chinese to get to mars, use the american. >> our first maersk walker could be -- our firstmars walker could be here. >> the moment has come for you to go to lunch, is that right? >> i think so. i already had a nice sandwich. [laughter] i'dheard that at the white house. what you're eating that lunch, remember we all paid for it. [laughter] buzz aldrin, ladies and gentlemen. >> thank you very much spre. .

>> i took off my helmet and clubs and pick up some. -- took off my helmet and gloves. it picked up the oils of your skin and it felt like graphite and you could smell it. it had a gun powder smell to it.

i cannot tell you why, but it did. >> she is shaking her head. we do have a question. this is from the st. louis science center. we have a moderator. >> [inaudible] i think we have a moderator. [inaudible] she is 13-years old. [inaudible] >> what was the hardest part physically and emotionally? >> we are having some feedback problems. >> the question was, what was the hardest part emotionally and technically with the space travel?

for me, the hardest part was the landing on the moon. we are coming in an area that was unknown from a landing standpoint. we could identify it smoking mountain and craters as a came in from an altitude of 1 mile above the surface, but we had to maneuver to an area that would allow us to be as level as possible so we could work. we got photos sent back of the landing spot and you can see this big crater behind our spacecraft. we did not even see it. fortunately we got over it by about 3 meters and landed. looking out to the west it was just a fantastic scene.

then i got out and went around to a tree if the package -- went around to retrieve the package. if we would have landed there it would have been very difficult to retrieve the experiments, so that was the hardest part. emotionally, it was not hard. i was not even trying to control my emotions. i was so excited like a little kid at christmas. that is the way we train, to have fun and be animated. it turned out to be the best because we worked together that way better. emotionally, it was a high for 71 hours. >> in the residue after you got back? -- any residue after you got

back? there were some promotional after travis -- emotional afterdrafts. >> not for me. i don't think anyone had a physical or psychological problems as a result of moon flight, but when you come down from that high and think now what will i do, that is where things could cause you to go off. buzz aldrin acknowledge that in his book and all of us decided we needed to do something else. my commander stayed on at nasa and finally retired in 1995 as 44 years as an astra ab. -- 44 years as an astronaut'. i left after 10 years to do

other things, so it was the after part -- you will probably have the same problem after the throwing the venture, now what will you do? hopefully they have a good mission. -- the same problem after your mission. we have to go explore. >> this time a question from the california academy of sciences. i believe we have a moderator standing by. >> hello, i was wondering [inaudible] scary, humorous, or inspiring? >> would you describe the adventure you just gave us as more inspiring, humorous, or

more scary. >> my first choice would be inspiring. i think not only to us individually but especially the kids of the world. they dream. when i was a kid it was -- there was not a space program. i did not look up into the heavens and say, and i will walk on the moon one day. mama would have dropped a net on me and sent me to the psychiatric hospital. but i did have heroes from the great generation of world war ii. now we have that opportunity to inspire kids of the world to dream in the same high. -- to dream and a high -- and

aim high. the second for us would be humorous because john and i had a good time. my third would be scary and there was only one moment when i had a scary incident. it was doing something i should not have been doing, so kids, hear this, you always get in trouble you were not supposed to do. we were going to set the high jump record on the mound. [laughter] my backpack wait 155 pounds which is what i weighed. when i jumped i went backwards. i had a moment of fear it there because i was falling on my back and the backpack is not designed for that.

fortunately i was able to break my fault, but that ended the moon olympics. [laughter] >> for now. >> mission control was very upset. they thought they lost somebody. >> he did not try to break your record, right? >> [inaudible] >> the rover -- i was the navigator. john was the driver. writing with john, -- riding with john -- he was flat out on the moon and we set the speed record at 11 miles per hour. we were bouncing like this. i am glad i had mine seatbelt because the rover only weighed 80 pounds on the moon. it would hit bumps and small

craters and we would bounce all over the place. >> i wanted to give you a chance in the audience. if you have questions you would like to ask of these wonderful people, come to that microphone over there. i can tell you there was a question from a google moderator. how far do you think the united states should go with space exploration? do you set limits? >> there is always limits you have to set in terms of funding, but it is the most important thing we do. exploration brings all the new technology that makes our lives worthwhile.

>> let's take it on. >> i think great things happen when we said impossible goals. i think space exploration allows us to do that, to dream beyond what is possible so we should not think about it in terms of limits and striving for that next incredible thing we cannot even imagine we could do. >> we don't do it because it's easy but because it is hard. >> that is true. i think the human spirit is the spirit of exploration. that is why i volunteered, i wanted to be an explorer. in the future that spirit is still here with us and it will lead us on to more knowledge of the moon and on to mars. eventually we will get there. i don't know in my lifetime but

i would encourage everybody studying now to do their best and look out into the future the mountains we climb will allow you to see further on with the new technology you could not imagine. >> i think i hear the voice of the next estrada. we have some questions standing by. >> was it more nerve wracking for you to watch the astronauts landed before you wondering if they could successfully land and come back? was it more nerve wracking to be the one they're landing and then coming back? >> >> sitting in mission control and monitoring is morton directing -- is more nerve wracking to listen to it because

you are not in that dynamic situation. once you get to do it, you are so focused on the operational side that you don't have time to worry about, what am i going to do. you would not be there, but watching mission control, you get anxious and you want to succeed so much that you get anxious. >> i was in mission control when they were trying to turn that [unintelligible] people think scientists are not emotional but people were crying because they devoted 10 years of their lives to this. we all wanted to turn that ranch for you -- we wanted to turn that wrench for you.

>> i wanted to ask your reaction to what impact this amazing coverage on television of the apollo exploration at cbs news anchored by walter cronkite, we so tragically lost him last friday, but can you talk about the impact on the public? and for those of us who are in these lists, how can we manage to get those not, how can we get them to get it why this is important for our human species? >> i would like to lead off because charlie talked about inspiring. there is no question -- i did

tell my mom i wanted to walk on the moon. well i have not done that, going up through hubble was my holy grail. i grew up in the 1960's when the two major inspirations was the moon landing and television appearing in people's homes. it was that that set me off on a lifetime of discovery. >> the coverage was intrinsic to your [unintelligible] what impact do you think back coverage had? >> i think the coverage is very important. the earlier flights, every minute was covered on tv. by the time we flu, hardly any of it was on tv.

my parents and wife and kids went to mission control to sit in the viewing room so they could watch us on the moon. that is ok to me. it is an evolution of knowledge and experience that fades away, but does not take away from the importance of what we were doing. lindbergh flew the atlantic, nobody can say the number two. the first 747 to fly. now we have them flying all over. what we do does not distract from what we accomplish. i did not say that right. >> i know what you mean. doesn't the celebrity of those

early astronauts, did that not help to get the congress for the difficult and expensive task that lay ahead? >> that is why i spent a lot of my time speaking to groups to try to encourage them to rekindle that adventure, because the future is the future and we need to get excited about it and invest some of our resources to make that capital investment for a return. >> another question. >> we fly students to the moon all the time. we have a student from richmond, virginia. >> what are some things we have learned from space exploration that we can use to help our own

planet? >> great question. right now nasa has 15 spacecraft orbiting the earth watching our planet as it is changing and studying physics that drives our climate to predict better how it will be changing. things we send to other planets can also help us understand our perspective. we have learned a lot about the history of our planet. there are also technology things we get from nasa. >> the hubble space telescope helped pioneer the use of cameras. i don't know how many people have a digital camera. there is a little bit of hubble space telescope in those technologies that is revolutionized by the media because they are everywhere.

the technology used to make this conductor's, some of that technique has gone into the manufacturing of those semiconductors. we are all concerned about health care and some techniques astronomers used to see plants -- to see planets, technology has been used in medical imaging to detect cancer. it is a wide range of things that hubble alone has helped us.

>> or they're just as many volunteers after apollo 13 04? -- were there just as many volunteers after apollo 13 than before. >> we've fixed that problem and we did not think it was going to happen again. the challenger explosion, there was the crew that followed after that. the is the nature of space flight. that i -- there is not an astra not that is not willing to take that risk. -- there is not an astronaut'. >> is earth gravity a

prerequisite for traveling to mars? >> anybody up for that? >> when we are in space we are weightless because we are in a freefall. when you get on the moon you have won six -- you had 1/6 the pull. it is magical to float in space. it changes the whole experience. the badness is one of the reasons we stay healthy is becausewe exercise of and that makes our muscles and heart strong. in weightlessness our muscles do not get enough exercise. one approach to these long flights would be to build a

circular space craft that rotates so that the acceleration you feel is the same of what you feel on earth. that is an engineering problem and something we could solve. another approach would be to find ways and jamba equipment that allows you to get -- gym equipment that allows you to get enough exercise, which you need any way. this is the first job i have gotten paid to go to the gym every day. that is the one we are using on the international space station. the goal is to learn how to keep our bodies healthy. artificial gravity is one other solution. >> one person said this program will be repeated on nasa tv immediately after this broadcast

is over. also at all of the science centers which are hooked up with us as well. we got another question. >> one day i hope to be an astronaut. my question is for john. what was your reaction when you were the last person to grab onto hubble for the final time. >> the last moment i grabbed onto it [unintelligible] seriously, we made hubble brand new. this was a complete makeover. we put in this new camera with new detectors that will blow everyone away. we put in something that will look into the physics. it breaks up the light coming from distant galaxies.

