adm the size of the top of the list. the ethanol program alone is billions and billions of dollars. you have the biggest champion of at program for many years was bob dole and dole was again close friends with dwayne andreas and you have a federal program whic has certainly been heavily question in thicity as to its sociaan societal values that ultimately is benefiting a major corporation that in turn is giving huge sums of money to politicians but it does reek. c-span: as you know millions of dollars are spent by adm, the television station to find news programs. any evidence there that by

trng to favor that they get softer treatment >> guest: they are not in the book. there were certainly instances where, i am going to be very oblique here, where people in the media expressed discomfort to me when they learned that my book was about 8:00 p.m.. and i found that a little bit surprising. c-span: whyere they discomfort it? >> guest: because they had relationships or closed ties on some levels with adm. it is a book, it is a book that is not written-- adm comes out in this book looki pretty horrible and is their own words that hang them and the whole

system of political contributions and influence looks as bad as anyone imagined e endpoint of that, they start laughingly calculating how much the fines will costs. .. media have

to doackground checks on everybody. but ultimately, it does certainly make me very uncomfortable, and people who have read the book and talked about it, fery uncomfortable, that when the doors are closed and people think no one is listening,hat these corporate types, who when they are in public talk about first amendment, supporting expressing their politil views, when the door ios, what they're talking about is our business will do better if we pay these politicians, even if we are breaking the law. that is something that should give all of us some pause. c-span:we have a lot more to talk about. >> this book was published by

random house, visit randomhouse.com. this is the first of the two part series, part ii will air next saturday at 6:00 p.m.. for more information about the auors and books featured on encore book notes, visit us onli at our recently renovated website, oktv.org, and click on booktvseries. >>tonight, the rolof conspiracy theies in american history and politics with the author of real enemies. on after words on c-span2's book tv. >> retired colonel oliver north discusses the men and women fighting america's war on terror. he spoke at the national rifle association's firearms museum in virginia.

this is 50 minutes. >> i say my j is about heroes because it really is. i say tt to young people, fox will send me to talk to college campus, i would rather go to can harbor, quite frankly. i say to yng people, i know i have conjured up in the mind of the young person the image of somebody wearing spandex suits an a cake, but that is not the definion of a hero. the definition of a hero is a person who has put themselves at risk for the benefit of others. i know my colleagues at fox news and the rest of the mainstream mediaon't get that. i tell them every once in awhile that the military and the media have a lot in common, they both

face casualties. in the military we know what that is. in the media it is when they land in their cubes. the military and the media rely on feedback. in the military the feedback is the enemy advancing or in the wire or are they retreating, that is feedback. the effectiveness of what you do. th effectiveness of what we do in broadcasting and the media moreroadly is measured by whether people by your books o watch your shows, whether they listen to you on the radio. that is called ratings. we ao get our feedback now, most of the time, literally by e-mail. we actually lk this stuff that comes in. i brought with me one of the e-mails i received, ias on a rooftop in iraq, at 4:00 in the

morning, and i am standing next to one of those in the gunfight, and i said on the air, gund combat is the worst experience a human being could have. adam holmes actually debated me about it. in the aftermath of this, there i amtanding next to one of these young americans who had been in that gunfight, and ght after words -- we keep th satellite up and i start seein e-mails coming in from people watching that segment. this is feedback. colonel north, you said ground mbat is the worst experience a human can have. this is not true. the rst experience a human can have is spending time with my mother-in-law. this is -- this really -- my best friend spent two years in

iraq, a tour of duty in afghanistan, lost his right hand, he has met my mother-in-law, he agrees with me. that is feedback in the media. there is the picture for you. if i may, let me relate what i knew, tomorrow, to afghanistan, i will be embedded with u.s. forces on the ground, located with afghan national army and nation police. i wanted to get you to derstand my perspective. i am a son of the greatest generation. many years ago when i worked for anher network, tom brokaw's office is next to minon the eighth floorf the same building. tom brokaw had just writtethat book the greatest generation. my mom and dadere part of it. the cover of that book could

