[applauding] >> great to have you back again on our stage. i probably don't need to introduce phyllis, but i am sure most of you know are or have heard her many times. she is from the is to it for policy steady. she is also an author and has written many books including "ending the iraq war." she has done a premiere on israel, palestine. this latest one we will be talking on today on afghanistan. >> it is great to be back at

busboys. busboys is always the centerpiece for the peace movement. thank you. >> i called you a piece fellow. you are a fellow in general. >> absolutely. ipx works on peace, justice, and the environment. they all intersect. we are all about how the link with each other. we all do all of it. >> wonderful. of course tonight is the first stage of the union address by president obama. i wanted to be able to turn to you and ask you directly, obama when he was running for office spoke about the afghan war as being the good war. i don't know if he used those exact terms. he did refer to it as a just war. explain to us. >> i don't think that this war

was ever a good war. this war, from the beginning, was claimed to be a war of justice, a war that was going to be in retaliation for what had happened to us on 9/11. therefore a thing we did in the name of 9/11 and gates to ever wherever for as long as it took with whatever weapons we chose, somehow that was going to . this war had its roots here at home. this terrible tragedy, this terrible crime. and we were told it was about self-defense. self-defense doesn't work that way. self-defense is one of the few parts of international law and the united nations charter that is very clear.

there are a lot of parts of the charter that are in the the murky and uncertain. open to interpretation. article 51 that talks about self-defense is pretty clear. it says that in the country has the right of self-defense if they have been attacked by another country and until the u.n. security council can meet and decide what to do. there is no question we were attacked on 9/11. the big question is whether we were attacked by the country. the people who attacked us on 9/11 were not afghans. they did not live in afghanistan. so this question about going to war against afghanistan was wrong from the beginning. then there was the until part. you know, a nation has the right of self-defense until the security council can meet and

decide what to do. the security council, as everybody remembers, that within hours. the remains of the twin towers were still smoldering in new york. there was still fear that the u.n. might be next. it was an incredibly emotional votes, unanimous. every delegate not only raised their hand, but stood to vote in favor of what the u.s. wanted. the u.s. had not asked permission or ask in their resolution for a you endorsement. not because, i'd think, they were afraid the union would not vote for it. at that moment the u.n. security council would have voted anything the u.s. wanted. but because they did not want to acknowledge that international law has some say. international law decides what is a legitimate war, a just war, a war of self-defense and what is not.

the security council gets to make that decision, not people in washington. they weren't willing to acknowledge that. they did not ask. the result was a resolution that did not authorize war. so when they went to war seven weeks later against a country halfway around the world where someone who had inspired those killers once lived it was not self-defense. this notion that it was somehow i get more was really fake from the beginning. the problem we have now is that while president obama told us when he was candidate obama told us he would escalate this war, we can't say this was a broken promise. this is the one promise he kept. he promised some other things. he promised to end the war in iraq. well, that is going about as slowly as much could possibly go. it is no better than what was negotiated by bush.

the one thing i think we can say he really did not make good on a promise was when he promised that he would not only in the war in iraq, but he would end the mindset that leads to war. that was the key. that is why people applied. that is why we voted for him. that is why so many people who had never before done engaged in a presidential campaign never thought it mattered enough. there wasn't enough difference. it wasn't only the historic significance of having the first african-american president in a country founded on not just racism but on genocide and slavery based on race, to have an african-american president, my god. it wasn't only that. he said he would in the mindset that leads to war. that is the promise he has not made good on. that is what i will be looking for tonight. i don't think i am going to see it in the state of the union, but i think that is where we

have to hold somebody's feet to the fire. [applauding] >> let's stay a little bit longer on the 9/11 attacks. a lot of people did feel that was an act of war. you in your book speak about it as being a crime. treat it like a crime. is that just semantics? what are we talking about? >> i don't think it is semantics at all. a war happens between countries. it could be between sies sides e country when there are factions or tribes. our civil war was the great tribal conflicts of our country's history. but when you have an act of terror carried out by a small group who came from different countries, who trained in other countries, who were inspired by somebody in another country, who was maybe given support by the

government of one of those other countries, that does not give you a country against whom to go to war. that is the problem. you can't just decide, we were attacked by somebody. afghanistan, well, let's see. somebody lived in afghanistan. the government of the afghanistan who had come to power with our weapons that we left in that country years before. we don't like them anymore. we are going to go to war against that country because these guys who actually committed this crime, well, they are all dead. we can't go to war against them. we don't really care about going to war against their families because their families are from saudia arabia and egypt. we like those governments. we have to find some government where we can go to war where we don't like the government. afghanistan. what could be better? i think that 9/11 taught us a great many things. what it did not teach us enough is how much we need

international institutions and international law. imagine if international criminal court was not only functioning but that every country in the world was accountable to it and it had an independent international police force made up of people from all over the world, not controlled by the united states. imagine what we could have done to actually find the people who had made this huge crime possible and bring them to justice. we did not have that. [applauding] instead, imagine the speech george bush should have given wednesday ordered the pilot to bring the plane down and land. after he finished reading "my pet goat" he could have given a real speech that said this crime. we don't even know yet how many thousands of our people are dead.

people from all over the world to get came to our country. we know that this is why we need an international criminal court. this is why we need international law. he could have given the speech and brought us all with him. that would have been amazing. instead what we heard was a cry for vengeance, not for justice. what we saw, instead of going to the international criminal court, we saw f-22s -- no, he actually stopped funding those. what we saw was the f-16s and the b-52 dropping bombs. flying bounty hunters. kill people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong moment. maybe there is still hope for that in an obama administration

that has changed the discourse to say that we need a country that sees itself as one country among many. the discourse of president obama had been pretty amazing. the problem is his actions have not matched that discourse. >> if you look at the beginning of what happened right after 9/11 there was an almost unanimous vote in congress to go to war. there was only one dissenting vote, and that was congresswoman barbara lee. if you are speaking about a democracy it means that people wanted to go to war. is that a justification? >> there are two problems. one is no one asked the people. you know, we didn't elect a congress in the aftermath of 9/11. everyone was shocked by 9/11. perhaps, some people were not surprised, but everyone was

shocked. the notion that we elected people based on how they would vote in the wake of such a horrific act, that was certainly not the case. i think that the other problem, though, was at that moment there was widespread fear, almost a paralysis of fear. we would have followed real leadership in any direction. if president bush had stood up and said we need international law and we need to respond to this terrible crime as a crime and bring people to justice to make sure it never happens and do the unthinkable at that moment, which is to look at why it happened, to look at the root causes. and if we don't we will never be able to prevent it. the other side of it, though, is we can't just say other than international law a national parliament, whether it is our congress or the parliament of afghanistan or any other country

can pass any law it wants, but if that law violates international law it does not become legal just because the parliament said it was okay. the fact that our congress voted for a war that violated international law just makes every member of congress with the exception of barbara leak implicit in a a great crime. i think that we can't just put aside international law. we have to uphold our own officials accountable to that lock. >> why do you think the bush administration was so adamant about going to war? is it the resources to make its strategic location? what is it about it if it was not, in fact, too, a war. >> well, fighting a war is a big part of why they went to war. justice was not on the agenda. afghanistan is a very unlucky country.

