sco. she attracted delete car amps with a slightly bohemian elegans inner persona enters studios o ("d)h'sgsds,p$o reveal individuality in a deep inner life.

she endowed her subjects with interiority to use a new word. her clients believed that she had a thing to capture their essences. their education and culture and sensitivity just so much from the images that she made. as she began to do in new york and san francisco she integrated herself into a bohemian arts crowd a major photographer's studio into a meeting place of artists and the more liberal wing of the city's wealthy art patrons. by 1920, a year and not after she arrived there she married the city's most desirable bachelor artist, peter maynard dixon. and maynard dixon was throughout dorothea lange's life much more famous than he was. he is a western painter has many, many fans. this picture is sell for up to a million dollars.

dixon dressed in black with cowboy boots and hat kind of dashing and magnetic figure at the center of the bohemian artist crowd. this small, limping businesswoman had hoped the sexiest man in sentences goes bohemia. during this marriage, lange subordinated herself to maynard. but her props not so unusual among women married to artist. she was not only the exclusive housekeeper and parent. she not only put up with maynard's womanizing and month-long absence on painting trips, but she was also the main breadwinner for the family. in one sense, the depression forced laying out of the studio and onto the streets in the sense that her clients housetrained and she had extra time on her hands. but she was also chafing in the confines of her studio and her

marriage and seems to fuse in her mind. she felt compelled to take her camera into the streets. she was accustomed only to work for higher and at first she felt worried about invading the privacy of straight people or even invoking their hostility. she was gratified when she found that often they did not notice her. later she would understand that she had method for making people not notice her. she said about her early work in the street, i can only say i knew i was looking at something. sometimes you have an inner sense that you are not taking anything away from anyone, their privacy, their dignity, or their wholeness. i'm such self reassurance, herbal photographic future rested. documentary photography is then connected her to an extraordinary man who became her second husband and partner or

the rest of her life, paul taylor, a progressive agricultural economist who taught at university of bert are you educated her about class and race exploitation and brought her into the extraordinary photographic project for new deals farm security administration. there is nothing like a sense to our great loss. for six years, a small and amazingly hard-working group of about a dozen photographers made several hundred dollars and photographs of american rural life. the project was initiated to create granda for's new deal, but expanded to create a democratic nature of the rural united states, one that emphasized those who did the work of farming, rather than the owners of the great plantations of mississippi and california. there's several paradoxes in lange's life including the fact

that this quintessential city girl ended up working for the department of agriculture. never even having envisioned a farm when she was hired. but my favorite of the paradoxes is the way it turns around a typical story of women's emancipation and the usual story you start with a woman who was a dependent on her has spanned and to gradually works her way into perhaps getting a profession, getting his job, have an income of around and feeling independent. lange reversed it. she got the upper committee to become a great photographer when she married a second husband who would support her on his academic salary from the university of california. and released her from the responsibility of earning for her whole family. and it was a large family because when we put the two families together, she had two children of her own and four stepchildren.

okay, now i said i was good to talk first about the personal and then about the social historic. but of course historians among us know that it's impact impossible to separate the personal from the social historical. but some episodes are more constrained by the social than others. so i want to illustrate by sketching out one account of lange's, one aspect of her life and that his mother. when she married maynard dixon she inherited a 10-year-old stepdaughter, constants. the girl was furious at dorothy from the start. she had lost first or mentally ill alcoholic mother and then had been for a time her father's only about. maynard instead of providing reassurance to constants when he decided to marry again immediately turned over to dorothy a full charge and rather

quickly after the marriage resumed his old tattered but take them on, long trips into the desert. dorothy was flying high with their studio practice and did not want to be stuck at home while maynard and his friends to socialize in italian restaurant so she had her own resentments of this dependent to a suddenly thrust upon her. or whatever the reasons were, she was unable to mother this unhappy girl and they had a terribly, terribly angry and violent relationship. her work was then harder still when her and maynard's two sons were born. sorry, that comes later you can look at it now. as with constacie she turned over the two boys entirely to dorothea and had no responsibility for and.

when the marriage was beginning to erode and the boys were seven and four years old dorothy and maynard made the first of many decisions to place their children in foster care. her divorce, remarriage, and her job confirms the practice and between 1932 and 1940 all these children, all six of them, her two and the four stepchildren weren't paid foster care placements were part of those years from a couple of weeks to three or four months at a time. dan dixon, the oldest son, recalled his feelings to me when i interviewed him about how we felt when his mother and father would come to visit and i quote dan dixon. i remember standing outside the place where we lived waiting and waiting for that black model age to appear and when the day was over i would remember watching it go, weeping and weeping as the red taillights receded.

in writing about lange, i had to wreck in this pain. i have discussed it with many, many friends and not a single one of them was a parent can imagine doing such a thing. but as a historian and obliged to put her son's resentment and recollect it sadness into the context of the 1930's and it standards about mother, child bonding. employed mothers spent frequently sought childcare problems by turning to relatives, neighbors, foster parents, and institutions in that order. poor mothers often place their children in orphanages, temporarily or in foster homes for those who could afford to pay. the rich send their children of course to boarding school and often did this started out very, very young ages. or they have full-time live-in nannies. although day nurseries were becoming more common, they were

rare in the 1930's and furthermore full-time daycare at that time carried the stigma of a charity and was characterized by overcrowding, by rigid discipline and poor hygiene. are there more, the child development experts of the time held that foster care was the superior choice and a daycare center they resent us in an orphanage children will be cared for by strangers who were responsible for groups of children. in foster care by contrast holdren have a mother and a family, possibly even a father. ironically the child development wisdom of the time also was somewhat contradict to return s. that separation and shifting caretakers were not inevitably germanic for children so long as their fundamental physical needs were met. although many experts today considered children's emotional and developmental need for funding exclusively with one or two parents to be a timeless and irreducible fact of human nature

that is simply not what child hood experts thought in the 1930's. lange felt enormous anguish and guilt about this. she developed symptoms of severe ulcers that would cause her so much pain in the later years and ultimately lead to her death. but let us look at this a little more closely. her children were also maynard. and he did not share any of these feelings of guilt. after the divorce he visited them very rarely and advanced not one which have flexibility for them not even financial responsibility. they were entirely supported by lang and her new husband. just as striking, paul taylor had three children and he also handed them over to dorothea and thought it was like to but in foster care. yet none of these children and to talk to all of those who were alive. none of them blame their fathers at all.

this is however entirely understandable. in 1935, few people thought fathers had caretaking responsibilities for children. but i want to say that lange's and guilt from placing at the children derives not just from feeling like a bad mother, but also from something even more unspeakable to her and that was ambition. that's most on womanly of drives. when she was offered the job at farm security should not hesitate the moment although she knew it would mean not seen her children for months at a time. she knew she was a bad mother, but her ambition in some ways hit itself, not only from others but from her to a variety of identities and consciousness through which she disguised it. until well after world war ii, she never admitted to a desire to be an artist.

she considered herself a tradesman to use her word. studio photography often functioned as a camouflage for ambition because it allowed women to work at home and it allows them to trivialize the significance of their work. lange's chief defense against recognizing her own admission to the form of experiencing her drive as if it came from somewhere else from a force beyond her control. she often spoke of herself in the passive. she called herself a channel, a cipher, a person that can be used for lots of things. either all quotes from dorothea. her denial extended to the way she discussed placing out her children as if she had no responsibility for making it happen and i quote from her, if the boys hadn't been taken from me by circumstances, she wrote. and yet, while she faced the

daunting gender norms of her time should not only charged ahead that made herself a second marriage with a husband from having. if you'll excuse my technical innards. all taylor, the professor, exhibited only pride and encouragement or her ambition, never for a moment how she should stay home and mind the children. he absolutely does she was a genius and he adored her for it. another unique spin on the conventional story of women's emancipation, find the right husband. now a few words about the politics of gender and the federal government in general and in lange's job and the struggles of the period. these are images of two new deal murals. and i chose them because they are typical. i think they reflect visually what i'm about to say about policy, which is that virtually

every new deal program rested on conservative assumptions about gender. even the emergency relief programs, either excluded women "'bs'd,p$u&p'p)kbvds&p)p$s#p"d) constituency rested upon gender, racial, and class assumptions