we brought tv cameras back to life and put capability into hubble so it is a brand new telescope. when i gave it a last salute i said to myself, you are the man. [laughter] and good luck on the voyages. i felt not sadness incredible satisfaction that we achieved those challenges and we were sending it off on a brand new adventure. >> well said. [applause] >> i have a question, is it possible to reach absolute zero in space? >> no, it is not. that is a deep question. it is one that involves physics that is outside of our own

experiences. it gets down to the question of what is space time and matter. the real answer is you cannot achieve a steady state of absolute zero. >> it is still darn cold out there. >> you never spoke about what the second tool was to get the bolt off. could it have been wd-40? >> i was thinking about that because those bolts are lubricated. the number one rule i teach other space walkers, i learned from a master on the third mission. the number one rule is don't break the hubble. when we put a wrench on a bolt,

there is a device that prevents over torqueing. suddenly that things slips and we can increase the torque a little bit and we did that. what we had to do was -- we tried a couple of different sockets and we had to take that out of the blue. -- take that out of the loop. we had to go to that extreme. fortunately it broke loose and just above where the limit was, so we got lucky. then we had a similar one that had been installed and the same thing happened, but this time we

knew what the procedures would be to get it and stop. -- to get it unstuck. >> i think everyone here values space exploration and we understand the value, but can you talk about in an era of tight budgets, the value of man space versus unmaned space exploration? >> we had that conversation with buzz aldrin here. >> id is a little bit of a false debate. there is room and the need for both. robots can go places where humans cannot and humans can do things better than robots.

if my friend who is the lead scientist for mars rover, i have asked him this question. if you are a geologist on the surface of mars, how long would it take you to do what the grover does and one day? it might look at a rock -- do what the rover does in one day? he said i have timed it, 45 seconds. you can and mentioned that there is a lot of proficiency you get out of having humans. in the human eyes and ears can give us observations we don't have the capability to get. most of the missions we do our robotic exploration, but there

is room for humans as well. >> we have time for a couple of more questions. you are one of them. >> my brother hopes to be an astrophysicist. when you were little did you ever dream of that doing what you are doing now? >> i could not even pronounced astrophysicist and i was a kid and i did not, but i wanted to follow in the footsteps of my heroes, which was those that serve in the military. i decided in high school that i wanted to go to the naval academy. i started aiming for that. then i fell in love with airplanes, so i became a pilot.

it is just the progression of one step after another that leads us to the final career. i just tell everybody to dream, where you will be a physicist or engineer, all of those disciplines are needed. if he desires to be an astronaut you can be anything you want to do. >> we have lawyers and business people, too. >> my mother has called me barney, but i am looking at the arguments for continuing space exploration. we are getting to the end of the shuttle program and budget is one of the big montrose. what do we see with support for

technology and the intellectual science fields? >> money. >> let me start. i believe it is science is the international language of peace. when we join on a scientific endeavors, that is a unifying theme. budgets are tight but i believe exploration is this grant is a venture that is an integral part of us being human that we have to do it. great nations are nations of great explorers. look at the spacecraft around the moon. we have chinese spacecraft and indian spacecraft. these are all international participation, so there is no

question that if we don't explore in this country, somebody else will. i like it that we are the leaders. >> almost every mission we do is international. you can harken back to [unintelligible] we were exploring together in space. we can be trailblazers for nations building bridges throughout space exploration with science, and we are doing that today. almost every mission we fly is international. >> [inaudible] i love that. [applause] one name was mentioned earlier today and it turns out late in life walter cronkite and i became good friends.

one of the things i remember most was a conversation in new york where he was talking about . he always called it the biggest story he ever covered. he also put it in a way i had not hurt. he said all the news i was doing we were downcast. he says i am not sure there is a word i will use, but space travel are upcast. you had us looking up beyond ourselves and exceeding our grasp. that is what we think all of you for. thank you for being here. good night. [applause]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> today on c-span, queen elizabeth delivers her annual christmas message. we will talk to the director of "moon beat." phyllis then it discusses military deployments around the world. the muslim public affairs council discusses the fort hood shooting. >> in the mid 1990's "newsweek

name to -- "newsweek" named him an important person. he talks about his current studies at harvard and what is ahead. >> now available, "abraham lincoln" a great read for any history buff. it is a unique perspective on abraham lincoln from $56. from his early years to his life in the white house. it is in hard cover at your favorite bookseller and now in digital audio, available where digital audio down the source told. learn more at c-span.org. >> queen elizabeth's annual christmas message.

she talks about the war in afghanistan where 106 british soldiers were killed this year. she also talks about the commonwealth group of countries that celebrated the 60th anniversary. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> each year that passes seems to have its own character.

some leave us with a feeling of satisfaction, others are best forgotten. 2009 was a difficult year for many, particularly those facing the effects of the economic downturn. i am sure we have all been affected by events in afghanistan and saddened by casualties suffered by our forces serving there. [bell ringing] >> our thoughts go out to their friends and family who have shown dignity in the face of great loss. ♪ but we can be proud of the positive contribution that our servicemen and women are making in conjunction with our allies.

well over 13,000 soldiers from the united kingdom and across the commonwealth, canada, australia and singapore are currently serving in afghanistan, the debt of gratitude owed to these young men and women and their predecessors is profound. it is 60 years since the commonwealth was created, and with more than 1 billion of its members under the age of 25, the organization remains a strong and practical force for good.

recently i attended the commonwealth heads of government meeting in trinidad and tobago and heard how important the commonwealth is too young people. >> i think the commonwealth means unity to us in terms of the fact that we are over 50 countries coming together. >> it is a model of friendship very important in today's world. >> it is a group of countries that practices human rights and equality torus all. that is what attracts me. >> my feeling of what the commonwealth means is unity among different countries and appreciating diversity, and creating a family feeling across the world. >> [unintelligible] >> new communication technologies allow them to reach out to the world and share their

experiences and viewpoints. the practical assistance and networks of the commonwealth can get skills, land advice and encourage enterprise, which is inspiring to learn some of the work being done by these people who bring innovation to the challenges they face. >> when i visited the coral reef, and we have other people whose homes are disappearing. the impact of that is [inaudible] i have been very concerned. >> it is important tuesday discussing issues that concern us all. there can be no more valuable role for our family of nations. i have been closely associated with the commonwealth through most of its existence.

eight living bond i have enjoyed with leaders and people the world over has always been more important in promoting unity and symbolism alone. -- than symbolism alone. the commonwealth is an opportunity for its people to work together to achieve practical solutions to problems. in many aspects of our lives, whether in the environment or culture, the commonwealth connection remains in rushing. -- connection remains in reaching -- remains enriching. it is the face of the future. with continuing support, i am confident this diverse commonwealth of nations can strengthen the common bond that

transcends politics, religion, race and economic circumstances. we know christmas is a time for celebration and family reunions. it is also a time to reflect on those less fortunate than ourselves throughout the world. christians are taught to love their neighbors, having compassion and concern and being ready to undertake charity and voluntary work to ease the burden of disadvantage. we may be confronted by a pope will during an array of difficulties -- confronted by an array of difficulties. i wish you all wherever he may be a very happy christmas -- wherever you may be a very happy christmas.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> beginning monday, a glance into america's highest court threw unprecedented conversations with 10 supreme court justices about the court and the history of the building. five days of interviews with the supreme court justices, starting monday on c-span. get your own copy of our documentary on dvd. it is a three-disc set including programs on the white house and capitol. it is available at c-span.org.

>> recently we talked to a filmmaker about his new film, a documentary about the apollo 11 moon mission. this is a half hour. host: we will be talking with kevin starling, director of "moon beat." it looks at the apollo 11 moon landing. we will show you a little bit and then our discussion. >> do you copy? [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> i felt sure the mission was going wrong. i could not believe they would be able to make the landing on the first mission. it seemed some difficult. this weird spider think once so unpromising that i felt sure it would tip over when they landed. i was fully expecting the mission to be aborted. if it was not i thought they would tip over. all two, 4200. you are a go for landing. -- all to 2, 4200. you are a go for landing. all two, 1600. 1400 feet, still looking good.

1201 alarm. >> the touch and go of that, when you think of it, as they were coming down and there were ready to abort, to get a wonderful guy in the control center who kept on coming back to jean and saying, "is ok." alarms were coming on and everything else but he kept on coming back and saying, but " we are ok, we are ok." host: joining us is kevin stirling, the director and producer of "moon beat," the documentary about the history of the space program. where did you come up with the title? guest: it is a documentary, about the flight of apollo xi.

there are scenes with news reporters who covered the space program. the name of the film, "moon beat," came from some of the interviews i conducted with news reporters. it is obvious that many of them did not just cover that one mission of apollo 11, but they had covered nasa for many years and they were essentially covering the space beach, or the moon beat, as i began calling it it was obvious that was a good employer a documentary about the subject. host: when president kennedy first made a speech in 1961 calling for a space program to make its way to the moon by the end of the decade, among the people at nasa at the time, did they think that was realistic? guest: it became painfully obvious to me in my discussions with several nasa engineers and individuals, no.

the short answer is no. they felt it was an ambitious goal, a challenging role, and certainly not something that they felt would be an easy task to achieve quickly. but they were committed to it. they were determined to achieve it and they felt they were capable of it. but it was at the same time quite a reach. host: was the covering by the press, the media, of the space program -- how did it change from mercury into apollo? guest: some other things i discovered in into giving the reporters -- they had a very meager working conditions going to the apollo program. as you might expect, being a news reporter. they did not have we have today, blackberrys and laptops and so one. the work as hard as they could. nasa provided simple working platforms for them. you see that in the film. there is footage of some of the

early press sites. but it is not, by today's standards, anything you would consider to be glamorous. far from it. host: we want to get viewers and listeners in a vault and the composition of the -- involved in the conversation about the space program with kevin stirling, director of "moon beat." most journalists in this generation and the one that is in front of us have gr integral part of our lives. but the guys and women covering the space program in the early 1960's had never seen anything like this. how did they adjust to that? guest: it was very interesting, as i learned -- many individuals seem to always focus on the astronauts. they were fairly young, in the 30's at the top of their careers. ironically, so were the

journalists. they have been covering nasa from the early days, and to the apollo 11 flight, and later apollos as well could the apollo 11 story was the biggest story of their careers. the in the 30's, considered the prime of -- they were in the 30's, considered the prime of their careers, and where would they go after that? where do you go after covering that landing on the moon? host: our first call for kevin stirling it comes from anchorage, alaska, linda on the line for independents. caller: good morning. thank you for coming on this program. what do you see as the next 10 to 20 years, our future in outer space? guest: thank you for your call. that is the question that everyone seems to be asking. where do we go from here? i sort of want to address that.

