communists. this prepared her later on to deal with them. >> thank you for your time. .lead in keeping.. write: being partisan does not allow one to fail in honesty, to fail to tell the truth: >> host: what's your objective in your writings? >> guest: you know, ever since i began doing writing which i first started writing for radio, i was writing radio commentaries first, i felt like it was part >> guest: i felt like it was part of political organizing. ws i never felt like i was writing a book for history, or i was writing an essay for the poet in us all. i appreciate the writing foritin history, i appreciate poetry,ety but for me it was always very practical. it was because it was a story that needed to be told.

it was an analysis that i thought would help mobilize people to change the world, usually to end a war somewhere. and in this case of thatrtic particular book, "from stones to statehood," part of what we werw trying to do was to give a voice to palestinians who were living under occupation this time ofrst the first uprising that started in 1987, '88. and i was working with a photographer, and we were there for a newspaper and can suddenly decided, you know what? this is a bigger story than awht newspaper story, we should do a book. and it became a photo book with my text, much of which is not mine at all, it's the voices ofe palestinians we met with. all kinds of people from all over the occupied territories. and neil's photographs.er and it was to give voice, in that case, to someone else, really, much more thanin to me.t >> host: where did youo gain yo: perspective? >> guest: ooh, that's a hard one. you know, i grew up jewish in

california which was defined de much more in the context of being pro-israel than it was about religion. so god really didn't figure into it, but israel figured really big. and i grew up very active in the sine onist -- zionist youth groups, all that stuff. that's how i learned my firstor organizing skills, i think.hat, so that, in a is especially, taught me a certain way of looking at the world politically, but, of course, it was a very different set of politics than what i came to -- later i went away to college, went to university and sort of spent all my time organize oing against those last years of the war in vietnam.m. and i wasn't thinking about the middle east at all. and can then when something happened that i don't really remember, something put the issue of the middle east in front of me, and i rememberemem thinking, i think i was wrong about that israel stuff. and i went to my father'sther library and read hertz l, the founder of modern zionism, and i

thought, what was i thinking? this guy was a lunatic.hat so i started changing my whole perspective, but it was really vietnam that taught me a whole new way of looking at the world. >> host: why? >> guest: partly, i think, i wai learning because i had the extraordinary good fortune of being an age where i was at university in the big years of anti-war organizing. i started at university at 17 in 1968. so i was there from '68 to '72, the years when student protest and mobilization was the top of our agenda. i, i sometimes say that i majored in protest, you know, at university because i certainly spent much more time doing that than i did actually studying. and i have no regrets for that, but i think that it taught me, it taught me things like how toe look at the world from the perspective of somebody else. so i started thinking about what it would be like to be this vietnam, to be a vietnamese facing these bombings and this

occupation that was going on. and then trying to think what it would be like for u.s. soldiers. i never got that far with tryinm toys put myself into thatri position, but i tried.at but it was that sense of trying to look at other places in the world that i had never been andt thinking about what my government was doing, even the things -- especially the things i didn't like, how it was likely to be affecting them more thantm how it was going to affect me. >> host: well, let's get this ti question out of the way. does israel have a right to exist? >> guest: you know, it's a funny question. i don't think countries haveount rights like that. i don't think france has a right to exist. france exists. israel exists. israelis have rights. people have rights. israelis have rights,hts, palestinians have rights. i don't i think countries have rights. you know, if we look at our country, our country was founded on the basis of slavery and genocide and stealing otherople people's lands, or most of whomd we then wiped out.now,

now, does that mean we have arih right to exist? i don't see history that way. i think that we stole the rights and the lives of a whole lot off over people, and we haveve obligations to make good ond those rights.ghts how we do that can change, but i think that the notion of rightss is really something that belongl to people more than to countries. >> host: when you travel to theo middle east, do you have trouble getting into israel now because of your writing? >> guest: i haven't so far. many of my friends do. i think that if i look at l someone like one of my greaty mentors and friends, richard r falk, a noted professor ofss international law who is currently the united nations' special reporter on human rights, the last time he tried to enter to carry out his u.n. mandate he was arrested at the tel aviv airport, thrown in an