afghanistan does not have a huge amount of oil or natural gas. it has some useful resources, some minerals. a bit of natural gas. it does not have a lot. what it does have is location that is in the center of a bunch of countries that do have a whole lot of oil and natural-gas and a bunch of other stuff. and it happens to be right smack in the middle of where a bunch of parts of the world come together. central asia, the caspian, the caucuses, the far east and the near east meeting in the mideast, if you will. afghanistan is at the center of all that. if we remember back not so long ago. i see many people are here bold enough to remember. back in the 1980's when the u.s. was fighting a war in afghanistan against the soviet union. the afghan war was a proxy war. one of the hot battlefields.

it was not called for anyone in afghanistan. during that time what we saw was that the interest was not so much in what afghanistan had but where it was. and then, of course, after the end of the cold war when the soviets had been defeated in very much the same way we are currently being defeated. you are doomed to repeat history. but after that part of the war when the war among the warlords who we had arms, when we left we left our arms behind. the only thing we left behind. we did not leave any development, but we left an awful lot of guns. .. only education they got was

a very extremist formfñ of madrassas funded by saudi arabia and carried out in pakistan. that was all the education they had. they formed the taliban. the word means the students. and they were pastuns. they came back to their country and they told people we're going to stop the fighting. we're going to stop the violence. remember, this violence was as bad as anything afghanistan had seen. it was destroying kabul. it was -- the bombing of kabul happened during the war of the warlords.

and people were so desperate to stop that violence that they agreed to accept the taliban as legitimate leaders. not all of them certainly but a lot of people did. so when the taliban won they didn't win as outsiders who had conquered a reluctant population. they had a lot of support because they promised to stop the fighting. and they more or less did. they carried out their own violence in a small scale on every city, violence particularly against women. but the violence against women had not started with the taliban. and at that time when the taliban came to power in 1996, it was u.s. officials led bay leader who became the u.s. ambassador to iraq and the u.s. ambassador to afghanistan and then the u.s. ambassador to the united nations who went to afghanistan to bring the taliban to texas to negotiate who was a

unical worker as well. and he brought a taliban delegation -- "the washington post" described it back in 1996 as being seen having a codial dinner about pipelines. it was all about the pipelines through afghanistan. not 'cause afghanistan had the oil for the pipes. -- pipelines but they had the place to put it. that's still the great disadvantage of afghanistan. it's in the wrong place for a location. >> it's location. >> location, location, location. >> exactly. where does al-qaeda play into all this? what's the relationship to al-qaeda and the taliban? >> the relationship between al-qaeda and the taliban was one of convenience. the al-qaeda organization,

mujahedeen factions. certainly all the people around bin laden were using weapons provided by the u.s. money funded through pakistan by the isi, saudi money mostly. so this was part of the usual crowd. they became extremist in the context of opposition to u.s. troops in the holy land of saudi arabia. their opposition was to the saudi government. they thought the saudi government was insufficiently religious, insufficiently islamic. and that it was u.s. support that was keeping them in power. they wanted those u.s. troops out. for the first years of the taliban's existence, that was their sole focus was getting infidel troops out. when the u.s. was threatening to go war against iraq back in 1990, as you remember so well,

andy, it was the al-qaeda leadership that went to saudi officials and offered an army of thousands, of tens of thousands of islamic warriors to prevent infidel soldiers from dirtying the land. and when al-qaeda finally left and went to the sudan where they were based for some years, carried out some actions there both terrorist attacks on civilians and military attacks on military targets -- and there is a distinction between them, they were based in sudan for quite a long time. the sudanese government was negotiating the possibility of turning over the al-qaeda leadership. ultimately they said we won't turn them over to the united states. we would turn them over to an international court based in a muslim condition. -- country. the u.s. said no. we want them turned over to us. eventually al-qaeda left the

sudan. found refuge in afghanistan under the taliban. where they brought money. the taliban was desperately poor. the taliban never had and to this day still does not have what we might call international roles. -- goals. their goals are very narrow. they want to be control of afghanistan. they want to go some pretty terrible things in my view in afghanistan as terrible as some of the warlords backed by us. but they never had interest particularly in going after the u.s. except for the fact that u.s. soldiers were occupying their land. they only began to attack the u.s. in their own country. which tell us something about what it might take to stop the attacks of the taliban. if we weren't there, hello. so, you know, the relationship was a tense one. and there was also a time when the taliban leadership was prepared to turn over al-qaeda as well. for the same reason.

they said we would turn them over if the u.s. provides us with the information linking them directly to the attacks of 9/11. linking those individuals to the attacks of 9/11. and agrees that they can be turned over to a muslim country. again, the u.s. said, no, claimed that the taliban was refusing to turn them over and said we're going to war. and october 7th, 2001, that's precisely what they did. the question now is, there is a vast difference between the taliban and al-qaeda. al-qaeda is largely gone from afghanistan. and has been for some time. it's thought by some that they are hiding in the border area on the pakistani side. and that may well be true. certainly some midlevel and lower level al-qaeda types seem to be there. is obama bin laden there? who knows? he may have cut his beard and is living somewhere in the south of france for all we know. >> is u.s. fighting the al-qaeda or the taliban right now? >> that's one of the big questions.

the u.s. says that the enemy is al-qaeda but we have to fight the taliban because they might give refuge to al-qaeda. now, there's certainly no evidence of that. the reality is when the taliban were thrown out of office by a u.s. invasion, it was in order to stop them from supporting the -- from supporting al-qaeda. it's certainly logical that for the taliban, if they want to stay in power -- if they took power back in afghanistan, that they would not welcome the al-qaeda forces who had led to them being ousted in the first place. they would want to protect their ability to control their country. so we can't look at this as simple madness. that these are mad terrorists that are after us because they hate our freedoms, you know. if they hate anything about us, it's how we've prevented their freedoms by supporting with our arms governments that are so repressive in the area.

