.. >> the real power lies with the arab lobby.

mr. bard presents the argument in his book. >> author mitchell bard argues while the israel lobby is charged with overly influencing the united states foreign policy goals in the middle east, the

real power lies with the arab lobby. he presents his book at the skirball cultural center in los angeles. >> thank you for making this possible and all of you for braving the traffic here. i lived here for awhile and i can sympathize, but now i live in washington which also has bad traffic. it's nice to get a warm introduction. to be honest when you speak as much as i do, you can't always be sure though. one person introduced me said i don't have to make a long and boring speech because we have mitchell bard here for that purpose. [laughter] just to give you an idea of what a genius here before you tonight, one recent event, i was speaking and getting ready to come to the event and was getting dressed and pulling on my pants, and as i did, i

realized they were more snug than usual, and i realized my brought my son's suit rather than my own. [laughter] in addition to all of the wonderful things doris said, i encourage you visit our website where anything you want to know is there talking about the lobbies as well as the mythic fact that you can sign up for on the website. now, people ask, of course, first thing often, why did you write a book about the arab lobby? in fact, i've been doing researches on the american influences on the middle east policy for 20 years. i was down the road doing my ph.d. dissertation on that subject in ucla back in the mid-80s, and my first book was about the influences on u.s.

middle east policy, and i looked at both the israel and arab lobbies, and i've been doing it ever since, but it's been in the last few years where the israeli lobby became scrutinized, demonized, and mischaracterized that it became clear to me that there was a need to bring greater attention to the other part of the equation involved in middle east policy. you had what really were a series of mostly crack pot theories about an all-powerful israeli lobby who won a couple academics and wrote a book that suddenly gave new credibility to what really had been dismissed as con conspiracy theory up until then. i wanted to bring the attention to people who have never heard

of an arab lobby and the fact one existed in many cases that the lobby is older and in some instances more powerful and to let people know that not only does it exist, but when and how it has influence and the ways in which it's threatening american values and interest. now, what is the arab lobby as i define it? well, for one thing, it's a find of miniheaded hydro. the reason said there are none because it's difficult to pin down. you can't go down each street in washington, d.c., and see an arab lobby building the way you can visit the american israel public affairs committee, apax head quarters, so there's no central address. there's really two groups or components of the arab lobby as i see it. one is largely driven by oil

interests, and that is led by saudi arabia primarily with the backing of arabists in our state department, diplomats with a particular view of u.s. policy that is based on the idea that the most important thing for the united states is securing the supply of oil, and that in order to secure that supply, we have to keep the saudis happy at all costs. there's some other aspects of their interest that i'll get to. in addition to that, there's, of course, the oil companies with their own profit-oriented interests, and to a large degree also defense contractors as doris mentioned having an interest in selling as many weapons as possible to the saudis and other gulf states. the other element of the lobby is the one i described as the domestic lobby compromised

primarily of arab-american and muslim-american organizations, some of the nonevangelical christians and same state department arab uses. the part of this lobby is on the palestinian issue, and to a large extent, they are a lobby that is not propalestinian or proarab, but antiisrael. that is, if you look at their resolutions and lobbying agenda in congress with very rare exceptions, it's focused on how can we punish israel or create divisions between the united states and israel than help advance the peace process or a help in some way the palestinian people. now, the arab lobby has one essential disadvantage to begin with, and that is it's very difficult to see how they could ever represent quote-on-quote the arabs or the muslims bus

there's 1.5 million muslims with variety of different approaches to their faith. you have 21 arab countries who all have very different and often competing agendas, and so there's really no way that any individual organization or group of organizations could represent quote-on-quote the arabs. the other problem that they face is that they have very small numbers. that is, there's very few arab-americans or muslim-americans in the united states, and even within that small population, the vast -- or not the vast majority, but a significant percentage of arab-americans are lebanese christians who for the most part disagree with the agenda of the arab lobby, that is, they are not particularly concerned with the palestinian issue or in creating divisions between the united states and israel. in fact, the reason they are in

the united states in the first place in many cases is because they were driven out of their homes in lebanon by the palestinians or muslim groups in lebanon. they don't sympathize. you have a small may norty within the minority of arab-americans who are supportive of this arab lobby agenda, and then the third major mitigating factor that minimizes the domestic lobby's influence is the lack of political support. that is, if you look at the latest gallop poll, 63% of the americans sympathize with the state of israel, and 58% sympathize with the palestinians. it's gotten worse over the years as israel has gotten greater support, and so it's very difficult for the arab lobby to go to congress and to make a case that they are representing the national interest or the views of the american public

when there is very little evidence to show that the american people support their positions, so what the arab lobby has done, and this is particularly true of the saudis is to take a top-down approach to lobby opposed to a bottom up. that is the pro-israel community prides itself on being a grass roots movement to mobilize the masses and influence the members of congress and the other decision makers. the saudis and arab lobbyists take a different approach because they don't have the means or numbers to reach the grass roots. they try to go directly to the decision makers, influence the few who have power over the many, and one of the reasons why the pro-israel lobby is transpoint is because you see them lobbying congress in a visible way and the records are all public where as the arab lobby does its work behind the

scenes. you have diplomats, ambassador, and the king in particular going directly to the white house to talk to the president or talking to the secretary of state, and often we don't know that these talks are going on. you had the prince bondar, the saudi ambassador for 20 years who played ball with collin powell and the top decision makers in our government, and it's something the average person would never know about. he also was quite candid in explaning the whole saudi approach to influencing american policy. he said, basically, we want to take care of people when they leave office because if you do that, you'd be surprised how nice they are when they are in office, so they have the reputation over the years of taking very good care of former government officials who end up in very curby consulting jobs

with the saudis who work in various think tanks and make a comfortable living thanks in large part to the fact they were very pro-saudi in the government. this is a very bipartisan approach by the saudis by the way. they do the same thing with every president. they give money to the presidential libraries, support the first lady's causes, sometimes they do it before the president becomes the president, sometimes it's after in the hope of showing government leaders, our presidents even, that there is a good reason for them to be pro-israel saudi, and one of my favorite examples was the case of bill clinton where you had at one point this obscure southern governor went to the saudis and said, i'd like you to fund a middle east study center at the university of arkansas. the saudis probably thought, where's arkansas? and told them, no.