immigration jail cell and was held overflight and put on -- overnight and put on a plane and sent out the next morning, was never allowed to enter israel. i have other friends who have been turned away at the airport. somehow being jewish doesn'that provide the protection for that, let's say. leaving the airport i've had my share of being searched, etc., being treated very roughly. that's kind of a given. but i vice president had any -- haven't had any trouble getting in yet. in >> host: in the last couple of years you've within working on a primer series, "ending the iraq war," "understanding the u.s./iran crisis" and ending the u.s. war in afghanistan." where did these come from? >> guest: you know, the firsts was the israel very palestine one -- israel-palestine one. we chose to name understandinghe the palestinian-israeli conflict to shake that up a little bit. that one came out of a project

that had actually started several years earlier with colleagues of mine who had aske me if i would put together whati they called a primer as alled pamphlet. and and we weren't sure exactly what form it should take. we wanted just something that would be easily and accessible for people who are interested in the issue but didn't reallyis necessarily know anything about. it.ybe maybe because they're educatedwl people would be a little bitit embarrassed to admit they don't know some ofn the basice ba questions. who are the palestinians? many why are they there? are jews and israelis the sames thing? those kinds of basic questions. so i did this pamphlet. pam and then in discussing with it h very close friend and colleague of mine, my publisher who's palestinian, he said, you know, we should do this as a book with. why don't you expand it and do t it as a book. and it turned out that the hardest part of doing that bookd much harder than writing the answers, was figuring out the questions.ers we decided to do it as

frequently-asked questions. so it's really like -- well, in fact, all of them are, like, web sites disguised as books. you know, you don't have to sit and read the whole book. you can look at the list of questions and say, that's what i wanted to know. kn and you can read two or three to pages to answer that question.pa so t really aimed at providing very basic understanding. what is zionism? why did it emerge when it did? those kinds of very basic questions. and, of course, it's my own opinions. those books don't have a lot of footnotes. some of them have more thanthan others, but they're mainly a way -- i sort of imagine it ass if i were speaking somewhere.sp and after you give a speech somebody says, i have a question. q and they ask their question, and this is my answer to their question. so i write the way i talk. the goal being to make it,, again, as accessible as possible. so it's not seen as being the defellowshiptive work on --it's definitive work on x, y or z,

but it's a way to help people oe figure stuff out. particularly the later ones on iraq and afghanistan, the newest one, which i did with a colleague of mine who spends quite a bit of time thisly a afghanistan, we were really aimed very specifically at providing a tool for people whoe are opposed to those wars which now i just read a new poll last night, in fact, a new cnn polles indicates that only 32% of people in this country support u the war in afghanistan. that's a huge drop this levels of support.su and it seems that everybody else doesn't pay attention to that in this town, in washington where the decisions made.ons nobody's really recognizing the significance of that. and is so we wrote that book as a tool for those people to give them answers. ans when somebody says to you, well, that's fine, you want to be against the war, but what would happen to the women in afghanistan, well, there's an answer that we learned from women in afghanistan who said the war is not helping us. the war is not making our livess better.

the vast majority, peter, of women who die too young in afghanistan -- and there's an huge number of women who die too young -- they don't die because they're killed by the taliban. they, in fact, don't even die because they're killed by u.s. bombs although they're killed by both of those things. they're killed because they die in childbirth because there's no health care available. and according to the united nations, afghanistan now is theo second worst country in the world for women to survive childbirth. sur it's the worst country in the world for children. unicef's figures are that afghanistan is the worst place in the world for a child to be b born and expect to live to her or his first birthday or thenth the fifthda birthday. and that's after nine years of n u.s. occupation.ccup so can we really say that we're doing any good for the women of afghanistan? i don't think so. >> host: should the u.s. havei o gone into afghanistan in the>> first place after 9/11?e af >> guest: not militarily. not the way we did. the crimes of 9/11 were horrific

crimes. they were crimes against c humanity. but i don't think you solve a crime by war.ime and i think that was as true for a massive crime as for a smallll crime. if we look at those people whose have actually been caught, the leadership peopl e of al-qaeda that have ended up in u.s. custody, that sort of thing,f we're not seeing that they are caught in bombing raids. we're seeing that it's good intelligence that finds them. it means that we need international cooperation. we need the international t criminal court. you know, one of the things ings did -- it was actually one ofdi the fun things in writing these books, i wrote one book right after 9/11 that was, again, designed to help sort of sort out -- >> host: which one was that? >> guest: that was "before and after: u.s. foreign policy on the september 11th crisis." and the goal there was to try and look at why did the u.s. dok what it did, why did it see war as an immediate response to that