their definitions of freedoms they want are not my definitions. they don't want the kind of country i'd want to live in. but it's not my call. you know, i don't get to say, they should be supporting x kind of country. a country like ours. they should have a president and a -- a strong national government like what we're trying to put in power. when you hear from u.s. officials today, you hear we have to make sure that what we is national government that can fight against the terrorists. well, unfortunately for those u.s. officials, that's never been the history of afghanistan. afghanistan has never had a strong central government. its culture, its politics have always been local. it's tribal. it's based on different alliances of clans and tribes who speak different languages who have rarely had much to do with what happens in kabul. it's not for nothing that even

today president karzai is known as the mayor of kabul because his writ doesn't extend much beyond it. >> is there any legitimacy to his presidency at this point? >> i think it's hard to find any legitimacy to his presidency. he was chosen by a process oststenbly by the united nations but the u.n. official charged that the u.s. had not allowed real range of people the afghanistan. there were 37 people meeting in bonn, in germany, when the decision was made to make karzai the first temporary leader. of all the five groups, four of them were already exile groups. the only one that was inside was karzai himself who was helicoptered in by u.s. troops after spending the years of the wars in exile making a ton of money working for unical.

this was a very circular sort of arrangement. there were elections in afghanistan. and like in iraq, the afghans were very brave to take the risk 'cause there was a real risk of attack. as it turned out there were not a lot of attacks about the taliban or other resistance forces but there was a real risk and people took the risk. they want a chance to vote. but who they were allowed to vote for was not much of a choice. as in iraq. the question of who get to choose which parties are given a credential and which are excluded was a very dangerous -- a very dangerous reality. and so i think the government in afghanistan -- you know, we know the cost of this government, this president who has allowed his own supporters to include warlords who have supported the worst kind of attacks against women. who himself supported this new

law that allows for marital rape. that denies women the right to fight back against violence by their husband. i mean, a horrific kind of law. this is our guy. this isn't the taliban. this is our guy supporting. the notion that this is a legitimate government, i don't think so. >> you mentioned women. and i know a lot of women were supporting at some level this war because of the situation that women were under, under the taliban. we saw the woman walking with burkas. you can't see them. they don't have a voice and they can't get under our houses. they are basically under house arrest during the taliban era. assuming the war was not legitimate to begin with, we tend to sort of change the rules as we move forward, is there any kind of support now for the war because of the fact that it is in some way allowing women to be

more free? >> i think that there are -- there's no doubt that there are women in afghanistan, particularly, in kabul, whose lives are qualitatively better than was true under the taliban. and who are grateful for the u.s. troops and maybe want them to stay. who want u.s. money. who get u.s. money. who want more of it. who want more u.s. support. who want more of a u.s. presence. i think, though, we have to keep in mind that more than 80% of the population of afghanistan does not live in the cities. they live in tiny villages and hamlets scattered around a huge country. and for them the people in power are largely no different. the problem -- i mean, and when we have this argument it's important to see that no one is arguing that it's not true that the taliban were terrible for women in afghanistan. they were. they were horrifying. as leaders. and as rulers. the problem is that those who

would replace them are no better. it's not that -- we don't need something different. it's that what the u.s. has brought in both in the 1980s and today is not different. i mean, look at the -- the horror that happens of women, particularly young women, in some areas, students being attacked with acid. having acid thrown in their faces. well, where did that start? that didn't begin with the taliban. that began in the 1970s with a guy who was a university student in kabul, the university of kabul. he decided on his own with a few other islamic students as they defined islam that it was not acceptable to have women students on the campus and they invented this tactic of throwing face in the women students. he was ronald reagan's favorite. he was one of the crowd that reagan brought to the white house in 1986 and said these are the founding fathers of afghanistan and compared them to george washington.

that's who invented the afghan tradition such as it is of punishing women with acid. so this is not something that the taliban invented. this is something they learned from their elders. this is something -- the problem is it's not -- it's not being stopped by having a u.s. occupation. the real problem facing afghan women more than anything else, more than wearing a burka is that the conditions of life for women in terms of healthcare, in terms of literacy, in terms of maternal mortality, the number of women who die in childbirth are the worth indicators in the world. they were second until the most recent unicef report that just came out a few weeks ago. we were just able to change the statistics in our book to reflect it. that according to unicef, afghanistan is the worth country in the world for a child to be born.

and it beat out sierra leone for that honor. --. the average life expectancy for women is 44. women are old at 30 in afghanistan. and women die in childbirth in afghanistan more than they die in childbirth anywhere else in the world.⌜ and eight years of occupation by the u.s. military has not changed that statistic. that to me the most crucial piece of evidence of the failure of our occupation and our war. if we claim that this war is to help the people of afghanistan, how in the world can we begin to justify it when afghanistan has just won the7÷k award of being worst place in the world for a child to be born.

>> i want to switch a little bit and then we're going to open it up for a conversation with you all here.ws]r hjá3vvsñ to switch a little bit and talk about the drones. i know that's been a big issue when obama came in. did the drones increase or decrease after obama came into office? >> the drones have increased. almost by threefold. drone attacks have increased both in pakistan and afghanistan. and now increasingly it's being talked about in yemen, perhaps somalia. the drone has become the favorite of the obama administration. >> what's the number of troops we have right now in afghanistan? >> well, it varies day-to-day.o but we are in the process -- and it should be complete by july. we will have just about 100,000 u.s. troops in afghanistan. >> how many do we have in iraq? >> in iraq it's about 123,000 right now. >> does that include the mercenaries?nñs >> no. in both countries there are more mercenaries now than there are troops. in afghanistan, there are about 104,000 mercenaries.

not all foreign. of those of about -- i'm not sure i have the numbers in my head. i think about a third are afghans who are working for the u.s. military. similar to the percentages in iraq. but there are -- there will be when the troop buildup, the escalation that president obama announced last month in december -- when that buildup is complete, there will be over 200,000 u.s.-paid gsí÷soldiers, mercenaries, and others -- not counting the civilian, quote, surge which you almost don't have to count relatively to the military because it's so tiny. it's less than 1,000. the numbers are rising. >> so withbeu so many soldiers,y such a dependence on drugs? -- drones? >> when i started looking a few days ago, i was in new york to

film an interview for a pbs special about martin luther king for the anniversary of his speech at riverside church. his speech on "beyond vietnam" when he said silence means complicity. and when he talked about the necessity for our country to stop this war -- and he talked about the horrifying triplet of racism and war and poverty. and the racism question was always fundamental because, of course, that was why people attacked dr. king for becoming part of the antiwar movement. they said you're in favor of won't you ruin your own cause by allying yourself with these types. and dr. king taught us that you can't separate racism and war. the drones -- what better exampleoh# of racism than a wea whose sole purpose is to make so-called enemy, that you don't kill your own soldiers.