then not too long overwards this obscure governor is the democratic can date for president, and the university of arkansas gets $3.5 million for studies, and then that obscure governor is elected governor of the united states, and of course, and after he's inaugust grated the university of arkansas gets a check for $20 million for the middle east. this is one of the ways the arab lobby operates and has been very successful. now, i want to be clear that unlike most of the folks who write about the israeli lobby, i do not for a second suggest that the people who believe in a pro-arab position, pro-palestinian position, pro-saw diplomats position are not entitled to lobby for those views. in our democratic system for

government as long as they do it according to the law and it's transparent, they are entitled to do their best to try to influence u.s. policy, and i also believe the arab lobby is not all-powerful the way others have said about the israeli lobby. as i'll say in a minute, i think there's a great deal of influence, but some influence over some things some of the time, and that policy is nuanced and sometimes the loin wins on issues and sometimes it loses, and the same is true for the arab lobby, but it's very naive to believe that there wouldn't be too rifle lobbies. i mean, if you think about any other issue whether it's gun control or abortion rights or health care, it's naiver one-sided issue. there's always at least one other organizational interest that's lobbying it, so the notion that somehow the

pro-israel community would be the only ones trying to influence u.s.-middle east policy really never made any sense in the first place. now, as i said, the most powerful part of the lobby by far is the oil lobby, the saudi-led part of the lobby, and i cover this back in the book going back 70 years of history which we can't go through tonight, but i want to focus on just a couple things. when you think of saudi arabia today, you say, well, the saudis have tremendous wealth, the greatest oil reserves, of course we're going to be willing to take their interests into account, but the remarkable thing i found in researching this book was we had that same attitude of letting the saudis coerce us 70 years ago when they just discovered the oil. we didn't need any of their oil, and the saudis were essentially

bankrupt. they used to carry their wealth around in a treasure chest in the dessert, and when the -- desert, and when the king was through handing out money to the different tribes to be loyal, he'd run out money and turn to the oil companies and say, we need money, and they would turn in the u.s. government saying we need money, and we'd give them money, and throughout the last few years, the saudis would threaten to take our oil away and give it to someone else if we didn't continue to do their bidding, and so we essentially have a bargain that we have signed with the saudis over the year where the saudis care about one thing and one thing only, and that is the survival of the royal family, and they recognize that the best way to survive is to have the united states keep them in power. the united states, our interest

is getting access to the saudi oil, so we have a bargain that in exchange for the oil, we agree to keep the royal heads on the royal shoulders, but this has certain negative repercussions as well because when we buy the saw diplomats oil, the profits they use are partly to keep us addicted to oil. that is, they behave like drug pushers in manipulating the price of oil in such a way that they keep the price high enough to make a good profit, but low enough so that we in the united states and elsewhere in the western world don't feel sufficient incentive to invest in alternative sources of energy that might change our relationship with the saudis, and just to give you an example. you would think, wouldn't you, that the saudis want to make as much money as they possibly could, so a couple years ago

when the price of oil hit a record of $147 a barrel, you would think the saudis couldn't be happier and would hope is continues, but at that very moment when oil was at the all-time high, the saudi oil minister said we believe the ideal price of oil is between $70-$80 a barrel. guess what the price of oil is today? the average is about $75 a barrel. interesting coincidence. you can look back as far as 1967 when the u.s. government understood the danger we were in. one of the state department arabists wrote in 1967 a study about the dangers of being so dependent on middle east's oil, and he said 67, we need to invest in alternative sources of energy, but he said, in con

clues, it's not feasible at this time, so instead what we should do is have less strong ties to israel, and this is essentially the relationship that the arabists believe in that the answer to our problems is not more investment in alternative energy, it's to reduce our investment relationship with israel. now, what else did the saudis use the money for? well, one thing is buy arms. they want the latest and greatest weapons, and as she also mentioned, the fact is number one, they don't need them, and number two, they can't use them, and so we've given them over $1h billion in arms, and about to have the largest

armed industry and about to give them another $60 billion to help defend them against a iranian nuclear weapon, and it's complete nonsense. we saw this argument back in 1981 for example where the saudis had to have our greatest radar plane, and the administration was going around capitol hill saying to the those who were worried, they said, they're incomp tent. they will not threaten israel. we need to give this to them to defend themselves from the soviet union. no one recognized the saudis could take on the soviets, but not strong enough to take on the israelis. that same argument is made today. why does the united states go along with this? one reason is the lobbying of the arab lobby where the former ambassador of saudi arabia said what we need to do is go

district by district and somehow how many jobs will be created by these arms sales so we make it a jobs issue more than a security issue, but also the pentagonments to sell these weapons because -- pentagon wants to sell the weapons because by selling f-15s to the saudis, they can lower the overall cost of the f-15 to the u.s. air force, and we can keep in service certain weapons systems they might otherwise have to cancel if they didn't get enough orders, so the pentagon sees this as being in their interest, and certainly the defense companies believe it's in their interest, and it's also partially a transfer of wealth. we give the saudis millions for oil, and they give it back to us in arms. there is an interest there to justify. there's another problem how this relationship works and how this money is spent, and the

dangerous thing is that the saudis are at the same time underminding our interest in the middle east. they are underminding our values, and they are directly and indirectly threatening our security. now, let me tell you how. first of all, how do they undermind our interests in the middle east? well, one way is by supporting terrorists. for many years, when the principle supporters of the plo at the height of the terrorist activities was the saudis. more recently there are more donors and supporters of hamas. the problems with that recently is that weakened the party who is america's favorite palestinian at the moment who we would like to see make peace with israel because he's a relative moderate, but by the saudis strengthening hamas, they were underminding the whole u.s.

strategy for pushing the peace process forward. if you go back in history, there's another example, perhaps the most dray maltic example -- dramatic example in sabotaging peace was in the camp david negotiations where jimmy carter was told that the key to securing the israeli-egyptian peace and expanding it to a comprehensive peace in the middle east was the support of the saudis, and carter said, don't worry, the saudis will do whatever i asked. they assured me they will support the peace process. low and behold, they didn't. they did just the opposite. they led the arab league effort to osarrize egypt for a number of years making sure no other state could join in the peace process or the palestinians

entered into the economy talks. they are continuing the same approach of underminding peace in the middle east today, so this is one way they are underminding our interest of peace in the region. the second thing they undermind is the values that the united states believes in in freedom, democracy, and human rights. saudi arabia may be the most intolerant country in the world. they are antise metic, antichristian, any antimuslim minority, and they are a regular serial human rights abusers. if you talk about states in the middle east, there is one, it's called saudi arabia in the way they treat women, and yet the united states has essentially stood by and allowed the saudis to abuse human rights for years,

not just saudi citizens, but americans have been subject of discreme nation by the saudiss and you can read the remarks by the state department officials saying well, the facts they don't let jews in or discrime flatting against jews, it's okay, it's their culture. we don't want to make them unhappy, and so many years, we were come police it in -- come police sit against discriminating again our own citizens for fear of making them unhappy. the one example, in fact, of a u.s. president standing up to the saudis, was in 1960s, john kennedy told the king of saudi arabia, you have to end slavery, a century after the civil war in the united states, the saudis were still practicing legal slaver ri, and he said it was unacceptable, and the saudis at least legally outlawed it after