there is one of the reasons i put together the film. i had always thought that the flight of apollo 11 in particular -- this is the 40 anniversary, 2009. i thought, who better to reflect on that that the news journalists in particular who covered everything, everything, and defer remember when it was all over -- saw everything, and at the very moment when it was all over, and they have a perspective that is very valuable and important. i thought with 40 years of hindsight, what an important resource we should be listening to and factor into our views of answering that question. my view, having listened to their perspectives, is that they, i believe, as you hear in the film, were very proud of the achievements of the program. they felt that there were certainly missed opportunities in the years since.

they thought we would be much further along, but bases in the moon, having been to mars and back at least once. they were sort of proud at the same time disappointed. to answer the viewer's question about going forward the next 10 to 20 years, it would seem more interesting to the public if we may be did more exploring, men exploring -- manned exploring. at the same time, that is a considerable expense of task. we can hope. host: albany, oregon, line for democrats. caller: i have followed the space from the very beginning with the mercury 7. i have been very involved with space program. at this point in time, i want to know why we are shooting at the mood when we could be working a lot on the economy in this country -- shooting at the moon

when we could be working on on the economy in this country think the money we're spending on outer space right now is pathetic. guest: again, thank you for your call. i will be honest, my perspective is that this year to the oppression -- my perspective is that i certainly appreciate that sentiment. i was always struck by one of the later apollo flights -- maybe 14 or 15 -- one of the astronauts was speaking about maybe the 20th anniversary of their lending -- landing. it is relevant to the caller's question. he said that when he got up to the moon and walked around, and he looked everywhere but did not find any bags of money on the moon. all the investments made in the space program were made ultimately here in this country,

providing high-paying jobs and new advancements and things that would help prepare our economy -- help directly our economy. but for some reason, that was not directly communicate, or not committed as well as it might have been. i am not sure i would agree with the caller on that particular perspective of money and it being not beneficial to our economy. host: one of the journalists you spoke to the film was with "time magazine but this will look at what he had to set -- was with "time" magazine. we will look at what he had to say. >> it has come back a little bit because the idea of going to the moon. now we are in competition with the indians, the chinese.

they are just achieving the status that we would have years ago, and we are in the trenches with them doing the same thing. i guess i envision colonies on mars and may be on the moon and bigger discoveries from all of it. host: sounds like he was looking for more scientific research and projects and more commercial projects in now. -- more commercial projects in space by now. guest: at the very pinnacle of success, having achieved great success, overcoming many obstacles, i such a short time, less than nine years, being on the moon, we were cutting back, winding down the program. the three additional apollo flights had been scheduled, were canceled, subsequently canceled.

funding that was slated was again canceled. who knows? again, some of the other journalists and nasa officials make a point of who knows where we could have been today? perhaps a much different nation, much different world, perhaps. host: do you know what his experience was before coming to cover the space program for " time" medicine? -- magazine? guest: i do not know. i could certainly find hundred he was the senior editor for coverage during those years. caller: i'm curious, what part in the timeline do you think we might have had colonies on demint -- on of the moon? guest: that goes way above my pay grade.

i would not even be able to answer that. i think it is a worthy goal. the president has appointed a task force to study where we go from here. but who knows whether moon based colonies are even our next step? it may be, or it may not be. it may be that mars is the next step or something else. i have no way of knowing. host: kevin stirling attended the wharton school of business at the university of pennsylvania has an m.b.a. from the st. joseph's school of business. how does a guy with the business background put together a documentary about this? guest: wharton is an interesting school and teach a lot of things. one of them is how to adapt to a certain circumstances coul.

businesses, and go. -- businesses, and go. you have to take your skill set and find new opportunities to succeed advance. wharton was the incubator where you could go and find out how to do these things, where the opportunities are that you would not have thought of. host: you are also a business reporter for "the philadelphia inquirer." guest: not on staff. i have done some pieces from them since the 1980's. host: where did this come come from? -- this film come from? guest: i believe that the reporters at a particular, their perspective on where this program was and where it was going, it was an important voice

to be heard. i thought that viewers would be interested to hear, particularly in this environment, where the space program is going. who better to reflect on that that the newspaper reporters, the journalists were paid to be precise reporters, were careful in their thinking, a political by nature, and had seen it all? -- they had seen at all and i thought they should have a voice. in that. they did not have access to that. i was hoping -- in that era they did not have access to that. host: do you think the modern conveniences we had in journalism makes reporting at the space program that much different than it was in the 1960's? guest: i am not sure if it makes it different but it makes it -- it opens up new ways for

reporters to communicate better with their audiences. it may not be different by it is another tool for them. host: i don't know the answer but thank you for your call. the moon has not changed so it is the same moon. i am sure it is an optical illusion perhaps, lighting. host: did the moon appeared different from the journalists

of astronauts once they got up and close and personal question marked guest: it was a goal they had all chased for so long. mankind has been looking at the moon thinking at the moon for decades. in the 1960's, to have finally achieve that goal i suppose in effect is in the film, some reporters recall that day in houston, the screening, that people were so exciting, almost emotional high. almost ecstatic but at the same time it was a joint and culmination after years of challenge and effort. a martyred president said this in motion. all sorts of things going on in that decade and society. nasa was in those years -- people may not recall, but nasa was the gold standard. they had a brand that was unchallenged. they were the brand for problem

solving, can-do. those were amazing days for the space program, as reporters have shared. host: if you want to find out more about him and sterling and the film itself, go to the web site, moonbeatthemovie.com. back to the phones. myersville -- maryland. michael, go ahead. caller: i want to add about the new finding of water on the moon and the implications of that. it is like a gold rush. it is a brand new thing for the states. the first time we have a real

reason to go back to the moon. guest: that is breaking news, in effect. that was just out in the last couple of weeks. that is a very important find and discovery. how it will play out into the decision making about where the space program goes -- it will be interesting to see. it was a sort of big discovery, and nasa was very happy with the news. host: next up is hamilton, new jersey, line for independen ts. caller: like the gentleman just said about funding water on the moon and the opportunities -- it seems like a lot of the things we're finding out in the last for five years, the opportunities lasted well beyond what the plant expeditions were -- planned expeditions' war. if you had a questionnaire asked

how many people would be interested in going back to the moon, he would probably have people lined up around the corner. thank you. guest: thank you for your call. again, water, the discovery, like many they made on the moon -- how it will play out, it is hard to say. water is an important finding, but one the things i learned in the film -- one of the things i learned in the film is throughout the space race of the 1960's, the public was so enthralled with it. the support of the program, they believed in it, they were energized by it, they were believers and were proud of it. we know the water is there, but i think to capitalize on it, to find someone to say, "ok, how do we now use that," it will have to energize the american public to agree to make space exploration of higher priority.

host: "moon beat" but a special jury award at the houston international film festival. houston -- that makes you guys like the home team. guest: they run one of the oldest vessels in the nation. i was honored -- oldest festivals in the nation. i was honored to have won that award. host: is it out in general this tradition yet? -- general distribution yet? guest: not yet, but i hope people see this today -- there is another festival and there will be a program in berkeley. even today, i am optimistic that opportunities will come. i am looking for the right distributor to take "moon beat"

to audiences around this country and around the world. host: new mexico, on the line for democrats. caller: good morning. cannot wait to see your movie. guest: thank you. caller: i really appreciate what you're doing, but because the space program has always got a bad rap of wasting money, gitmo said the technology we have today has come from that. -- yet most of the technology we have today has come from that. but nasa has tested successfully as the personnel carrier -- within the next couple of months or year we will see that aries 5, which will be able to carry a little bit more on the space shuttle. the cargo bay. r&d in designing buildings,

estimators, there is nitrates and water and you can get oxygen and hydrogen and everything you need. i saw a special on the tenacity and they are not joking around, and -- on nasa tv and they are not joking about. i appreciate your support of it. i'm a baby. -- a space baby. i watched the landing of challenger. and both disasters -- challenger, and columbia's last ascent. i'm a big space may be here. -- space baby here. guest: the caller is absolutely right. he is a space baby, as you describe himself. the space program inspired many individuals. i was inspired growing up, and

many filmmakers, from ron howard, tom hanks -- they made the famous movie "apollo 13" and talked about how the space program was a big inspiration for them growing up, and it was for me as well. host: you mentioned ron howard and "apollo 13," big budget movie, a huge screen. what is the difference between what a viewer sees in your movie and other movies? guest: it is a labor of love. it is a film i put together. i did not have a lot of resources. in fact, i did virtually all the production components of the film i was the editor, the filmmaker, the interviewer, did the ordeal and the lighting. -- the audio and the lighting. host: how much did the cost for

you to put it together? guest: the tab is still running, but not large in hollywood dollars. i'm hoping that a distributor will help me -- host: defray the cost. how much have you put into it so far? guest: over the last year and a half, -- without, -- host: under a million? guest: well under a million. the other point i wanted to make is that even though i did most of the production along the way, i certainly had a lot of help. when you look at this particular film, one of the things you see in the "apollo 13" felt as a lot of computer graphics and special effects. this film has a lot of interviews and footage. the reporters were magnificent.