that the lives of, quote, the enemy and everyone around them, children, old people, women, men, civilians, other militants -- whoever they are, that their lives are expendable so that our soldiers will be safe. that's the reason to send drones rather than to send a team of special ops./sg that team might come under fire. that's why you don't send even a helicopter gunship. somebody could shoot it down and 6 we have plenty of soldiers being killed and injured. but these drones are designed to stop that. and make sure that the only people killed are afghans or yemenese or pakistanis. >> it seems that's a short-sighted tactic. i mean, anybody with any kind of sense will tell you that if you kill a lot of innocents, civilians, children, women and so on you're going to create more enemies. >> absolutely.

what always perplexes me is don't these generals know this? don't people in government know this or is it they don't care or is it just for political expendient si? why don't they get it? it seems obvious. >> i don't know. i don't know the answer. i think they do get it. if they don't, it's fake. because they at least know the data that's out there. they've seen the reports. they've seen the polls of afghans. they've seen all of that. they've seen everything that we know. and they have to know it. they're also seeing the results of it. there have been study after study by the military among others, by the cia, among others, by the dia among others. by all of these various agencies. they all have indicated that, well, we're seeing a rise in the number of resistance forces, a rise of militants and so-called terrorists, why? when we keep killing them, they keep increasing. how is that possible?

well, maybe there's some connection between what happens when you kill people. say you get the, quote, right guy, you send a drone. and you get the right guy. it's the 1 out of 10 times when you get the right guy but that's okay. we'll give you credit for that. but who else was with him when he was killed? and where are their families? and what are their families to do now? because keep in mind, in a poor country like -- like afghanistan, the taliban is one of the few employers around. many people join the taliban because they can get a job that pays unlike anything else they can do. what else are they going to do? what's the mother going to do who can't work because she's got children to take care of? and perhaps she and maybe some of the children have been killed in that same strike? what are then the family friends going to think about why this is

in their interest. so what happens when political operatives from the afghan government says, we need the u.s. here because they're going to help us protect ourselves against these terrorists. against the taliban. against al-qaeda. and they're thinking well, al-qaeda isn't bombing us. now, there have been bombs that have targeted civilians. al-qaeda and others certainly in this war. but in almost all of these cases, it turns out that the location is chosen because it's near a u.s. outpost or it's near an agency of the afghan government seen as appropriately or not -- seen as participating in the occupation. and that's who's being killed over and over and over again.sf why don't they get it? i don't know the answer to that. i think they went to war because of a set of ideological ideas about militarism and

unilateralism is the best thing out there and we're the powerful country in the world and, therefore, we have the right to do whatever we want. i think the problem is once they go to war, they continue the war. it's the old adage of science. a body in motion tends to stay in motion. a body at rest tends to stay at rest. a body in motion includes the pentagon. when they're at war, they stay at war until we get out there and make it impossible for them to continue the war. [applause] >> so we're back to what eisenhower warned us about which is an military industrial complex. is that do you think the main motivation behind us being so addicted to war? >> i think it's a huge part of it. if we look at president obama's speech last month when he said that he was going to escalate. he was going to send 30,000 more troops to afghanistan, that's going to cost us $30 billion. we could spend $30 billion on

600,000 new green jobs instead of sending 30,000 new troops. but keep in mind, but besides that $30 billion to take. it's a million dollars per soldier to send. imagine if we just sent the money instead of the soldiers to afghanistan. but keep in mind that in the two-month period leading up to that speech, the ten top military contractors -- every one of whose companies had spent -- had won billions in many cases several billion dollars of contracts for wars in iraq and afghanistan, those companies -- those top ten companies spent $27 million just in lobbying. just in lobbying these war profiteers. lobbying to get more contracts because they knew there was going to be a speech about escalation. so the military industrial complex that president eisenhower warned us about is

alive and well and eating our money and destroying afghan lives more than it ever has before. >> so we're up against this monster basically, the military industrial complex. for a peace activist who feels that this war is unjust or any war is unjust, where do we go from here? who do we fight? do we lobby congress? do we start a pact. do we go out in the streets? what's your take on this? >> well, the easy answer is we have to do all of that. we need a peace pact. we need to lobby congress. we need to educate, educate, educate ourselves. that's why -- i mean, we are here to talk about a book. a primer on ending the u.s. war in afghanistan and we have to do all of that but we have to be strategic in how we do it. this isn't the same political moment as the last eight years under george bush where our movement was as much about

opposing president bush as it was opposing his wars. these days president obama is not the same as george bush. the wars are very much the same, unfortunately. but the president is not the same. the administration is not the same. and crucially our country is not the same. what brought president obama to become president was an enormous powerful movement that swept into office someone who had not been the first choice of the elites in this country. he was accepted by the elites, no doubt, but he was not the first choice. there was this enormous unstoppable movement especially of young people. especially young people of color. who came together to demand something different and who voted for someone who said, i will end the mindset that leads to war. so we're in a different position now. we have to hold somebody accountable who made a commitment. yes, he said he would escalate the war in afghanistan and we've

got to say you said that and you were worn about it. but we got something to hold on to. we have a movement and we have a president who once made that commitment. and when we start to look at what do we have to do -- when i was looking the other night preparing to discuss martin luther king's riverside church speech, the speech that doesn't get nearly enough attention in that speech, he said there were five things the u.s. needed to do today to end these horrifying wars that it was fighting in vietnam. i looked at those five things and i wrote them again, word-for-word adding just one phrase and changing the names of the countries. and this is what dr. king told us we have to do. end all bombing in afghanistan in pakistan. number two, declare a unilateral cease fire in the hope that such

action will create the atmosphere for negotiation. number three, take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in the region by curtailing our military buildup in the middle east and our uncritical support for israeli occupation. that was the phrase i added. [laughter] >> dr. king would have. [laughter] >> number four, realistically accept the fact that the taliban has substantial support in afghanistan and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in any future government in afghanistan. this is what we're seeing in the front page of the "washington times" and the "new york post" in the last two days. number five, set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from afghanistan. [applause] >> dr. king had it right. >> all right. i want to thank you for this part of our conversation. and i want to hope it up to the floor.

