the problem, but we need to have both sides. >> so assuming that somehow world governments of the world population, but it's not worry about the protocol or global warming and change these things. i was wondering considering the past history of development how many more failures and possibly solutions that ended up not being solutions. what kind of the solutions do you see it that would be successful and instituting a free market? how do you see that coming

about? >> we made a lot of political errors in all areas, and i would also like to say, if we are going to do any climate change policy we are unlikely to make a lot of stupid mistakes. it is the nature of political decisions to also make a decision simply because it is apart from being smart involved in this. but what i would like to just take issue with is your part of saying, if we start off by saying, okay. what i would like to get them to start focusing on, we are going to have the next global trading. we actually have a global trading that says last and best dramatically more. because it's much cheaper and has much greater chance of leading to a lot of local spin off that will probably invent a great self on battery on the road to getting much better energy technologies. much more chance to actually

backup power world government. that was part of your question. how do we then get better policies on development issues? of, that is what the copenhagen consensus actually tries to do. pretty smart ways and really cool ways of doing this. a very good example of this. in many ways it is a fairly high profile elements. not in the moorpark because it affects the first world. so we have a huge treatment regime of profile that actually can help people. the problem is it is fairly expensive and requires people to stay on these medications for 30 or 40 years. that is very hard to do. most of the money goes to treatment. that is of course because it is mainly doctors dealing with the. doctors are sort of trained in thinking we need to save these people when the problem is there. the cheap part of dealing with climate change is the one where we deal with the problem before

it arises, that is that it actually prevents people from getting hiv/aids. don't spend so much in treatment because that is very hard and likely to lead to more resistance because people don't take this were 30-40 years, you actually end up in a worse situation plus there is also very many different ways you can say people from a host of other illnesses much cheaper than you can do with retro viral. so it is about focusing on prevention rather than treatment when you talk about hiv/aids. no doubt that is not what's going to happen. we are going to spend a lot of money on treatment. there is no way either climate policies or the development policies are going to be the smartest possible, but i hope by having the conversation, by understanding the issues at least will be slightly smarter. so we tend to say with the

copenhagen consensus this is not about putting it right. wonderful that it's unrealistic. not about getting it right. it is looking getting it slights wrong. if we can move the debate there i think we will attend a great job. [applauding] >> thank you. >> time magazine named bjorn lomborg one of the most influential people in the world in 2004. for more on the author's work visit lomborg.com.

>> thanks, everybody for coming out tonight.

it's really good to be back here in anchorage. that's where i was living before i started this reportage from the middle east and all things related six years ago. i'm here to talk tonight's about what is happening in the u.s. military as a result of ongoing occupations. primarily there is a large amount of dissent in the u.s. military right now. it is spreading despite lack of a cohesive organized gi resistance movement like we saw during the vietnam era. but before i can talk about the sense we have a clear picture of correctly what this u.s. foreign policy between both these u.s. occupations a in iraq and afghanistan, what is the immediate impact on the u.s. military and people inside the u.s. military? i want to start by sharing the story reading a bit from the book by a soldier, the story of

a soldier named right. this is a guy who went over to iraq, served as an army medic there. i would like to a share the story because it gives people an idea of the first main reason why we are seeing a breakdown in the military, and that is, what did people see into when they go abroad is another reason why morale is as low as it is in the military today. eli wright went over to iraq as an army medic. he was with the tenth mountain division based out of fort drum in upstate new york. he showed up and was ordered to good chin in the containment camp with another army medic. the rich directly during to be brought there to help provide services to an iraqi detainee. at the entrance to the fact detainment facility eli wright was pulled aside by his

battalion sergeant and instructed anything that you see in their inside those walls stays in there. you don't talk about any of it after you leave the place the cell he was taken to was a dark damping closure. cinderblocks with concrete floor and no white. if memory reconstruct the scene a sense of blood that it meet immediately of walking in. an old still sense of but bloodt just permeated for a long time. what is inside. there was a prisoner completely naked except for a small little cloth tied around his waist. he was standing on top of the cinder block. they said that he had been there for three days. scabbed hands tied with ties that cut into his wrist were purple and swollen. this guy had the most confused look on his face. he was being interrogated by several men. they said he had been up there three days in this interrogation

process. he had not slept. he had been standing on this cinderblock for most of the time. they had this bucket of water which they would splash on him whenever he dozed off. they took him off the cinderblock, ousted pulled him t the wall, and told us to start checking him out. i didn't even know where to begin. he was covered in bruises. more less to see if he was stable to ascertain whether he was in any condition to continue his interrogations. we started to take up pads. just dabbing away blood. he was complaining of pain and a lot of bruising.

the medic started to feel on this ribs and the guy just screamed in pain. slammed him back against the wall. the other man asked me to verify his broken ribs and i did. he did not been convinced to feel around the rest of the area around his ribs. suddenly he cocked his fist back and punched to right in the broken ribs. the guy is dropped and screamed. i was stunned. it shocked the hell out of me. it was an important moment for me seeing a medic, a fellow care provider violate our code of ethics which is first and foremost to do no harm and to see one of my own doing that, i guess he was just a prisoner to them. he was a confused and a broken human being. i don't know, it destroyed my perception of a steering anything good there. that is when i realize you are there to help anybody. nothing that we could do would be good. after that point i did not feel like there is any further good a to do for those people. that was my first night there.

eli wright went on to serve a bit over a year in iraq. it was more stories not dissimilar to that coupled with the usual stories i heard from so many veterans i have interviewed for this book. random killings, random bombings, seeing their friends die, killing iraqis, detaining innocent people, etc. these are the types of stories that are happening every day in iraq and afghanistan right now, and these are the stories that these veterans are coming back with. they then get to deal with on their home. when the run up against the next main segment of context that we have to talk up before we talk a lot the sin, is what happens to veterans when they do come back home, what happens to them and they're kept in the military here and there repeatedly redeployed and what happens to them when they are actually getting a valid discharge and

try to get benefits from the veterans administrations that as we speak is overtaxed and overburdened trying to treat people. surpassed only by the average iraqi or person in afghanistan people in the u.s. military today are now part of a very quickly growing unfortunate tragic segment of the u.s. society that has been maligned and tossed aside, neglected, forgotten. today more u.s. war veterans are killing themselves than are dying in open combat overseas. according to the veterans administration if we include veterans of all wars 18 veterans today are committing suicide in this country. also according to the va 1,000 veterans who are technically under the auspices of the va care are attempting suicide every single month.