and considered foreign women not as farmers, but as farmers wise. it ignored farmworkers and serve the interest of large growers within the department of agriculture this farm security agency that lange works were constituted an enclave of radicals who sought to help the needs of ruined small family farmers of tenant farmers, sharecroppers and migrant farmworkers, the group said they must devastated by the depression. and not surprisingly, the fsa, from security was under constant attack not only from congress but also from the more powerful man in the department of agriculture. as the only female photographer until marion post wolcott was hired by the project and its very last years, lange's salary was lower than that of far less experienced men on the job she was caught in a double bind. she was on the one hand treated

discriminatorily as a woman but on the other hand she was expected to work like a man. that is a man who had a wife. for example, all the other fsa photographers who were on the road for months at a time took their wives and occasionally their girlfriends along as unpaid assistants on the road. lange who needed help the most i might point out higher to the son of a friend who was a great photographer himself and paid him out of her own pocket and out of her own $3 a day per diem allotment. she'd bought meals for him too. drew paul taylor, lange had been influenced by the labor movements notably the san francisco strike of 1934, but also the great agricultural strikes out california's central and imperial valleys. i think a lot of people may

remember from our own lifetimes the struggle that ended with the creation of the united farm workers. we forget or not realize that there were many failed struggles in the 1920's and 30's of migrant farmworkers to unions. and several cases, the big growers arranged to get hundreds of their men deputized by county sheriffs, so as to be able to beat up strikers come agitators from even journalists in federal mediators. rovers built private stockades in which they locked up their opponents without charges. link tried several times to photograph these strikes and always failed. her disability meant that she could not move quickly, especially when burdened with heavy cameras and they show these because i want to remind you why cameras looked like. she never used 35-millimeter cameras. she used these very, very large

and heavy view cameras and whenever possible also used a tripod. so she had a lot to lug around. photojournalist robert i. said immensely if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. lying could not get close enough. and none of her pictures of these strikes another similar conflicts turned out well. now i think this failure had a lot to do with gender, as well as with disability. the violence terrified lange and she withdrew. the labor movements of the 1930's often assumed very macho tax dates, discourses, and even strategies. i'm interested in organizing women, the cia organizing committees insulated themselves from the alternative organizing strategies that women sometimes brought to the floor. while the class balance of the 1930's was almost exclusively employer generated, and it

nevertheless had the effect of excluding women. however timid she might have been physically, in mind and in spirits, lange was extraordinarily grave. she defied not only gender but racial conventions as evidence in her photography of people of color, influenced from her san francisco days by your close friend consuelo cannot do an extraordinary photographer that some of you may be familiar with. and of course by paul taylor who was in the 1920's virtually the only anglo scholar studying exit can americans. her consciousness grew from traveling through the valley and learning about how migrant farm workers were treated. her antiracist development then grew further through her work in the southern states through north carolina to mississippi,

photographing sharecroppers. for the french security she made more photographs of people of color, approximately one third of her total output than any other photographer until gordon parks joined the staff at the very, very and. this fact about her extensive photography is not well known because she did not own or control any of this photography and was all the property of the federal government. she was supposed to send a raw underdeveloped film to washington. they in turn distributed free of charge the media and they decided what to distribute. and they distributed what they considered acceptable to the mainstream. a few years later, when she

tried once again to do something that she controlled, she defied not only the u.s. government and unanimous public opinion but also deprive the organized left to which many of her friends belonged in her risky photographic opposition to the internment of japanese americans which i don't have time to go into now, that will just let you know if you're interested that a few years back also with norton i put out a photography book about a collection of her photographs of the japanese internment. it is called him pounded and that is a pun because it is about them pounding people but about the fact that her photographs were him pounded by the u.s. army which used to distribute them. now i want to turn to the photography at 12. at the outset, from security photographers@midwest to show and its conditions.

to make pictures of falling apart barns, soil erosion, of the dust bowl of new and old farming methods. lange would influence the projects whole legacy through her views of portraiture which is what she did and in a certain sense oliver photography was portrait photography. in part, she simply took the same camera, the same eye that she had turned on the rich and directed it towards the poor. producing portraits that individualize her subjects and therefore made them interesting and memorable to the viewer, even as she illustrated their depression. instead of the blank backgrounds as she used in the studio, she now produced images of individuals in their social content. and this i think with much of the secrets of the popularity of the farm security images that they showed not massive, but

individuals. not sociological generations, by particular stories. in doing this, lange was feminizing the field. just to show you a couple of examples of earlier documentary photography, the work of jp greece and lewis stein tended to show either context or face is, but both. baritone like that of walker evans was cool and ignorant in comparison to the emotional key and seductiveness of lang langlange's. people are usually photographed frontally, immobile, sometimes dignified but never flirtatious, conversationally, or expressive weird evidence coolness was an entirely gendered manner. he had a favorite phrase. he referred to photographing

babies as a synonym for selling out artistic integrity. lange wanted personality, activity, and emotion in her photographs. moreover, there are no lange photographs of unlovely people. no doubt she may have passed over some subjects, but more importantly she made her subjects lovely and if we have time in the questions i contact you about how she did that. the understanding of portraiture she took from the studio, which in her words is that a portrait is a collaboration between photographer and a subject. and that therefore as a result objects have a perfect right to expect flattering images of themselves. she applied that same principle to the people she photographed the forefront security and in her later documentary work. this departure from documentary so-called objectivity a very

much contested subject in photography could also be read as gendered. it arrived again from this stereotypically female approach to portrait photography as a personable service to the client. not so distant that the time, it was considered quite closely related to interior decoration or fashion and makeup consultation and photography. by placing the documentary at the service of reform was a male as wealthy female proverb dress and one that perfectly paralleled her husband's social science. taylor's strong sense of responsibility, not just to document, but also to correct the injustices and suffering for scholarship and covered have been characteristic of the whole field of social science and the progressive era and was now being reinvigorated during the depression. now, i've said that there are

ways in which lange's that was quintessentially feminine, but i think we have to be on our guard against it analyses of her work as feminine. critics have deployed some of the worst gender clichés. reading off a strong emotional content of her work as intuitive in a way such to be characteristic of women. some quotes here it dorothea lange lived instinctively photographed. an artist like dorothea lange, a making of a great perfect anonymous language is great about what she can do the build beside making herself available for that trick of grace. another described her as a piece of white photosensitive paper or like in an exposed which light and shadow marked impressions.

my point here is not to deny the gendered aspects of her work, but to challenge categorizing it as instinctive, far from a passive receptor she was an assertive visual intellectual, disciplined and self-conscious, working systematically to develop a photography that could be maximally communicative and. her years in the studio custom her to the finest controls, controls of lighting, positioning subjects, of camera angles, speed, aperture and timing. i just wanted to give you one little example. the first one i show is the famous maynard is the product of her taking either six or seven experts photographs of that same group of people.

working her way gradually and carefully toward the one she liked best. and that doesn't count all the exposures she would have thrown away. she carefully planned every photographs, often made a dozen exposures of a single scene. those who observed her unanimously remarked on how slow she was entered tempo was over determined by her disability, by her large cameras, by the need to calculate light. there were no light meters yet in the 1930's. many expert photographers can appear to work extensively because they operate very quickly as a result of years of part days. lange had the speed in her eye but not in her body. after she began working with all taylor she read extensively in world economics and sociology and listen to his explanations before picking up a camera. her of her exposure, not to

mention her every maneuver in the darkroom was the result of study and part is. now it is true that lange sometimes characterized her work in styles as instinctive, but she was wrong. many artists experience their perceptions this way. males as well as females. moreover, in performing an exaggerated intuitiveness, lange was manifesting her guilt and fear of her own ambition and mastery. far more important i think than what she said however )s@@ @ @ã6

helpmates and earth mothers, lange visualize women as independent and often conflict it. this is a photograph not from the depression, but a study she did of defense shipbuilding plants in richmond, california. her depression went on a shirt the edged film, often delicate but always tough. her work shows women at hard labor in the fields as often as men. her rural subject matter was part of what was responsible because a division of labor was less common among farm working people which was very, very common for women to work in the fields and to follow the point i

stayed before because women are farmers as well as farmers wives. quintessentially a photographer of labor she did not show rural women as wives but as rural proletarians. his take applies not only to women working in the field, but also to their domestic labor. and are often searing photographs of the living conditions of farmworkers, she showed how women struggled, even while camped in the field to create a semblance of order. this is one of my favorite of a genre that lange did, although it is not well known, but this is a still life of the makeshift kitchen that a woman who was a migrant farm worker has created, where she lives is literally nothing but a canvas leaned to

supported by a couple steaks. it's an extraordinary photograph because if you look at a very, very closely, there's a tremendous amount of information about what these people ate, about what they owned, how they managed. hundreds of live photographs pointed out how they try to create kitchens and bedrooms, how they coped and bathe children and wash clothes while living in cars, tents, lean to's, or sharecropper houses without water, heat, or furniture is. they are doing nothing less than creating similar ovation out of wilderness. in her words, lange articulated conventional gender ideas. she said she often believed how she had unique functions for which they were destined in unique ways of seeing. the winding through her maternal photographs, there's always a subversive dimension. she made many madonnas.