easily have been my mom and dad. a soldier's trousers and uniform, there was my mom. i looked carefully not only at his book but that generation has it influenced me as a young person. that is the message of the firearms museum. the message is the legacy left to the next generation. that is why this museum is such an important part of who we are as the people of america that is why that legacy was handed to my brothers and me, influenced everyone of us who served in the military, not because we are more patriotic than the next-door neighbor, but it is part of whoe are, part of who my parents were. every one of my uncles served in world war ii. the media today is full of stories of how desperate the situation is in afghanistan. i grew up with four or five

newspapers all of which have a story on page one about how bad things are in afghanistan. you can take the word afghanistan out of the article and two years ago the word would have been iraq. guess what? the r in iraq, soldiers, sailors won that war. you would not know that from the mediaecause as soon as the war turned around they stopped covering it. to day a the bad news is coming out of afghanistan. i would like to remind young people who didn't have the blessing i did with parents from the greatest generation, in world war ii, i was going to be here tonight, i went back and checked on this day in 1942, the first american offensive of world war ii, pearl harbor had been bombed seven

monthsefore. america lost everything will battle iwas in until the battle of midway. every single battle was a disaster. by june, when midway is won, a naval battle, naval air battle, by june, tens of thousan of americans were dead not just in pearl harbor but all across the pacific ocean. americans who were dyg on the aches of vienna o landed with the canadiens in the same as raid, a disaster going on in north africa. it was a total reversal of everything everybody thought was going to happen. it waserrible news. the battle for guadalcal was 20 days old today in 1942. twenty days along. when they landed in guadalcanal they expected it to be a 30 day battle. it was still going on si months

later. there was absolutely no one who forecast that america could be put in that kind of siation, yet at the en of the day, 161/2 million mean women, the nation mobilizes for war. it would not have happened had the united states not gotten into the war. it would have @een ruled by hitler, japan would have run asia. when you look athe way the news is being covered today, the disparaging things that are said routinely by my colleagues in the mainstream media about those who serve in our armed forces or those who support our armed forces, so of your contractors here today, that is the new dirty word in america, contractor. the media has figured out phat the american people are not going to do to these soldiers, sailors and marines what they

did to my generation that came back from vietnam. the american people are not going to stanfor it. in large part thats because of the extraordinary experience of these young americans. that hasn't stoppedolicians from denigrating them. we all know certain politicians in washington, i am trying not to be partisan, but we know that a certain illinois senator whose nickname is dick, excuse me, i am jt quing him, like and those whserve in our armed forces to those who serve stalin, hitler and cold pot, and was immediately jumped on in these town halls, so he stopped doing it. the new york times and washington compost described -- this is how they started out, the kids from mississippi, texas

and alabama, i don't know why they picked those states, who could g a decent job or health insurance, they join the military becse that is all we offer them. i am not complaining or bragging this is my sixteenth ip to cover this work. i st months in the field with these youngsters. that is not a description of the youngsters, somehomagically these never do wells and misfits don't show up in the units i have covered and i covered 45 units. that book, notne of those inches of hundreds of miles of footage i have shot were set up. is all the real thing. whats the difference here is the real saying, this is and who these youngsters really are. we are standing in the hospital, the operang base. they operate and maintain the most significant weapons and equipment designed by the mind of man, the enemies they are up

against, this was a human being who stepped off the curbnd blew himself to pieces. the enemy intends to die in the process. you don't like your hair cut? i was next to the chair, that is why i took the picture. the good news is theseuysnow how to shoot. the enemy they are up against is so afraid of standing up for them that their favoriteeapon is the suicide vehicle and the i i ied, because you go against them, you're going to lose. this was a suicide driver who tried to approach the convoy in iraq in the summer of 2006. there is a standard procedure they u, they tell them to

stop, they throw a flash bang front of the vehicle, still coming for it, they finally opened fire at the vehicle, killed the driver, the driver was a suicide driver, but he didn't know that he didn't control it. if you look next to the vehicle you wl s a little white thing in the roadway. that is a robot that is about to go up to the car and boat inside to see what is there. the other bad guy with a control detonation device, he doesn't nt the robot to get too close. that happens routinely. this happens to be iraq, the same thing is ing on, the young guys out there, one of the most difficult sets of terrain and climate and dangerous