kennedy put the pressure on them which says to me if a u.s. president does use his influence and does use our political, economic, and military leverage, we can change policy, and there's no reason why we in the united states have to accept the idea the saudis have their own culture and therefore can do whatever they want in discriminating against their own citizens or our citizens. finally, how does the saudi policy threaten our security? well, the principle lays sponsoring terrorism. under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, stuart levy said, "if i could snap my fingers and come off the funding for one economy, it would be saudi arabia." they are the principle sponsors of a variety of terrorist groups

around the world, and because americans saw them as sponsors of terror after 9/11, they began to invest very heavily in trying to change their image through public relations and lobby, so just since 9/11, they invested close to $100 million on various public relations firms and k-street lobbyists to convince both the american people and the congress that no, they are not really supporters of terrorist, but they are somehow cooperating with us on the war on terror. as doris mentioned, they invested another $130 million in higher education in an effort to change the perceptions of the next generation of americans. they want the next generation to see them as our crucial allies in the middle east. they want to see the next

generation undercut the alliance between the united states and israel. they want to promote their own brand of islam and deny the existence of any radical islamic threat to the united states or anyone else, and of even greater concern, i think, is they are trying to spread some of these values that they have in their own educational system into our education system. for example, in one school, there was a map on the wall of the middle east that was missing just one country. can you guess which one? israel. they had a textbook that taught that the jews were conspiring against islam and in the 12th grade textbook it says the day of judgment, the trees will speak to the muslim, oh muslim, servant of god, the jews are

hiding behind me, come and kill them. it's not just about jews. they also quote from another part of the cay ran that says they are swine and the christians at jesus' table. these are some of the teachings that are common in saudi textbooks finding their way into the united states in that particular school that i'm talking about is not a madrassa in taliban, but a saudi-funded school in fairfax, virginia. now, if you read the book, "israeli lobby," you were treated to this notion that the israeli lobby is all powerful, and this is a constant

theme that you can read in state department documents going back years that somehow these jews are exerting too much influence on u.s.-middle east policy. i think you can destroy the entire argument with just two words. barak obama. look, this is a nonpartisan thing. i can use another two words. george bush. h. w. bush. each of the aces you can see by no means were the president's tallying or listening or being controlled by the pro-israel lobby, and let me talk specifically about the case of barak obama and where we are today in the peace process to show you a kind of case study of the arab lobby's influence. now, the israeli lobby's basic

philosophy is that the government of israel as the democratically elected representatives of the people should decide the fate of israel and should engage in direct negotiations with the arabs, palestinians, the other arab states to negotiate a now two-state solution is the preferred result. the arab lobby has a different approach, especially the arabists in the state department. they believe a number of things. one, that israel has to be coerced. they are not making peace on their own unless the united states uses its power to force them. they believe that israel, the israeli people are either too stupid, too immature, too evil to know what's good for them, and that they should be saved in spite of themselves. in fact, there's a very famous article written by a state department official called "how

to save israel in spite of itself." a third common thing is that the palestinian issue is the most important one that if we solve that issue, everything else goes away despite the obvious problem of afghanistan not going away if palestinian peace broke out tomorrow or that sunnies and shiites stopped killing each other if there was peace in the palestinian issue and so on. there's a number of cases to disprove that, but there's the belief. finally, there's a belief that the united states has to be actively engaged in peacemaking because if we are not constantly pushing israel, then there's a vacuum to create instability, and usually it's filled by violence and bad things happening for american interests. i believe if you look at those two different philosophies of the lobby and then look at the policies pursued by president obama, it is clear that he is

not pursuing the israeli lobby agenda, but pursuing a policy consistent with the arab lobby view. now, you can like it or not like it. let me lay it out in terms of whether president obama is accomplishing the goals that he has setting for himself in the first year. now, when he came to office, one of the main points of his campaign was he was not george bush. his domestic policies were not going to be george bush, but very different, and that his foreign policy was going to be very different. and this applied to middle east policy as well, and in the case of the middle east, he wanted to show that he unlike george bush is a friend of the arab and muslim world, and so one of the first things he did, and in fact, the first interview he gave was not to the washington post of the "new york times," but it was to an arab publication, and one of the

first foreign policy speeches he gave was where? cairo. he went and gave a very good speech in cairo. i thought it was a very good speech in trying to explain to the muslim world to make the case that the united states is not in any kind of conflict with islam or with the arab world, and that we want to be on good relations, perfectly good speech, nothing i would complain about, but the problem was that what was the impact in terms of the miss lum world? did the muslim world fall in love with barak obama as a result of the speech? well, in fact, they didn't, and if you look at some of the recent polls, you see he has not popular in the arab and islam world. he's more popular than george bush, but has not won them over by policy or speech, and one of the reasons had to do with listening to the arabists an

making a mistake about where he gave the speech. why was it a problem to speak in cairo? well, there was a couple of reasons. one, cairo is one of the most repressive countries in the middle east, and it represses muslim brotherhood in particular, and so if you're in the muslim world and you see the united states, the president, going to a regime to speak there and to bolster their president, what's the reaction? it's not oh, boy, he's different than george bush in reaching out to us. the reaction in many places was just the opposite. he's just like all the rest because here he is just popping up a dictator who happens to be pro-american, and one that is actually repressing muslims in his country, so it backfired in a way. the second thing that happened was that he was led to believe by his advisers, the arabists

again that what was important was to publicly criticize israel, go after the settlement issue, and to make clear he was going to aggressively pursue a palestinian-israel peace that would lead to a palestinian state. nothing wrong with that goal or approach, but the problem is he was led to believe this is what the saudismented, and if he did those, they would go along with his policy objectives in the middle east. what happened on the way to cairo? do you know where he stopped? no, you don't. nobodimented to -- nobody wanted to report on it. it was kept a secret. he stopped in saudi arabia, went to the king and said, okay, i've been making an issue of the israeli settlement. i'm making the palestinian peace

issue a high peace priority for me, now i want you to help me, and what i want ewe to do to help me is make gestures to israel to show the israelis if they make peace with the palestinians, that at the ent of the day -- end of the day there's be normal relationships with the rest of the world. the king said, jump in a lake. for months afterwards, the foreign minister came, and each time they told hillary clinton or the president or his other advisers, jump in the lake, we're not going to do anything. if he took these steps that the arabists advocated, it would result in positive gains for the saudiss, and it didn't. the third thing was in relation to the israelis. now, by coming out opposing the settlements, he might have gotten a fair amount of support

from american jews and from israelis if he had limited his freeze or his call for a freeze to settlements in the west bank, but what happened was he called for a freeze of settlements in jerusalem as well, and for virtually all israelis right center, and left, that is a red line because jerusalem is the capitol of israel, and for barak obama to tell the israelis they don't have the right to build in their capitol is like israel telling americans they have no right to build in washington, d.c.. it was going too far, and while he might have gotten support from part of the israeli public and part of the american-jewish community that doesn't like settlements and wants to see israel give them up. by making that mistake, he underminds his own goal again of trying to get pressure on israel