this is one of them, but obviously this is not a typical madonna. interestingly enough, she almost never photographs whole nuclear family unit. there are mostly fatherless. mother and child for the central couple. a common refrain during the depression and also pointed out by: it's a madonna, a common motif in the vernacular christian culture in which she was raised and which most americans lived. but lange's madonnas are really starving. their toughness does not disappear. they are sometimes like a relic of soviet women. they can do everything and however heard the conditions, they will survive and defend their children. fragile and soft, as this nursing mother may be, there is no mistaking his steely determination in her eyes.

in fact, for lange, it was often represented as a burden. it seemed to require constant vigilance against danger. it would of course be able to trace this anxiety back to lange's own guilt about her children and leave it at that. and i'm not convinced by that reductionism. the insistent combination of strength and anxiety is also a mode of recognizing mothering as hard labor and recognizing mothers as workers. even her quintessential madonna, the photograph i showed first, the one that's known as my grandmother actually shows a woman who was turned away from her children, rather than towards them. her photographs of pregnancy are particularly striking. these images were still being polite if not indecent in the 1930's some of you may be aware that for example, no pregnant woman was allowed to hold a job

that either appearing in public if she were pregnant. it would be several decades before public images of pregnancy became respectable. lange made quite a few portraits of visibly regnant women and are not maternal clichés. some have ambivalent or negative attitudes about their pregnancies, not surprising at all in the depression conditions, but still a big step away from this sentimentalized joy that it associated with usual images of motherhood. like many female photographers, she made many pictures of children, far more than the male firm security photographers. some of her children are just cute and lively and displaying the standard appeal of children for viewers of photography, although not so common among pictures of people of color that are being shown.

but many of them are also not so happy. i find her pictures exquisitely sensitive to the complex emotional lives of children, taking even children seriously as individuals. this is just a particularly striking correlation. the girl at the top is part of a migrant farm worker family in the state of oregon picking hops. the girl at the bottom, taken two decades later, if a palestinian girl from a time when she was traveling around the world doing a lot of photography and asia. these children are typically not with their parents, perhaps neglected, but it's so likely by circumstances beyond the control of a caring parent. her view of poor rural children

like her view of the mothers was not charged with the motion about her own children and her own childhood. her identification as both neglect did in the collector adds to the visual outrage embedded in the many images she made of child labor and exploitation. but my hunch is that many of these children very hard lives actually functioned for her in a contradictory direction. on the one hand, making the deprivation she saw that the deprivation she thought made her own children's pain less intense and her own guilt less keen. on the other hand, daily encounters of sick and happy children capture from escaping out unawareness of children suffering. perhaps most unconventional are

lange's many images of fathers with children. we might call them the donnas. there are so many of these and they are so unusual for the time. these images are exceptionally tender, quite possibly more so than the mother child images. her sensitivity to fathers may be another product of her travels in the countryside, since close father child relations are a common aspect of rural life when children are not as separated from their fathers as they are in cities. what's interesting is that they are not only tender, but there's quite a number of pictures like the one on i guess it's your right, just like it's my right, that show so much joy. the one on the right is one of my favorites. it's basically a picture of a migrant farm worker who has just returned to where they're camped out from a hard days work in the

field and has just completely delighted by being greeted so effusively by two children and a little dog. now, the presence of a child gives a father dignity because he becomes responsible and therefore gains authority. but when they appeared together with their wives, lange's fathers are often in weekend positions. i don't have a picture to show you of that. in fact, the jack did men as i call them ari lang depression specialty. they sometimes stand alone, they brewed in groups, on street corners. you sit on stoops, they bend over park benches, etc. but even these dejected guys are not unattractive and they are by no means a object. they are graceful and soft and as if she were finding the

positive side of male disempowerment. she showed idle unemployed men is worried and despondent, get absolutely manly always attentive to masculine ways of handling humiliation and her father of japanese internment she was particularly sensitive to teenage boys. and that quote from something she wrote. they were the ones that really hurt me the most, the teenage boys who didn't know what they were. what she meant by that if they felt they were american, but now the american government is saying they're not american. the older people had more of a way, she said, of being very dignified in such a situation and asking questions, but these americanized boys were allowed and they were rowdy and they were frightened. she repeated this double subversion and her extraordinary photography of people of color.

racial liberals of the time typically perceived subordinate of nonwhite as persecuted innocents, racist while them as deprived lazy, and stupid. but both groups call them have somehow depleted. and if you want an example of what i'm talking about, look at monarch are quite. you have seen their faces. it's quite, quite upsetting in its racism. lange's images stand out for the lack of pity, their lack of objective vacation of their lack of exoticism. just as with her white subjects, she often sits from below in order to heighten the dignity of her subjects. for your lange, poverty and social subordination even when expressed in bodily deference

did not obscure a person's energy, purposefulness, and above all complexity. her subjects are competitive, restrained, even cerebral. the photographs of nonwhite women are often more charming than those of men. they are less depressed but never simple. perhaps what makes a lange portrait most riveting as the subjects retain a zone of reserve. those who look down on their subjects as many photographers that lange dead, believed i think that they knew their subjects, new them entirely, knew who would they were and what they were like. lange's photographs suggest, i think, that the photographer does not understand everything about her subjects. they remain a mystery. and this may be their most respectable and challenging message. to repeat, lange was no

feminist, though i've often wondered what your thoughts would have been had she lived just a few years longer in time to experience the second wave of women's rights movements. she died in 1965. her photography when considered with the gender questions we can ask today seems almost to suggest a questioning and awareness of contradictions that is only barely subterranean. i suspect that this consciousness or possibly unconsciousness was not unique to lange, but could be found among many women whose lives and work in the 1930's in part because the depression, simply could not fit the gender structures that the depression and the new deal era were trying to reaffirm. it is just possible that artists like lange were especially touched with the ross spot created by this lack of a fit. and i want to suggest that despite the absence of any

feminist actors in that period, surely its roots would be found in the 1930's. and that's it. thank you so much. [applause]@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

stared on a waiting for her to be ready and then she would make

a picture. another technique was conversation. in relation to the farm workers and ship writers she learned right away from paul taylor you do not ask the kind of questions like how much are you paid or what is your boss like because that sends union messages and people run away but they would say how do you get to the next town, how far is it or one of her favorites she would ask for a drink of water and drink it very, very slowly. yet another one was she knew that kids were interested and the kids would come flocking around and she actually forced herself. i was shocked she forced herself to let the children hold and examine the cameras and pretty soon she would have a whole group of kids and parents would come over to mcgeorge they were not bothering her and just her purpose in all of this in her

words was you get people to relax into their natural body language. she believed that all the way said before she thought people's faces were real things she was much more interested in how bodies had revealed things and i didn't show you any of these but her most extraordinary photographs are portraits where you don't see the person's face at all but you see through gestures and positions a great sense of what the emotions state that person is. >> i have a question. once she said her photographs to the government how did she get them back? >> it was a struggle and this wasn't just true of her but all photographers. a photographer wants to

immediately see the product of her whirred so he or she can criticize it and a trust may be the lighting is wrong in this redesign right so you want to see them right away. theoretically the security was supposed to make work prints from the negatives and ship those back. but there were times when there was a month, six weeks or longer before she got to see them and she was furious and there was constant argument. the correspondence goes on and on about that. but one thing she did which every one of them that i'm 100% sure is the cheated. they kept back some photographs and it didn't send them otherwise they couldn't have known what they were doing but they couldn't use them. they couldn't allow someone to publish them because that would of course, they were on their property. they did not -- they did not alone in these photographs. but it was a constant struggle and the same was true of the