also when they come back home and when they get a valid discharge from the military the average wait for a soldier for their first appointment at the veterans administration is six months, 179 days. so think about the soldier comes back. they have severe posttraumatic stress disorder, ptsd. they might have traumatic brain injury, which is what happens when a roadside bomb goes off nearby your patrol and your brain gets slapped around in your skull a bit. then they discharge from the military. they finally after doing some pretty serious stuff medicating they realize i'm not sleeping, of having nightmares, flashbacks, i feel violent, rage much of the time. all very, very common symptoms of ptsd. they finally break down and decide, i think i will go to the va. their average wait is 179 days.

if they file a disability claim with the va that claim is denied and they appeal that claim, the average wait is f our-and-a-half years. how did these folks get through that time? that is why when we talk about some signs the statistics that i'm going to share with you are very, very shocking. they are a little less shocking when you hear them in the context of what i've just spoke of. 2006 was a record year of suicides in the army. more people killed themselves in the army that year ever since the pentagon started keeping the statistics in 1980. it was surpassed in 2007. another record suicide here in the army, which was surpassed in 2008, another record suicide here in the army. 2008 was also another record to suicide here in the marine corps. in 2009 we are right on target to have another record suicide year in the army.

in fact, another thing that compounds this problem before people discharge is how often people are being redeployed. more than 5,605,000 troops have been deployed more than one tim. by december of '06 it was estimated 50% of the troops in iraq were serving their second tour. another 25% were on their 3-4 tours. these numbers are far, far higher today. they have significantly increased and actually have been serving five, six, even seven tours abroad, which considering the length of these occupations isn't such a big surprise. so what is the military trying to do to cope with having enough soldiers to cope with both occupations? we still have between 120,000, 124,000 soldiers in iraq, and we

will have by the end of this year roughly 69,000 american troops while the obama administration ponders how many tens of thousands more to send us. so what they're doing is redeploying is, of course, the first option where, for example, where if you were drafted you only had to do one tour. today in the military since it is theoretically it's an all volunteer force, i say to theoretically because the poverty level, most people stay in the military. they do a tour. we have stop-loss. even people who come up near the end of the contract, there was a stop-loss instituted by george bush, george w. bush. what that means is if i join and i sign an average four-year contract, and i serve a tour or

two tours or whatever and i come back, and i have got a work or two weeks left to my contract the military has the right to say, sorry, national emergency. your country needs you, you're going to afghanistan. right now the most recent pentagon figures are that 6% of the troops in iraq and afghanistan are stop-loss. more than 200,000 soldiers stop-loss since september 11, 2001. this is not exactly helping morale, and you can understand why. in addition we have had as of last year more than 43,000 troops already diagnosed with either severe ptsd or traumatic brain injuries or other debilitating medical conditions that have already listed them as technically unfit for d eployment. more than 43,000 of those troops have been deployed anyway. so then how does this translate into, what does this look like on the ground over in iraq and

afghanistan? by october 2007 the army reported that approximately 12% of combat troops in iraq and 17% of combat troops in afghanistan or coping by taking into depressants and/or sleeping pills. another important factor when we talk about morale, roughly one-third of the soldiers in both occupations right now are members of the national guard. so much for one weekend a month. this isn't exactly helping around either. also, attempting to keep enough boots on the ground for both occupations, on june 22, 2006, the army increased the permissible age limit to 42 from a previous list of 40. the army became so desperate it

began to record indiscriminately. they accepted individuals with health and weight issues, lower academic test scores and even those with criminal records. by july '07 the number of incoming soldiers with prior felony arrests or convictions and more than tripled over the previous five years. in the first half of 2007 the army had accepted an estimated 8,000 recruits with rap sheets. so we do technically have convicted rapist and convicted felons serving in the u.s. military today. one example, former army private steve green was awarded a waiver for previous involvement in criminal activity in lieu of joining the military and was later found guilty for raping a 14 year-old iraqi girl and then murdering her and three of for family members and trying to burn the bodies to hide the evidence. so, again, people like this serving in the military, how

does that play out with folks that join four other reasons, for example, not joining ticket out of going to jail or joining for patriotic reasons or to serve their country or two carry on a family legacy, people that really enjoys serving in n the military, they intend to be in for life. then they see the lower ranks swelling with people who have rap sheets or gang members who are intensely joining to get combat experience and learn how to do surveillance and be a good sniper and be able to bring that back and use it on the streets and cities in the u.s. this is all happening in the military as well in addition to people not getting the care that they need but while they are in the military as well as ones they have discharged. i would confidently argue that the military has been in an ongoing state of crisis. one thing i bespeak to talk

this fact, last may many people in this in this room probably hn a baghdad a u.s. soldier on the end of his third deployment walked into a ptsd clinic and and gunned five of the soldiers. right on the wake of that we had chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mike mullen, he went into the media along with secretary of defense robert gates. both of them saying this is a crisis. this is a result of too many redeployments. this is a result of not enough time at home in between deployments. this is a result of soldiers not getting the psychological care and tested and spot on. could not agree with them more. the problem was this said this and talk about changing policy. aside from a few minor tweaks they have basically not changed

policy. so we have situations like fort hood like major nidal hasan where he did not serve in iraq or afghanistan has spent a lot of time in walter reed hospital counseling giving psychiatric counseling to soldiers coming back from both occupations. so there have actually been a lot of people in the military already calling for pst treatment for for soldiers themselves. then we need pstd treatment for the counselors. when you hear one traumatic story after another, day after day after day you are going to need to talk to somebody about that. so major hasan, of course, his family in the aftermath of fort hood talked about this. this guy had a very heavy work load that was consistently being increased. he was hearing this horrible,

horrible stories. that coupled with him being opposed with those occupations and his religion coupled with the ongoing harassment, all of this over time, clearly the guy snapped. there were people in the military at fort hood, even veterans there had been warning against this problem, this type of a serious situation happening along time in advance. in fact a mother is a guy called lled chuck luther at fort hood who is a two tour iraq veteran who came out. talking about how he had been warning the chain of command of this type of thing happening for a long time. he is telling folks, look, people are being exposed to secondary trauma. we need help for these counselors.