terrible crime, and was thatle c really so different than earliei decisions that had been made in u.s. foreign policy, or was thie something very new and different?ll the book really tries to look at that, but one of the things ido got to do that book was write the speech that george bush s shouldho have written and shoule have given that night, when he should have ordered the plane to land after he finished reading "my pet goat" to the children in the school room. he should have given a speech to the american people, and he would have said -- i forget exactly how i wrote withsa it, c some version of we have been the victims of a terrible, terrible crime. and can -- we will do nothing to prevent us from finding and bricking to justice the people -- bringing to justicee. the people responsible for this crime, but we are going to make a commitment here tonight that too many people have already died, and we are going to doth thog that leads to the death of more innocents in the name of o fighting against this terrible crime to which we have been subjected. and that's why we're now n

realizing why we need the united nations, why we need the international criminal court, why we need to understand ourune role in the world in a whole a different way than we ever did. and, unfortunately, he didn't give that speech. he gave a very different speech. >> host: welcome to booktv's "in depth." this is our monthly program,our first sunday of every month, m where we feature one author and hisur or her body of work. this month it's phyllis bennis of the institute for policy the studies and the author of eighth books plus two edited books. here's a list of phyllis bennis' work. she began with 1990 with "from stones to statehood." then she edited or helped edit two books, beyond the storm and altered states. then in 2000 she published calling the shots, before and after was published in 2003.efor challenging empire in 2006, and then her primer series began last year. "understanding the

palestinian-israeli conflict '09," "ending the iraq war" 2009. understanding the u.s.-iran crisis also in '09, and then her most recent, "ending the u.s. war in afghanistan." phyllis bennis, what was your work on "altered states." >> guest: that was a fun one. that was an anthology i did with my publisher that was looking at the end of the cold war and whan was it going to mean fortrie countries other than the u.s.? so we have authors in that booki from an amazing array oftrie countries, from the haiti, fromm eastern europe, from france,ance from several different african countries, from all the all countries in the middle east,frm from latin america. and we were trying -- what we w found was writers who were involved in social movements inl their own countries who were involved at the time this trying to recalibrate what their own governments were doing, what w their own peoples were doing tod respond to this whole newhol situation in the world where

suddenly there was only one superpower. and we called it altered statesa a reader this new world order,ht because that was the term that george bush -- george bush i -- had coined for that period when suddenly there's this whole different way of thinking about where's the a u.s. position in e world, but at the same time there was no attention being paid to all the other people o around the world who did not live in the soviet union or russia in that transition, but were engaged in a huge transition of their own.us so what we tried to do there was find people who knew about all these countries that we knew t very little about at the time. i didn't know anything aboutwe haiti, for instance. and we got a fascinating piece. so i think that the effect of the cold war particularly on countries of the global south, n the countries of africa, latin america, the middle east, asia, the countries that are not the most developed, wltiest countries -- wealthiest countries of the world. in that very specific period ofo

about 1990 to 1992, '93 when the transition was still very lively and very active, that's what wey tried to look at in that book. >> host: we're going to put the phone numbers up on the screen if you'd like to participate. 202 is the area code, 737-001 i the east and central time zones, 737-0002 for those of you thishe the mountain and pacific time zones. you can also send us an e-mail, booktv at booktv@cspan.org, or send us a tweet, twitter.com/c-span -- i'a sorry. twitter.com/booktv. it's at booktv is our twitterkt address. in your primer, "understandinge, the u.s.-iran crisis," you write: despite claims by the bush administration and others, there is also no evidence iran n has a military program to build nuclear weapons. >> guest: yeah. that's -- >> host: do you stand by that?