japanese internment. she never saw the japanese internment photographs until the year before she died and she took a trip. she then learned the it and rather quietly placed in the national archives and took a trip to washington to see them. that was 1964 and she had done it in 1932 said it was a huge problem. >> i got the impression that none of her kids forgave her. is that true? did you develop a rapport with any of them? >> yes. i have spoken with both her sons and one of her stepchildren still alive and many of her grandchildren were often closer to my generation, and i was actually so impressed with how judicious they work in speaking

about their mother which is nice for me because i feel like they were in any way trying to insert any take of mine. they complain about her, she was controlling, she was not always an easy person to get along with. her boy is used to call her dictator bought. at the same time they understood she was an enormously generous person. every number photographer that she mentored sort of talk about her as she walked on water. she was so giving and generous with praise and hope. so you get a very mixed feelings. and i was very struck by how what a remarkable kind of distance they had all. i read that one quote from daniel dixon, john dickson, the other son said the same kind of

thing. there is all a lot of sadness and even bitterness that will never go away but at the same time all there was a lot of generosity and i can tell you personally all of those still alive should be thrilled that this book is here. i feel very good about having a book. i don't know that they've read it yet. i just mean they are glad it happened. >> i want to thank linda for an extraordinary presentation and i want to invite all of you to purchase the book here if you are watching somewhere else purchase it wherever you can. it is an extraordinary read

c-span.org for more information. >> the rest of the program we'll talk about the u.s. strategy in pakistan and afghanistan. joined by two former ambassadors. ronald neuman former ambassador to afghanistan and william milam former ambasáp"or to pakistan. just so we have context on time, ronald neuman you were the as!assador from 2005-2007 and william milam 1998 to 2001. there at a pivotal time. >> well when the military took over again, yes but i wasn't

there at 9/ll so i missed that transition. >> let's look at the top news stories right now. "washington post" suicide bomber strikes shiite in pakistan. 30 killed in blast. what do we learn from this? what are we seeing happening in pakistan right now? >> things go on. have been attacking the state and people of pakistan continue to do so, and the old sunni shiite violence continues and that's been a history for the last 30-years. since the late 70's. host: judging whom what your seeing how are things to day verses when you were ambassador? >> it's like night and day as far as can i tell. in fact, it was safe to go around almost anywhere in

pakistan in my day if váu were a foreigner and even a shiite except during certain periods and it's totally different now. so i think, you know, just the security situation is far different. host: ambassador ronald neuman. give you initial reflections in the afghanistan country right now. >> the insurgency is worse but it's not hugely popular but it's scaring people. the president's use of the 18 months which i think does not actually mean very much has also confused afghans somewhat. however, there are a lot of pluses as well. and i think one shouldn't be despairing but understand we're paying a considerable price for years of under re-sourcing with finances with money an" military. and you don't correct those things quickly. i think the american people need a much greater understanding of

the time lags involved so that we don't falsely judge policies as failures before they begin to work. host: there's a piece today. this is coming from the "wall street journal" looking at what's happening in afghanistan that says sar sooi international rates hit civilians. ten civilians including 8 school children were killed in an attack. president karzai said monday there's contention over who was actually killed. >> this is a continuing problem. if you kill civilians you make more enemies but the taliban work very hard to position themselves that way. i know that general mcchrystal has made extraordinary efforts to kind of avoid this type of thing happening butyl ban and other groups in the insurgency are good about claiming civilian casualties any time anything

happens. unrestrained by truth they're quick. host: we want to take advantage of your expertise and look at changes in policy and look forward. and to start that take a look at comments that then senator obama made in 2007 on august first. regarding pakistan. >> after 9/11 our calling was to write a new chapter in the american story. the devicing of a new strategy to secure our homeland and safeguard our values and serve just cause a broad. we were ready. americans were reunited and friends stood shoulder to shoulder and we have the might and moral persuasion that with the legacy of generations of americans the tied of history seems poised to turn once again toward hope. but then everything changed. we did not finish the job against al qaeda and afghanistan and did not develop new cape

biments to defeat a new enemy or launch comprehensive strategy for terror based. we did not a firm basic values or secure homeland. instead we got a color coded politics of fear. patriotism as one political party. refusing to talk to other countries. a rigid 20áh century ideology that insists the state lester risk m could be defeated through innovation and occupation of a state. a deliberate strategy to miss represent 9/11 to sell aware with nothing to do with 9/11. >> that's back when he was senator talking about afghanistan. ronald neuman can you reflect on this comments then? host: certainly i agree with his point that we turned away from afghanistan. and that we negligented a lot of

things we could do. in fact, i cover a lot of that in the book i've just written. this occured a pum bear of ways. we empowered more people than we need needed to. we had a tiny force present. first in afghanistan we had 25,000 troops the country the larger than iraq. we were building an afghan army. a fraction of the size of the@@ 2006 and after

extensive discussions i got 43. this is the way we were working. iraq was sucking the air out of the discussions of resources and now we're paying a price but it's not hopeless. the taliban are not ten fetal. the press coverage which tends to focus on the areas of conflicts and misses 2/3 of the% country is part of the issue as well as our own mistakes. afghan make mistakes but there's a lot of things to work with as long as we have patients. host: do you think it lines up with president barack obama's strategy years later? >> he maintained that

afghanistan was the necessary war. i think there was then a deep gulp when they found out just what that meant. but after a very serious reflection that was disstabilize together the much of the world that saw it weak but necessary for our political process, i think he's come to a very reasonable policy. about which i would say simply the first test will be does he have the guts to stick with it. it's time to stop the gazing and show resolve overtime. not speeches but sticking with it and secondly the great deal of what counts now is moving from policy to hundreds of decisions on the ground to what people do and we're probably now going to increasingly talk about the wrong things. policies when we ought to talk about execution of policy. >> i was going to say in 2001 after 9/11 in early 2002 i

actually worked on afghanistan here in washington at the state department. they asked me to come back and help. we were trying set up the economic reconstruction effort, which was a multi-lateral effort. the multi-lateral part got set up okay but almost nothing happened. just to back up what ron said, we saw almost no flow of õresources in that time. i was there. and a year after as far as i can tell. host: callers. people lining up to talk to both of you. david from kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. just seems like to me this yeah dynamics.rorist changes the % are we going to every arab country and fight? discuss that if you will. host: sorry david i think we

may have lost david. are you still with us. can you elp!orate more? caller: this guy they just caught. coming to detroit. he came in, you know he's from yeah men another arab country and that's al qaeda, trained him supposedly and, you not pakistan, afghanistan and iraq. are we going to every arab country and fight? you see my point. i mean- >> i understand the question. probably won't go to every arab country or very many of t$em. many of them are hopefully able to handle their own terrorist problems the saudis have done so, but there are areas of the world. afghanistan being the primary one at this point. yes, ma!m

yemen, maybe some !ut if we leave a vacuum there that certainly will be be p' al qaeda hang out again. sanctuary. >> that's one i'd like to reenforce. n agreement here. if we leave afp'istan before there is a strong enough government and army to hold on, maybe with economic assistance. but not foreign troops but if we leave before that you will have with them. let me reflect what this means. they attacked us in september 11, killed 3,000 americans and trumpeted their propaganda they would draw us into aware that would exhaust us for which we would reel back in defeat. i think we need to be very clear, if your pulling out of afghanistan, you have a validation of al qaeda strategy.

a massive victory that every muslim will understand whether they're supporters of radicalism will understand the wave has exceeded, maybe not won aware but a 10-year campaign to defeat the united states. i think what that means for security is very large. that doesn't solve the question or is perfect i correct question. can we go everywhere? no. we can help through a lot of other means. we probably neglected that. >> can i add a little bit. first of all, scenario ron painted of withdrawal abruptly is - would be among other things one of the great recruiting posters for young extremists or young people who tend towards extremism any way on the young muslims so, yes it would weak energy our security by making a

lot more people anxious to get at us i think. secondly and the reason i think you asked me here is about pakistan and a drupt withdrawal from pakistan will turn them in a different direction. (p' i go into that further if people want. but i think pakistan right now is a questionable ally any way. it's teatoring on the edge of do we or don't we. right now, i think and this gets back to the point ron made about the 18 month withdrawal, or beginning of withdrawal period. the pakistans are still thinking, they're leaving we need to make sure our interests in afghanistan are protected by doing what they used to do which is supporting a certain group of the taliban. host: early on in his 10-year as president back in march president barack obama said this in march of 2009 addressing the