they're going to have something else happened right here on the mainland just like what happened over in baghdad last may. this is a guy who had been discharged from the military, but then he has chosen to stay on fort hood and has formed a soldier's advocacy group to try to help soldiers get some of the things i have been talking about. he actually said, i talked to him just a few days ago also about his efforts to try to change things on the ground there at fort hood. he said, there will be more 5 november attacks on fellow soldiers, 5 november being the fort hood tragedy. there will likely be even more drastic. everyone has to out do someone. the next turn lead it to be worse. violence breeds violence. two months ago i've warned the

army's chain of command that before we have an attack by a soldier other troops with the company to make dramatic changes. so all of this works in concert to have formed a lot of descent in the military. and when i talk about descent i talk about this coming from low morale to what soldiers see directly when they go overseas coupled with not getting the care that they need that i talk about. so, both of those working in concert is causing people to stand up and publicly refused to go over to both occupations, and it's causing a lot of other different types of dissent in the military and resistance as well. i'll talk about a lot of this. first and most overtly iran into about two years ago i was on tour for my first book. i was giving talks about what i

was seeing in iraq. i started to meet veterans. so we would sit down and talk about where were you, when were you there, what i was hearing, i met a guy who was a corporal in the 10th armored division. he said, morale was very low for us. we basically decided that we didn't want to keep driving around on these patrols waiting to get blown up. we didn't feel like we were helping anybody. we certainly weren't helping ourselves, and we certainly weren't helping the iraqi people. he said from the best that we can judge we were basically just driving around waiting to get blown up. i've heard that also by other soldiers. the ied lottery. the improvised explosive device lottery. and so he said that what we decided to do was, as a platoon

we would try our humvees out to the end of the patrol route, find a nice, big, wide open field, park or humvees, call in the base every hour and say we are still searching the fields for weapons caches. we would sit there and smoke cigarettes and drank soda and listen to music and pretend. i was shocked. i had not heard anything like this before. i was taking some notes. i said, well, how often was this happening. he said, every other day. everyone was doing it. i took notes. i just kind of held on to it. a couple days later i met another veteran and i have tim, have you ever ou ever heard of e search and avoid a missions whih is what they were being referred to. search and avoid rather than search and destroy. i ask another fellow. oh, yeah, everybody was doing that. he was over in iraq, different

time of the occupation, a different area of iraq. so i kept meeting more and more veterans. at this point realized, there is something going on here. i am going to look into this. i kept meeting more and more people. the more people i talk with i heard more and more variations of the same. i met a guy who was with the striker brigade. he was up in northern iraq about a year after the first couple of folks i talk with about their search and avoid missions. he said, we found actually a different way to do search and avoid missions. we figured out how to get into the computers in the humvees. we actually found a way to get into the computer and move our little blip around doing to

virtual patrols. so we would leave the guy in the house the doing that and we would go have soccer games with iraqi kids. iraqis up to invite you into their house and serve you gallons of tea. so we would go to that. i thought, wow, that is pretty amazing. at first i didn't believe it. how did you get into a humvee and get into the computer and move the blip around? and then a little bit later i met a guy named josh simpson, a different part of iraq, different time of the occupation. yeah, we figured out this great thing to do. we could actually get into the computer and move our little blip around and do the virtual patrols. so there was a lot of that. their is a lot of comparison to the it know. largely their way, way off because people ask, how much resistance is there of this type, directory resistance happening in iraq and

afghanistan? certainly compared to vietnam it is minuscule. in vietnam for those who have not read history or weren't around at that time, this country has a very rich tradition of g.i. resistance. in vietnam there was a gi resistance movement that was s o powerful that by the end of the vietnam war nearly half the soldiers on the ground would not follow orders. they would not comply. they would not do missions. and there was little the military could do about it. there were certain little the government could do about it. basically when you have a military that is in that far advanced in a state of collapse where nearly half the people on the ground won't follow orders it's hard to fight the war. that is a very huge factor coupled with a powerful anti-war movement year in the u.s. coupled with a very fierce the

vietnamese resistance. those three factors brought an end to vietnam. and so -- [inaudible] >> okay. we're going to have a q&a. [inaudible] >> fair enough. where was i? so finishing talking about vietnam, as i said, we had very fierce g.i. resistance that brought that to an end. we don't have anything like that happening right now in iraq. also what happened during vietnam, they don't have anything like that happening today. before the end of vietnam, actually around the time operation rolling thunder when there was an escalation in the

air campaign to of the u.s.u.s.s 14 aircraft carriers were completely off line. so the point is we had a fierce resistance and we don't have anything like that today. however, we do have a lot of ongoing types of descent and breaking ranks within the military in iraq happening right now and in afghanistan as we speak as i'm in direct contact with soldiers in both places right now. and there are other types of resistance in the military that is happening related to different types of problems. i'll come back to direct resistance to iraq and afghanistan. there are other big problems in the military that i want to talk to you about the soldiers are taking it upon themselves to stand up and fight again. and these are not problems. a lot of these problems are not

directly related to the iraq and afghanistan, but they are more systemic problems in the u.s. military. so i have a chapter in the book called resisting sexism, and it is about rape and sexual assault in the u.s. military. and according to viejo statistics one in three women in the military is raped d or sexuy assaulted before the end of their contract. and so i have heard giving talks of counter argument, well, that is comparable to the civilian rate in the general population of the united states. as though that should make it okay. but my counter argument to that is, okay, well, one in three women in the civilian population is raped in their lifetime. one in three women in the military is raped in an average four-year contract. so four years compared to a

lifetime. that shows it is a pretty severe situation. it there is also a pentagon report that came out that shows 80% of all rapes and sexual assaults in the military never go reported. 80%. a very, very high. and so when someone is raped in the military, i want to read a brief paragraph from a woman named april fitzsimmons is served in the air force from 85-89 as an intelligence analyst, an intelligence briefer for a two star general. she was sexually assaulted by another soldier. she spoke very clearly about what it is like in this military culture when someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted basically goes and gets help for it and admits that this has happened to them and does officially reported. people start to hear about it. fitzsimmons says when victims come forward they are

ostracized and isolated from the communities. they are punished. many of the perpetrators are officers to use their ranks to coarse woman to sleep with them. on being asked all the have to do is deny it. after resting a reprimanded and sent away. so perpetrators are safe within the system and can freely move said. i am telling women to not join the military because it is completely unsafe and puts them at risk. until something changes at the top noblemen should join the military. another person i want to talk about relating to this topic is a former general. you may have heard for. she was one of the generals in charge of of the when the scandn the spring of 2004. she was to date the highest ranking person in the military to be a full person for the scandal even though it has long since come out there is direct proof documented evidence that