>> guest: i stand by that. there is simply no evidence. what the u.n. watchdog, thech iaea, the international atomicie energy agency, has said is that there are unanswered questions. and iran certainly is in violation of its agreements with the iaea to answer those to questions and provide theques information. the it has not done so, and it s should do so. but there isn't evidence that actually exists that people can point to and says that proves that there is, indeed, a ind military, a military program here aimed at creating a nuclear weapon. now, iran's nuclear program --r because it's true of any nuclear program -- it's the same technology, unfortunately. which is why i think it's such a problem that cups -- countries all around the world including our own are doing so much nuclear technology overall.o iran is no different. if you do the nuclear technologd to build nuclear power plants, itts is the same technology to build a bomb.

doesn't b mean you can because u may not have enough, it may noty be as good enough as it needs to be, but it's basically the same technology. you take unenriched uranium, and you enrich it. you enrich it to 5% or so for powerto plants, about 20% for, b medical uses and up to about 90o for a weapon. now, there's no evidence thatapn iran has gone beyond 20% in oney reactor for medical isotopes.rec now, are they being provocative with some of their nuclear stuff? the of course they are. and it may with that the ran yang leadership which has said i over and over again not onlyonly that they are not doing itit which, like any government, you have to take that very carefully, but they've also said that it's a religious requirement which, to me, doesn't mean much but i think to iranians it means a lot, that it would be a religious requirement not to build a nuclear weapon. if that government were to change that position, they woul, have a very high bar to reach aa home to justify that to their

own people. why suddenly it's religious hi okay to do what the ayatollah righeini right from the beginning of the islamic revolution said is not okay.so i so i think it's certainly w possible, for example, what with saddam hussein did in iraq might be what's underway in iran which was to act as if there were massive weapons of mass destruction was i that was what made him appear powerful to hisr enemies. both domestic and in the region. there were none, as we know. but there was a claim, there were hints, he made it sound s like he was trying to do so, an many people -- myself included -- many people forincl years said this is nonsense, this is all just posturing. he's trying to show that he has power in order to gain respect i in a region. that is thought to respect power more than anything else. it turned out to not be true.

now, one could argue that parts of what the iranian regime is doing is the same thing, they'r distributely hiding things,g making things more ambiguousbit rather than being clear andther saying, here, we're an open book. come and look at everything got.ng instead of doing that, they're leaving open possibilities.g but there is nopo evidence. that's what's key here. the u.s. is threatening at various points, israel iss threatening consistently to uset military force when there is no evidence as if if the there were to be a military weapon, a nuclear weapon that somehow a military strike would be an answer to that. itan would be even more disastrous. >> host: so iran, no threat to the u.s.? >> guest: you know -- >> host: or to its neighbors? >> guest: you know, i think that iran is not a threat. i think that the middle east region, like our own country, is overarmed. i think too much money is spent

be if you look at the it will l gulf states -- if you look at the little gulf states some ofow whom in the wikileaks we're hearing are telling the u.s.meth secretly, boy, you really should do something about iran.thin we won't say it publicly, but we really think -- this isn't new.m but those governments are spending billions of dollars, billions of dollars of their countries' oil revenue at times when there is unemployment rising in those countries to buy massive amounts of the most advanced u.s. w weapons systems that the u.s. ie willing to sell them, you know? it's u.s. arms exporters that are cleaning up, that are, quote, making a killing in thisg business, arming the entire middle east. the $3 billion a year that the b u.s. gives in military aid to israel is only one part of it. it's one of the worst parts because it puts us as directly r complicit in those weapons. the other countries are buyingng weapons. but it's our military producers

that are the ones that are making a killing off of this money, and the money instead could be used for infrastructure, for education, for things like figuring out what's the middle east going toa do when the oil runs out? what's it going to do when theto water runs out? these are huge problems that could be solved if more resources went there. but instead we're seeing thestea resources used overwhelmingly for military purposes that aresh not making anybody else safe. >> host: career wise, how did you end up at the constitute for policy study? is -- institute for policy study? >> guest: it was a move i never expected.f i had known of the institute kid when i was a kid. the ips has been around since the early '60s.it it was founded by two extraordinary men who were working at the time in the ken ken -- kennedy administration, marcus rath kin and richard barton. and they quite quickly, they were both very young, and they quite quickly found each other

and be realized that they were in the wrong place. they didn't like the policies on nuclear weapons, the question ou of vietnam was looming at the time, and they both manageed to escape the white house, escapea the state department, and they created something that had never existed before, an independent institute, an institute for the rest of us. and that's what it's been ever since. it's an institute that works with social movements. our slogan is we turn ideas into action. it isn't just about producing j ideas into the abstract, it's to make possible changing the world.worl and i had known about this for a long time, things like the vietnam reader when i was a kid. i read it at 17, 18, whatever i was. and i remember that was thes th first book i read about vietnam. and i didn't exactly know what this institute was, a think tank. what's that, exactly? it sounded like something weird, a bunch of people sitting around thinking great thoughts.