purpose in afghanistan. >> many people in the united states. and many in partnered countries that have sacrificed so much have a question. what is our purpose in afghanistan. after so many years they say why do our men and women still fight and die there and they deserved straight forward answer so let me be clear. al qaeda and it's a lies the terrorists that planned and supported 9/11 attacks are in pakistan and afghanistan. multiple intelligence estimates from it's safe haven in pakistan. if the afghan government falls to the taliban or allows al qaeda to go unchallenged that country will be a base for terrorists that want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can. >> well, i think he got it right so i'm glad he still

thinks so. host: mentioned earlier that execution will be the crucial thing looking to the next year. what needs to be different about what the united states and nato force does that hasn't been achieved before as we see other countries not have success there? >> let me start with one piece of the military. we've had a great deal of discussion about is 30,000 troops the right number? the answer is maybe. when i left in 2007 one of the things i talk about in my book. my single biggest issue for consultations is we were 3500 short of military there. we sent 4,000 trainers reasoned most of them are the same ones we didn't have 2 1/2 years ago. do we send enough trainers and use the tup&ified people and

work in ways that work with the those are questions of execution. not questions of policy or one use can micromanage from washington. same thing in civilian side. you have people that know what they're doing. do they know how to work with the afghan culture. i think many of them will not. so, these are the kind of issues that we'll actually determine success or failure just as in iraq the, what people talk about success of the surge was not just numbers but a change of tactics and strategic mistakes of al qaeda and opportunity that (psq together exploited so these are the kinds of things we need to focus on in afghanistan to understand whether or not we're actually doing what we need to do. >> next caller on the independent line. caller: yes, and good morning.

how are ya'll doing today? first of all, i want to make a comment. i think c-span is fabulous. you guys really do a terrific job. i can't really compare it with anything. it's just fabulous. couple of comments. did you see the latest vr"eo coming out of the news with the four terrorists claiming responsibility for this? any of you guys seen that? guess what, i got the news for you. they told us two of them were released from get m o. we're losing the pr battle here folks. secondly, when we decided to put the terrorists on trial in new york city, that to me, spelled out one of the worst possible disasters we could do because it's made them more bold and

every possible mistakes we can make a long the way, we've made as a nation and we')e playing right into the hands of these people and i'm just going to hang up and let you comment on it. thank you so much. >> well, the answer is - i did not see the video first of all.% i read about it. i was shocked even to read about it. although it's to be expected that al qaeda would use this as a propaganda mechanism to do more recruiting and so forth. as to the new york trial, i don't really have a feeling about that. it seems to be that we need to try these people and it seems to me that we've tried other terrorists in new york and it's worked okay. so yes, they will try to use it's a propaganda stool. and we hopefully will have to

counter that with evidence which i hope we have. i'm sure we have and with a - but the other sort of propaganda war is we will do this under some sort of rule of law in our court system and i think thpá is a good message in the long run. host: caller brought up guantanamo and people released from there now getting fed back to the system. guest: we have multiple problems on multiple sides. we did a poor job putting people in guantanamo. we were not careful about our intelligence and i remember at one place in my time before i went to afghanistan from another country with my station chief. being a palled by the quality of intelligence. people we had working on the system there. i don't think new entirely what

we were doing. we had people we swept up accidentally and they were all probably bad by the time they left. we have not been as careful as we could have in some and have had good results in some places and poor in others. yeah men the go+ernment is very weak. on the new york trial, this is a gamble. i'm a little nervous about it and i share some of the callers worries but i say here again it execution not policy. if the trial comes off orderly without being public forum for the people to preach about their views and if it looks fair to the media and they're convictd to get good stiff sentences it could be great success for us. if it become as media circus, a propaganda forum for them and worse of all they get light

sentences or get uh off it's a disaster and administration is rolling dice for heavy stakes. host: our guests are ambassador ronald neuman ambassador to

china?istan through pakistan to the other day they said that the chinese is causing problem and i'm wondering if they'll do that so we'll have to stpv because we have an agreement to build they're economic structure over there and i also wonder if our changing the afghanistan policy to where americans can come in and buy their land and develop it and turning they're governmental structures into private and charging the citizens a lot more, that is causing a lot of animosity. and the other day in the hearing he shouted out and said, what are you talking about they want us there? may want us to leave and they all want us to leave and see us as the enemy and taliban and al

qaeda in favorable terms income paired to what we're doing. so we're running from country to country to do all this for the economic advantage of business, banks and oil companies and yet% americans are dying. host: ambassador ronald neuman? guest: i've heard people make this argument but i find it utterly misty guying because it's one o# the poorest countries on the nation. my wife and i traveled all over by car and horse and by yak and can i tell you that economic "tp"vantage is not readily to b found in afghanistan. the question is of áhe oil pipeline. i've seen this discussed in programs, but there's no final deal. there was not one before. it's been pursued by private companies and has an enormous

number of problems and it likely be a good idea if it happened but you could wait for sitting down. it's going to be a long time in the coming and certainly is % neither a reason for going to war and it may never happen. private citizens can buy land, but i think that the issue is one that afghanistan actually does need more private investment because i think in any country you find government is not a primary creator of jobs but i would dispute the conclusion that people by and large don't want us. there's actually been a lot of poles done. abc and so forth. various credible organizations "t!etween what's happening to u and what's happened with the soviets. the degree of resistance and numbers of people in the war all validate what i've seen as well.

which the majority see the foreign presence the last chance for survival. they're worry is one that will mess it up and twy that we'll leave half done. that scares the dickens out of them. but the idea everybody wants us gone is i think, not true. .

guest: i think that those days, and still, the security problems and other problems of building a pipeline are really, really demands. guest: wonderful linchpin for all kinds of conspiracies, with the symbol and stability that is not true. -- single debility that is not true. guest: let me go to the taliban. i take on them is that the afghans are not it did in taliban rule. most afghans think that the last time around was plenty, a very, very harsh rule, as we know. their attitude towards americans are, i think, as ron says, that

we stay long enough to get the job done. where the polls are different are pakistan, where, again, the taliban are not for republic, but americans are even less popular. that is a whole different -- the taliban are not very popular, but americans are even less popular. that is a whole different story. host: suit on the republicans' line. caller: we have a president who refuses to use the term "war on terror," we have a head of hamas' security who refuses to use the word "-- had of homeland security who refuses to wor -- o use the word "terrorist." 0, by the way, let's not fight them at all. al qaeda is laughing at us and moving forward with this president who does not know what he's doing, who does not know where to turn, and who cannot

make a decision. guest: well, i think the president was pretty clear on what he was doing in both afghanistan and pakistan. with the sole exception that i am not sure that i thought that the deadline, or whatever you call it -- at least a departure was 18 months away -- it strikes me that the president took a long time but made some pretty rational decisions about afghanistan. and in pakistan, which is a very, very difficult case, he is more or less on the right track. as to the mirandizing and so forth, i don't know enough about it to comment. host: ronald on the independents' line in louisiana. caller: 0, got, the lies and

hears you. the heights of the cordish empire, the military -- oh, god, the lies i hear spewed. the heights of the british empire -- by any definition, you call that imperialism re. orwell said that wars are not fought to be one, they are thought to be continued you guys are stooges for the military industrial complex, and most people are on to you. we know you are lying. host: you have a response? guest: well, i would say that i have not been called is due to recently reported -- not been called a stooge recently, but is usually people with different views than the caller. i think his views are absurd and i deny them totally. i think this notion of imperialism is simply confusing. a very different motivations,

very different times, very different histories. i think it is probably enough said. i am happily out of the government. i think this kind of simplistic view does not help anybody understand much of anything. host: you are talking about the timeline is earlier. let's go to, as president obama made during the west point -- go to commons, president obama made during the west point addressed early in december. >> there are those who would want to impose a timeframe for transition to afghan responsibility. some call for a nation building project of up to a decade. i reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. furthermore, the absence of a

timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the afghan government. it must be clear that afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that america has no interest in fighting an endless war in afghanistan. host: ambassador neumann, there was pushed back after the president made those remarks from conservatives, concern that he was setting a deadline to put the administration said that "we're talking about targets and goals, ramping up and then back down." guest: we need to distinguish the strategy from the discussion prepare the strategy has been pretty clear and the administration has been consistent across everyone's testimony -- cabinet, generals, ambassadors, all -- that the 18 months is the beginning of the process, conditions-based, which could be very slow. something could happen in 18 months, but it might not be much

and it is not necessarily mean that many people are leaving. that is not an unreasonable strategy. there is a question of what point you try to do something. however, the wait was laid out, which i suspect has something to do with domestic politics, has caused a great deal of confusion. the president's speech laid much more stress on the 18 months than it did on the conditionality. it was much more we do than the testimony of his administration. -- more weighted than the testimony of his administration. four afghans who have seen mostly failures over the last 30 years of war, the suggestion that we are going to go -- this does not get people to put their shoulder behind the wheel and be more self sacrificing. it triggers survival mechanisms.