dawn runs held at the very lowest if not highest had given direct orders to have people tortured. but i met her back in january 2006. we were both at the conference together. at that conference, penske testified that a coalition joint task force said that women soldiers died of dehydration in a 103rd degree heat of baghdad. it refused to drink liquid because they were reluctant to use the trains which are located outside the barracks after dark for fear of being sexually assaulted or raped by male soldiers. generators at the camp were loud enough to muffle the sound of the women screamed as male soldiers jumped in and sexually assaulted and. speaking of the tenant general ricardo sanchez who is commander of coalition forces in iraq from june 03-jan 04 per penske says rather than make everyone aware of that, because that is

shocking, and as a leader if that is not shocking to you than you are not much of the leader. what they told the surgeon is don't read the details. don't say specifically that they are women. you can provide that in a written report. she spoke just before this jefferson school of law about sexual assaults and a rock and the cover-up and says, it was out of control. and how 800 number existed as a help line. no one had a phone, and no one answered the number of which was based in the united states. she informed the audience that after more than 80 incidents were reported during a six month time frame in a rock and 28 the rape hotline was still being answered by a machine that thats to leave a message. there were innumerable situations all over the theater of operations because female soldiers did not have a voice

individually or collectively. even as a general i didn't have a voice with sanchez. so i know what the soldiers were facing. sanchez did not want to hear about female soldier requirements and/or issues. later she quoted sanchez to me as saying, the women have to be here. let them take what comes with the territory. there is thankfully pushed back against this by women in the u.s. military. their is a lot of women that have formed a group called ceylon service, it is a group trying to get policy changes, es, get things changed in the structure of the military so that that hopefully somehow this massive incidents of rampent to rape and sexual assault might decline. when women en i wrote about is m

the greater l.a. area. she decided what she would do was since she was recruited right at the end of her high school career to go into the military and that is why she joined she decided -- of course she too was sexually assaulted. she took it upon herself to talk to as many high school age girls as possible about the reality of the situation. if you are a woman in this country and you are going to join the military he have a one in three chance at a minimal of being raped or sexually assaulted before the end of your contract. says she decided she would go around and talk to high school kids in the greater l.a. area. i asked her, how many folks do you figure you have talked to based on class size and how often you have done it. she said i have talked to over 30,000 kids so far. so there is this type of pushed back happening, and it is continuing. there are hearings on the hill. the military, of course, comes out and says, yes, we are making

these policy changes, these dramatic shifts. more training. but i called the pentagon not too long ago. by and doing some follow-up stories on a situation which is more shocking than some of these stories in the book. but the pentagon, i said, what have you restituted to try to o try to correct this problem. i basically was fed a lot of lines. we have this kind of training. we have sexual assault awareness week. these t-shirts. at the end of the conversation the public affairs officer i spoke with said basically what we are doing is we are asking people to watch each other's backs. so it's going to take a bit more than that, clearly. there is pushed back on that, however. another situation of want to talk about in the military address homophobia in the military.

of course giving the u.s. military is arguably the most misogynist institution on the planet there is a lot of racism and homophobia. we will have a q&a session after the talk. rampant homophobia. so most people are probably familiar with don't ask don't tell where this is a policy instituted under president bill clinton that basically says if you are gay you can join the military and you can be in the military. no one is allowed to ask you about whether you are gay or not. as long as you don't tell anyone then we can kick you out. so, of course, the understanding is if you tell someone in the military have to kick you out. so by have a chapter really detailing what it is like to be a gay person in that kind of a

military today. i speak -- i spent a lot of time specifically on a guy named jeff key, a lance corporal from the marine corps reserve who was in a rock during the invasion during which time based on what he saw and what he was asked to do he turned vehemently against the occupation. and he served his tour and came back home and was based at camp pendleton, the budget to marine base in the united states over just north of san diego. he was there on march 301, 2004, a day that for blackwater mercenaries were killed and felicia, the terrible things done to their bodies. you have all probably seen when it happened, the photos and video of that. a big, strapping marine. six-foot six, blond hair, blue eyes, a poster boy for the marine corps. he was asked on to the show on

cnn to discuss soldier morale in the wake of the killings of these four blackwater mercenaries in flew to ajuh. so he agreed to go on to the show. paula asked, i know i winced when i saw these pictures. when you saw these images not only being brutally beaten and murdered, but dragged down the street what went through your mind? a little bit of a leading question. no, i first saw it this morning when i was sitting at the computer. honestly, my first thoughts were that i had a lot of intense anger. i wanted to go back and find the people who did that and cut them down. it is the marine in me. i wanted to exact revenge. than using the platform he had been offered, roughly 7 million

viewers, he went on to and, shortly thereafter i started to think about the family's. there are several families today that a changed forever because of the event in iraq. i spent a lot of time in introspection and thinking since i came back from iraq about our mission there and what it meant to me. i have very conflicting feelings about it. i am still intensely committed to the reasons i became a marine four years ago. i have decided this week to leave the marine corps, actually. i came out of the closet as a gay man. i have made sweeping rationalizations that allow me to continue to lie about my sexuality and stay in the marine corps in attempts to stay true to my commitment for the reasons i joined. having come back and receive a lot of information, things we did not know when we were there that we were never told about weapons of mass destruction, i just at that point he is cut off

and tries to figure out what is the fastest way i can get this big handsome gay marine off the tv. and she did. so he basically expected to go back to his barracks and have an order of pack your bags. you're out of here. it didn't come. ..

>> he realized he need to continue to speak out about don't ask, don't tell and what gay people should do. whether about thinking of joining the military or if they are already in it. his device today to anyone gay or straight about whether or not to enter the military is this, don't produce not join the u.s. military presence in the foreseeable future no matter which wing of the one party that we have that happens to sit in the white house the soldiers commitment will be abuse back of his a vice to a young gay person who may be considering joining the military " work through your homophobia in another way but if you think you are homophobic it does not bear

near any mark to join the military then examine all of the other good reasons is somebody might want to join. if you need college. these money for college money is that the justification for what you'll be asked to do. i would tell those kids not to join. for those already in the military, take a good long hard look at how the military is being used now part of that resonates with their spirited a good way then god bless them and keep going provide can never hope you, let me know. i will. it does not resonate to be noble then step up and say i am a big fat homosexual and leave the military today. that would be an interesting ti resistance movement. [laughter] sought. the thought. i want to talk briefly about the instances of people who

have chosen to stand up and directly disobey orders to deploy to iraq or afghanistan. in the context for this, i want to talk briefly. and i will try to do it in a way that is the least boring way possible. at this point* it is a given that the invasion and occupation of the basically anybody with gray matter upstairs understands this was the legal violation that violated international law because according to the un charter of which the u.s. is a signatory country, in order to have a just war, you have to have you in security council approval for it is an act of self-defense. iraq was neither. but today there are international lawyers like the president of the national lawyers guild