they were not only available for stories and sharing their thoughts, but they open up and let me this some other photographs -- and photographs -- let me use a lot of their photographs and documents. nasa was fabulous. the gaps i had -- i have an archivist in washington, d.c., anomalous -- enormously helpful. and a person -- you see a lot of photographs and the film, photographs of reporters not so much in the actual reporting, but private lives, downtime. a person in florida has an amazing treasure chest of photographs of all of these reporters in that time period, and he was enormously helpful as well. host: last call from tennessee, line for republicans. caller: good morning, guy stood listening to this guy talk, --

good morning, guys. listening to this guy talk -- i watched many of the launches, and looking at the way things going now, and when they finally came down with apollo 13, how they came into the ocean, could you explain how that was done and how did they navigate and to bring them back to earth? thank you. guest: the caller is absolutely right. thank you for your culprit was an amazing feat of technology -- thank you for your call. it was an amazing feat of technology and navigation skills wit. many others are trying to go to the moon and emulate what nasa has achihieved. but it w

the movie is a "moon beat." thank you for being on the program this morning. guest: thank you for having me. >> on this morning's " washington journal" we talk to the head of the institute for policy studies, new internationalism project about the u.s. military's global operations. this is half an hour. our guest is the internationalism director with the institute for policy studies. just broglie, how many troops as the u.s. have stationed overseas? guest: a lot. about 1,000,000.1, something like that. and there are more than 1000 bases around the world in every continent. a base may not be a huge military base. some of them are huge.

they are -- there are hundreds of golf courses, but they are run by the u.s., owned by the u.s., controlled by the u.s. military. they are considered part of the u.s. military presence around the world. contractors raise an important point. right now, everywhere the u.s. has troops fighting, there are more private military contractors than there are troops. in afghanistan, there are about 68,000 u.s. troops, and 110,000 military contractors. the expectation is it will match the escalation. we're going to send at least

30,000 new mercenaries, and the cost of that is about $1 million per soldier. for that escalation alone, we will be spending 30,000 troops. it will be $3 billion -- i am sorry, $30 billion. imagine what that money could do at home. he$30 billion -- that is about 3 million jobs. that is you'd. -- that is a huge. this is a very different era in terms of the world of contractors. contractors. in the past, in v

in every war, in every normal war, and every normal army, let's say, things like kepi duty, truck driving, cleaning the base, those are done by low ranking soldiers. that is -- private and the corporal's. not in this army, not an hour pentagon. we hire people from all over the world to do that work. it may be, for example, in afghanistan, a lot of those mercenaries or private contractors are actually afghans. they are not all foreigners. about three-quarters are afghans. they are hired to do that work on the bases. they do the cleaning, the feeling of the trucks, the cooking. then a whole gang of people brought in from low-wage countries like the philippines, like ethiopia, like bangladesh, like pakistan, even, who are brought in, hired by contractors, subcontractors, sub sub contractors, and they do the work. then the top of the pyramid are

the military guys. that's the guys with guns who do the work that military people always did, that military people who would be accountable to the military chain of command. instead, you have these military contractors and that is where you have most of the americans been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, 10 times more than the equivalent in the military, and they are not accountable at all to the military high command. separate set of laws. host: we will talk probably about the size of the presence overseas. before we get to calls, you talked to iraq and afghanistan occurred outside of those, what is the largest presence in the world? >> japan, south korea, and germany. in germany alone, there are over 57,000 troops. there -- actually, almost 200

bases and installations in germany. some are huge, like the giants' medical center. some are tiny, and there are housing concentrations and small basis across the country. the same in japan and south korea. huge numbers, thousands of troops. it has been there since world war two, in the case of japan. the cost of this is way beyond but we sometimes think about. host: has any other administration taken a serious effort at downsizing the presence? guest: there was downsizing in the 1990 pus. there were no major wars being

fought. but not in the key countries. not in germany, japan, or south korea. smaller bases were downsized, but in the last 10 years or more, all of the bases have been going up. host: to be clear, the organization for policy studies, your organization, has an opinion on this. guest: we do. we think this is a bad use of people power, and it does not make us safer. many are angry about what these bases are doing to the environment and social conditions regarding women. so you see fights know and okinawa, in a beautiful place in italy outside an area designated an historical artistic center by unesco, a site -- i'm forgetting

the name, of the renaissance artist and architect known for mansions -- palladio. the palladio mound-- mentions outside the city. and the u.s. has now negotiated against the wishes of all local population to build a second air base within 100 yards. they want a better air strip. why it has to be there, nobody can answer. but the italian government agreed under a right wing government that was allied with bush originally, and the obama has done nothing to change it, and they say that in the opinions of unesco and historians around the world, they do not matter. host: let's go to a caller. joe, go ahead. good morning.

caller: merry christmas to all, and to all a happy new year to all the troops around the world. i am retired army. i spent my career in communications electronics. if anyone has ever pondered why the ratio of contractors keeps increasing, well, you know, when the military is downsized get every conflict, the mission is still there. in my career fields, maintenance was done away with. so what was the military to do? the mission is still there.

guest: i think joe raises an important point, which is what is the mission of these facilities around the world? i do not believe that they make us safer. if you look at africa, right now there are not a lot of troops. there are about 2500 u.s. troops from africa. 2100 of them are in just one country, in djibouti, where there is a huge set of military bases. these troops are invited in some of the fighting in somalia, currently in yemen, as well as the broader south asia region. but last year, instead of saying that africa is not a war area where we do not need a lot of troops and bases, instead of that, they say, well, we are going to set up an african

command. they never had a separate command for africa. and they said to we're going to do is we will have the pentagon to take over everything the u.s. does in africa. so the pentagon is taking over aids and hiv care, health care development, overall development assistance. all this is now run by the pentagon. it would normally be run by the state department or usaid. this is dangerous, and we see it taking place in the creation of a new command in africa. the goal is to establish bases all over africa to do this. so far, the african government has said, we do not what your bases here. the headquarters is in germany now. the headquarters for africom is in germany, and there is no sign

that that will change anytime soon. but the policy of militarizing the u.s. relationship with africa through our efforts with africom is still going forward, and i think that is dangerous. host: as we start looking at facts and figures of how many barrels a day are coming from africa and, it is not deniable that this has become a strategic interest for us. but china has a big military presence there, as well. >> they have contractors. they have a huge economic presence. the question becomes, as it does in so many parts of a world, does having our soldiers present at bases that are often hated by local people, does that make us safer? i do not think so. host: him on the democrats line. go ahead.

caller: paying afghan people $270 a month, and our guys over there, killing them, makes no sense to me, why we're over there doing that guest:. you raise an important question, which is the issue of the continents of how the u.s. pays afghans in the war. the two and $7 a month you refer to, that is after a decision by the military, our military, to raise the pay of afghans that are being hired in the afghan army pictur. they did it not because they thought it was a legitimate amount, but because the taliban was offering $300 a day to recruit. so it went to the highest bidder. these are not ideologues' to agree with the taliban or the u.s. military on anything. they are desperate.

they're desperate to figure out a way to support their families, and they will go with the highest bidder. so the u.s. is trying to outbid the taliban. host: here is larry in petersburg, illinois. caller: i would like to say god bless our troops, and i would like to ask your guest if there are institutes to support certain candidates. in the last primary, there was one individual trying to emphasize the fact that our economy was in bad shape and we are trying to build an empire. we need to draw back and start following the constitution and get troops back home. also, that talk about this

being a war? is this a constitutionally declared war? guest: great questions. we are a nonprofit organization. we do not take government money or corporate money, and we are completely independent. we have our own views about u.s. foreign policy. i read a book few years ago called "challenging a"empire about the war in iraq. but as an institution, we did not take any political positions. the issue of constitutionality is an important one. in my view, the war in afghanistan is not a legal war and never was, despite the fact of the congressional authorization. a congressional authorization in violation of international law is not a valid use of congressional power. the united nations did not

endorse the afghanistan war at the time it was initiative. and the u.s. had decided not to request un authority because the bush a administration had made a decision that they did not want to a knowledge the right of the united nations to make decisions, and as a result, the resolution was passed with great fervor and unanimously. every member of the security council stood and cast votes, they did not just raise their hands. what they asked for was a level of international corp. going after the money, police cooperation, but it did not authorize the use of force and was not taken under the terms of a chapter 7 of the charter, if required if you are going to have a war. host: seek moving forward to

present day, the british are currently conducting an iraq war in korea, and are expecting to hear from tony blair and others. what do you hope to learn from that? >> i think the british decision is very important, to go forward. it is something we need to do in this country, and the efforts of president obama describing it to look forward has been translated into not taking seriously the accountability of the violations of u.s., domestic, and international law that may have occurred. the coalition's in afghanistan, there are uncanny and unfortunate soleri's to the coalition around iraq where we documented -- similarities to the coalition around the iraq

war. this time around, we heard president obama's say in his west point speech, when he spoke about the escalation, he talked about a coalition of 43 nations participating with us. he did not identify them. the nation of georgia has one soldier in afghanistan. iceland has two. ireland has four. jordan has seven. bosnia, 10. there are three or four countries, the u.k., australia, can live up -- canada, and italy, with syria's troops. the rest of there for political, not military support. it is embarrassing to call it an international coalition when it is nothing of the sort -- there rest of them there are political, not military. caller: thank you very much for

your astute research. i want to ask you, do you see any correlation with this military expansion, the movement from a draft service to an all- volunteer service in the sense that americans do not have any skin in the game anymore? people volunteer for military services for their own agendas and motives. guest: i think there's a big correlation. i do not agree with robert about the motives for entering the military. i work with a lot of veterans, and they joined because they need a job. that is more prevalent than ever. 2008 was the first year since 9/11 and that the military has been able to make their quotas without reducing standards, and without reducing standards, and it is because people cannot find

and it is because people can't find a job. i was recently on a speaking tour in the midwest and i was in milwaukee and spoke in a milwaukee area technical college, which is an overwhelmingly working-class center, people going back to school and hoping for a job in a devastated part of the country and they, when i asked of the 60, how many of you have a family member are very close friend or someone you love currently in harm's way in afghanistan or iraq and every hand in the room went up. it is those people from smaller towns, overwhelmingly towns of less than 25,000, people without other option to cannot get college scholarships and the cannot get the job and goes into the military because that is the only choice they have. killed. they are going because there are no other options. if there were legal draft, instead of a poverty draft, i

think decision making would be very, very different. caller: good morning. you say the $30 billion cost of the troop surge would be worth 3 million jobs in america by yorktown. by my math, 30 billion jobs would translate to $10,000 a job or less than $5 an hour. does the institute for policy studies recommend creating jobs for less than $5 an hour, and do you think the money spent on the surge was beneficial? thank you. guest: thank you. you caught me on the mast. we figured jobs based on $50,000 a job, a $40,000 job and $10,000 of benefits. it is 1.5 million. it is early.