how do i get what i can add the -- what i can out of this place before the foreigners abandon me? there is the reality of troops, money, warfare. these things are much more important than the word. right now i think that the 18 months works against getting people to work harder in afghanistan. i will let bill talk about the implications in pakistan. >> i think i pakistan -- i feel pretty much the same way about it that rana does, except i wish he -- than ro does -- that ron does, except as she had not done it. pakistan is also talk about our abandonment -- pakistanis also talk about our abandonment of the region in 1993 as soon as

the war was over, not only walked away, but we put sanctions on pakistan for their nuclear program. pakistan at one point in the 1990's was the most sanctioned country in the world, at least u.s. sanctions. they have a long memory, particularly with regard to what the u.s. does, or does not do. that is very, very much in the forefront of their minds. therefore, they have always had -- this has been one of my favorite things lately, is to talk about how pakistan is really kind of living version in politics of the frankenstein legend -- they have created their own monsters, which are now beginning to eat them up, if you will. first of all, they created the taliban, who then attacked pakistan in -- afghanistan in

the middle 1990's and took over. and then they created, even before that, these jihadi groups which were meant to fight in kashmir against the indians. after 9/11, when musharraf made his u-turn, these groups began to fall away from their creator, began to pull away, and think of their own thing, which was war against infidels of one sort or another, the indians, the day americans, be they anybody else. now you have a situation in which pakistan is fighting a war against one sort of it had begun, still allied to -- one sort of taliban, still led to the other sort. as long as pakistanis think they will need the afghan taliban to

further the interests once we pull out, is going to be very hard for them to break those links. host: let's go to washington, d.c. democrats line. guesi@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

downgrading to religion. when the crusaders came in, we did not say this was a christian war. they are taking religion and using it as a tool, and you have to understand that is not the average muslim. and you say that pakistan encourages the taliban? i think it is the united states. we are the ones who encouraged the taliban and told them that this is a religious war, that it is in their religious interest to fight the soviets. we created these monsters and it has spread all over. they are sending a lot of strong wahabbis all over the world and is there anything we are doing

against that? to be muslim in our community -- there is such havoc for us as muslims that you're afraid of saying we are muslims. host: let's get a response from ambassador milam. guest: yes, i would like to responded first of all, i did not say, nor mean to imply, that most young muslims are terrorists. if you heard that, you heard wrongly. i certainly don't believe that. there are young muslims, a few come to order the vulnerable to terrorist -- a few, who are vulnerable to terrorist conditions, and many who are not. if that is what you heard, let me say that i did not say it and it is wrong. i would never believe that.

you made a lot of points. i'm trying to think of them all. first of all, that taliban were created in 1994 not during the war against the soviets, and basically sprang out of the the madrassahs, which were along the pakistani border. they were encouraged -- i don't know at the beginning, but as soon as pthey appeared to be a force that could be relied upon to fight the northern alliance and the other forces are waging war in afghanistan, a pakistani isi did begin to establish links and did help them. there is no doubt about that. but the fact is that the taliban brightpoint part of our -- the

taliban were not part of our war against the soviets. i am not saying that the war did not have unforeseen consequences that did not come back to bite us all. but the taliban are a leader phenomenon. -- a later phenomenon. he made a point about -- you made a point about saudis -- host: saudis in a contained country -- guest: the spread ofw3 wahabbism -- i understand your point very well prep. but it was the pakistani military dictator who took over in 1977 who began to encourage the saudi-wahabbi encroachment

into pakistan. host: let us go to richard. from afghanistan -- why don't we take the troops from afghanistan and iran and put them in israel and that would do more about globalç terrorism. thank you. t(guest: i will simply say thati activeçç effort to bring aboua peace between the arabs and israelisç, but i don't see us doing it with the troops. i don't think you can mangle the two issues. but moving towards a real peace could be a huge improvement in the situation and our reputation in the world, particularly in the muslim world. that is unquestionably correct. guest: it certainly would. that is one of the things that

inspires al qaeda and is at the center of al qaeda propaganda against us. i also would like to see a more active diplomatic role. i don't think there's any room for troops. however, i think -- i am very discouraged about the middle east situation, because it seems to be almost intractable. i don't know that there could be any progress without a much stronger diplomatic effort by the united states with regard to the israelis. çhost:xd ambassador neumann, du agree? you see what could take? guest: i don't want to wander too far out of my area of expertise did i spend!]ost of my career in the middle east, but most ofxd it as an and the peninsulaxd -- has been in the peninsula. you have a week palestinian çleadership, which is divided.

you have and our world which probably would support -- an arabç world which probably woud support carter is but does not want us as key. you have the unitedç states probably more actively engaged than president bush, one it does not seem to have pay off and looks to haveç stretched a goal could not reach on the settlements and then pulled back, leading toç confusion abt us. and israeli primei] minister wih a hard-line reputation. this is a really difficult problem, one of the few thingstd about working on afghanistan and pakistan. guest: indeed. çhost: let us go to jason on te republicans' line. caller: hello, gentlemen. we are fighting a two-pronged war that is not really working. if you look back to 1945 with

hitler, he was fighting a two- pronged war and he lost. the thing i'm really concerned about is north korea and iran. they have weapons of mass destruction that could damage and do harm to the israelis and aspeus. we are looking in afghanistan and iraq, has been fighting hi}s not gotten us anywhere. i am just concerned about these countries that actually have these weapons that can do damage to our allies and us. host: ambassador neumann? guest: those are very profound concerns, and they are the reasons -- very quickly, i think is important to not mingle too many issues. i was not a great supporter of the invasion ofw3 iraq, but havg

done it, the question is how you get out of it. and don't think it is quite fair to say that we have not accomplished anything. i think there is a much better chance athat iraq could evolve -- i say could, not will -- into a more stable country. but the iraqis are increasingly in charge of their own future. in afghanistan, we have accomplished quite a bit, but it has always been behind the curve. but that is problem of not -- putting not not putting -- not putting the right ingredients in. i can try to make pancakes for eight years come in and never put in the -- for eight years, and if i never put in the eggs, it will not rise right.

at north korea, i will be smart enough to say i don't know prep. on iran, i worked on iranian issues, and now we have a very, very tough problem. we would like to encourage the opposition, we have no idea if the opposition can succeed or not, and we also have a real interest in pushing for a non- nuclear iran, which means negotiating with the government. there are people would like to say, "because you want to support the opposition, you should not deal withç the government," and there are people who perhaps correctly say that you have to keep an eye on america's interests, which are multiple, and one of which is getting a deal. we have this complicated business of pressure and diplomacy. these are tools that are not alternatives. we are trying to work both of those. host: for ginnie beach, and next caller on the democrats' line. -- and virginia beach, next

caller on the democrats' line. caller: i was in the military and part of an attachment at the u.s. embassy, and we had an opportunity to av to work on the diplomatic effort -- an opportunity to work on the diplomatic effort. i want to talk more about the iranians. i think the american people have this facade that the iranian people of the big, bad wolf. iran has a lot of other internal problems. they have nothing to gain, really, from "wiping israel off the face of the earth." i wish people would addressed the irgc and the iranian theocracy'sç pillars of stability. they are teetering right now, i wish someone would addressed --

would educate the american people -- israel hasç blown ths nuclear peace totally out of proportion. congress will pick shutdown the secretive --xd the strait -- it would totally destroy their country could we should focus on why iran is so scared right now. guest: i am no expert on iran, but it strikes me that iran is undergoing a very traumatic kind of internal difficulties. getting to something keepsron d about negotiating on nuclear weapons, i'm not sure that there is anybody to negotiate with right now in iran. we have to negotiate with the government, but the government is a in a sense on the run. it seems to me to be a weak government that will not be able to negotiate. you will not have negotiators

with any authority, i think. nonetheless, i think we have to keep trying, keep trying diplomatically with iran. i don't think that iran is necessarily a big, bad wolf. iran is a country in some difficulty right now, and we have to maintain a rather calm but i think a very steady approach towards it. >> other way, i think the caller might be interested -- guest: by the way, i think the caller might be interested -- the embassy has changed in lopper since you've been there, but some of the murals -- pitted some interesting art work in the basement. the caller used a number of acronyms that the audience might not be familiar with. irgc is the iran revolutionary

guard it has treated a great deal of tumbled in around now -- it has created a great deal of tumult in iran right now and it seems to be taking power away from the theocrats. on diplomacy, there are multiple potential explanations of what they are doing. it is not possible that you have a perfectly normal. in negotiating technique, which i used to see -- in my perfectly normal iran negotiating technique, which i used to say in my days in a rented by the time they're done, the former has gotten so focused on getting a deal that they were taking the bad deals and accepting terms that they never would have accepted because they have become psychologically wound up in the dealmaking. you may have a great argument going on internally about what deals to accept.