point* united states arguing that afghanistan does not meet the criteria of a just war either. but for that situation the u.s. did not have ratification but it is not an act of self-defense either, of the war. said basically when the u.s. was attacked it was not attacked by the nation nor the people of afghanistan. 19 guys in planes coming 15 from saudi arabia, the other four from iraq or afghanistan. a large body of lawyers come international lawyers arguing that afghanistan is also a violation of international law. then there is nothing in the u.s. constitution called the supremacy close. the supremacy clause also

says, they don't need to argue this part but it says when the u.s. signs a foreign treaty, then we are obliged by our own constitution to follow that treaty as though as it is the lot of our land as well. hence the words supremacy clause. of a soldier refuses to deploy to a record afghanistan, they are adhering to international law, u.s. constitution then when you get down to the oath that the soldiers swear to support and defend the constitution of united states by following lawful orders, those who refuse orders to deploy are actually a hearing to their oath to adhere to the u.s. constitution and adhering to international law. in that context, we talk about the recent resistors, recent being resistors of the current two

moors. the first objector to the iraq war was a guy named named -- who stood up in 2004 who served a tour and nobody can have a lot of buddies killed and he killed a lot of people. he came back to his appointment and realize the catastrophe he was a part of and he cannot continue to be a part of it. he publicly refused to redeploy. he was on a lot of national media who was accusing him of being a coward. are you afraid? at the time he responded by writing this paragraph. of. >> i say without any pride i did my job was a soldier and commanded the infantry squad in combat and we never failed to accomplish our mission. those who call me a coward without knowing it are also

right. i was a coward not for leaving the war but having been a part of it in the first place refusing in resisting this war was my moral duty, a moral duty that called me to take a principled action. i fail to fill my moral duty as a human being instead i chose to fill my duty as a soldier. all because i was afraid. i was terrified. did not want to stand up to the government and army. i was afraid of punishment and humiliation. went to war because i was a coward and for that i apologize to my soldiers for not being the type of leader i should have been. a couple of years later we had a diet-- had a man to stand up in december 2006 he refused to go deployment to iraq of the time he was the highest ranking member to reduced appointment and of course, he was court-martialed as it is always the case.

however the judge to blue the trial so he was then relegated to sitting behind a desk shuffling papers for all while until roughly four are five weeks ago from today he was released by the military. this is an interesting case because so far the highest ranking military member to date to refuse to deploy to iraq and not have to serve one day in the military brig or overseas. excuse me. most recently at four hood there was specialist a gusto who had served a 15 month tour and iraq and it was there that he turned against the occupation. he said "it was in iraq that it turned against the occupation i started to feel

very guilty. i watched contractors making obscene amounts of money and no evidence that the occupation was in any way hoping the people of iraq. i contributed to death and human suffering for it is hard to quantify how much a cause but i know that i contributed. another factor coming he got back, that was it is a feeling. but he figured i have about six weeks left of my four year contract. i'm about to get out and i will suck it up. this is extremely common with people in the military right now. mostly for economic reasons. but just a few weeks before the end of his contract with the military said sorry, you are a stop-loss we need you to go prepare to get ready to go to afghanistan. on may 1st, he was ordered to go to the soldier readiness facility where

major hasan slaughtered all of those soldiers it is basically a processing facility where they go right before they go abroad to do paperwork and medical. specialist augusto was ordered to go there and he said no. his commander wrote him a statement that basically is something he asked to sign that says i disobeyed the direct order. but then he also wrote of khmer is no way i will deploys to afghanistan. the occupation is immoral and unjust and does not make the american people any saver and has the opposite effect. 10 days later he was given another direct order to go to the soldier readiness facility to begin processing to of go to afghanistan and again he disobeyed the direct order and again in issuing a statement and again he cited on this one he wrote, i will not obey any orders i deem to be

immoral or illegal. of you shortly thereafter court-martialed for the folks like this stand-up they will receive a rare between one 1/3 one year in the military brig it could be many years. they know they're putting jail time on the line. costs they will lose all if not most of their pay in reduced to a private bill when they get out they will be given a dishonorable discharge. know the benefits or no college money from the g.i. bill. i talked to him and they said you are about to get hammered. are you sure about what you are doing? he said quote mackie asperger are now fully prepared for this. i have concluded the wars in iraq and afghanistan are not going to be determined by politicians are the people at the top. they're not responsive to regular people. they are responsive to

corporate america. the only way to make an two responsive to the needs of america is for soldiers not to fight their wars part of the soldiers will not fight the wars they will not happen. i hope and setting an example for other soldiers. shortly thereafter, he got his hope. there was a guy named sergeant a bishop who also served a 15 months be 11 in iraq were he realized he was opposed nudges to iraq or afghanistan but all wars. what people don't understand as was true during vietnam remains true today the military has colleges objector status any time anyone in the military can apply for this status. you cannot pick and choose this war or that or i will go to iraq or not afghanistan or vice versa, but if you file for co status you have to be

opposed to all wars and begin a process of talking to a military chaplain, having recommendations, writing an essay to try to prove that your spiritual beliefs or religious beliefs make it so that you cannot produce-- participate in filings are a war of any kind. sergeant bishop started the process of his application for conscientious objector status. the was deployed to afghanistan around that time and of course, he refuses to go. he was in the midst of the co application he is court-martialed and found of course, guilty of a couple of different counts and right now is in the brick at fort lewis washington state serving out a one-year prison sentence and of course, he has forfeited

two-thirds of his pay when he is there and read he gets out you'll likely get paid dishonorable discharge and his rank was reduced from sergeant down at private pretended his court-martial and i spoke with him right before he was put din manacles and walked to the van and taken to jail. i said you are about to go to jail. how do you feel about this? about what you're doing? there is hardly anybody, there is not an organized movement, there is not a lot of attention from the general population and he said i do not want to go to jail. who does? we have heard the stories. but i feel this is the right thing to do and this is what i need to do to sleep with myself that night prerelease i can get some good sleep been jailed. literally driving over here tonight i got a call from

sergeant bishop from the brig letting me know how things are going. i asked him how our things? he says usual the food socks. it is boring but i am reading a lot and i still feel good about what i have done. the thought i like to leave people with his while we do not have a massive organized g.i. resistance nothing comes close to what we had at vietnam's redo have many instances in growing numbers of people expressing to send in many ways. pentagon figures show on any given year 2001 through write now, between four and 12,000 people going absent without leave from the military and these numbers are increasing in direct correlation to president