we have a microphone right there. and we ask you to come up to the microphone because it's connected to a little microphone that goes to c-span. i want to thank c-span first of all for being here. being able to take this -- thank you, c-span. [applause] >> and i want to just make a couple of announcements.ñzbñ we have a couple of events at busboys and poets. the next one will be -- the next big event will be on february the 2nd. the gaza freedom march that just took place. and they went to egypt to try to break the siege in gaza. they just returned and they'll be doing a report back. february 2nd at 6:00 pm. we encourage you to be there, please, to support the gaza freedom march. i want to say a thank you to the organizations that supported and that is teaching for change,

first of all, yes, they deserve an applause. teaching for change are special to us because they operate the bookstore here, busboy and poets books, the association we have for teaching for change which is an ngo which provides social justice and peace education for schools. 100% of everything you spend in this bookstore goes directly for teaching for change. so please continue to support independent bookstores and particularly or bookstore here, busboys and poets books. also i want to thank the washington peace center, haymarket books, interlink publishing, the institute for policy studies. we want to thank all of these organizations for making this such a wonderful event. [applause] >> all right. please. >> first of all, thank you for the opportunity. the most disturbing thing that

has happened since obama's presidency so far has been his speech in accepting the nobel peace prize in which he basically said that peace was impossible. and justified various reasons for why war is inevitable. i wonder in the face of that how we can continue to try to hold him accountable for something he did during the campaign when he actually used the global stage to say that, you know, war is the order of the day. if that is actually true coming from the commander in chief, what can people -- actual real people, not the ones on congress who don't know anything about us -- what can real people do to stop funding this animal, this beast that's sucking the blood of people all over the world? >> thanks. that's a very good question. i don't think there's any one answer. i think that we have to do a lot of different things. i think that we have to work in

congress. i think there are members of a host of reasons, not all the same reasons that we are angry. about what the obama administration has done and failed to do. and i think that we can move towards much more effective pressure on congress. and i think we're going to see some of that. we heard that nancy pelosi, who as we know has refused to support antiwar positions. she said this afternoon in response to the anticipated state of the union address tonight that she would not accept a funding freeze as president obama apparently plans to call for that did not include a military freeze. again, it's something no member of congress and no one in the administration is going to lead on these issues. they will be dragged, kicking and screaming when they have no alternative. so what we have to do is change the political dynamic so that it

becomes politically expedient for them to do the right thingj so they feel they will get the right support for those in votes and those involved in lobbying and packet -- paxs. that it costs too much politically to do the wrong thing and it's easier for them to do the right thing. that's the goal we have. now, doing that is way, way hard. and i would say -- and i don't see that as a plug for my book only, although it's partly that. that education is key because there's an all of lot of people around who are against the war in afghanistan but are not else why they're against it. and can't answer the questions about well, isn't this a good war? yeah, you were right about iraq but this war -- they attacked us, right? what about al-qaeda? aren't they going to come back? what about the taliban. and people don't have answers for that.

we need to take seriously the education part. and that's a big chunk of what the peace movement does. it's a big part what we do at busboys and poets. it's a big part of what we do at ips. it's a big part of what a lot of peace organizations are working on. and we have to do more of it. so there's no easy answer to what does it mean that obama has said that war is inevitable. we have to be the ones to stand there and say, no, it's not. we get to be the inheritors of martin luther king's legacy, not simply president obama. >> and i think it's important for us to -- it's important for us also to support the members of congress who are speaking in the right way. who are supporting an end to the military occupation. everybody should call nell thank you for standing up the issue. if you don't the other side is going to call and that's really how it works sometimes in a democracy, sometimes. >> you mentioned -- you

mentioned earlier about soldiers coming -- being hired to work for the american army as a matter of fact, as mercenaries. there's an organization called jobs for afghans, which is promoting what might be called a marshall plan for afghanistan. having recognized that soldiers are fighting for the taliban for 10 -- for $8 a day, and how inexpensive it would be to hire them for $15 a day and put them to work fixing up their country. >> right. sorry. >> i want to mention that and have you address that. to what extent that is occurring. but also i want help planting a seed. and that is the labor union -- the united states labor unions

could really play an amazing role in such a reconstruction effort when it becomes self-evident -- we can't afford these wars. but we can afford to reach out and much as we might do in haiti help rebuild the country using labor from the united states on some sort of foreign aid type of thing. >> thank you for your ideas. the work around jobs for afghans, i think, raises a very fundamental question which is where does the money go and what does it mean to talk about rebuilding the country? right now the people that are being hired by the u.s. military are being hired to support a u.s. military occupation of another country. people who they are hired are not rebuilding their country. they're building things the u.s. occupation forces need. certainly it is true that it would be cheap to hire a lot of afghans to rebuild their own country but that also means giving afghans the material

basis to rebuild their own country as they see fit. not as we see fit.4óz so that doesn't necessarily mean putting a lot of money into the cities. where 80% of the population does not live. it doesn't necessarily mean building new airports in a country that doesn't have access to airplanes. it means letting afghans make the judgments about what kind of a country they have and what kind of a country they want. now, i think that jobs for afghans is a great job. i think doing it under conditions of occupation is not necessarily very realistic. marshall plan as a model is an interesting one but it existed after the war. it didn't try to take place during a war. and the notion that we are somehow in a post-war environment in afghanistan i think is not the case. so i think that we have to be very careful about the models. similarly, trying to use the model that the u.s. has used in iraq and say that the so-called surge worked so, therefore, we're going to do it in

afghanistan, of course, leaves out all the reasons that violence diminished at a certain point in iraq. only one part of which and by far not the most important part was the surge. and it wasn't even the u.s. decision to start buying off former resistance fighters and paying -- putting them on the u.s. payroll which is essentially what they're now doing in afghanistan. there's something to be said for that. if people are fighting you to make a living and you can pay them to make a living not fighting you, that's fine as long as people have a way to survive when you leave, which hopefully will be next week. you know, if the basis of what you're doing in the country is making permanent a military occupation and thinking it's okay because you're hiring local people to build your air fields and cook your meals and wash your jeeps, that's not a very sustainable basis for reconstruction.