circumstances you can imagine. i wouldn't take anything from anyone of these guys. this is a nighttime operation, the national police came in and said we ha an ie in the middle of the road. a 1985 station wagon, the national police came in and told the marines, we think there is an itt in that segment, the submarine goes o, we are 200 yards away, i have my camera rolling and you hear mortars being fired from somewhere, can still hear mortars. the sergeant says to heck with this, let's get out of here. different kind of tow. that is going down range. that is secondary from what was inside. a gunfight in downtown iraq, there is the photograph in the book of m standing next to that

last december without a jacket and helmet. i've been down that street 90 times, every time with a marine warrant army unit and every time we g shot at i found myself crawling through sewage. the oneaken last dember, standing in front of that, you can sethe bullet holes in the side of it. no jacket, n helmet, just walking down the street because that part of the war has been won. this is not happening in iraq today. that is a sergeant major, that is a company commander, got to tell you a quick story aut hi he was aompany commander, in this particular gun fight, it went off at the edge of his feet, he has 80 some odd holes in it at this point. he walks up to the battalio commander, i followed him wh the came, he said you go down for a loss of blood, i will

have you court-martial. two houps later he passes out, the corpsman put him on a helicopter and they took about, errors later i was on the same helicopter, i walkeinto the field hospital, he is sitting there naked on a gurney waiting for the guys to come back, they are filling oud paperwork, the great trauma hospital in germany where all these guys in iraq and afghanist@n can step. he is ned because the first thing they do with the guy shot full of holders come with these jaws of life and cut your uniform off, they realid there is metal inside, they x re these pieces of metal, youay ese pieces of metal, you going to germany. the hicopters going back to the base. he says let's go.

heicks up all of this, walks out to the helicopter and we fly back to hurcane point. 3:00 in th morning, what are you doing back here? you are suppose to be on your way to germany. i am fine. if i get an infection from this, i will have the court-martial. two weeks later he has a raging infection and is about to lose his leg, they should him to germany, balboa and six months later i am in california to see the unit when a ce back and have their iarine corps birthday tree, there is carl who is recovering from all the surgery and infections, his wife has a great big frame, free documents, the purple heart for 83 holes in your body, bronze star for heroism, the third is a letter of reprimand for goi awol from the hospital. i love these guys. i show this picture, he knows what i am doing. i am ducking because somewhere

behind me is a guy who shot at me. i never heard the second shot. the first shot went by my head and i am on the ground rolling in sewage. there is sewage right behind me. i am not rolling in it. my camera man rolled off of the camera and im hunkered down. back behind me are a bunch of marines, on the far left, reacting to the shot instead of looking at who shot, looking to see the old man. next thing you hear out of the mouth of the gutter whose name is tagliabue, he is saying amazing how fast an old man can mo. he is really motivated. no sympathy whatsoever. that was taken five minute before this picture, i am behind the wall, standing behind,

oking for the medevac. i may be crazy but i am not stupid. thiss afghanistan, and last summer, just about this time last year. that is all thais left of a humvee that was blown up by an improvised explosive device, planted in the road. corporal figaro and sergeant courtney raja do we covered in previous depyments in iraq, are in that vehicle. my camera man, chris jackson, is in that vehie. it goes off underneath it and the vehicle just explodes in flames. of the organs inside is on fire. so, by the way, are sgt routes and corporal figaro. chris jackson,y camera man. there have been 7,000 reporters and journalists and correspondence and guys carrying

cameras in this war, there's only one that has been decorated for heroism, is because chris jackson jumped up, raced back to the vehicle even though it had blown up, the back doors were blown off. a corpsman tells hime have to take you out of fear because you have been wounded. jackson turns to the corpsman and says i can't go and the korman says why can't you go? you have been wounded. he says i can't go because he, pointing at me, has the only camera. the rest of jacksos gear s in the vehicle, it was blown to pieces. there is a little metal plate from the bottomf his camera, that is all that was left of

this little metal plate. it is all fraud. and the corman is thinking this guy h traumatic brain injury. he says s what? in every hour of his videotaped their five for six really good seconds, i can dtter this secretary of the navy comes out, a sret base is operating on t iranian border. the secretary of the navy, walking out of the briefing he had just gotten with special operations guys, he walks over to me and says i want to me your camera man. is he still i country? that is the camera man over there. is the guy who did it. it better be!