obama's first surgeon to afghanistan now being on the eve of a second surge. when will it happen and how many troops will that be? in this current climate, the question i like to leave folks to think about it is, when we talk about support the troops, what is it that people can do to support the troops? think about that. whether it is a topic that cuts across the entire political spectrum does support the troops mean you put a yellow magnetized ribbon magnet on the back of your suv or find the people in your community and need help getting to the virginia appointment or need help getting counseling and not getting it? of these are and all of our communities across the entire country. they need help and they feel isolated and people are afraid to talk with them. one way folks can support the troops is to find these

people and talk to them and ask them what could be done to help you? there is that factor then the other factors that people need to know there are other options. if they think they can only join the military today to get a college education, there are other alternatives. with that said come if you are opposed to both of the applicant -- occupations and feel they're not in the best interest of this country or international law or the countries where they are taking place, the thought that i do want to leave you with is this. think about what these soldiers, the specialist, at specialist augusto and sgt bishops and but there were willing to do to follow their conscience and risk jail time, money, is to move their peers, a stand-up because it was the right thing to do.

they are willing to do that, then what is each one of less willing to do to end both occupations? thank you. [applause] [applause] >> they will come over two with a microphone. >>

[inaudible] and november 16th and 20th anniversary as a terrorist and to the home of six jesuit priests and comment murder them and their housekeeper and her daughter who happen to be there at the time. this was part of what no chomsky has called the first war of united states against organized religion and this war, 75,000 salvadorans lost their lives $275,000 nearly in the population to the city of anchorage where you are speaking tonight. my question, and 20 years later, in your opinion, do

we have another war against organized religion? >> >> i don't think so parker you bring up an important point* but it gives me the segue i need to talk about u.s. foreign policy because anyone that thinks foreign policy has anything to do with national security or hoping ladies and afghanistan are helping to liberate iraqis or any of this nonsense, i urge them to simply get online and google national security strategy of the united states of america and have a read. most people are unfamiliar or totally ignorant of what is u.s. foreign policy? i will talk about two documents briefly. the national security strategy, one of the

missions statements in u.s. foreign policy according to this document "and ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade" end quote. "pressing for open markets, financial stability and deeper integration of the world economy" end quote. another mission statement " markets and developing countries and the reforming the international financial system to assure stability and growth" end quote. i don't think that is why people joined the military. if people knew that in advance and there would not be willing to join the military and put the life of the line and go to places like iraq and afghanistan to open the free-market says or too deeply integrate the economies of those countries into the world economy. another document is called the quadrennial defense

review report that lines out how the u.s. military will enforce the national security strategy. another think it is interesting less particular natural resources like oil or natural gas, particular countries and the middle eastern southeast asia have been national security interest of the united states of america as are the shipping lanes of the said resources. when the u.s. military will be used to enact this policy we can cite something called the quadrennial defense review report. google it is a public document, according to this there is a stated ability for the u.s. military to fight "multiple overlapping wars and ensure that all major and emerging powers

are constructive actors are stakeholders into the international system. i will read that sentence again from it is quite telling. to ensure that all major and emerging powers are integrated has constructed actors and stakeholders into the international system. that is u.s. foreign policy. new can argue it is a religious war but a different kind of religion and organized religion. >> i spent 14 months in iraq and six of which was as a platoon leader in combat. the recently spent six months as a platoon leader in combat was because i quit and i thought it was wrong.

[applause] i thought was an illegal war and i struggled for a very, very very long time about what to do. ultimately the act of ordering soldiers into harm's way for a cause that i did not believe the end, i did not think had a point*. and knowing i would not be able to look if one of my soldiers were to be killed in combat, i could not look their parent in the eye and tell them that they died for a just cause. that is ultimately what made me quit. because i was being affected because i was so depressed and internally conflicted by what was going on, i could not effectively lead them. that is what got me to the point* when i said i cannot

do this anymore. what took me so long to get there, and was the fact to follow the orders appointed over me. alternately i made a decision on my own personal morals. me personally as a human being, my code of morality supersedes the ethical and professional obligations that i have as an officer. that was my decision. but was delayed me is what if everybody did that? what if every officer in the army did what i did and across the board refused to obey the orders of civil authority? i believe we would call that a military coup. how would you respond to the attention between individual conscience and a very, very important obligation of our

military to obey civil authority? >> thank you for that. i appreciate you sharing that. i think you new-line did out first of all, again, that is why i talk about that brief segment talking about law because it is very easy to argue that what you did by making that decision was putting you in a position were you a year to the both of you had as a soldier support and defend the constitution for lawful order. being in an occupation that violates international law, you follow the both that you soar to. that is where the military as you know, having served just from the research i have done for this book is rife with contradictions. on the one hand, they want you to always follow orders and never questioned why but do or die and all of that

crap but yet at the same time the way that oath is written you have to use your new role and decide what is lawful and what is not? of your commander says go into the house and kill of the women and children, clearly you can say no. that is not lawful i will not follow it. i am talking about that kind of decision but on the scale of the cold war but that is what the lawyers are talking about. but the point* you bring up what happens if all of the commanders amplitude leaders did what you did a and basically refuse to follow orders? if they are illegal orders it is basically what you have come and this has happened a few times in iraq, then it is basically a small new to me. but on a grand scale been likened the unknown the government says it looks like we don't have a military that will fight so we better call the war off.

that is what would happen. that is why i am clear to say we're very far away from something like that happening but last night up in fairbanks, i said you think we should have a military? my answer was given the current u.s. policy, yes. but if we change u.s. foreign policy not based on taking over other countries and their resources we probably would not have as many enemies. we might not be able to get away with the military entirely but not spent on that every year than every other country on the planet combined. whatever your reasons were for doing its, was a hearing in a think i know a lot of international lawyers would agree, you were appearing specifically to the oseas for as a soldier in the u.s. constitution and international law.