so i think we need an entire reset of what our engagement with afghanistan is so that it's not based on a military engagement. it's based on a human development engagement. that is not going to look very much like marshall plan. it's going to look a lot like the end of a military occupation. and that's not something that we're close to yet. >> i wanted to, you know, thank you for your clarity and eloquence to those issues that are so often confused and misunderstood in u.s. discussions in these questions. >> thank you. >> and i also think it's very powerful to evoke the memory of dr. king and the linkage between war, racism and poverty. i wanted to ask what understanding of imperialism informs your own work and your own thinking about the obama administration and what obama can and cannot be pressured to do. because i think, you know -- from a certain perspective obama

was elected based on this promise of hope and change. and on a movement of an electoral sort but he was also elected and given millions of dollars to run the world's most, you know, economically powerful country and the empire that extends from that. and so i think that the contradictions between those things have a lot to do with the frustrated hopes and aspirations that a lot of us feel. and i also just wanted in that context to raise a question about international law. i haven't read this entire book because it's very dense but a book -- a guy wrote a book on international law that i wonder if you've read that is sort of -- it's a marxist critique from international law. it sort of looks at ways in which international law is a product of struggles of oppressed folks that demand some accountability but also of the character of the various pieces -- short-term piece that is result from particular anti-imperial conflicts.

and i wonder to the extent to which it can be an counterweight without driving the economic pillars that i see driving war in so many instances. >> well, thank you for your words. >> you wrote a book on empire. >> i did. i wrote a book called "challenging empire: how people governments define u.s. power" one aspect of the book look at the question of how mobilization against the u.s. empire -- and yes, of course, president obama as candidate obama ran to be the president of the empire. that's the reality. but he didn't run to take down the empire. but i think that we are dealing with empires in a very different stage of history. every empire is different. and i think that if we look -- a colleague of mine -- a friend of mine wrote a book called "citizens of empire." it raises a very interesting question which is the challenge to those of us who live in

citizen -- as citizens of the empires of today with advanced forms of democratic decision-making without necessarily all the distance of it. -- instance of it. -- substance of it. and what it means is that we have the capacity using the tools in my view of international law, the tools of democracy, those that have not been shredded by the repressive domestic aspects of these wars that we've seen in the last eight or ten years that we have the possibility of bringing down an empire without the huge violence and fire and destruction that accompanied the collapse of earlier empires if we look at the -- the roman empire in particular. i think that is a huge obligation that we have. now, there's no easy lessons of how to do it. in my book "challenging empire"

i look in the intersections -- and even the "new york times" used the phrase "the second superpower" which is the intersection of the huge global movement that was challenging war in iraq with a number of countries where governments for their own opportunist reasons and those kicking and screaming by end, together we're able to form a kind of opposition mobilization to this u.s. war in iraq that played a huge role ultimately not in stopping the war as we know. it didn't succeed in that way. but it succeeded in making clear that this war was illegal. and it made it possible undermine the legitimacy of the u.s. in the process of doing that. these wars of legitimacy, a term that professor richard falk has created. the wars of legitimacy where international law is by far our

most potent weapon. the -- it's not to say that international law doesn't still allow for arms struggle against an occupied population. backup doesn't mean that it's right. it doesn't mean that it makes any sense. it doesn't mean it's going to work. and i think that what we're learning is that like our own constitution, which is basically a piece of paper, except when we fight for it, international law is a piece -- well, a few pieces of paper. and unless we fight for it, it means almost nothing. but it's a tool in our hands that give us more power than i think almost any other weapon right now allows us. so i think it's something that we have to use. by itself it doesn't come with an army. it's like the old saying about the pope. where's the pope's army? the pope's opinion shouldn't matter. where's his army.

international law does not have an army. except for us. except for people around the world who uphold it as an instrument. that's what gives it its power. >> next, please. >> sorry. i really appreciated what you said about the inertia of war and i guess the inertia of imperialism unless we stop it. i remember, you know, when the iraq war was about to start in 2003, there were huge demonstrations. i remember there was one in new york. some people said it was a million people came out. >> february 15th, 2003. >> exactly. february 15th. and then after the war started there was a bit demoralization. a lot of antiwar groups continued but as the iraq war dragged on and dragged on and especially we're told the surge is working, i think, you know,

there was a lot of demoralization and, you know, i think a lot of the antiwar movement kind of fizzled. and we all know, i think, there's some people -- and maybe many people in this room that are doing some really important work against the wars in iraq and afghanistan. but i think we also to have admit it's small. and yet i think if you look at the, you know, after september 11 the war in afghanistan was very popular. if you look at the opinion polls, most people now are opposed to it and think it's a quagmire and so on. so i think there's this disconnect. maybe you can address that. i mean, what's the prospects do you think of revitalizing an antiwar movement that both takes in iraq and afghanistan and now somalia, yemen, you know, the places where the u.s. empire keeps expanding in the midst of this economic crisis. >> yeah. i think you raise a very fundamental question and again i don't think there's any simple single answer. i've been struggling to figure out what should the strategy of an antiwar movement of this era

look like. what i do know is it's not going to look like what it did during the bush years nor do i think it should. will it involve mobilizations in the street? yeah, probably but i don't think that's going to be the most important part of it. i think one thing that we have to look at this is a moment when the wars are not the point of the arrow if you will, the tip of the spear, whatever analogy you want to use. are not the centerpiece of what people in this country and around the world are facing as the biggest problem as they were during the bush years. in the bush years it was the war in iraq. secondarily the war in afghanistan that were the centerpiece of the bush challenge to us all. of what was so terrible about bush policy and bush strategy. what was it was imposing on people around the world. and the domestic sides of it here. now that's not the case. the wars haven't changed that much. but what has changed is the economic crisis which is what is affecting people most immediately. people in this country and people around the world.