to stop the settlements. the other thing that happened that by focusing so much on the settlement issue and publicly in israel, he alienated the israeli public so according to one poll, 4% of israelis thought that president obama was a friend of israel. most people in washington, i can tell you, that president obama is a friend of israel, not an enemy. it doesn't matter. what matters is what israelis think and whether they have the perception whether america is not bind them, it is impossible for israel to take risks for peace, and whatever israel does in terms of negotiation with the palestinians going forward will involve risks, and they need to feel america is behind them, and by his approach, they didn't feel that, so it underminded his own objective of trying to get

the israelis to move forward on the peace, and at the same time, it also didn't work with the palestinians because two things happened with the palestinians. number one, when the palestinians saw after obama made the settlement such a big issue, basically the israelis continued to do some building. they didn't stop entirely in jerusalem, and from the palestinian speer spective and -- perspective and arab world, obama was well-meaning, but too weak to force israel to do what they want. the other thing that happened in term of the palestinians is they never refused to negotiate because of settlements. since 1993, the palestinians have negotiated with israel while settlements were being built. there was never a gland for a freeze. before obama demanded a freeze, they had been in negotiations with the prime minister who offered them 97% of the west bank for a palestinian state

that they turned down. once obama said we want israelis to freeze settlements, the palestinians couldn't say we are going to be less strict or less hard lined than the americans about this. we have to go for a settlement freeze too. what happened was instead of them coming forward to negotiate, they refused for 9 months. again, whether you like his policies october nor, just by his -- whether you like his policies or not, just by his first year objectives, it was a failure in about every way because he took the arab lobby's approach in the middle east. things are changing in part now because president obama, i think, is a pretty smart guy, a good politician, and he recognized it didn't work, and he replaced some of the arabists

who were running the show or influencing him on middle east policy with a guy named dennis ross, the world's most experience peace processer, and we seem to see some evidence that he's having an effect because when prime minister came to washington the second time, he was treated very well, given a very hearty welcome opposed to the first visit where he was humiliated and instead of beating israel with sticks, they are using carrots. they want to continue the freedz on settlements, but rather than beating them up with threats, they have reportedly offered them a variety of carrots in terms of different things the united states is willing to do if they are willing to extend the freeze for a couple of months. at the same time, they are tougher on abas in not accepting his idea he shouldn't have to

negotiate and it's a concession for him just to sit at the table in exchange for israel freezing the settlement, and now there's greater pressure and a recognition that he was an obstacle for the last year or two in the negotiations, and that he has to be pressured so we see a recalibration of not necessarily him adopting the israeli lobby position wholly, but certainly moving away from the arab lobby influence that i think was taking him down the wrong path the first year, and now we see some hope that there will be negotiations down the line that will immediate to a peace settlement. let me just finish with a historical note that we leave on a more positive note before i take questions, and that is even when things look fairly pessimistic as they may today,

there's mistore call -- historical precedent to think peace is possible. in 1947, do you know who was controlling palestine? great britain. they were deciding to turn power over to the united nations. why? they believed the u.n. would never get the jews and arabs to agree on a solution, and they would say, you brits do what you want, and the british adviser in palestine talked to a leader one day and he said, how did you let us take this issue in the united nations? don't you know the only way to get a jewish state is if unite and the jewish states agree? it can't happen. well, for the first time in history the united states and soviet union agreed. for 30 years, guys like me would

talk to greens like you saying the arabs can't make peace. i can show you all propaganda saying he's just like hitler. well, hitler decided to go to jerusalem in 1947, made peace, it took 15 more years before king hussein had the courage to make peace, but he did, and today we have peace between israel and two arab states, two muslim states which suggests to me that it is possible to have peace, if not maybe in 30 years, maybe in 50 years, god willing, it will happen much sooner. thank you very much. [applause] >> i'm going to be asking questions, some collected already, and others brought to me. the first question is of dr. bard. is there any reliable evidence,

not just rumor that the arab lobby helped suppress evidence of the complexity of the royal family in the attacks of 9/11? >> did the arab lobby suppress evidence? >> correct. >> related to saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. there is no hard evidence i know of that the arab lobby per se suppressed that. we know there's a lot of redacted information that never came out in the report that continue to be classified that certain members of congress suggested involves information about saudi involvement, but a lot of what they do doesn't necessarily have to be direct.

if you make the saudiss unhappy, but things can happy, and sometimes there's more explicit threats as is the case with the lawsuit by survivors of 9/11 against a couple of saudi royals and the reports were that the saudis threatened to pull out large amounts of money from the u.s. economy r and they have done that on other occasions as well. >> how have the saudiss been lobbying the u.s. administration with respect to the iranian threat? >> how is the lobby lobbying on the iranian threat? as i said, the principle concern of saudi arabia is the survival of the monarchy, and the saudis and other gulf states are peace process try mid by the iranians because they are closer and they

make no pretense about their designs or parts of the gulf. in fact, they occupy one of the bahrain and they have border disputes, and so the saw diplomatses are -- is a -- saudiss are scared to death of the iranian, but if they don't think that the united states will take action against the irans, then they will likely do one of two thing, and actually they have already done both. one is buying off the iranians. they have had meetings with iran in the past few years to try to appease them, and at the same time, they have signed a nuclear cooperation agreements, and they are likely to pursue a nuclear weapon, and perhaps maybe the iranian issue will be talked about generally, but one of the

dangers is not iran getting the bomb, but if they get the bomb, all the other arab states will want it to protect themselves, and saudis are first among them. >> is it possible for pro-israel organizations to combat the arab lobby to the extent it's aimed at destroying israel, and if so, how would you recommend that be done? >> can the israeli combat the arab lobby? well, first, much of the, you know, one of the things people ask is if the arab lobby is powerful, how's come u.s.-israel relations are strong. the fact is most of the arab lobby is not competing directly with the israeli lobby and the saudi lobby is focused on what's good for saudi arabia and cares less about israel. the one time where the saudi and israeli lobbies tend to clash is

over arms sales, and that really hasn't happened since 1981 when they defeated the lobby on the deal. now, as far as the arab-american domestic lobby groups, they do clash, but it hasn't been a fair fight because the lobby groups have not had much success because they don't have public support because they don't have a positive agenda, and most members of congress are not interested in separating u.s. policy from israel, so i think what the pro-israel lobby does is what they've always done which is try to convince the american people that it's in the u.s. interest to stengthen the relationship, not necessarily to be anti-anybody else. in fact, the israeli lobby are the ones that helped the i jeptions and jordannians get foreign aid. they tend to be more helpful and

antagonistic. the other thing that's interesting about the saudis when you read the state department documents is the saudis don't like israel. they would love that israel didn't exist, but for the most part, israel doesn't bother them. israel is not a threat to the monarchy, so what you see in the meetings, the u.s. diplomat is talking to the saudi and the foreign minister would say, you know, we really don't like israel. we wish you would do something about the israelis or stop supporting them, and then they say what we really care about is first it was the hashnites in the 50s and then it was the soviets in the cold war, and now it's iran. they may say we really don't like israel, don't support them when they talk with barak obama,