think about it very much, it was just in the back of my mind.d ye years later when i was in neww york working on altered states, we wanted an article about nuclearnu weapons, and i saw an article on that in the nation that had been written by one marcus raskin. so we contacted mark, and he was delighted and wrote a terrific piece in altered states. in and later he brought a new book to interlink which i ended up doing some of the editing on, his book "visions and revisions." and then a little while later he knew i was working on a book ong u.s. domination of the unitednai nations. and he called me and said, you know, whyna don't you come downo ips and do a seminar for us on this, that would be great. and i thought, oh, that's a goot idea.'s and then he told me he actually wanted he to apply for a job. and i thought, jeez, i don't want to move to washington. w i hate washington. hat i go to washington for protests.

i'd never really been here except for a protest. and i decided to do it anyway. i was going through some changee at just what i was doing in new york, seemed to make sense to ae least check it out. i came, i did a seminar, i loved it.nar, and i was hired at ips, and i've been there ever since, and it's been the perfect place for me te do the kinr d of work i do. i couldn't ask for a moreork supportive environment. >> host: what were you doing in new york?pp >> guest: i waors freelancing aa writer, i was freelancing as a radio journalist. i had been working as ast. journalist at the united nations writing, first, for a small biweekly newspaper inekly california, a national paper bu based in california. and we had decided to send somebody to new york to work ato the u.n. not because of the u.n. itself, it was funny because i didn't really know much about the u.n. then, the u.n. as an institution. the but it was -- this was in the mid '80s. thisut was the place where youid could meet representatives of liberation struggles, you couldh meet the palestinians, you could

meet representatives of p socialist countries, the vietnamese, the cubans, who you couldn't meet anywhere else in the country. they weren't allowed to travel.r in many cases all these socialist governments andts liberation movements, the anc from south africa, nelsonndel mandela's organization all had offices at the u.n. and it was the only place that you could meet them. so i had this incredible opportunity teo spend years ates the u.n. writing about w developments in these liberatiot movements, in the these struggles, contradictions of u.s. policy, what the u.s. was doing wrong in those areas.s. but i was doing it at the u.n. i was part of the u.n. press corps, and it was during thatan time that i started looking a little bit for the first time at the united nations.e un and it was at the time of the iraqi invasion of kuwait in 1990, in that summer which was at the same time as the end of the cold war. the soviet union was collapsing. the u.s. made a decision, in my

view, based on a cold war analysis. not based on the fact thatthat kuwait had been invaded and that iraq had violated international law.nte and when i watched that happen,h one of the things i was looking at was how the united states was using the u.n. itself as anhe instrument, as a tool in its own foreign policy. and i started writing about that. i wrote one of the pieces in beyond the storm, the anthology that we did about the gulf war. and that was, i think, my firstn major piece on thed role of thr united nations. and then as i started tod th investigate further, i thought, you know, this is kind of important stuff. i never knew it, and i think most other people that i work with don't know it either. is i decided to -- so i decided to write a book about it, ando that's what led to calling the shots: how washington dominates today's u.n." and i did several different updated versions of that. the first one came out in '95 o5 '96, another one in 2000, another one, maybe, in 2004 that was a british edition.noth

and that's the one that's been translated into, i don't know, five or six different languages, published in the different countries. because i think all around the world there is a sense of uneas and anger both at the public level and sometimes even at the governmental level at what the e u.s. has done to the u.s -- to the u.n. you know? kno and how it's prevented the u.n. from doing what its charter says it's supposed to do, stop the scourge of war. and so often the u.s. has used the u.n. as a fig leaf to cover up its own interveptions. -- interventions. the great pakistani scholar once said what the u.s. did with the u.n. in desert storm was using a multilateral instrument to hided a unilateral war. which i always thought wasal exactly the right way to see how the u.s. used the u.n. at that time. >> host: who were or are your parents? >> guest: my parents have both passed. my parents were extraordinary.es

my, my parents were -- we grew up in this suburban los angeles. my father spent his life working at my mother's father's store. my maternal grandfather and his brothers had opened a store called levine brothers in los angeles that sold tailoringai supplies, woolens and thread and pins and needles. every year i remember as a kid all the grandchildren would beal brought down to the store just t one day a year for inventory day.da and we would be assigned too counting cards of buttons, and it was always very exciting. we loved the store. ites was great places for hide d seek. it had one of those old-fashioned elevators with the wooden pull door and a chain, you know, a manual elevator. and then my grandfather wouldthn take us all out for dinner aftef that, it was always a great treat. and my father was someone who always wanted to be a writer.er.