you may have a stalling tactic. the answer is, we don't know. since we don't know, rather than assuming one answer or the other, it makes sense to both

low level of public confidence, for lotsç of reasons. one is that the supreme court recently has ruled that the deal that brought president zardari back to office -çó from one he was with his then-wife benazir bhutto, and overruling many the has weakened the government and reduced confidence the public

has in it. there is almost a natural placing the blame on the government for everything bad that happens. we would never do that in america. anyways, that is a joke. then you have got -- this is, as i said earlier, basically both a continuation of theç war that e pakistani taliban are waging against the state of pakistan, and its citizens. it is the citizens who suffer from these suicide bombers have. but these suicide bombings take place because the taliban, want to weakenw3w3 confidence in the government. one of the basic public goods that governments deliver is çsecurityç, law and order and security prepare pakistani government seems less and less

able to -- deliver -- and order -- law and order and security. the pakistani government seems less and less able to deliver that. this follows the idea of many extremist that shiites are t(apostates and deserve to be killed. it serves in someq way -- for some extremists, it kills two birdsç with oeç stone, if i cod usen that, or many more birds, perhaps. the government is facing a serious crisis of confidence. this bombing is one small manifestation of this crisis, and i think it is going to make a of dealing with pakistan even more difficult. host: our guests are ambassador william milam, the ambassador to pakistan from 1998 to 2001, and ambassador ronald neumann, who

served as ambassador to afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. we're talking about u.s. strategy and approach to afghanistan and pakistan when it comes to the war on terror. derrick is on the independents' line calling from minneapolis pr. caller: hello, nice lady. gentlemen, you realize that in 1967 which israel, taking the west bank and the gaza strip, taking their land -- when you do that, people are not going to lay down. the united states back to israel, and that is why we are having problems street give those people back their land, and then they can rest again. until that happens, there will always be this problem. host: ambassador neumannç, we have had a couple of callers mentioned israel and the

situation there. you alluded to that we seek more tensions mount because of what happened in israel, but give us a sense of how information spreads and a country like afghanistan when it comes to israel and the conflict there. çguest: you have a number of different things goingç on. in fairness compa, the 1967 war started with. pressures -- started with arab pressures. there is enough room for everybody to make mistakes. the famous summit in khartoum, and no recognition of israel -- a hugew3 arab mistakes, when thy could have negotiated back the land. israel is made many --ç israel

made many mistakes of their own. what happens with these really issues and the palestinian issue is a affects muslim opinion all over the world. çit is primarily -- i don't wat to say primarily -- something that has increased enormously with the advent of satellite television. i saw that in my career in the gulf. until the first intifada, they did not much really care, and then they become very attuned to the suffering of palestinians. i think this is a recruiting ground for al qaeda. that is very clear. there are muslims who feel very strongly about this issue who are not necessarily terrorists or extremists. as far as afghanistan itself goes, the vast majority of afghans are much too busy with

survival, with afghanistan, and with their local issues. he will not your discussions of palestinian issues in -- you will not hear discussions of palestinian issues in çóafghanistan per se. people are fighting forç survival and are very concerned about their immediate future. you have to differentiate -- palestinian issues have an enormous attraction in the greater muslim worldç and in a financial support for al qaeda andi] producing foreign recruit. the palestinian issues have almostç no traction in afghanistanw3 itselfç in people picking sides any issues there. guest: 10 --ç can i joinçó in n that? i don't know the immediate situation in afghanistan, but in çópakistan, pakistan has somethg

like 60 or 70 satellite tv channels, and there are these that are put into cable. since the population is at least half a literate, almost everybody gets their news -- half illiterate, almost everybodyç gets their news from television. when something happens in the middle east, and intifada or something bad, this is spread by the pakistani media very quickly, the urdu media, the vernacular media are very quick to jump onfá it. mostçç pakistanis are pretty e to the poverty line, most are pretty consumed with the idea of just reading that day, making enough money to eat the next day, -- justç eating that date, makanf enough money to eat the next day or growing enough food.

these issues do not have much resonance among the popular level,i] but among the intelligentsia, they are very sensitive. host:ç jonathan on!dhe republicans' line from portland, oregon. caller: i have a question. how does india play a role in our strategy for pakistan and afghanistan, since they were growing nuclear competency? guest: this is one of my favorite topics. i am glad that question was asked. thank you for asking it. frankly, india isi] part of the problem in pakistanç -- it's absolute fascination and focus on india. india has, for pakistan, and the primary enemy, the existential and meat for over six years. -- existential and me for over 60 years. the pakistanis still believe in

their heart of hearts and their minds that india is the greater threat. even if that taliban were attacking them. india is playing a role to the pakistani mind and pakistani mission -- through the pakistani mind and vision in the afghan war, because it is a attitude towards the war that still makes things problematic over there. qindia is very important. there is also the question that is often raised about the nuclear capability of india and pakistan. my understanding is that india and's nuclear capability is as much directed -- india's nuclear capability is as much to deterrence towards china as towards pakistan, although they certainly of deterrence towards pakistan.

they are so outgunned by india's conventional forces that for pakistan, a nuclear arsenal is basically a deterrent against india. that, of course, leads to a great number of years, that some of the two will go to war and will become a nuclear war. the second, which you see a lot in the press, is that pakistan's nuclear arsenal is unsafe, because it could be captured by extremists, but that taliban. -- by the taliban. so far, the nuclear arsenal is well protected and well controlled by the pakistani military. until we see signs that the military is falling apart itself, i think the nuclear arsenal is probably not something that should be of primary concern. çguest: in afghanistan, india s been very helpful economically,

building roads, turning the afghans. at the same time, we have been very -- training afghan street -- training afghans. at the same time, we've been very sensitive to pakistani concerns about india. we have focused on economic assistance but not getting into military assistance, because it would be hugely counterproductive. this is the kind balancing diplomacy we need to do. guest: not well enough, i think. i want to add, because i forgot to put that in my answer to the gentleman's question -- the indian establishment of consulates and its large assistance program in afghanistan is one of the things that worries pakistan. they see themselves being

surrounded by their primordial enemy, india. his father at them and still bothers them. -- this bothers them and still bothers them. guest: even paranoid have real enemies. host: let us look at comments the president made in oslo. >> america's commitment to global security will never waiver, but in a world where threats are more diffuse and complex, america cannot act alone. america alone cannot secure the peace. this is true in afghanistan. this is true in failed states like somalia, where tourism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering people -- terrorism and paris is joined by famine and human suffering. -- terrorism and piracy is

joined by famine and human suffering. this will be true for years to come. leaders and allies demonstrate this truth through the courage they showed in afghanistan. but in many countries, this is a disconnect between the efforts of those who served andç the ambivalence of the broader public. i understand what war is not popular, but i also know this -- the belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. peace requires responsibility to. peace entails sacrifice. amt was the international reception to the president's words in reference to our allies and making a unified effort in afghanistan? guest: it was not hostile, but i don't think it made an overwhelming impression. if i could just talk a minute about the issue of allies in

afghanistan, there is a fundamental difference between the american public and most european publics that i have had contact with. americans tend to accept that there is a security reason that

european publics. now you have a president obama, who is much more like to buy european publics -- like to buy europeanç publics, but who is testing if he can push the envelope a bit further in what he can ask for. that is an important thing to do, important to do it so that you get more help, and yet not alienate people so much. it is also important that european leaders step up and carry the argument with their own people about the importance of afghanistan, because america will never have the credibility to carry that argument with european publics. european political leaders have to make that case.