we can't. there he is, chris jackson. they walked over to jackson, i am going to see to it you are recognized for your heroism. that to me says something about about fox news or chris jackson, it says something about our military, that the secretary of the service would do that for a young cameraman who saved the life of another guy. i put this up because it is so interesting. that has got to be -- this is afghanistan. very interesting. the interpreter, a graduate of ucla, born in the united states, his parents in afghanistan in the 1970s, just before the total collapse in 79, his parents, raise in e united stes, as fluent, so we are u along that part -- that is not -- it is too

young to be part of a russian progeny, that is alexander the great. think about it. this is exactly where alexander stopped o his way across asia. d that kid is not slavic, he is macedonian. is is taking place in the process, this is a very brave afghan battalion commander. we couldn't use his name or his face in the show we did, the documentary we produce, there is a lot of press that says these guys are not worth anything. they have all been trained b u.s. special forces, the commandos as good as any other nation's military, certainly better than most. these are young guys who grew up and decided to fight for their countr you never see that in the mainstream media. why not?

i can't explain why. we get so little coverage of theseguys. they are much better than you would otherwise think. that is a very tough afghan commander. he was on the raid that we took down in the middle of the desert. that was prepped from the raid. took down the taliban kingpin in the process. another aspect of these guys, i spent my whole life in or around the military. myad was a soldier, i spent my whole life either in it or recovering. this is the dimension you just don't see, the extraordinary face of these youngsters. to remarkable degree, these guys made a decision growing up in the crucible of modern american culture, they're going out into mortal combat against an enemy

who intends to die. my dad was against that in the ropean theater, the pacific theater saw that, thbanzai charges and the kamikazes but we haveot confronted an enemy who wants to die in the process of tacking us. these guys all know that. they also demonstrate in spite of that, too extraordina exnt, but i call, for lack of a better phrase, true christian compassion. i saved this for last, the last picture in the book. that picture was taken on the way to baghdad onpril 6, 2003. is not a marine, that is the united state navy corpsman. i would not be alive today, a navy corpssaved my life in vietnam. i have seen and save the lives of countless others and army medics. they are extraordinary. i firstet this young guy on

the battlefield in afghanistan in 2001. this point in his life hes part of the lead company in the atta gn baghdad. baghdad is the smoke you see in the background were three days outside baghdad, 25 miles away. the lead element, a marine rifle company, motorized and not particularly well -- on the foot of everybody, is engaged by a republicanua regiments, the last line of defense for saddam hussein. one marine rifle company, one regiment of the replican guards. the is a furious gun fight. if you notice, the vehicles are not armored humvees like we have today. they spin them aund and put a little bit more between themnd at they are flying. this and navy corpsman rushes out into the battlefield, what we would call the bands of fire,

and starts pulling wounded marines out of the middle of that gun fight. the first two guys he brings, licopter lines -- landn the mile of the road, this was takeoff of footage, i am standing on the ramp of the helicopter because i can get higher without gting on top of a humvee and get my head blown off. she did marry a crazyuy. i jumped on the back of the helicopter s i could stand there, this guy is bringing these wounded guys out, the shock trauma team on ard the helicoptertarts a blood expander and stas treating him for chalk. ..