he, at times, tried to write poetry. and, unfortunately, he reallyhe wasn't a very good poet. but it turned out that he was actually a fabulous writer whene he wasn't trying to write to poetry. his letters to my mother froms e the war -- which i came across only after he died -- was a huga treasure-trove for me.e. i'm still trying to figure out t what to do with them. to unfortunately, there aren't tooo many of my mother's left, of her responses to him. but you see this those letters how he was both trying to abide by the censorship -- he couldn'h say very much -- but the all about this small group of friends he had in the military in his unit and what they were doing and what they talked about, their own lives. and then he also talked about my mother's family.mo he would talk about the people in the neighborhood who he knew sheho was living with.iv she had gonein back to live with her parents while he was w overseas during the war, and and it was just this wonderful set

of letters about his caring about her and what that relationship had been all about. so it was an amazing thing. my mother was an incredibly strong woman who never knew how strong she was. she i think she always thought that my father was the strong one in their relationship when, in fact, it was quite the opposite. she was tough as could be. but incredibly gentle. and she, she had, she was ill for a long time before she died. she had a very rare form ofor cancer andm was ill for about 4 years before she died and went through a number of experimental treatments, and it was a very rough, a very rough time for ate very long time. but she never gave up. she fought and fought, and her family was her framework. she wasn't somebody who was that interested in the events of the. world. my father was, my mother not so much o.r but her family was so important to her. and the two of them together, i was very glad that my mother's

death was just after my first book was published so she was able to know it. and, of course, my father was sy thrilled that his daughter had written a book.ten he didn't really agree with it,e but that was okay. he was so proud of me that it really didn't heart what thedi book was about. my daughter who wrote a book. you know, it was that sense, it of -- because i think he had always wanted to write a book.ea and his younger brother -- he was a twin, he was an identical twin -- and both the twins when they came home from the war, they went to work. wen they had families quite soon after. their younger brother was the only one who was able to take advantage of the g.i. bill and went to university and became a noted academic and writer, my dear uncle who i adore and is still with us teaching as an emeritus at usc. has his new autobiography just cameo out -- >> host: what is it? >> guest: it's called "still " surprised." i thought it's a great title. ge >> host: what does he think of your perspective on worldpect

issues? >> guest: well, it's very interesting because now he really agrees a great deal. i think he didn't always, but he was always a liberal. he was someone, he was president of cincinnati university, he was vice president of sunni buffaloi at the time that i was a student activist. and there was a greatrea collaboration between our fds chapter at santa barbara where i was and fds at buffalo where there were similar protests going on, a great deal of activity, some riots, tack allty being arrested, the whole, you know, all of the excitement.he and they called one day, ie remember it to this day. i happened to be in the office and got a phone call as we wereo getting from, you know, campusee all over the country. everybody was collaborating witr each other.eryb and i remember someone calling and saying i'm calling from sunni buffalo, what's your name? i'm phyllis bennis. bennis? oh, my god, are you related to warren bennis? oh, yeah, he's my uncle. we call him warren the snake because he's so liberal, we don't trust him. it was very funny, and it became

a big sort of issue at the times but with i think now he agrees s great deal with, with my perspective on -- maybe not in every detail, but the idea of changing the world, i think, is very important to him. >> host: this is booktv's "in depth."uest 202 is the area code, 737-0001 inti the east and central time zones, 202-737-0002 mountain anr pacific.n teresa from middletown, connecticut, you are first up. please, go ahead.irst >> caller: yes, and thank you. regarding afghanistan, i've always had a problem with ourysh invasion of afghanistan. it seemed wrong to punish the people in afghanistan for osama bin laden being there. our military leaders insist that we must stay and fight in afghanistan because ha's whereia al-qaeda -- that's where al-qaeda laid the plans fore 9/11. but i've also found it very hard to believe that a bunch of al-qaeda militants doing boot camp maneuvers in a remote