and i think what that means among other things is that our antiwar movement of this period is not going to be the centerpiece of progressive mobilization. the progressive mobilization is going to be centered in the labor movement,jxt in communiti of color, in theo communities that are feeling the brunt of layoffs, of losing homes the crisis that's affecting our country and people around the world even more so. and what we need to do is bring the lessons of the antiwar movement to that rising movement which is just beginning. it's only cohere now. you can't point to that and say it's that coalition. it's that organization. that's the centerpiece. it's popping up in places all around the country. that are starting to come together. starting to call each other. starting to talk to each other. the labor movement is going to be huge. and that means that the language, the rhetoric of the peace movement has to be different. the way we talk about it. unfortunately, i'm afraid the

moral questions that faith-based organizations and pacifist organizations have put at the center of antiwar organizing is not going to mean very much in this period relatively. relatively the costs of war -- the human cost, yes, but mosthp especially the financial and economic costs are going to be front and center. by september of this year, by september of 2010, we will have spent over $1 trillion on the wars in afghanistan and iraq. $1.05 trillion. that's one of those numbers that is so vast it's not even, to me, comprehensible. when you break it down into smaller amounts, you see things like this notion that just the cost of this one little escalation, the 30,000 new troops to afghanistan, that could pay for 6 million americans to get healthcare for one year. that could pay for 600,000 good

middle class jobs with full benefits in new green industries. >> do you really believe if that money was available that's what it would pay for? we had a surplus at one time. i didn't see us running to pay for healthcare and education. >> that's right. it won't unless we fight for it. and we won't be guaranteed that we're going to win. the surplus was immediately put at risk by the wars that immediately began with the first year of the bush administration in afghanistan and iraq. >> maybe that's the reason why people -- really those numbers don't make a lot of sense to them, you know, so what. ifyh we have the money, we're certainly not going to be much better off. so to speak. so i think there's a disconnect there somewhere. >> i think there is a disconnect. and i was very glad to hear the statement today from nancy pelosi because i think she for whatever reasons of her own she does come from san francisco after all. she's got to remember where she comes from. her statement was crucial when

she said that if there's going to be a freeze in part of our spending, it's got to be across-the-board. and that -- and she mentioned the contractors. contractor corruption. and bureaucracy in the pentagon. she said there are plenty of places where we can cut military spending without it impacting our troops.g now, i'd say let's impact our troops. let's bring them home. that's how you save their lives and save the cost. let's bring them home. that's really supporting the troops.62í bringing them home. >> if we could -- we're running out of time. and i also want phyllis to sign books. now, the way we're going to sign books here is a little different. this is -- this is full service book signing. phyllis is going to come to each table and sign the books to you so that you don't have to move around and have to feel uncomfortable because we're going to be showing the state of the union address right after héf going to ha that will be hosted of sarah

browning of d.c. poets against the war. you can get up and say your say. to come and say your say about whatever the state of the union you're in. and then -- and then we're going to -- as soon as the speech starts, we will bring down the screen and show the state of the union address by the president. so if you don't mind for the next three of you, i think diane you'll be the last one. if we could just keep the comments brief and maybe all ask the comments and then you could do a wrap-up. and i'm being reminded here she can sign books that you didn't buy. so you have to buy the books for her to sign them. some things are obvious but i have to make them clear. >> you have to go out to do that. whenever you have an opportunity just to make your way to the bookstore, get the book, come back, sit down, relax. we're going to be here for a while tonight. so we thank you for being here at busboy and poets. ask the questions, please, the next three of you and those of

you who have other things to say, you'll have an opportunity to get up during open mic session immediately following this. please. >> thank you very much for the opportunity.w7 as you mentioned the civil war and the ethnic conflicts in afghanistan was the most devastating war in the whole history of the country. what do you think about the -- once the u.s. leaves afghanistan, what would you suggest as a solution for the preventing any kind of ethnic conflict as we have seen during the taliban. not only the women but the massacre of other minorities because of their ethnic background or their religious background. >> where are you from yourself? >> i'm from afghan. >> thank you. if we can have maybe have other people say their say and then if you can keep notes.

>> very quickly, >> if you can raise the microphone so that it faces you. >> that would be nice. phyllis started out talking about this mindset of war. i think -- and you've gone on to the economic position. i don't know how much -- mistaken of you have noticed that in the critique of the economic policy of this administration, how frequently the talk goes back to what ended the depression. it was the second world war. every economist keeps coming back to say well, we got to spend more. that is the real stimulus was spending on the war. we went into terrible debt from an awful situation through which i lived and my gray hair will tell you. that's part of it.

and one other very quick thing, was on the -- it's connected. it's with this business of the drones. bombing, bombing, bombing and you say well, the more people you kill the more enemies you make. well, the reason that billy mitchell and bomber harris and angelo the italian, sponsors of massive bombing of civilian populations, which is the basis for the way the united states has waged war was you kill them and then they can't fight you anymore. and that is the way we fought the second world war and we keep fighting wars. and the drone is just another technological manifestation of this. but it is very much part of our war-making tradition. i look out my house every day

across the shenandoah valley and those killing everything that was there. we do that. thank you. >> thank you. well, this relates to part of that. when i was in copenhagen last month one of the panelists made a comment, well, bush is not obama. obama is not bush but the u.s. is still the u.s. and we talk a lot about obama doing this and obama's policies as a person. but he's part of a system. and as the man just said now, you know, our foreign policy is basically killing bad guys. and it's a very kind of immature concrete idea without understanding what you were talking about. that it provokes escalation of cycles of violation or the law of opposites. and in other meetings here like a few weeks ago ray mcgovern talking about pressures obama may be having behind the scenes.

in addition to us holding obama accountable for what he can do and what you said before, you know, we have to make him do it, what do you imagine or do you know is going on -- the pressures behind the scenes and how might he be constrained by those kinds of pressures? we know that if he chose not to send troops to afghanistan, there would be a huge rise up of hysteria that he's weak and he's soft. so what do you think about that? >> before you answer the question i want to say a very thank you to our media sponsor wpfx 89.3 fm. [applause] >> and those of you out there who don't listen to the station you don't know what you'relisming. -- listening. it's a great, great programming. it is the only station that is not owned by corporate sponsors. it is a station that speaks the voice of the people. it is the peace station here in washington.

and they're not afraid to show speakers like phyllis bennis and others when it comes to these issues. so thank you. [applause] >> just a word on each of them and then a closing word. on the question of what happens when the troops are out. i don't think there's an easy answer. i think that afghans -- many of whom because there's such a large afghan diaspora have ties with peoples and governments in the region. ....