it is not 3 million jobs. maybe 1.5 million. but it is a lot of jobs that would be much better than the use of that money here at home. thank you for catching debt. -- thank you for catching vat. -- thank you for catching that. host: the gradual climb up to where we are in 2009, i will ask you, where is that going? to also referred to a term of postwar pax americana, what does that mean? >> the? guest: because it is the most powerful country in the world and the wealthiest, there is a notion that we have a right to have a military presence around

the world the way there was once the tax ramada -- pax romana, the roman military presence in the part of the world they control. the idea was where they were in control, where the roman empire was in control, there would be peace internally. the u.s. often takes that same argument, that our presence somehow brings peace to these troubled areas. the reality is, it does not work. other people did not want us there any more than they wanted the roman empire. we're not sending colonial populations to settle in countries all run the world. it is not that kind of colonialism. it is not settlor colonialism. but it is a kind of empire through these military bases, through the presence of bases across the world, as well as

through the force of our economy and economic control in so many places around awhirl. -- are around the world. 2009 has a high budget, not counting the cost of the wars that are being fought in iraq and afghanistan, and that is the highest it has ever been. host: our next guest is leonard from kentucky. go ahead. caller: merry christmas. when you are the parents of a soldier stationed in bahrain and are not able to contact them do to unusual circumstances, what can a veteran of vietnam do to contact his son? guest: this is a horrifying reality for parents and families

of loved ones. we spoke earlier of the list of u.s. bases around the world. some bases are not even included in the list. cochrane, for instance. only one in bahrain, and none in saudi arabia are listed because of political considerations of the government of the countries who do not want to acknowledge u.s. bases there. it may be that organizations like military families speak out, an important organization of families and friends of active duty soldiers that are trying to end the war, to stop the soldiers from being at risk and to take care of them when they come home. they may have some ideas. you can reach them on their website. i wish i had a better recommendation for you. perhaps your member of congress would be willing to try. sometimes it is special forces troops, but sometimes it is ordinary troops on bases the

u.s. does not want to a knowledge are there. host: palm springs, california. go ahead. caller: i am zacarias matthews' son. i wanted to make a comment. neither reason for him going into the air force is because he was -- the reason for him going to the air force was because he was offered a partial scholarship. can you really afford to pay for an education? do you want to be stuck with the student loans? the military offers these grade education programs. my father was in the air force. why don't you look into going into the air force?

that was his choice, going into the air force. host: thank you. guest: she raises an important point. not every member of the military has been forced and by economic matters. but the air force is one of the few parts of the military that provides some members with a job that they can carry on in civilian life. too many jobs that are the basis of job training in the army and other parts of the military do not have a civilian counterpart. there is little civilian use for infantry or armored divisions, and that is the vast majority of people in the military who do not come out with a viable skill to use. it is that reason that we see the tragedy of so many homeless veterans on the streets of this holiday season.

>> on tomorrows " washington journal" we will talk to former homeland security inspector general clark kent ervin, political science professor henry farrell and and look at the president's christmas vacation in hawaii. " washington journal" begins at 7:00 a.m. eastern every day on c-span. >> next on c-span, former cia analyst bruce grendell look said u.s. policy in afghanistan and pakistan. the muslim public affairs council discusses the fort hood shooting at their annual meeting. and william eggers talks about what government does and does not do well. later, a recent speech by

secretary of state hillary clinton on human rights. >> beginning monday, a rare glimpse into america's highest court threw unprecedented on the record conversations with 10 supreme court justices about the court, there were, and history of the taconic supreme court building. five days of interviews with supreme court justices starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern. get your own copy of our original documentary on the supreme court on dvd, part of the american icons collection, a three disc set including programs of the white house and the capital. one of the many items c- span.org. /store. >> former cia analyst chaired president obama's initial policy review on afghanistan and pakistan. he now gives a historical perspective of the past eight years of american presence in

the region, the president's decision to send additional troops and the prospects for defeating the insurgencies. hour-long talk came at a recent conference by the jamestown foundation. bruce is well-suited for all of that and today you will be very delighted to know he will not only talk for 10 minutes but he has a 40 minute talk planned, so i think there will be an in- depth opportunity to hear what his thoughts on the strategy and afghanistan and at this very critical time in american foreign policy.

he retired in 2006 after many postings overseas. senior advisor to four presidents of the 90 states. he negotiated several arab israeli peace summits. also deputy assistant secretary of defense in near east and south asia in the pentagon and senior adviser of north atlantic treaty organization in brussels. january 2009 president barack obama asked rest to chair a review of american policy toward afghanistan and pakistan, a result the president announced in his speech. more importantly he is the author of this book, the search for al qaeda, its leadership, ideology, and future, published by brookings press. after his talk he will be available for a book signing in

the back and if you purchase the book he promises to say a few words to you and also to sign the book. it's very important book, it is coming out in paperback so it is your last chance to get one in hard copy. bruce will be available for that briefly. after his talk he will take a few questions and answers which he will address to the audience and more and portly i would like to turn the floor over to bruce and i am delighted to have you here. >> thank you very much for that kind introduction. it is a special privilege and honor for me to be here today to speak to this audience at the jamestown foundation. the jamestown foundation over the last several years has consistently provided americans and people around the world some of the best analysis of what is

going on in the terrorism world, and for that reason, it is a very special pleasure to have this chance to be the keynote speaker today. 10 months ago and a few days, i was minding my own business in my home in the eastern shore of maryland when the phone rang and a voice came on and said, please hold for the president. a couple of seconds later, on came a voice, hello, bruce, it is barack, and then i got an offer, like those from the mafia movies, you couldn't say no to. the offer was to come in and share a 60-day review on american policy toward afghanistan and pakistan and, of course, al qaeda. as the president explained it then, in his judgment, this is the single most and portend a

foreign-policy and national- security issue he will face as president of the united states. perhaps a little background is in order. in order to also help you understand my remarks. i retired from the cia in november of 2006. in march of 2007, two individuals, tony lake and -- from the of buraku san obama camp came to me and asked me if i would like to be an adviser to the campaign. i agreed on one condition -- i didn't want to get a job for myself. i wanted to find a job for the senator of illinois in the federal government. i also told the i went home that night and all my life -- wife, this will be lots of fun, it but it will not last that long. there is no way barack obama will become president of the united states. bear their prediction in mind as i go forward.

what i would like to do over the course of the next 40 minutes or so is review the key judgments of the strategic review that i chaired, talk a little bit about the end to run between the closure of that strategic review in march and the president's announcement last week at west point, and then spend a few last-minute looking at the road ahead and where i think we are going. let me be very careful though, and clear. i am speaking here as a senior fellow at the center. i am not here as a spokesman for president obama were the united states government. please do not interpret any of my words as reflecting the views of the united states government in any way whatsoever. i will start with the bottom line right up front. president obama inherited in january and a disaster in afghanistan and pakistan. a war that had begun, that a

brilliant military success at virtually no cost was squandered and for seven years the previous administration did there'd about afghanistan and pakistan and did not act. as a consequence, an insurgency which should never have been allowed to begin to grow now threatens the survival of of the karzai government in afghanistan and threatens to defeat the north atlantic treaty organization's first ground operation ever. worse than that, it is the stabling south and central asia -- asia as a whole. the situation the president has inherited is bad and has gotten worse in the 10 months since then. but we have no time machine. we cannot go back and do it over. we can wish, but that is not a

realistic strategy. so what is the situation today? let me start with al qaeda. we would not have 70,000 american troops in afghanistan and 35,000 more on route if not for september 11. we all know that. what is the status of al qaeda today? i will summarize what we have done to al qaeda in one sentence. like anyone sentence summary, it lacks subtlety, it lacks new wants and if done right, it gets to the point. in eight years we have succeeded in moving the al qaeda accord leadership, senior operational planners and propaganda instrument from kandahar, afghanistan, to a location on known -- unknown, believed to be a hundred miles away somewhere in pakistan. that is not to diminish the hard work of our soldiers, our

intelligence officers, and our diplomats and our allies in fighting al qaeda. it is not to diminish the the conference we have had -- bringing khalid sheikh mohammed and others under detention and killing many others. but the fundamental fact is that al qaeda today remains a deadly enemy of the united states of america and our allies. it is the first truly global terrorist organization in history. its reach and scope in the last eight years is almost breathtaking when you think about it. from algiers to washington, from bali to madrid, this organization has struck again and again and again around the world. it has developed franchisees, it has developed surrogates, it has acquired allies that increases its reach. it has become more than a terrorist organization, it it has become an idea.