host: patrick is calling on the democrats' line in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. caller: talk about a dilution of the position of the american people. ambassador neumann, i don't know what planet you're on, but the american people do not support either of these campaigns, in pakistan or afghanistan. at a friend of mine, who, by the way, is the sister-in-law of osama bin laden, said this to me about the saudi arabians -- they are that study done with money. -- the taliban with the money. no word the novel from the bookseller and -- in anda not -- a bookseller in kabul said they will never be able to manage themselves. you two or pathological liars and are both working for the military industrial complex. my brother, who is in difficile

who has been in both wars, -- afghanistan who is a navy -- who is any be sealed who has been in both wars, afghanistan and iraq, says that monday -- karzai is lining his pockets, along with individuals in the leadership who are stealing billions of american people's dollars, while our country goes down into economic flames. guest: i suppose it will not surprise the caller to find ipothat i don't agree that i ama pathological liar. let me take a very quickly -- first of all, most public opinion polls show that there is a slight balance against the war in america. it has moved slightly with obama's speech. i think there is a bit of an overstatement there that americans are totally against this. there is a very important question, though, which the

caller has blundered toward, and that is whether the strategy is supportable with the american people. that is a question that is much more dynamic than people realize. if people continue to be convinced that war is going downhill, then it will not have support. on the other hand, if you make progress, people will tend to give you more time and space. i suspect the coloaller doubts t the american people would support iraq, and yet two years ago you would hardly have gotten anybody to believe that he would have 100,000 troops in iraq and bombs going off and almost no news stories. that is where we are today. the president hasç political space. if president bush could be a -- could lead a surge can iraq with minimal public support,

president obama can do it in two years if he wants to. the saudis are a mixed story. there is a lot of money coming out of saudi arabia still that supports terrorists. the government is also engaged in a major war for survival against al qaeda and terrorists, and has made a good deal of progress. i simply would say that there is need for a more nuanced understanding rather than this flailing around with generalities. the statement that afghans can never cover themselves. historical absurdity. if they have come -- the statement that the afghans can never governed themselves is a historical absurdity. they have a government themselves. -- have governed themselves. they have covered with a great deal of british money, with the then supporting their army. it is a long subject get into.

but the notion that the afghans have never had a country and never governed themselves it is historically simply not true. host: mike is calling on the independents' line. caller: good morning, how are you? host: we are well. what is your question or comment for the ambassadors? çcaller:ç all of this stems fm ignorance. in order to understand what is happening in the middle east and the world, you must understand who the united states and great britain is. we are two of lost tribes of israel. we must understand pick a perfect timeline. -- understand the prophetic timeline. we are in the last erupted for christ returns. -- era before christ returns.

what you see in the middle east, giving away land for peace, everything is geared towards christ's second coming. there will be no peace in the middle east. things will get worse and worse. keep your mind on in germany, the vatican, and the european union, the king of the north. host: let us get a response. any comments? guest: no, i don't have any comments. host: kathy on the republicans' line. caller: thank you, ambassadors, for your time. i am and military spouse with a husband getting ready to deploy within the next month. i appreciate understanding the themes that you are talking about all morning. i have two questions for you. we know we have to succeed militarily. i question is about the

education levels, and the job opportunities that will then make a nation building truly stick in afghanistan. what is in place to help with that, and what can we as civilians tdo to help in those ways? and if we don't succeed çmilitarily, will the supplies and the money and the training that we have poured into afghanistan then be used as a tool against us in the future? thank you. host: ambassador neumann? guest: i want to say, if it does not sound too funny, that i understand a little of what you are going through -- too phony, that i understand a little of what you are going through. i was a military officer in vietnam and i went through tours in algeria and afghanistan and iraq. my wife has lived through some of what you are living through. i appreciate the amount of

sacrifice that spouses have to put up with can get very little recognition for. i do think of that this is a long prospect. you asked what we can do. the most important in that americans can do -- most important thing that americans can do is be realistic in our expectations. i'm not saying we should go on endlessly if we are failing. but we have to be realistic about what can be done. there is a huge educational deficit in afghanistan. you put your finger on that. it is true that something like 80% of police recruits are electorate -- are illiterate, but i suspect thatç 80% of caesar's armies were, too. the challenges are enormous.

but i left, we had built over 600 schools and 600 clinics and published 60,000 textbooks pin educated i cannot remember how many thousands of teachers. the trouble is that the needs were so much larger. we had taken high-school graduates and given them a few months of training and turned them into primary school teachers and had a huge amount of success, education has gone from less than a million to over 6 million students, with about 1/3 of them girls. but that success of the primary levels is one thing, and having people properly trained as a high school teachers is a much longer in effort. personally, i would like to see the united states taking a much larger number upper students -- larger number of students for colleges and a bigger bite into the long-term problem of

education, recognizing that this is a slow business, but if we had recognized it at the beginning, we would have four years of graduating classes from 8 four-your education. we need to start. i would like to see an expansion. what can we do here? there hopefully will be an expansion of programs thatçó exist, like fulbright fellowships, exchanges. if you have a chance, you might think of having an afghan student, but you are probably doing enough for the country with the deployment. if we fail, i think we could have some supplies, always possible, but the kinds of things that we are using are not particularly suitable for long range corres -- long-range terrorist attacks. the greater danger is what the terrorists can do on their own

rather than the kitchen supplies as such. -- thançó leakage of supplies as such. host: karl on the democrats' line in dallas, texas. realize that we are in a war of confusion. the united states says that this is a war of terror. afghans and pakistanis consider this a war of jihad, which means muslims against christians, ok? muslims are reprobates. these people are stuck back when it jesus' at first was year. -- when jesus first was here. riding camels and stuff like that. we have moved on in america. guest: i think that jihad has a much broader meaning than our

war against christians. jihad really is a complex term, which means defense, it also means self reflection, self improvement. when it is used in a military sense, pin means basically the defense of the homeland -- it means basically the defense of the homeland, and for some extremists, striking at the enemy. at this point for al qaeda, the enemy happens to be christian, but a jihad is a much broader term. most muslims do not think of this necessarily as a war against christianity. nor do i think -- i think if you were to visit a muslim lands that i live in, he would find that muslims nieither ride camels nor are they -- at least the educated ones cap-- as

retrograde as you describe them. we have to think about them in a much broader sense and complicated cents. -- sense. host: jack on the independents' line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. good morning, lovely miss libby. but the way, i was also an officer in vietnam in 1967, and i'm not a pacifist. but i agree completely with my figure to brothers in louisiana -- figurative brothers in louisiana, pennsylvania, and i forgot where the other guy called from. there has been a huge number of us in the united states that take real outrage at these wars, especially a criminal war in iraq. but i want to ask a question --

i am going to make an analogy. you used a couple of words here. you used the word "national security," you have used the word "important." if i have to have an expensive house and i consider that important, it is important for me to pay for it. i think of living in a dangerous neighborhood with that house and i think a security system is important, it is important enough for me to pay for it. if i don't pay for it, i assume that is not really that important. now, i have a question for you. since we have a war in afghanistan that costs $1 million per year per soldier, and $400 for a gallon of gas, i think it is important enough, if it is for security, that we

taxed those who have the most to lose by losing their security -- that is, the rich repo. guest: the basic question is to pay for the wars, and the second is who should pay for it i totally agree with the first. this system of supplementals is a huge mistake, that policy and that fermenting progress reported -- bad policy and bad for managing progress. who should we tax? çprobably the people who can py most. the only people who should pay is a question i am happy to refer to congress. guest: i hope they can find a way. host: republicans' line, also from minnesota. caller: hi. as ambassadors, you have a job

of knowing your parties before going to the negotiating table. how do you feel -- how would you respond after months of negotiations with iranian leaders where they appear to be interested in talking, and then you make a week later, two weeks later, and they are firing missiles towards other countries? host: ambassador milam? guest: i feel the same way anybody would come frustrated that the diplomatic efforts that we are making as a country, now that we've changed our style with iran and diplomatic efforts, are producing so little results. as i said earlier, i think that iran is a very difficult country to begin with. ronald neumann suggest that the

negotiating tactics are not the same as ours and leads us to great frustration in any case. iran right now is in a real traumatic situation. its government is under some pressure and probably is unable to negotiate completely and with total credibility. do i think we ought to break it off? no. i think we need to continue to pressure, continue to accelerate it, continue to work towards some agreement in the medium or longer term. host: ambassador william milam, and for a massacre to pakistan, 11111111 o s11 lululululululululululululululu u lulululululululululululululuyéye