth organizer. Like entrepreneurs, they realized the potential of this massive market of young Muslims for the "product" of totalitarian Islam. The result of this recruitment was an international network of Muslim youths schooled in the ideology of totalitarian Islam, taught to hate the "imperialist infidel", and trained to kill – and that is who became Al Qaeda.

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