it has created a narrative that inspires a small minority of muslims, a very small minority, to carry out acts of mass violence. most of its attacks are indiscriminate it has also demonstrated a chilling capacity to strike with great discrimination against targets like benazir bhutto, the u.n. headquarters in baghdad and almost just a month ago against the deputy minister of interior in saudi arabia. we see this reach in the united states today, both direct and indirect. the afghan american arrested by the fbi and colorado demonstrated the direct direction. what happened in fort hood is the direct direction of the ideology of global islamic jihad. today only sustained significant

pressure from al qaeda corp. comes between 30,000, 60,000 feet in the air from the drones, predators'. the drones are a technological marvel and they have proven highly successful against a limited range of targets and a limited piece of geography. they have to some extent -- and it is hard to know if you are not a member of al qaeda, how big extent is, disrupted al qaeda in recent months. the drones are a tactic, not a strategy. like attacking a be high one be at a time. you are never going to destroy it a beehive one be at a time. ironic, eight years after tora bora osama bin laden is a voice

we hear but get an invisible man. we have no idea where this man is. despite the biggest manhunt in history and a $15 million reward. he could be in the room next door as far as we know. there was a report, poorly sourced, he was in afghanistan in february. what was notable is how good it was -- but even rare that we even get bad reports about where he is. the second thing i would suggest about al qaeda today is that in afghanistan and pakistan, it is part of a much larger sending its of terrorist organizations within which it is embedded. what gwenn mean by that? the afghan taliban, pakistan taliban, and i agree, the two are actually one taliban in many

ways -- a whole bunch of of the groups whose names often change interchangeably but who we know are the same basic characters, are a syndicate of terror. they are not a monolith. they don't have a single leader, they don't have a single agenda. but they cooperate with each other. individuals within these movements move back and forth between organizations. they do not respect the ways we try to impose on them, and most of all, none of them in eight years have been willing to turn on al qaeda and give up its core leadership. what is remarkable when you look at it is that more than any other individual, it is mullah omar that this endecott pledges

its allegiance to. and he claims to be commander of the faithful. the title, which if you think about it for a minute, shows a man with a remarkable ego, commander of the faithful 1.6 billion muslims worldwide. i'm very skeptical we could negotiate with the taliban, particularly skeptical we can negotiate with someone with such an inflated sense of his own importance. al qaeda today is imbedded in this larger syndicate of terror and that is why it is so hard to go after. i would suggest you today -- that is the single most dangerous element. it demonstrated a year ago in mumbai its capacity to strike with awesome fury. as we have been learning in the past few days, its global reach is probably also something to worry about.

let me say a few words about afghanistan. you could also summarize afghanistan in one sentence. we are losing the war in afghanistan, but it is not yet lost. i hope. the report, courtesy of bob woodward, which you all had a chance to read, is an excellent summary of the situation in afghanistan. i think he hit the nail on the head. he got it exactly right. if there is one part of that report that it urge you to look at, the and next the talks about detention facilities in afghanistan in which he says, we no longer control of the detention facilities in which we are keeping captured insurgents. they are defacto under the control of al qaeda and the taliban, more radicalization and recruitment for al qaeda takes

place in those detention facilities than anywhere else in afghanistan today. when you have lost control of the prison camps in which you are putting insurgents and counter insurgency, you are in a deep, deep hole. every measure we have demonstrates the momentum is entirely with the taliban today. bob gates reiterated that several times in his statement last week on the hill. but it is not yet lost. because we did not face and afghanistan, a nationalist uprising. what we face in afghanistan is a pashtun insurgency which is confined to the pashtun ethnic community. the soviets faced a national uprising. virtually the entire country was an opposition to soviet occupation and soviet behavior

reinforced that opposition. we face an insurgency which is, for the most part, confined to the pashtun community. by definition, the majority of afghans do not favor the taliban and more than that, we know from reliable polling that the majority of pashtuns don't want to see a return to the islamic terror of the afghanistan. no one in their right mind would want to go back to living in the medieval held that malone omar created in the 1990's. it is the self constraining factor of the taliban that offers us the most hope to be able to turn this around. thirdly, let me talk about pakistan. pakistan is today the strategic prize in this part of the world as well as the most dangerous country in the world. why do i say that? because all the things that

should worry americans about the future of the world in the 21st century, together in pakistan in a unique and combustible way. nuclear war and peace, proliferation of nuclear technology, terrorism, the future of islam, the future of democracy and the islamic world, the relationship between military and civil society in the islamic world -- all these issues are a lot in pakistan like they are nowhere else in the world. pakistan is the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world today. it has more terrorist per square kilometer than any other country in the world today. it is the world's second largest muslim country and yet its government is teetering on the brink of collapse. pakistan is trying to make the transition from a military dictatorship to something pakistanis hope will look like democracy. we should support that effort

with everything we do. but this is the fourth time pakistan has tried to make this transition, and you have to believe in the triumph of hope over experience to believe it is going to be successful. today's zadari government appears to have a limited shelf life. he may stay on as a figurehead but power is slipping away from him every day. the alternatives are not particularly bright, either. we may see a return to now was sharif, whose two previous times the prime minister said not so you with confidence prime minister will be going in the right direction -- nawaz sharif. but we did not get to choose who pakistan's leaders are and when we have tried we usually have buyer's remorse. the second point about pakistan is that pakistan has a dynamic,

confusing, and complex relationship with the syndicate of terrorism which i talked about earlier. pakistan either created or was the midwife for many of these terrorists organizations. it retains very close links with some of them, particularly with laskar al qaeda and pass of supporter for muollah omar for the last several years and was an active supporter of his up until the 12th of september, 2001, when richard armitage threatened it of being thrown back into the stone age. it has the capacity to both be a patron of terror and a victim of terror, which is very hard for most western minds to put your head around. .

this view remains entrenched in significant parts of the officer corps and a leak. in short, the state in afghanistan could not be greater. -- parts of the officer corps and elites. the future of al qaeda, of the nato alliance, of possibly nuclear war and peace in south asia, all of these issues are coming together. on the 27 of march, obama

focused american forces in the combat zone on disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al qaeda and destroying the sanctuary along the afghanistan- pakistan border. it was clear that while there was a specific mission, to get there we had to stabilize afghanistan and pakistan. that is a much broader mission. the reviews and give to the president which he endorsed had 20 major recommendations in its, 187-recommendations and i will not go into them -- 180 sub-recommendations. i want to stress this point. this is resource intensive. this is going to come with a big cost.

to send one american soldier to afghanistan for one year costs of $1 million. if you think this economy is it to scale, forget it. to send 30,000 that will cost more than $30 million. it does not get cheaper sending more troops. on the non-military side is expensive, as well. this legislation triples assistance to afghanistan to more than $1.50 billion per year. wow, that is a lot of money. now they are saying, big deal, we spend that much on a general motors it in 30 minutes. over 15 years that is $15 billion and it will make them the largest single suppository of american economic assistance in the world outside of afghanistan and iraq.

what happened in the eight months from march 27th until his speech last week at west point? there are two things. first, on the military side, we had an unprecedented event, or virtually unprecedented, he the strategically because of the calls upon the commander to come up with an operational plan for a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in southern and eastern afghanistan. for reasons that i do not know, he was judged to be the wrong man for the job. he was fired by secretary gates. that was a big thing. the last thing we've fired a battlefield commander during wartime was 1951. the issue then was whether or not to use nuclear weapons against communist china. i do not know what general mckinnon did -- make kiernan --

we lost two months of his time and we had to take three months to get general mcchrystal comfortable on the ground and to get his recommendations. instead of an operational plan getting delivered in may and was in august. in the interim, the military situation deteriorated sharply. from the president's standpoint support for the war in the democratic party and on the hill dropped through the floor. what had been a good war one year ago was now just like every other war, a bad one. skepticism about the war had become widespread among the president's supporters. the second thing that happened was on the political side. the expectation in march was that we would be able to work

with the then afghan government and the international community to produce something that would look like a legitimate and credible presidential election. instead, we had a fiasco followed by a disaster. no one can pretend that this afghan presidential election was legitimate or credible. in the first round, karzai supporters produced 1 million fraudulent ballots. that is a lot even by the standards of a florida or illinois. this is cheating on a global scale. he got caught and he got away with it. i am not sure how diligent man the government looks through the eyes of the afghans, but it looks illegitimate through the eyes of americans and our european and non-european partners.

this administration has to bear some of the responsibility for this. it did not happen on the bush's watch. behavior towards the election was like the famous of the art in the headlights. you could see the problem coming, but we seemed mesmerized until it was run over. again, we do not have a time machine and cannot go back and fix this. we have to work with president karzai. we may find, and in retrospect, that this was the fatal blow. we do not know that yet, and i think we can yet turn this around. mrs. clinton now has her date for the next three years. she will be managing mr. karzai. she needs to of will -- avoid demonizing, timber tantrums timbertemper tantrums, and to

bring out the best in karzai. where are we going from here? let me offer you three observations. first, this is a bold gamble. what the president is to has embarked upon today has no guarantee of success. there are all kinds of things that may fail. trying to build an afghan army and police force may be a lot harder, and i suggest will be a lot harder, and we think. trying to reverse the taliban and momentum will be difficult. for sure, casualties are going to go up. domestic dissent, here and and other nato countries, over this war is winding a stronger and harder. there are several potential game changers that could change everything, literally in a

matter of minutes. another 9/11 attack inside the united states does not have to bring down two of the largest buildings in the world to be significant that comes out of pakistan will be a game changer. the president of the united states will not simply be able to call up and say do something about this. another mumbai attacked coming out of pakistan will also be a game changer. the indian government's capacity to absorb mass casualty attacks, i suspect, has been reached. they will not send someone to islamabad the next time. the second thing i would say is that, as hard as it is, it is the best of the bad options and have today. we really only had two other options.

one was to cut and run. we can define that in a lot of different ways, downsize the mission, readjust the mission, but all of them come down to cutting and running in one way or another. i think the president wisely ruled that out from the beginning. if we are defeated in afghanistan by the television it will be a global game changer. -- in afghanistan by the taliban. the global reverberations of that in the islamic world will be enormous and no more so than in pakistan. thirdly, this issue is now going to consume this presidency which is why it took them 92 days to come to a conclusion because they do not like the answer. if i was wrong emmanuel -- if i

was rahm. this will be the issue, the foreign policy issue, that the congress of the united states is judged upon less than one year from now. other issues may outweigh it, the economy, but this will be the foreign policy issue that people look to. it is going to need to be explained to the american people again and again, why they are sending their sons and daughters to the other side of the planet to fight a war which has been going on longer than any war in american history. it is going to have to explain how we intend to win the war and how we hope to be able to get out of it. that will mean political energy, capital, and the most precious thing in any white house, the time of the president that will have to be devoted to this issue.