to create their own governmental structures, which will probably be locally based in traditional sure is an traditional loya jirga, a grand council that comes together representing smaller entities as opposed to a national organization being imposed first imposed first-period amend the smaller ones been appointed by those. i think he would be the opposite. after themselves will have to make those judgments. on the question of the war spending, the claim that military spending is what got them out of the great depression. i think one of the things that is different is that the kind of warfare that we wage, what the money gets spent for, there is a very important new report that

ips has just put out that looks at this comparison between dylan terry jawed and civilian green jobs peered out about many of my ips colleagues in the audience remember is that 20 times? it's some huge number at the same amount of money would pay for a huge number more civilian jobs and military production jobs out of which goes to the question of how military stuff is being produced these days. it's very high-tech, low labor. this is not where you're going to pull people out of the depression. so it's a very different suggestion. >> if you're spending a million dollars per%, it deals like -- >> exactly. it's not very efficient. and then on the question of what other pressures -- i mean certainly the systemic realities of this government in our country have not changed. and it's one of the things that

i think i imagine it's very frustrating for the obama administration. people who came in who are new to national politics came in from his old gang in chicago or whoever they are. but to believe that everyone in the world should see that we're different now because this isn't george bush anymore. when the reality is where the same country, we are waging the same wars. why should those people -- [inaudible] >> andy? >> we just got a note, howard then just died of a heart attack. >> howard brought up here, in more ways than we could probably ever imagine, anyone who ever

imagined the necessity of education for a social movement owes that to howard zinn who said we will rewrite the history of this country. we will rewrite it as a people's history that we will rebuild it as a people's country. he taught us more than perhaps any of our other teachers. >> i just spoke to him two days ago. he was coming to washington. i was going to pick him up at the airport on april 13 and he was going to speak your bad evening at dusk boys and poets. i was so thrilled he was going to be able to make it he was going to receive an award from the magazine the following day. we were very thrilled to have them here. he just finished a film that he did call to the people speak,

which we will plan to show here and we will have a memorial for him here. and we hope all of you will be able to come and attend and be part of this very, very -- [applause] he would be really upset to see me crying. >> what you can cry, but also organize. we can amend mother jones' statement. she said don't cry and don't mourn organize. we can mourn and organize. >> i think this is really a call to action, honestly. they should move a lot of people. and the direction that howard's and would've wanted to see. he would wanted us to see go. you know, for those of you met him, i'm sure your life has been embraced. for those of you don't know much about him, please learn more

about him because he is one of those people that it's a replaceable. i was talking to don at the bookstore and i said you know, he's getting old. i don't know what's going to happen if he dies. and i guess we continue to live and we continue to survive and we continue to do what we do, but he certainly can give us the strength and the fortitude and the moral grounding that he brings to the peace programs, to anything that he touches. >> and he was the one who taught us that we had to learn to fight. we had to learn our history, to reclaim our history, to know all of our history. and based on that, we can reclaim our country. we could reclaim what we wanted it to be. thank you all. >> wow, what a moment. you'll remember this moment. i certainly well. i want to thank all of you for

being here. i want to thank c-span again. this is going to be a very special night. i want to thank phyllis bennis, ips, oliver's supporting organizations in each and every one of you for really keep being busboys and poets alive. thank you very much. have a wonderful evening. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> we are here with leslie sanchez author of the new boat "you've come a long way, maybe." ms. sanchez come your analyst on cnn during the 2000 presidential election, who is the most powerful woman in politics right now? do not write far you would have to say secretary of state, hillary clinton. not only are her approval rating is incredibly high, which is also proving to be a very powerful leader nationally. for somebody who used to be so polarizing and have so much

political baggage, it's really astounding to see her progression and the admiration for both democrats and republicans have. >> is not about the effects of women on that election. how is it changed the way women can be perceived at the present quite >> what's fascinating about the election is if you go back and look at back of the pervasive sexism in the media there was not one reason like when canada won, but it's really something i believe that women back for years. and until we talk about it and talk about how women have conflict and competition in with the ground rules are for women entered politics i don't think we can really advance to the level that we want. >> the cover of your book you have sarah palin, michelle obama, and hillary clinton. >> everybody wants to talk about sarah palin because she is now

this new polarizing course. she is viability of the 2012 candidate. what's fascinating about her is she a sort of void and republican leadership. she is able to carry a lot of weight on issues like she did when she brought up the a few of death panel dared she raises a tremendous amount of money with her taxpayer shall endorses candidates and to her benefit leads to kind of a surge in support. she wields a tremendous amount of power, but she's cheering for one side of the stadium. she's not appealing to moderates or independents here at the terms of her political views she is very hard to say. shows a lot of challenges. the shallow bottom is stretching the boundaries of what it is to be a first lady. should the modern woman, very adept at being a mother as well as being a first lady or, the champion of causes. and i think she's going to prove the role of women overall, in terms of her professional

nature. she is a working mom before she ever came to the white house. it's a different experience and i look forward to seeing where she takes. >> is there a woman out there right now who you see as the next politician residential nominee? >> as a woman, it's hard to say. you know, the natural person to look at how the weather thing for years or eight years down the line would be somebody like secretary of state, hillary clinton. on the republican side i think were going to lead other women that are moving up the channels. nursing women run for governorship, which tends to be a way station for the presidency. it's a little too early to tell, but the fact is they have to build substantial credentials. they have to do public service and they have to somewhat sophisticated in terms of dealing with the media. they have to have all of those together. >> the title of your book is "you've come a long way, maybe." is this a stutter start or have you seen the true emergence of

the new female residential candidate like >> not yet. i think it exposes the idea that women have a long way to go. not only how we deal with each other competitively and expected media to do with the female candidate, you know, in terms of terms of sexism and ten of the challenge for female candidates. but also in terms of social media, twitter, facebook, branding your identity on the internet. female candidates have to be much more aggressive in how their images portrayed or they don't want to be patronized is which either candidate name. they don't want to be looked at by their gender rather than the substance of their effort. >> leslie sanchez, author of "you've come a long way, maybe." thank you so much. >> thank you.

>> sarah palin signed copy of her book, "going rogue: an american life" at a bookstore in cincinnati, ohio. before urban or palin opening remarks, they talk to the corporative event in with people waiting in line to get their book signed. this event is about 45 minutes. >> you've got your receipt, okay, fair enough. [inaudible conversations] >> yeah, there's a bunch of different letters. roughly about 26. and then there's this small vip group. they were the first people to purchase a number of gift back programs, et cetera. so when we let you win, at 10:00 we're going to open a store for people without the

wine list. so you're going to be welcomed to come you know, shop the store. we are going to wind people up by groups so you're not just going to be standing in one place for four or five hours. once you're in by groups and then you'll just go in. it is going to be very quick, though. she's going to be signing a lot of people that she wants to try to get through. so we're just telling people in advance that she has to lead on a hard deadline to get to columbus this evening. security is going to block it off and she's going to come right up through the back entrance probably a man until she comes out and signs. we're just trying to tell people. >> one, two, three. >> thank you.