>> you notice carefully clothing on the wounded warrior. that is a wounded iraqi republicanuardsman. if you look care any, he is terrified. he is wounded, he has been i ina n fight, and no someone has come up and put him on his back and is carrying him to the helicopter. d this wounded iraqi is being treatedust like a marine. and they putim on the litter and take him away. now, i said to you earlier that

my job was to key the cpany of heroes -- keep the companies of heroes. that's a hero. that's the kind of people i cove thank you. i get to keep company of those people and let them tell their stories. it's a blessing to be able to do so. what kind of people are re going to be? well, the gre american military is 115%. the best barometer of troop morale has bn the reenlistment rate check with george washington. they all wked, evebody who could walked out of valley forge. he sent his ncos back home, and day came back with six on average. or thereever wld have been a

success in the american revolution. the freedom we enjoy in this country wouldn't exist. these young guys have been out there -- a gals -- 1.6 million of them have now served in our armed forces in combat. wh my dad went to world war ii, heanded in norman day,- normandy, and was wounded as the went intohe river. in world war ii, the average length of time spent in combat in either theater, pacific or -- a little different in cbi but the european, average length of time in combat was 6.4 months. america goes to war in august of -- 1942, and the average length of time fornfantryman

in combat was 6.2 months. today, the third infantry division of the united states army, a young soldier who enlisted for 48 months and extend it out to 6, will have spent 45 months in combat. it is unprecedented. the korean wore, the average was nine months. in the vietnam war, itas 13, and today, ese youngsters are serving in excess of 15-month tours routinely in the army, seve month tours in the marines. and many have had multiple back-to-back tours. they're in harm's way every second. they know a couple of things. first of all these are youngsters who have nos experienced something that the rest of us, mere mortals, don't t to see. they understand that in america, the united states of america, this is one of the very

few places on the planet earth where you can flip a switch and the lights go on. you can drink water out of the ta they know that youan get taken to a hospital in america and expect to live, but in any one of the countries in hich the served, if you're ht bad, you go tone of their hospitals, you probably won't. th know you can go to a store and buy almost anying you want with a credit card in america, unlike anywhere else in the world, you can check in a hotel and nobody asks for your passport or your papers. in america you can get in a car in new jersey and drive all the way to california for a concert, as several people did. even though they were having one in new jersey. does make you wonder. but nothing more than a credit cardnd a driver's license. you don't get to get a pert to cross a state line, you don't

have to get a travel passport inside the united states of america. in other words -- i touched that this again. make it just stop it. he has this board out here. i can't figure out wha to d with this thing. i make that observation because these are youngsts that are going come back to the united states, and they will have served horribly in this war, which is ctainly not -- honorably in this war, which is not appreciated by my colleagues in the media, and they're going to be committed to the cause of freedom. what is the nra's whole idea? freedom. without the rest of those, the civil rights are meaningless. they're the youngsters we reroute for the next generation of leaders for this great organization. so i leave you this charge this evening. you have seen the people i get

keep company with. but i encourage you, if you know a soldier, a sorry, an airman, guards -- a sailor, an airman, a guardsman or mine, and everyby on active duty today is a tolunteer. some are involunta extended, but they're all volunteers. they're the warri of 9/11. they understand how vulnerable this country is to those who want to die to take away our freedoms, and i encoura you, ifou know any of them, from wherever you under america, that you encourage them to become part of this organization that supports thereedoms we hold dear. bless you and thank you for being here tonight. [applaus

>> don't think i broke anything on this keyboard. you're t secretary. [laughter] >> we have mics for the questions and awer. i would like to introduce t president of the nra of virginia. >> it's been a delight. >> we want to let you know we don't do this everything day. jim got this about ten years ago. we wanted to giveou an honorary life membership. thank you. thank you all.

pplause] >> yes, sir? >> sew it on my field jacket. fire away. we got 15 minutes for questions. this is your chance. any topic at all. >> on the improvised explosive devices,ow far away was the debt nation -- debt nation -- debt -- detonation. >> phey're not that sophisticated in afghanistan. there's only one paved highway in all ofa. i'm not making that up. there's only one paved highway.