warsh consume presidencies. this war stands on the verge of consuming this presidency. the last thing i will say, one final note, the good news in all of this, i generally believe we will note in july, august 2011 whether this strategy works. why do i say that? by then we will have had the additional forces for six months, for more than one year, and we will have a found out whether we can break the momentum of the taliban and will find out how pakistan reacted to all of this. we will have found out whether we can build an afghan national security force. we will not have achieved victory. the and will not be in sight, but we will at least know whether we have a strategy that has a promise of success. if it does, i would suggest to

you that there will be very, very few american soldiers coming home in the summer of 2011. if it does not work then we will face the very, very difficult decision of owning a to that and deciding where we go next. i sure hope he does not call me that day. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> thank you, burst. we are opening the floor for some questions. -- thank you, bruce. we have plenty of people raising their hands. does anyone have a question? all right. you are the man. why don't you let him?

sorry. >> thank you for the top. i would like to ask a question. if we use the cut and run strategy, do you recommend any psychological tactics to make the enemy feel defeated? we can still do a cut and run as long as we are covering this with proper psychological tactics that can it -- that can give them a feeling of defeat. >> nothing springs to mind immediately as to how we can turn a retreat into a victory. there are various levels of cut and run. we do not have to completely give of. we can say we are afghan-izing the war quickly. we can hope the government we leave survives.

after all, the communist government in afghanistan al lived the soviet union, barely. it's not a parallel, we want to spend a lot of time thinking about it. i do not think there is a downsizing the mission alternatives. if we go to appear counter- terrorism, it will not work. as an intelligence professional who spent a great deal of time trying to persuade people to commit treason, they will not do it if they do not think you're going to be around to give them the check when they come back from their mission. it does not work that way. >> this morning, ambassador benjamin gave an end -- gave an interesting talk. during the course of the 15 minutes he failed to use three

words that you used in the first five minutes which were global islamic jihad. to what level was this broader ideological struggle, how this resonates within the current ministration? it seemed to be a hesitancy or push back on looking at the problem through that lens. >> on like dan, i have the liberty of saying whatever i want to say. -- been unlike da -- unlike dan. the simplest answer is that i think this administration understands that this is a battle of ideas and the narratives. it has to come up with a counter-narrative to the narrative of the global islamist jihad. -- it is more less created over the last decade or so. the best proof of that is the

president's speech in cairo. that speech in some ways it was addressed exactly to them. what is the narrative of the global islamist jihad? the short version is the united states is now a crusading power that is trying to impose its will on the moslem world by dividing the world up into smaller states which it can manipulate -- bids will on leave muslim world. what does barack obama say in cairo? what is his opening line? bin"we are not and imperialists colonial power. we are revolutionary state. we were born against an empire." it was a great speech. i do not think anyone disputes that. the problem is going to be following that up.

the count -- the counter- narrative has to be punctuated with real things. they have proceeded to do that in some places and they are struggling in others. in the battlefield of the narratives, the israeli-arab of battlefield, they are having a difficult time. they do not have partners. that makes moving forward very hard. i believe i am convinced that they understand the central role of the war of ideology. >> i am studying at the university of maryland. are really enjoyed your speech.

i wanted to make a comment. about my country afghanistan, you talk about the elections rate i was there during the elections and was working directly on the elections. we were seeing how things were being arranged on the forefront. everybody was watching that. nobody was -- and we could see that this was a -- this would be the consequence of the election. it is not a big deal in the eyes of afghanistan because it was the second election in the history of our country. we are used to it. they're working the kinks out. right now, we have to obviously find a way to work with the

president. the best thing we can do is to push our president to bring the right people in the door. secondly, with regards to the engagement of the united states in afghanistan, i should say that we obviously know that people talk about eight years of engagement in afghanistan, but i am telling you that it has not been eight years of the engagement. it has been one year and a few months of engagement beginning in 2002-2003 when they went to iraq. since then, we were seeing that all the problems, all of the issues that were taking us into

failure and getting us closer to the taliban, we were just watching. i hope -- i wanted to put -- >> can you ask a question please? do you have a question? >> i just wanted to finish my statement by saying that we have the chance to succeed in afghanistan because we have the will of our people on our side. thank you very much. >> to comment briefly, i agree with what you said. karzai's problem is more here than there. i agree with everything you said about the impact of the war on iraq and this venture in afghanistan. do you have a question over

here? with the microphone, please. >> i am a journalist. you contrasted the situation in afghanistan with the situation facing the russians, soviets before. i hate to ask this question, but he begged it with the comparison. the comparison that is often made is the situation obama is facing is what we faced with vietnam. you know the question. the ghost of a vietnam haunts this administration and walks to the halls every day. it walks to the corridors of the united states congress constantly. afghanistan in 2009 is not

vietnam in 1965 or even 1961. it is a very different situation. we were attacked. the most successful foreign attack on the united states of america, bar none, was the attack on our capital in 1814 which was carried out from afghanistan. those who did that are plotting to day a repeat performance. in 2006, on the anniversary of september 11th, the plan a repeat performance that would have been more chilling and devastating than what happened in 2001 which would have been to blow up eight jumbo jet flying across to the united states and canada. had that succeeded, more people would have died on september 11th. the international airline

systems would have gone out of business. no one in their right mind would have a phone anywhere again. that is the viet cong were. as bad as they work, they had no designs to attack the united states. the specter of the north vietnamese attack in seattle was entirely created by the johnson administration and had no basis in fact. secondly, we are not in afghanistan as a colonial imperial power. there is not an american in america who wants to colonnade and control afghanistan. to the contrary, we would like to get away as quickly as we can. the situation in vietnam, the u.s. was there with very little legitimacy and was perceived as

the vp colonial -- of the french. let's deal with the situation we have a, not with analogies to other places. i understand the question. in terms of domestic politics there is a great parallel. the president finds himself in a terrible situation. all the critics of the war are daut pelosi democrats from cambridge and new york city. the supporters are sarah palin republic and.

the people he has to convince are his natural constituency. palin is just looking for a chance to say he is covering it up. the politics in this are terrible. yes? >> you mention that we do not know and there have been no credible reports. there have been reports over a number of years that he has not stayed in above iran what is going back and forth. there were reports in the 2004 and photographic evidence. the had seen him there in january 2009. how do you analyze those reports? >> i want to be absolutely explicit. the last time we had a solid piece of information about where

osama bin lawn was was eight years ago. -- osama bin laden was 8 years ago. he said it has been a few years. senate -- gates has been my boss in more organizations than i can remember. it has been eight years, mr. gates, since we have had any idea. has he been in iraq? i do not rule it out. al qaeda has been able to operate in iran on more than one occasion. we do not know what the government relationship was. i would suggest to you that if the iranians want to give us trouble in the world in the next few years, one of the simplest ways for them to do it is to

just allow a higher degree of al qaeda operational activity in their territory. since we have no baseline as to what they allow, more of it coming would be hard to judge in its significance. if the relationship between al qaeda and ron, it is a black hole. -- between al qaeda and iran. >> have a question about the syndicate of terrorist organizations including the caliban. there was not a single afghan on the plans for 9/11, as far as i know. -- on the planes. omar sending out information and is allowing [unintelligible] he is sending out messages.

this -- he says we are not threatening everyone. why do not -- why do not give them a chance? >> there are several questions buried in that one question. first ago, those chosen by a osama bin laden chosen carefully. it was deliberate. he brilliantly realized that by putting 15 saudis on the airplanes he was going to create a problem. it was a brilliant piece of tactical strategy. apparently he could not find enough people who could fly who were capable of doing that. omar and the taliban, i do not believe that is what he is

saying. we are prepared to let you leave, more or less gracefully. the emirate of afghanistan will be created and we will talk to our fellow afghans about what the situation will be. to the contrary, he says karzai is a trader and deserves a traders' response. -- and he is a day traitor and deserves a traitors response. i believe parts of the taliban maybe but -- may be prepared to break. they will not do it now. no one in their right man is going to break because you will be dead tomorrow morning and so will your family. if the momentum is shifted, we

can offer security and protection to people who break from the caliban then we begin to see fissures within the movement. if we do something simple like paying soldiers up more money at the taliban days we might also find that many people did many people will switch over. that is part of what i mean that we will know in 18 months. by then we will see whether the villagers are likely to develop in the taliban. we will see whether the resources we have brains record in who might otherwise go to the taliban. i think we will know that within that definite period of time. i am very skeptical of the notion the [unintelligible] is interested with negotiations with the united states. if they are, prove it to us.

>> we have time for two more questions. >> i am with the bin "american conservative" magazines. we were against the war in iraq. what about an exit strategy that was promoted that america as a democracy you is not able to fight a guerrilla war. we should really be moving into a defensive strategy, which we could do well. as a democracy, we cannot with all the conflicting issues have a coherent policy for settlements on the west bank. we cannot stop it.