>> what i did was legal to not participate in the iraq war was legal by your arguments would you say that every soldier in iraq and afghanistan who was not resist dain doing what they're told presuming they're following the rules of engagement, are you saying that all soldiers who are not resisting are all war criminals? >> it is more criminal than up. we cannot be that black-and-white prepared technically, everyone is agreeing to be there and stay there, i am not a lawyer so i am satanic lawyers i have interviewed -- interviewed. they would say yes. they are violating international law. lawyers have argued on the nuremberg principles which is what the u.s. pushed through in the wake of world war ii where they are trying

hitler's henchmen. lot of people said they are putting people in ovens alive and gassing them and the guys started to say we were just following orders. one of the nuremberg principles is the misstating a was just following orders is never an excuse. >> [inaudible] i was born in poland and exposed to the documentary's and movies and all of the historical data about the

nazi. and what hitler was trying to do. going to the legal war for the preemptive war especially when it was not related to september 11 attacks, not whatsoever. watching those movies when the nazi were setting of dragnets and other cities just to catch the people who had a permit to work or the resistance, the underground resistance. the gestapo, family was spending a fortune to buy-outs who ever got caught, innocent people, most of the time civilians.

i was wondering about the bribery for american soldiers to release the prisoners to their family, most of the time? because the people were bringing jewelry or the value that they had with the savings to try to buy out those from the gestapo hands. i am watching news that disturbs me so much. because i can relate to those movies and the historical data and the documentary films with soldiers busting through the apartment houses. it is a terrible thing to

do. maybe that will answer your doubts about if you did the right thing to quit? because that is criminal. >> thank you for sharing that experience. i never ran into any instances of soldiers ringing the dent stage each engine facility or taking bribes to let people out or anything like that. but i saw a lot of that when i was over and iraq. first and balks doing dragnet seven tired neighborhoods of the military would court and off the neighborhood ample out all of the military age males. there was one marine named adam who served in the fallujah and his job was to manage a checkpoint wants u.s. started to seize the city and when any military age males came to the

checkpoint which were guys roughly between the ages of 14 and 50, obviously a bit subjective, his job was to turn them back into the city. the women and kids could leave but the fighters had to stay or anybody that could be a fighter had to be go back into the city and wait to be slaughtered. when i went into fallujah that month in rent to the american checkpoint i was in a bus carrying humanitarian supplies and wounded people. there is a big line of cars behind a solid iraqi families and we said let the cars out and one of the soldiers and we want to leave as many in there as possible because it is easier to kill them that way. that is the mentality of the troops that i talk about. a talk with another soldier whose job during the november seizure of fallujah o'quinn people were coming

through the checkpoints the americans had set up, he had done and there was a line in front of them and if any military age males came to that line they got the black mark on the forehead with a chirpy and if any guy with a black mark on his forehead tries to come up to his line, shoot him dead. that was his job. literally. that was not uncommon. >> i was watching afghanistan reports from marines going into the supposedly of thai camps. -- al qaeda camps. we're fighting a tribal society and up and talking to that holders of the village -- the elders of the

village, you did not tell us that those factors were in the village. what do you think? talking to those that are much older they do not recognize this at all. >> yes. it is a huge problem. a major major cultural ignorance and misunderstanding. that was really comment what i saw in iraq. i have not reported from afghanistan but much of what you talk about i saw that firsthand in iraq. >> thank you so much for being here tonight. appreciate it. like to listen to talk about these issues. can you talk about the reasons why the united states went to iraq in the first place?

i was talking to somebody and he was asked me where you were from and reread talking about the iraq war. he said we found weapons of mass destruction and actually we saw them move into syria. we could number of them because the iraqi refugees were going to do syria at the same time at the same location so we had to let them go. i was trying to reason there was no weapon of mass destruction found but he is not convinced. i am hoping he is here tonight. other, major hasan, the right wing left will make you think he did what he did and we should distrust any muslim in the military. it is really sad for them to keep covering this to say the muslims are terrorists.

his religion and was questioned so many times the he is just a soldier. somebody in the military parker does his religion have anything to do with what he did or he did that because of other reasons mentioned earlier like the pressures? >> i did talk about this earlier perk right thing his religion was a factor, but from my perspective in the research i have been doing especially on ptsd and secondary trauma but not the major factor. with his religion, the fbi already said there is nothing linking this guy too any extra no group. he acted alone and no evidence to support it was out tied up or anything like this. but as i said earlier, this is a guy and i have talked to some army shrinks slightly and even some of four hood, clearly this is a guy who had secondary trauma

from ongoing counseling with one soldier after another. he worked at walter reed giving direct psychiatric ptsd counseling to vets who have lost legs, arms, horribly disfigured, hearing one nightmare story after another. that is what happens when you do ptsd counseling. he had a major case load increasing and needed counseling himself. of that is what i talk about how chuck luther a two-time iraq a veteran at fort hood said they knew this was a problem. other soldier advocacy folks and we have to counsel the counselors. this is not happening. that is probably the primary factor in what happens. think his religion probably played a small part as did his convictions against both

wars in being harassed for being a muslim but those of lesser compared to the secondary trauma part of the reasons for iraq, it is clear if you read national-security strategy that it is about oil, a geostrategic positioning coming getting into iraq the four places like india or russia or china or e.u. to dictate prices and also to keep oil for iraq being the second largest oil reserves on the planet but the u.s. economy today is completely dependent on several things but the main factor is that oil is traded in dollars but if it ever gets traded in euros or other currencies, the u.s. dollar or what is left of it, will go the rest of the way down the toilet. right now it is doing the big circle slowing going down but it will go straight

down. that is part of it. with afghanistan coming a journalist friend of mine to reports for a tv station and canada called the real news. he calls afghanistan and pakistan and the southeastern theater he calls it a pipeistan. is all about the pipeline is going from the caspian sea down where are the four bases? their right down the line of the proposed pipeline route from with the oil and natural gas from the caspian sea down to the coast. >> i served in six years with the marine corps

between 1975 and 1981. i am a muslim. i would like you to discuss two issues because they have been horribly lied about in the american media. this probably goes more toward your first book but like you to discuss the precipitating factors of fallujah which resulted in the black water mercenaries come i figure they deserve whatever happens to them. but if you talk about the specifics of the initial o occupation of fallujah that talks about them getting what they deserved and also discuss in some detail what really happened at abu ghraib as opposed to it was more than people wearing victoria's secret head gear. if you can discuss the

specifics of those two incidents? >> fallujah. first it was not an anti-u.s. invasion city. despite the rhetoric in the media of that painting it later as a city follow sadam hussain said of the nonsense. it was a city in iraq where there is no fighting during the invasion. americans' role did the people put forth a couple of people to work with them they said we're glad saddam hussein is gone. we did not like kimmie there. that is pretty common. they welcome to the americans and and there were no problems but then i believe april april 28, 2003, little less than three weeks after the american stock baghdad, and fallujah of the talked to -- there we're occupying a secondary school, a demonstration because folks