region of afghanistan were responsible for 9/11. but isn't it true that the plano to attack the united states on 9/11 were actually formulated in germany? >> guest: yeah. you raise some p very important points, teresa. you w know, the notion of goingm war in afghanistan because we were attacked by people who were not afghans, they were egyptian and saudi, they didn't live in afghanistan, they lived, as you say, in the ham berg. they didn't -- ham wurg. they didn't train in afghanistan, they trained in florida. and they went to flight school in minnesota. so what were we doing attacking afghanistan? because they were inspired by somebody who was living there at the time. and now, of course, this notion that we are still having 100,000 u.s. troops and another 40,000 nato troops occupying afghanistan with enormous military consequence -- civilian consequences of that military occupation when the cia itself admits that there are less than

100 -- somewhere between 50 and 100 al-qaeda members anywhere in afghanistan, and only something like 900 on the pack -- 3 00 on the pakistani side of the border. so we're sending 140,000 troops to go after something like 350 people? it's crazy. the idea that somehow we have to go after the taliban because if they took power, al-qaedaed would come back, they'd be able to train there, it ignores the reality of what kind b of a thrt terrorism is and isn't. it is a threat to people in many places, and many people around'. the world have suffered from terrorism much more than wehan have. but i think that what gets ignored is the understanding that, number one, you can't use conventional warfare to stop terrorism.se we don't these to occupy -- immediate to occupy afghanistanh to -- need to occupy afghanistan to prevent the taliban from coming back as a way of stopping al-qaeda. al-qaeda doesn't need territory to train. they need a couple off

garage-size stories -- laboratories and an internety a café with a fast connection.ey'r they're not training up a big ad army that needs territory and space to train.t, it's just, it's wrong, and i think the reason that we went to war was not to stop the future, it was to avenge the past and to lay the groundwork for the war in iraq. unfortunately, i think thear i reason we're staying -- i don't think it's only because of the potential for pipelines and thae sort of thing which is certainly there in the background.e but the real reason, i think, that we're staying in this afghanistan and what makes it so horrific when you think of thef civilian casualties and theand military casualties from the u.s. and nato troops is that we're staying there because neither president obama norpres anyone else in congress is prepared to say, we were wrong, we have to get out. they're not prepared to say something that looks like we're losing.we'r >> host: well, libero tweets ino how should the u.s. and natou.s.

forces get out of afghanistan most effectively? >> guest: libero raises a veryei important question. i'm not a military strategy i, m and i can't say exactly which, e which company should leave first. i'll leave that to the military. but they got us in, they can get out. the first thing that happens is declare a unilateral cease fire. declare that we are no longer engaged in war against anyone in afghanistan.d in that our troops are putting down their arms, and they are getting out. that means donkeys, that means trains, that means buses, that means trucks, and it means planes.tr the same way they got in. i think the key to say our focus now should be on the safety ofor the people of afghanistan andpep the safety of our troops. not on making more military gains which everyone agrees, it's on the front pages of our, of our newspapers now. it's no longer something you only read online or you read in the progressive press or you seo on some secret show.ee

it's in the mainstream media that the u.s. policy is failing. that, yes, if you send in enough troops, they can clear an area of whoever they want if it's a al-qaeda, if it's the taliban, if it's one of the other numerous organizations that are opposed to the u.s. presence in afghanistan. they can get rid of them, but it doesn't last.u.s. they fade away. because why? they are afghans. this is their country. there was -- i don't know if you remember it, peter, some monthsy ago -- and maybe libero s remembers this, there was an extraordinary moment when in a hearing in congress admiral mullens, the chairman of the vice chief, was being asked by someone who was trying to challenge him, and you saw him sort of rolling his eyes and thinking, oh, god, do i really have to do this? the question was, can you tell me, admiral, how many tanks doeu the taliban have? and he said, they don't have ans tanks, senator. and how many planes does the taliban have? they don't have any planes

either.se so can you tell me why they're winning? and he sat for a moment, and he said something, something, it's? their country. and i thought, wow.ethi he gets it. so if he gets it, why is he leading this war? he knows we can't win like this because at the end of the day whether it's next week, as i advocate, or if it's in 2014 as president obama, unfortunately,t is threatening now to stay until at least 2014, at some pointe p we're going to leave. the people of afghanistan are going to have to stay there.th it's their country.ave they're going to have to rebuilr it. are they going to rebuild it in a way that we feel like it look. like us? probably not. they have a very different kind of country.? the fact that we're trying toern impose this government, a strong national government that looks like a democracy, has nothing te do with afghan history, with afghan culture. if you look at the history of afghanistan, there's never been a strong government there. the writ of what happens in