iraq is more sophisticated. they're putting them behind guardrls. there are no guardrails in afghanistan. everything is a dirt track so pressure plates wk pretty good. as you might imagine we have some pretty sophisticated intelligence that can spot people doing that. andou gps the coordinates and main sure somebody doesn't drive a vehicle over it. and this happened last summer. probably happen again starting saturday. you end up trying to go 20-kilometers, it takes you 30 hours because you're walking you have guys with the same nd of mine-sweepinf equipment, a little more sophiicated than you had in vietnam. so there's enormous challenges in dealing with somehing as simple as the pressure-plate i.e.d., or the enormous amount of explosives. it blew that vehicle to pieces.

i saw something like that in iraq, using iraqi ordinance. they must have hat bullet buyers. there's more ordinance in that country than you can imagine inch afghanistan it's more primitive. in these penetrators, they have factories building that stuff in iran. so far relatively few. yes, sir. >> do u find that our response -- >> use the mic, please. >> oh, sry. >> yes, sir. do you find that our responseo the i.e.d.s and suicide bombers over the years is becoming more effective and sophistited? >> good question. yes, and you can see now -- i have been doing this since 2001. you can see that we adopt a

countermeasure and they adapt. we don't a countermeasure, they attack. so they have their on tactics and proceres, and they adapt theirs to what their doing. the i.e.d. becomes theirs defensive measure, and the suicide bedroom is their offensive measure so when you see the suicide bbers -- midnight -- midnight most of them in iraq and afghanistan are not locals. nearly all of them are imports. they have been recruited from someone else, and they get -- that's happened to probably -- i don't know -- 85 or 90% b ght up there among the suicide drivers. the ones in iraq last week, the

ones that were set off just prior to the elections in afghanistan. and of course, most of the victims of those kinds of devices aren't americans or allies or coalition forces. they're simple civilians who driver over one of these silly things, and it blows the whole family to pieces. or goes off in a marketplace and kills hundreds, or dozens in st case, who are muslims. the brutality is minnumbing. so most of the victims are fellow muslims, and interestingly enough -- not to get too far afield. the people who have responded most visibly toward the amerin military action dish not in words but theay they wor and act -- are the women. you think about it, americans wearing flak jackets and helmets have become the protectors of

wome certainly in iraq, and to an increasing extent, in afghanistan. and they respond to this thing by going and -- in ira 60% of the people who voted in the last election, because ias out there, were women. why? well, this is not a sexist comment. women are not voting to have their sons grow up to become suicid terrorists. they want their sons to hav an opportunity for a better life. so whathey're looking for is that kind of opportunity, and thehallenge is, having otected them and given them the right to open a home and drive a car and become a part of society, they become targets of a lot of this stuff, as we saw in the elections in afghanistan last wk. yes, sir.

>> quick, pl. [inaudible question] >> let m just make an observation. everytime i get on a ch46 in a place like iraq or afghanistan, check the plate to see maybe -- because i get that a couple times. let me just say something in behalf of contractors. contractors is the new dirty word in washington, wheer is a security contractor or

whatever. i would tell you that in fact it's the column i have to right tonight before i get on the plane tomorrow. the reality of life as we know in america are military today you cannot fight a war without contractors, okay? one of the rsons why the left is going after the contractors is the don't want us to fight. the left don't want us to fight and they don't want us to win. they resent the power and the ability to bring about the changes we see in iraq, and they don't want it. they don't want to us project power outsid of, i guess, texas. and so what you end up with is a vicious assault on the people who ought to be building that ne generation of green aircraft. the v-22 is supposed to replays the ch-46. it's coming into the pipeline. the reality is they're going to

be flying 46s at least through 2014, and veryikely beyond that because you can'troduce enough v-22s fast enough and itore expensive. so you're not going t land it in the front of gunfights to pick people up. i tell you this, all the air drs being done in afghanistan ar being done by contractors. the marine corps has two delivery platoons and not one are being used for that purpose. makes no sense to me. hear that, general? i don't get it. and quite frankly, i don't get why they're so starved for resources in afghanistan if indeed the o-team has decided that afghanistan is the good war, they darn wel better sta getting the resources they need

to win it. yeah. >> yes, sir. it's my underanding that the iranians were involved in the arming of the terrorists in iraq, and my question is, are they also involved in arming our adversaries in afghanistan who have -- >> good question. there's no doubt that the iranians have thrown significa resources from their industrial base into the fight in iraq. of course, they had a large shi'a population within which they can work. far less so in afghanistan. the iranian revolutionary government wasever close though taliban, and because the taliban were the principle supporters of al-qaeda, those relationships have been difficult for them to forge.