>> the short answer to your question is we tried a defensive policy between 1998 when they declared war on us and september 11th, 2001. we ended up with september 11th, 2001. i sat in the situation room in the white house when we launched cruise missiles. that is a very difficult strategy to carry out because we have to be lucky in foiling every single plot. they have to be lucky once or twice to have a devastating effect on us. we may get their -- there. if it is not working in 18 months, we need to be honest and rigorous and say it is not working.

then we may have to go to that strategy. i would rather try to find out whether there is a better alternative to the one you are suggesting. >> i appreciate your remarks. i am a former intelligence officer. here is the deal. five years ago, congress rejected 402-2 resolution. we are not willing to have our sons and daughters, friends and neighbors bear the burden physically. the speaker has said there will be non. we are not willing to embrace paying for this thing financially. what does that say about our level of commitment? if we take this at face value

which is we have to find a way to mitigate this great. this threat, i do not think we can eliminate it. politicians on both sides of the aisle are saying if the threat can be made to permanently go way, it is not happening. when our going to start talking honestly with each other and the american people about that fact? -- when are we going to start talking? we're going to have to pay for them. thank you. >> it is a very good and difficult question which goes beyond my area of expertise. as i said, this is going to be a resource intense battle. that has all kinds of implications for other things we want to do. i do not know whether the situation in iraq is going to get worse next year as many

expect it will, but i think if we draw down the u.s. forces in iraq, it will be compelled by the situation in afghanistan. we will not have the option of doing both at once. one great line that has been exposed in the last decade is this -- the united states military can fight two medium- sized conflicts at the same time. we cannot do that. if you are involved in one, do not start another one. it has implications in other places. the notion that the united states today could use military force against iran while it is bogged down in afghanistan and is trying to get out of iraq is lunacy. we could not afford to do that. we simply could not. that has implications for the future of iran's nuclear development policy. the president is going to take

the military option off of the table. -- president is not going to take the option off of the table. mr. president, if you want to do that it is your nickel, but here is my racket -- my resignation. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, bruce. [applause] >> he will be available to sign copies of his book. he will remain outside. >> next on c-span, the muslim public affairs council discusses the shooting at their annual meeting. william eggers the author talks

about what government does and does not do well. later, a speech by secretary of state hillary clinton on human rights. >> in the mid 1990's they named him one of the most 50 and the little people to watch. since then he has greeted the social networking side blackplanet.com and has its planned new technologies of "oprah." he talks about harvard and what is ahead. now, part of the public affairs council's ninth annual convention. they discuss the fort hood shooting and how it might affect muslims living in the united states. this is about one hour. >> this is the muslim public

affairs council light and no convention -- ninth annual convention. this is on fort hood, a defining moment. we are going to have a conversation with three very important people that provide unique perspectives on the issue of not only national security but civil rights and how race or religion play a role in the discourse on those issues. with us, and we are very pleased to have her, is constance rice who is the co-director of the advancement project which works on public policy and is also a legal action group addressing racial, class, and other barriers to opportunities. we cannot enumerate the number of words constance has been given. she has expanded the

opportunity in advancing multiracial democracy i. she is not for me major lawsuit in 1999 to bring more construction to inner cities of los angeles. next to her is cynthia venezuela the director of litigation for the mexican- american legal defense and education fund. she is one of california's top 20 attorneys under the age of 40. she has also served as the assistant u.s. attorney office of public corruption and government fraud section. she served as the special assistant to the former california supreme court justice, cruz renoso. next to her is the senior advisor to the muslim public affairs.

he is the chairman of the council of southern california and the spokesperson for the islamic center for southern california. he is the author of a major work called, "in pursuit of justice, the jurisprudence of human rights in islam." he is an advisor to several muslim american organizations throughout the country. he has spoken at the state department and in several interface forms on the topics of the islamic democracy -- interfaith forums. he is spoken on the issue of our modern society. with that, could you please give us a warm welcome to our panel. [applause]

>> unfortunately david eggers was slated and was unable to join us. i am confident these panelists are going to offer us a lot. on the issue of fort hood, isn't really a defining moment? if so, why? >> yes, i think it is. it will be a defining moment if we want it to be. it should be a defining moment. not only for muslim americans but for the country at large. for muslim americans, i think it is a moment where lots of

arguments that we use are failing us, appropriately so by the way. terrorists are not from america. it will not allow such extremism to develop. also, it has nothing to do with islam. i'm talking particularly to the muslims who might be upset of what i say. i think we're discovering right now both in america [unintelligible] and jury the taxpayers' money to become educated, to become a physician, to become a psychiatrist at of all the specialities of medicine.

he was a member of the armed forces. if this was not enough to prevent a crime like that, the second thing that we usually say is the car run and is long would never approve of what he said -- we are in an awkward situation. definitely, if we want to be loyal to our religion and our country, we have to have an inward look to our arguments. for the american public, i think in their minds, a good number of them at least, muslims cannot be

trusted and they are violent because their religion is violent. do we approve that? no. is it true? no. it is the perception. we have to deal with it. i think if we want to include muslims in our society and [unintelligible] this will defined the american muslim identity and what islam is in america. >> how did you react when you first heard about the fort hood incidents and the culprit was a muslim? you told us you are ready to help out in any way.

share some of your experiences with us in how to deal with the problems he outlined. >> first off, please do not let him be muslim. he has brought up some very insightful points. i would add to those points that this incident is a defining moment simply because of the attention that it got. there may have been other more minor, but i come from a military family. i know what it means to be on base. my father was a colonel in the air force. militarily, to have an attack on a base -- my biggest fear was that it would be an awful backlash. what does this say about where we are? eight years after the fact, we

are still together in every long journey. every single group that has come to this country is still on the journey of integration, assimilation, and separateness that makes up the american mosaic. this great country is probably the best but it is not perfect. it is the best at incorporating different groups, the plural this unum -- e pluribis unum. he should read the congressional record. the way they talked about italians, the classified them as black. they have had african-americans, my family is slave owner, slave, and native american. i could write my on reparations act.

i family is a mixture. even so i would be "other" even though i am a blended daughter. i am african-american in some contexts, white in other contexts. for the american muslim family, the muslim immigrant family getting on the road to integration is a big speed bump. fort hood, for me, said the following -- to face the issues that he brought up, this community, the muslim american community, this incident highlights this, how critical your role is in the modern voice of islam. if your voice can not be elevated then this problem will never go away globally.

i do not spend time with a lot of groups. i spent time whenever you call me because the fort hood incident shows how terrible this is immediately. you have to be putting the signs up that say, "i am not a terrorist, i am not a terrorist" immediately. you have to tear down this year. it will peter out and dissipate over time. -- you have to temper down this fear. the process will continue. the other fault line, because there were a lot, it was not just the fear of being attacked but there is an enormous fear of islam. is long-phobia -islam-phobia is

up there with homophobia and provokes reactions. we're going to need to talk about profiling as well. i do not understand how we, as an american-led military people, how did we get so stupid? there were more flags than the un plaza on this one. his religion had nothing to do with reading the flags. if you had seen it timothy mcveigh with his books and his tirades against janet reno, those lives. his neighbors knew he was unstable. they knew he was going into a phase where he might get dangerous. well, the psychiatrists who were practicing with this doctor had

notes in his file. they were tracking his web activity. if he had been a black nationalist or with the ira, somebody should have said, " well, wait a minute." that is not profiling but intelligence defense. there was a complete failure here and they will use racial profiling. they are going to go to another extreme. this discussion needs to say what would have happened here. [applause] >> cynthia, he brought up the issue of mistrust as one of the unfortunate reality is that we have to deal with as a consequence of fort hood. how you deal with that as a litigator? what are some of these

strategies that you use in rebuilding trust and countering the mistrust of others? >> i wanted to start by addressing some of the comments that were made. i think the forehead incident was not really a defining moment from the perspective of the latino community because it really does not color the views of muslims among latinos. latinos understand that when incidents like this happen that you think exactly what that is, please do not let it be a latino. the media does a very good job of changing our entire community with a very broad brush -- painting our entire community. we, as a minority community, i

understand the stereotyping, jumping to conclusions, the wanting to blame a particular group. i think that because our community has that understanding and that sent the that we did not take this incident as a general statement against muslims or as long. from our perspective, it was not a defining moment. -- as a general statement against muslims or islam. [inaudible] there is a huge fear of undocumented immigrants which is something our community has been fighting for litigation over the past four years. we have been fighting xenophobia for over 40 years. recently there have been a number of anti-immigrant and --

ordinances enacted because of their failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform. state and local governments have taken it upon themselves to pass the various ordinances that all have the same goal and a mission which is to purge people from their communities, to deny access to public health benefits, education, and employment to immigrants which translates to limit -- to legal immigrants and the latino community in general. this is something we have had to fight for litigation. we recently prosecuted successfully and file the lawsuit against a vigilante rancher from the state of arizona. he took it upon himself to " hunt down" people he perceived to be undocumented immigrants. he held them at gunpoint,

captured them, rounded them up and yelled racial epithets at them. he had his attack dogs loose on them. some of these victims included children and united states citizens. we had to litigate and file a case against him. we are successful and recover damages on behalf of the victims in that case. that is one example of the many kinds of cases we litigate against. we also litigate against the type of vigilante conduct. we represents victims and witnesses when various hate crimes occur. i think we will talk about that in response to other questions. >> thank you.

some people felt that there should have been no response to the fort hood incident because there were so many other issues and there is a concern that when we do speak out as connie had noted that we spoke out swiftly that some people misconstrued the -- that as being apologetic. we do not need to apologize for what happened at fort hood. how do we deal with the realities or perceptions that have become realities and the issues of mistrust? but concerns -- also with concerns we're becoming overly apologetic. >> i do not apologize for something i did not do. i do not accept or condone it.

anyone with a normal iq would say you do not apologize. we aren't trying, as connie said, to say, "i am not a terrorist, i am not a terrorist "because they are saying we are. i will keep saying it until someone hears me. we are dealing with perceptions. the perception is that we are dangerous. it is the major problem that we cannot ditch or hide. we have to address it. it must have -- and must happen because we contributed to it. if you would allow me to give one example because it is really bothering me, american citizens

from different religions and i say [unintelligible] the room would be empty because in their mind, "allah akbar" means be heading and destruction. let me ask the muslims here, how many [unintelligible] + save that per day? so much to answer me? how many times minimum? i counted them. pardon me? 45? all right. it is 92 times is the minimum average muslim who is just using

it for necessities without dextrose -- without, extras without"allah akbar" 92 times per day. rain to god, ending our prayer by piece. how did this slogan change from the absolute peacefulness to that perception of violence? we should ask ourselves that. -- praying to god, ending our prayer wit hpea -- with peace. something is deeply wrong. i said that 92 times a day to give me peacefulness and comfort. how they perceive it this way?