but you can be sure within a couple minutes it goes to the earlier question saying we are really worried about the iranians because they know israel won't attack saudi arabia, but iran might. >> you mentioned the sale in 198 1. how has the power of the arab lobbies waxed and weaned over that time with the presidential administrations rein how much has that changed their influence dependent on the sympathy of the president versus the power of the lobby itself? >> that's a good question. i'm not sure that the power waxed and waned much. it's been consistent. every president has given into saudi coercion and there's the talk how close the bush's were to the saudis and there was a close relationship, but so did every other president in terms of their willingness to give

into the saudiss in terms of arm sales and various policy in the middle east, so i don't think it's necessarily waxed and waned at all, but it's been fairly consistent, but the question is a good one because the most important factor in determines middle east policy is the president's policy. it's not just about lobbies. what matter is what's the president world view? the lobby that comes the closest to the president's world view on any particular issue is the one that tends to have influence on him, so the president's have their own views on the issues, but when there is some question or when there is conflict between the views of advisers, the one's whose views is consistent with the president's ideology wins. to give you an example in the truman administration, here's worn the most pro-israel

presidents who was after all, the one responsible for supporting partition, the one responsible for recognizing israel, and he accepted the advice of the pro-israel lobby and the pro-israel advisors who wanted him to support partition and support the recognition of israel, but at the same time, he also embargoed arms to the jewish state making it much more difficult for them to defend themselves in the war of indense. why did he do that? well, he went along with the advisors from the state department who convinced him that this would be a way of reducing bloodshed, and part of his ideology, tru man's ideology was he wanted to avoid bloodshed. this was one way you influence presidents. now, to take barak obama, for example, you can't prove all the time where the lobbying influence starts and where it

ends. in the case of his views on settlements, i suspect he has strong personal composition to settlements, and maybe somewhere elsier in his career someone put that idea into his head or influenced him in a way, but certainly today, i don't think he needs to be pushed to oppose settlements. that's something he feels very strongly about. >> do you believe there will be lobbying in support of a u.n., unilateral declaration of the state in 2011? will the saudis and other arab nations push that along with the europeans, and how if that happens, can the pro-israel organizations combat that? >> well, is there going to be an effort to declare a unilateral palestinian state? there's been more and more discussion of that, and one of the parts of the arab lobby that i really don't talk about so much in the book until, you know, i talk about a little bit

at the end is the foreign component, and that probably in some ways part of the strongest parts of the lobby are from the europeans, the united nations, and some of the international nongovernmental organizations, and europerns basically -- europeans have basically already said they are ready to recognize a state of palestine. the one thing that separates the desire to have a yiewn unilateral state is the u.s. position. that as long as the united states is unwilling to recognize the state of palestinian stein not created but negotiations, it's not likely it will be created and even the pressure from the u.n. from european governments and arab states, it's not going to happen unless the united states is convinced of it, and as of now, i don't see evidence of it and i think

the israeli lobbyists will try to lobby congress to minimize or pressure the white house to make sure they don't support such a thing, but i think if a certainly consideration and a legitimate concern that if were some reason, president obama decide to change his views on that subject, a palestinian state will exist like that. >> you mentioned that the arab lobby donates money to people after they leave office including presidents with their libraries. how much do you believe that arab money, saudi money influenced president carter and now clinton to come out against israel? >> well, in terms of carter if you thought seeing his diary that came out, you can see that he was no friend of israel when he was the president, that it's really quite remarkable when you

read his comments about just about every israeli leader. he has nothing good to say about them, but he loves every arab dictator, the guy who murdered 20,000 of his own people, a wonderful guy, a peacemaker, you know, the saudi king leading in the government, a great guy, terrific peace enthusiast even though he underminded camp david and on and on. i don't think necessarily the saudi money afterwards to the carter cementer, and they have given a lot, was a major influence. i think carter already had his own views an an mist towards israel, and there's a variety of people asking all the time, why is jimmy carter anti-israel and why does he hold the attitudes he does? one, carder tends to confuse his initials with someone else who has the same initials.

[laughter] [applause] second, one of the reasons he really dislikes them supposedly is there's a famous story when he came to the white house, president carter asked him if he wanted to -- [inaudible] he said no, and carter never quite forgave him for that. on a more serious note, he has never gotten over his belief that the israelis lied to him about a settlement freeze during camp david, a big promise to freeze settlements for three months, and carter is convinced to this day that he promised to do it for the length of the peace negotiations, and he basically is very bitter about that which by the way, the settlement freeze for three months didn't work then and was

a good press precedent for why it's not working now, and finally talking about the diary, he's bitter because he was defeated for reelection in part because jews abandoned him in groves that he got the lowest jewish vote of any democrats since i believe 1924 because american jews did not believe that he was a friend of israel, and he seems to be totally puzzled by this now.

i talked about george w. bush who i said was but you could look at a whole number of decisions he made that were anti-israel in a way or were critical or punitive against israel. no president is going to do everything israel wants and that is okay. >> if israel and the pro-israel lobby began to take the position that the evidence shows a

palestinian state would be a mistake and contrary both of the safety and security of israel and the stability in the middle east which is the united states interest, would there be any possibility of turning around the ship which is setting in the direction of pushing for palestinians. >> it is the pro-israel lobby in america concluded it to state solution was not in israel's interest would there be a way of changing the the policy? >> the basic philosophy of the the democracy have the right through their democratic representatives to determine all issues related to peace and security and the government of israel makes those

decisions and those of us who are 6,000 or more miles away are not in a position to tell the people of israel have to live at the consequences the children have to fight in war and go to the army what they should live with. [applause] that's the traditional israeli lobby position and if you don't have that position what we basis with a lobby have for policy if you don't go by what they want it's just by the majority of a particular group of jews in a particular place, or a particular jewish organization of pro-israel organization or how are you going to come up with a policy? it's very difficult to conceive how he would have any kind of consistent policy that would make any sense if you didn't do that. there is another lobby out there that has taken a different view and it's basically the arab lobby of view that i described

earlier and we in america know what's best for israel and the israelis are too stupid, immature, publicly constrained, evil, for whatever they do it's not best for them and therefore the united states has to go and beat them to a pulp until they do what is good for them of a lobby who is on satisfied with the policy and because they can't win over the people of israel so their point of view is going to force it on the people of israel as the same thing with the walter mer share argument the people who are unhappy with the israeli lobby. the problem isn't that the israel lobby is all powerful or that the people like walter and jimmy carter are silenced and don't get to express their view the problem is their views aren't persuasive. they have lost of the debate and rather than simply accept the