here's where the nexus occurs. it occurs in the distribution of heroin, and the rat lines that go out of ira -- the 75 to 80% or maybe more of the heroin is produced there. so the relationships are being built are more of a criminal nature than a political nature, but they're there, and there's no doubt about that. why that is being kep a big, dark secret by the administration, i don't know. they have designs on hav something kind of dialogue with mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad and h colleagues, so maybe they're trying not to embarrass them.

i had a master sergeant show me, explosively formed penetrators, very sophisticated, coming out of machine shops in iran, weapons manufacturers, and he cease -- here we are along the iranian border. you can see from me to the other side of the room is the border. he says it's a darn shame the syriansad to carry this all the way fm syria to put it here on the iranian border. that's the party line from the o-team. we're not saying tt about the syris now bus we want to hav dialogue with the syrians. i got asked a question by a reporter about the release of the libyan terrorist who blew up pan am 103. having spent fair amount of my

li around this environment, i don't get it. i don't understand why we don't put everybody bit of information -- if we released half as much about the iranians as we released aut blackwater, the papers would be full. all that stuff that has been leaked out, the hemorrhaging of classified information is' that americans. how about leaking information about the enemy that has killed americans. i don't get it. i saw a hand over here. time for one o two more. right there. >> on the lighter side, i want to know if you can confirm this.

you were involved with a certain senator, won't be named here, of virginia, whether -- >> that's true -- i won. [laughter] [applause] by the way, he never won a championship. >> all the tapes were destroyed? >> no. i have a 16-millimeter film of it. he may have tried. yes, sir. [inaudible questn] >> do you know if they're working that out and getting people trained right and getting them into the field?

>> i'm glad yoasked that question. by tuesday i can give y a bet are answer. i mean, that's where i'm foing. and so -- you're right. one of the really serio problems, of course, is with any other -- i don't like using the word "third world" and things like that, but with these allied countries th are struggling to protect theelves, they're often the corruptio that preceded our arrival there is s endemic that you can deliver containers full of, let's say, unifms, and they disappear, and so there's enormousroblems d challenge that existed and it will get better in afghanistan. i am told -- and i will report on that -- that tngs are getting better. they're not betteret. just the way it was put. becausehat's one of the questions i asked. you have guys carrying ak-47s,

and you think it's a musket. and so that's their weapon, and that's just -) well, you tell me there's no other ak-47s around the wor? yeah, they're locked up in somebody's backyard. so there's an enormous challenge of oveoming that, but it's being addressed by virtue of what we have seen from 2003 to 2009. a l of that is driven by the total lack of any infrastructure in afghanistan. i have not been in a country that is that hard to get around in 40 years, and that was a place called vietnam. and so i'm not surprised that those problems exist. i'm hopeful they will get better. i have had this conversation th some recovery team guys. why are we -- the big turbine

that's being put up in the northeast of the country. why not just buy a half million generators and give it to the local tribal guy and say, if i gets blown up, it's your problem. wel come by every few weeks and fill it for you. put a turbine that wre paying for. got to love the germans. be nice if they fought. all right. let me just -- if i may just close with a couple of thoughts. numb one -- thi is advice my m used to give me. number one, i should have kept my words soft and tender, because i never know when i have to eat them. number two, she used to tell my brothers and me, before you criticize someone you ought to think of the fact it's going to make them angry.

so, before you criticize someone, try walking a mile in their ses. at way when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. [laughter] [applause] >> olaverorth is the host of fox ws wore wore -- war tories. his web site is oliver olivernorth.com. >> here'some of the best sellers from independent book serals across the south.

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