wanted their kids to use the school to go to school and the americans opened fired on demonstrators and killed 17 people and civil investigations are done and of course, americans claim they took fire from the demonstrations. the next day another demonstration was happening in this city against the americans because of the people killed the previous day and four more people were killed. the resistance was formed in fallujah at the hands of american soldiers killing unarmed demonstrators. things heated up and the resistance heated up the brings us up march 22, 2004. nine days before the four blackwater mercenaries were killed in fallujah. march 22, and then gaza that israeli military murdered the sheik of the spiritual leader of hamas. that set the stage with

mercenary activities in fallujah up to that point* also where folks like blackwater and other groups going into do targeted assassinations, abductions assassinations, abductions, this kind of thing. and to break down the resistance which actually was not working. the israelis killed shaken then for black water gries role in two fallujah, they are killed. what is not heavily reported in the media at all is the guys that carried out the attack they distributed leaflets at the scene that said we are from brigade. so a direct correlation with israel military policy and the gaza with low back with

americans in iraq. also right after this happened all of the imam of fallujah said they did not condemn the killings but they said we are vehemently opposed to the treatment of the bodies in these people are not muslims and we do not want them in our cities we want to give them to you. but of course, all of that was usurped with the april 4 launching of the season of the entire city. than the attack was post as hostage intervention crisis because according to the media jordanian terrorist had taken control even though he never stepped in the city and had taken control. the was revenge that the americans could not take the city in april so they waited until just after the election in this country that november.

then-- later launched act and level the city. i was there earlier this year and it is basically still level. 80% electricity. massive deformities of baby being born from depleted uses of uranium. abu ghraib specifics what we have seen in the photos is the stories not just in abu ghraib but most of the detention facilities in iraq run by americans was policy. when i interviewed a double been in charge of the situation she told me she had direct documents and return on of listing out policies the sleep deprivation, and other

different types of things in him saying make sure this happens. it was not just the abu ghraib but all over the place dogs, sexually humiliating people, rape of prisoners, men and women, i talked to many iraqis one woman for example,, her sister was killed and the americans thought she had links to the resistance so they tried to get her to talk some would bring her sister's body into the cell and leave it there one hour per day. this kind of barbaric and hanus stuff. this is what happens and not saying that is justified, but this was rampant across iraq and it does not work. i will just take a couple more. >> first of all, let me

thank you so much for coming it has been very informative. i have a comment more than a question. in the '70s spent a lot of time in afghanistan afghanistan, iran, pakistan and india. it is my belief that we westerners cannot win a war there. because i saw those youngsters screwing up, the mentality that became leaders.

i think, when we as a country go into a war such as in vietnam and such as the middle east, i don't think we understand the mentality of the people. i really don't prepare you cannot fight and american-style war with american and expect the people will respond in those countries like americans because they are not. they are not. i think it would be a huge mistake with this decision being made now to commit more american lives and resources in afghanistan thinking the results will be different. it will not. i was really surprised the youngster, who are so intelligent and this is during the time of the shot of iran, they got an insight -- inside look at the mentality and the

thinking of the mideast people and they do not think like us. they will fight to the bitter end and it does not matter what kind of weapons and we throw them, that will not do with. leaves a weapons aside and do a massive piece core type of thing and be friends with them and learn them and start doing things together and win them over that way but you cannot win them over politically. i am convinced. [applause] >> i am curious about your time in iraq. it is my belief, my experience, that when people in other countries experience violence and occupation, these

experiences change them psychologically what you might call radicalizing or what catapults people into a motive resistance or at least two more fervent disagreement. what do you see as far as that happening? to people in the military realize or maybe i am wrong, but have you thought that maybe if i go and i give this person and a hard time or whatever they do, they are literally creating an enemy? >> yes. that is a good question. first of all, it is simple logic with a comment and the question tight and well together. first of all, have we briefly use our imagination and think what would happen if we were invaded by china and we're here in anchorage

and china in phase because they say they do not like our government. all of a sudden they have done a lot of destruction in the invasion and there is no electricity, no water, all the social systems brought down to their knees and also homes are getting raided because people start to fight back in we would not want our country to be occupied. a lot of us would start to fight back that would increase when i start watching my friends get killed and shot. then when i started to hear stories of my friends being detained and put into detention facilities in hearing the horrible stories of torture, and would probably start fighting back with a bit more than a fast. i think probably most of us or a lot of us would when our backs are pressed up against the desperate wall. that is obviously what is happening abroad and that

could have a massive change in policy. but again, this has less to do with the ones culture in iraq for afghanistan or pakistan or iran or anywhere else but what happens when one country invades another then uses another with what will happen? again, the whole premise of we should invade different or treat people differently is a bit flawed ideally. it would be easier if you did not invade in the first place. liberation. sorry. thank you. [laughter] maybe they have a different definition of liberation in iraq. last question? >> approximately one month ago a group called alaskans for palestine have good fortune to be able to bring

alison weir to alaska, and other groups around the state. and she appeared at a number of venues. we have a lot of conflict at that time. she is a person who started the organization called if americans knew.org. if you want something, this is an eye opener. check out the website. what she speaks primarily about is how the media is incredibly biased and she focuses primarily on the palestinian/is really conflict. and at that time there was a great deal of animosity and disinformation brought against her. we were able to have her speak she spoke as three different venues and one of

them was a democratic club. they are going to hold their annual fund-raising dinner this saturday. what has happened is the number of the leading democrats in this town are demanding that day boycott other democrats and 10 boycott the club because they had alison we're here. and they are just a small number sign up for the dinner. i am only asking. and i am only asking that people call this senior center at 6:00 on saturday purview can get ahold of alex at 726-0743. this is an issue because of

the war we just cannot pay attention. of the media is so incredibly biased and she presents a good story about it but there's an awful price to pay if you spread the word think you. >> thank you for coming out tonight. [applause]

>> welcome too afterwards. i am here with steven levitt and stephen governor to talk about there hit new book super for economics. thank you for being here today tell me about how we got here? of the inane this is a big brand of publishing but it almost did not happen. what or the other names?

>> they are so bad. even though it was my idea it would have to be some kind of character but my favorite that was bad but it was great we should say his sister linda -- when des came up with "superfreakonomics." it was hard to name it so it needed a nonsense and a better other great name was a bit like zeblin that is so bad. [laughter] >> that is like watching people from the future or from the present. [laughter] what is the project? what is the project