fact that most americans don't agree with them they believe somehow they are being persecuted and the policy should be what ever they say it is even though that is not what most americans believe. the israeli lobby is going to change the policy of the state of israel, the state of israel has come around for its own reasons from the believe one day of a palestinian state been too dangerous, to the idea of a consideration in jordan to novelist several prime ministers solution is the best opportunity for israel to have peace. again, the israel lobby, i'm not going to advocate in one way or the other i am just going to tell you the position of the establishment of the israeli lobby is to support the elected government of israel. >> and if the government were to revert back to the original

position -- if they did that with the possibility of giving these christian zionists and jewish organizations to back the israeli government and who now rejecting a palestinian state? >> i don't see the policy going backwards for a whole variety of reasons. but as i say, this is one of the things i always found absurd about criticism of apec that people who would say a packed his become a right-wing republican organization. apec whether you like it or not goes by the policy of the government of israel. if the government of israel to mauro says we are giving up, a pack is going to come out with talking points why israel can give up and i can tell you now how many years since 73 we have had in the israeli lobby has had the talking points for why that is bad for israel's security. but if israel decides that that

is something it can live with, the pro-israel lobby is going to support it. and just as now the lobby supports the two state solution and the creation of a palestinian state, not everybody likes it. everybody understands that there are dangers and problems and as long as that is the government policy that's what they are going to support. if somehow a new government comes to power with completely different perspective, if something happens in the middle east that causes everybody to change their views if the haitian mights fall from power in jordan and totally the palestinians take over jordan, hezbollah takes over lebanon, muslim brotherhood takes over egypt, all things that can happen by the way, you don't know what change in policy might be. but for now, i don't see a reason why we are going to go back to a confederation to jordan because the jordanians don't want it and most israelis agreed that they are willing to

give up the territories in exchange. >> is the arab lobby more influential among the either political parties? >> is the arab lobby more influential in either political party? not really. they aren't very influential within the party is tall because, again, they have a very small numbers. they contribute relatively little money directly to the campaigns. and most of what they do is, again, focused not on the bottom-up and on the congress where they have a difficult time having influence, but the focus more on the state department and the white house where they can afterdeck influence, and it doesn't matter what party, the state department is secure permanent bureaucracy and by winning friends in the permanent bureaucracy, then when the parties change power, the white house changes hands it doesn't affect the state department that

much because you have these entrenched analysts trying to keep policies consistent with their views. but if you look historically i think probably they are more arab americans involved in the democratic party probably greater access through the democratic party not a great deal of influence, but overwhelmingly registered as democrats, whether they have much influence i don't think so. >> you mentioned that in washington, d.c. president obama is considered to be a friend of israel based on what? [applause] >> one of the problems with assessing the u.s. israel relationship is that it tends to be entirely through the prism of the peace process, and what's reported in "the new york times" or on cnn, and the u.s.

relationship is not the peace process. whenever there is any kind of tension in the peace process it gives the impression that the relationship is in trouble, that there is a crisis, that whoever has caused the tension is somehow critical of israel. if you look so at the web of relationships between the united states and israel, they are stronger people than ever before, some of which obama has contributed to in terms of a lot of new military cooperation. to sell israel the new most advanced stealth fighter plane. there's been a number of other military developments. israel as being of the united states fully funding one of the antirocket, anti-missile systems. there's a lot of cooperation going on that you don't read about in the new york times. it's not sexy.

each of the 50 states have relationships with israel. something like 20 to have their own agreements on a state-by-state basis. states like california doing something on the order of a billion dollars worth of trade with israel every year. we have relationships between most of the universities and the united states, universities and israel. you have police going to israel of security officials, you have all kind of things going on between the united states and israel but don't get the publicity which are really the true indicators of the strength of the relationship and president obama, as i said, i think that he pursued an approach in the middle east and the first year which by his own standards was counterproductive. but in terms of his over all interested in i think middle east peace, i'm not convinced

he's anti-israel. there may be things he can do that some people would like better, but i don't think that he's got a particular animus against israel. >> how warmly received as your book and by the arab lobby and watch its market in the united states government? >> how warm we've been received, everybody loves my book. just ask my mother. [laughter] there have been the reviews have been pretty consistently positive. mostly the order will be wanted to go away and they don't want to talk about it, but it's interesting when you write a book because you find out some very interesting things about how the people review books. for example, one thing you discover is people like to review books without reading them. and it's sort of like a ponzi scheme where one person reviewed my book and didn't like who wrote the blurb on the back and

so said nasty things about the book and then someone else then quoted the first guy and the third person quoted the second month of the three actually had read the book or another guy who criticized the book for being slightly foot noted. ladies and gentlemen this because over 600 foot notes, so you take some of the criticism with a grain of salt, but overwhelmingly the review in commentary magazine or the "national review" online or the review that was in the jerusalem post and the daily beast and a variety of other places was a full-page q&a this last week. so i'm pretty pleased with the reception it's gotten because this is fundamentally based on research. this is my personal opinion. this was based on hundreds and hundreds of documents, primary

documents from the state department, interviews from the leading state department officials who were involved in making policy. this is many years in the making. so i am pretty confident that and will inform you i think about a great deal of things that you probably never knew were going on behind your backs and now that you know, hopefully you can do something about it. thank you very much. [applause] >> michel bard is a good executive doherty to of the is really clobbered on enterprise. for more information, visit michelbard.com. >> at the national book press club talking to eugene robinson about his book disintegration the splintering of black america. can you tell me how you came to form the group in the new

splintering? >> it seemed to work out that way. it seems like an arbitrary number. it seemed to be the way it worked out. there was a one group of the mainstream middle class black a minute. was one group was the abandoned non-middle class black america, and then the other groups were, you know, i did think that the assistance of a small but very powerful elite was something new and so i call that the transcendent group and then i knew the category to deal with other groups who didn't fit the categories like immigrants, for example from caribbean and africa and also racial americans, and so i thought they would kind of fit into an umbrella group called the emergence. >> yes, i notice you put new

immigrants and by racial people together. and you were comfortable with that, grouping them under the same umbrella? >> well, i was most comfortable with that. was not precise, and it didn't make for as clean a category as the other categories. however, i thought of the similarities -- the concept of the emergence, the group's that were becoming more prominent among larger numbers before and at least acknowledge in those numbers before and i thought were going to be more important in the future. so i was comfortable with that aspect of it. i kind of wished it had worked out exactly but i didn't think the kind of stood alone either as separate groups.

>> can you tell me which of the groups you think has expanded the most in recent years? >> has what? >> expanded the most in recent years. >> welcome and numerical terms, i would say probably the mainstream just because it's numbers are so great that relative to really any of the others that i would say depending on what you consider recent years. in the middle of this recession -- >> let's say the last decade. >> i would say the mainstream group has expanded the most in real terms and the emergence group is especially the immigrants has expanded the most in percentage terms. >> what are some of the more surprising findings that you view and came upon in writing the book? >> there were tons of them, there were so many things from that he research center study

that showed 37% of african-americans didn't believe black americans could still be thought of as a single race. i thought that was really a striking figure. after a certain age, there is a -- there's something like a 40% chance that a black woman i believe in her early 20s would never marry as opposed to a 20% chance for a white woman. i thought that was an interesting figure. so there are lots of these things like kind of stumbled across. >> were there any stark comparisons to white americans and similar groups? >> well, yes, there are some. one is even if you compare the middle class to middle class there is a stark difference in wealth as opposed to income. middle class and middle class is very close now guelph is a huge gap and that's something that

some people have been talking and thinking a lot about including bob johnson, the billionaire, who has a project about that. >> and do you tap into any solutions for kind of stopping the splintering or -- >> if it may be a process that kind of happens. a lot of it is organic. what i do hope i have identified some possible solutions for the plight of this abandoned a group which i think is the group that is kind of meeting our urgent attention right now. >> thank you very much for your time.

>> mr. younger, thank you for being with us in miami. we are going to hear from you a little while. you were going to do a presentation. i wanted to ask about your book, "war." who is on the cover? >> that is a soldier i was with, brendan o'burne. i became very good friends with him. the only guy in the platoon who got out of the army after the of war and we became -- we continue to be very good friends back home. >> you open the book with him and close the book with him. what was his role? >> he sort of was the person who -- they all thought about what they were doing. he was the one who was able to

think about it and put those thoughts into words. so, for me, as a journalist, he was sort of and valuable. like he, you know, the task they had, they were getting killed, they were fighting, they were killing other people coming and he kind of process it all and put into a verbal form that i could understand so i just connected with him on that level and then we can free difference actually. >> are you still in touch with a lot of the soldiers who worked with over there? >> ibm, through the miracle of facebook j.ust finished another deployment than the one i was on. they just came back like ten days ago in afghanistan but ier was able to keep in touch with them and brendon i speak to every few days because he's inew the u.s..u. s >> you have a map in your book n "war." where were you based when you went over there and who gets to name the basis?s >> the bases are often named th? after soldiers who've been

killed.after andsold so, a 1520 minute outpon a ridge very remote, no phones today outside world, thery remo, pnternet, the cooked food, no u running water, no way to davee running water, no way to base and a lot of combat. that was named after the platoon medic who was killed in july of 2007 at the beginning of deployment. i was with second platoon battle company and we were in canard province in eastern afghanistan along the pakistan border. specifically in a six mile valley. for a while when i was there, it was the scene of almost a fifth of all the combat and all of afghanistan. >> sebastian junger is our guest. his most recent book is "war". if you would like to participate in this program 2025853885.

in eastern central time zone, 3886. go ahead and buy in. we only have 30 minutes with sebastian junger. salvatore just received the medal of honor. he is featured in your book. >> that was in first platoon battle company. about 150 men. he was first platoon. i met him a few times out there. extraordinarily nice guy. he did something very brave. everyone out there was brave. his act wouldn't have meant anything without the bravery of everyone around him but he did save a platoon mate from being dragged off, wind but alive by the enemy during a lifetime ambition. he took two rounds to his bulletproof vest while doing it but he did get his friend back. >> we just had the 2010

elections. afghanistan did not play a major does that disappoint you worse surprise you? >> elections are such weird things. i think afghanistan is on the forefront of the obama administration's minds. elections are strange creatures. work is a complicated and unpleasant topic. the reality is no one wants to bring it up if they don't have to. >> should the u.s. get out of afghanistan? are they ready? >> i am a journalist. i don't make policy recommendations. but i can clarify the consequences for the stakes. everything we do will have an upside and downside. the downside to being in afghanistan was we lose soldiers. the possible upside is the united states has not been attacked since 9/11. i don't know if they're

connected. they may not be but they might be connected. if u.s. leaves and we are affected and there probably is a connection between those two things and the nation will have to decide, do we go to afghanistan and lose soldiers or not the and afghanistan and suffer a terrorist attack everyone's a work? i can't answer which is worse. >> we are up the miami book fair international with dr. sebastian junger. first call from montana. >> you are a terrific reporter and i enjoy reading you very much. when it comes to afghanistan especially in the mort tribal world areas, are we not going to have to except some sort of taliban or taliban like presence in those areas because of how we consider modern society? they really are in the tenth

century and a lot of places. >> guest: the afghans let the taliban take care of the problem of violence and corruption that was plaguing afghanistan and the irony of nato's mission is essentially we are protecting a government that is very corrupt. the afghans heat the taliban. most afghans hate the taliban. but they also hate corruption. we are giving them this weird choice. we're here to protect you from the taliban but also giving you a corrupt government. i don't think there's any tactic in the war that will succeed until we solve that basic contradiction in our policy. >> host: "war" is published by 12 or books. next call from texas.

>> you just mentioned the corruption. is this a corrupt government, we are allies with a corrupt government that doesn't give us any type of loyalty from the people outside the corruption and with all this corruption people outside the corruption getting no services it is a losing partnership with the corrupted government. >> i think you are right so the question is how to change the government so it is not correct. that is something the afghan people can be proud of and support with conviction. i am afraid the only way to do that is to call hamid karzai's bluffing leave afghanistan. if we do it will be a bloodbath. it will go back to the civil war of the 90s. enormous amount of suffering. that kind of threat may be the only thing that forces hamid

karzai to free up his government but i'm just guessing. >> have you been following the summit taking place in portugal talking about afghanistan's strategy? >> i haven't seen the news and a couple days. but i'm curious what they're it is effective problem. >> did you work solely with americans or did you see international forces as well when you were there? >> for this project that was just with american soldiers. i have been going to afghanistan since 1996 and so i have been with the afghan people many times with the northern lines when they took cobble. once there were french fighter planes that came in and helped out when we were in a tight position, but that was close as i got to national forces.

>> host: who is your photojournalist and what is the total on the back of the book? >> the photographer i worked with is tim feather. my partner to up the project. we shot a lot of video together and made a documentary. he took all the still photographs. that is a photo of an interim squad rumble. the guys were pretty physical with each other and if enough days went by without a firefight there would be constant combat. they would just get antsy and things like this would erupt. they never actually damage each other but it was pretty rough play. >> host: kentucky, please go ahead. >> caller: just wondering, surrounded by some of the best troops in the world, were you ever in fear for your life? >> of course.

if you're getting shot at, you have no control over what bullets do and the one that hits near you keep still i had one hit a few inches from my head. it could have easily hit my head and wouldn't be here. anytime you are in combat you reach an understanding that you could get killed for shore. that was just a reality of being out there. >> host: did the troops lookout for you? >> guest: my security was set from the fact that they were protecting the unit so it wasn't like i needed any kind of particular scrutiny. i was safe. they focused on what they had to do. i have been in a lot of worse. i covered worse since 1993. i know how to handle a self. once in awhile i do something stupid that they point out but in terms of protecting the, our security lay in the group security.

>> host: any restrictions on what you could write about? >> guest: any journalist in the u.s. attorney signed document that says you will not write about or portray something dangerous to u.s. security or the security of the soldiers. fortunately that information is very hard to come by. you can't take head shots of bases and things like that. it never came up. in all the videos that are shot in my book, the military never asked to see any footage or see my notes and never tried to direct my conclusions or my perception in anyway. i was very impressed. >> host: walnut creek, calif..

good afternoon. >> no one is pointing out the huge sums of money. you hire 100,000 people with $100,000 salary to just end war. you can't just buy these people off. seems like a non of the journalists writing books and making money. any of them pointing out this solution for that. had many people go to the rally and what kind of things happen. of money that is spent just doesn't -- the numbers don't make sense over here. all these people are starving. they don't have water and we're spending 10 times more money just to end at. >> host: billions of dollars are

going into a project in afghanistan, reconstruction project, trying to build government and rule of law. billions of dollars are rebuilding that country after 20 years of warfare. in terms of buying off the taliban you are assuming that the taliban commanders want money but they don't. what they want is afghanistan. you can pay them a one hundred thousand dollars each. opium trade and all that and that is not what they're after so that won't works very well. >> host: washington d.c.. >> military families for progress. saw the film, met u.s. the mayflower when you were here. phenomenal piece of work. to show the to pocket the in which these people live and survive gives an idea of their determination. it was one of the best, accurate

pictures i have seen on the subject and our applaud you and we still have to stay in because the nato meeting, these taliban folks like a fungus will stay in there if we don't remain and will go on. thank you for your work. >> guest: i appreciate that. i should say when the soviets invaded it was a real invasion. back to the and the turks. when the u.s. went in, when they know when to of the afghanistan when the u.s. went in and buy was literally getting hud by afghans because i was american. they were so grateful to be rid of the taliban. they saw it as a foreign occupation by pakistan. the reality now is nato is fighting an element of the past

in society. it is not the afghans. it really is the element in the past in tribe pact by pakistan. it is an important distinction to make between this situation and the soviet situation. >> host: one of the real worse are in pakistan. is that real belief. >> guest: they are smart guys. military eavesdrops on radio communication and we get reports from those eavesdropping operation that basically translate what they overheard. constantly, they were saying we are getting more ammunition from pakistan. more fighters from pakistan. pakistan says this or that. 20 miles walk from pakistan into

the valley. so the soldiers themselves were keenly aware the source of the problem was just across the border. not the pakistani government but elements. >> host: did you ever cross the border into pakistan? >> guest: no. >> host: next call is from arizona. >> caller: first off, i want to sincerely thank you for a great piece of work. this has been the first book. i am totally blind and this is the first book i have been able to read as an e book. i commend you and your publisher for allowing that to be published so that a blind person with an iphone can read the book. the second thing i want to commend you on is to you have any recordings of the sounds

that when don? totally audio recordings or video to described the versions of the documentary? >> i have floated. the interesting thing we are doing, the e book came out a month ago and i am glad you were able to read it. that is great. what we just started doing a few days ago is i took the footage that my partner shot and inserted it into the be book. you might be reading a paragraph that describes a fire fight. i have footage of that fire fight and there is an image that you can click on as a frame from the video and watch one or two minutes of footage of that fire fight you are reading about or that conversation or whatever it maybe. in that, you will get the audio even if you can't see the image

you will get the audio of whatever the situation is. >> new orleans, you are on booktv. get on with your question for sebastian junger. >> caller: i left a message for the congressional depart -- the defense to guard the opium trade is in the hands of the taliban. suggested why couldn't we bombed the poppy fields and maybe the taliban would be interested at all? >> the poppy fields are very extensive. i don't think there are enough bombs to do that. it would be like bombing a week in kansas. in addition, people who are farming the poppy are very poor people. it is the only way they can make a living. it is a very poor country. they are not making much money. the money is made at higher levels.

higher levels of management levels. that is where the money is made. you would actually alienate the poppy farmers who are growing poppies just to survive that you would be touching the people who are at the root of the problem. >> next call from hartford, connecticut. >> caller: 9 name is from pakistan. i haven't read your book. i have been falling pakistan for while. biases and is afghanistan war is a war by proxy is within the civil war. that is my assessment. the others say is the have too much hype about corruption. it was never to fight corruption. corruption is part of the economy. thank you very much. >> guest: in many countries corruption is part of the economy. is a different thing when it is at the core of government.

when it is how people in power, ministers make millions and millions of dollars illegally. that is a very different form of corruption that street level corruption and bribery that happens in many third world countries. you are right. the u.s. did not go into afghanistan to weed out corruption. the taliban had done that quite effectively. it is now our problem and corruption is undermining all the sacrifices of nato soldiers and afghan civilians in this work. the corruption is dealt with for all is for not. it has to be something that has to be solved. >> host: will be working on now? >> i will go to africa on assignment. for vanity fair. i don't have a book project yet. i will take a little break. this was pretty intense project. it will take awhile to gear up

for another one. >> host: would be right about? >> guest: i don't have an idea yet. this project completely wiped me out. intellectually, emotionally, physically. i'm still rebidding. >> host: i you haven't tse? >> guest: a little bit. everyone gets it. a close relative dies. you are in a car accident. you are in combat. i had nightmares and was pretty jumpy for a while. it is not the end of the world. it went away. but it is trauma. how your mind processes something that was very upsetting. >> host: why are you going to africa and where? >> east africa. the ward of africa is an interesting area. somalia is off-limits.

the whole area, it is really problematic and interesting. i have some interesting insights to understand it. >> host: there has been an increase in attention to yemen in the last several months or year or so politically. >> guest: it is obviously the birthplace of al qaeda. a lot is not under government control. it is an ideal place like afghanistan to base a global criminal movement or terrorist movement. the country has a lot of problems that will have to be dealt with. >> host: california, you are on with sebastian junger. >> caller: i heard one of the returning military commanders say that he thought perhaps the best way to deal with corruption was not to start at the top but

to start at the field level, bottom levelland take one area at a time and try to replace one local guy at a time with a more honest alternative. they did a little bit in iraq in that particular valley. do you think's that is a viable way to approach getting rid of corruption? >> guest: how did you protect those people? you take a corrupt person out of the district and replace a corrupt governor with an honest governor. the forces of corruption are very powerful. there's a lot of money at stake. i think you will just be killed. that is how it works. i think as long as the message coming down from the top government level, hamid karzai,

corruption is okay. as long as that message is coming down people will be bullied and killed and manipulated. you really have to start with hamid karzai and work your way down. the only way to do that is essentially to threat and to pull out of afghanistan if he does not take certain measures to combat corruption and the reason that might work is if nato leaves carl zeiss is dead and he knows that. i don't think he would call our bluff. i'm just guessing. it seems like a reasonable one. it is a risky poker hand for sure but it could work. >> host: conn, go ahead with your question for sebastian junger. >> i am interested in