kabul is limited to kabul. and 80% of the people of afghanistan don't live in the cities.es. forget about kabul, they don't live in any cities.they they live in tiny ham lets scattered over this vast,this mountainous country. and in that context loyalties are not to a strong national government in kabul. loyalty is to family, to tribe, to clan, to village. maybe to region. maybe sometimes. but mostly not. mostly it's very, very local. and that makes it very, very hard to imagine ever having success at trying to impose on afghanistan the kind of government -- forget about the o corruption, forget about the incompetence that we're seeing with this government. the people of afghanistan have never had and never indicatedr any desire for a strong central government.ment that's shot true, for example, in iraq.very these are very different countries.isto iraq does have a history oftral strong central governments.ghan

afghanistan doesn't. and the fact that we try this one-size-fits-all approach, we're going to go in, we'reppro going to bring in a government in a box. a they even called it that, so demeaning. doesn't work. whato are you going to have, a jumping jack box that the government pops out and says, here we are, we're the government now. what a surprise, that doesn't work. they don't have the loyalty ofk. the population, they don't know what they're doing, these afghans who were brought in toth be the local government in marjah, for example, the place that was supposed to be the practice for going after s kandahar for u.s. troops. we're going to go after marjah, and we're going to clear it of t the taliban, and then we'regoin going to bring in a government in a box.goin well, the guy they brought in tr be the mayor in a box had spent the years of the war not livinge through the years of war or the years of taliban repression, he had spent those years in germany. so what a surprise, he was the same tribal links as the people in marjah, spoke the samel l dialect, the same language, but

they didn't see him as one of their own because he wasn't. he was now a westerner. he had gone to university in, i think it was munich, i'm not sure.m but he had lived in germany fore many years, and he suddenly reappears on the back of a u.s.a tank and says, hi, i'm here to be your governor in a box. it doesn't work that way. so what we have to do is get out of the way and allow real r diplomacy to go on. there needs to be diplomacy. does it have to involve the taliban? of course it does. because they're one of many forces in the country. this is one of the greatat lessons, ironically, of former senator mitchell who has been president obama's special envoy in the middle east. unfortunately, he didn't operate off of it. but he knew from his own experience in ireland that the first lesson of diplomacy -- if you're serious -- is everybody has to be at the table. why? not because you agree withnot everybody. but if you exclude some, if you say, well, you can't come because we think you're

terrorists, you can't come because you won't put down yourn arms, you won't come because ofm whatever, if you do that, theth diplomacy's not going to workotg because all those people who support that one or that one or that one that you took out, they're going to say, you know, we didn't even get a seat at the table. we don't have any stake in thise we're not going to abide by it.e if you're serious aboutseri diplomacy instead of war, then everybody has to be at theeryb table. what the u.s. is doing iss preventing real diplomacy, not d insuring it.ip >> host: judith, you're onith, booktv with phyllis bennis. new york city, hi. >> caller: hi.. be ms. bennis wrote the speech she thought that president bush should give after the september 11th atrocity really. but i would like to hear now what ms. bennis thinks that president obama should say in his state of the union address this month. >> guest: oh, dear. judith raises a good challenge.

i think that president obama's tate of the union speech -- the state of the union speech should reflect a decision that i hope i that he is in the process of making that is recognizing wheni it comes to foreign policy, the wars he is waging are wars that not only we cannot win, but we cannot afford. i think president obama knows that the issue of jobs is by fas the most important thing facing people in this country. we know that the war in afghanistan, as devastating as it is for afghans, is not thehe top of anybody's agenda here.boy when asked, people don't suppord it. but it's not something that is top of the agenda because peoplo are hurting here. people are losing jobs, they're losing homes at a rate that surpasses our imagination of thg last, of recent years. things are disastrous here. and i think it's making those

links that i wish the speech would be something like we have realized that the war we aree waging w in afghanistan and thed war we are still waging in iraq -- because we should nothol forget that 50,000 u.s. troops occupying iraq does not mean ann end, it just means a small size of an occupation. that's still a war that's being waged, the casualties these days are more iraqi than american,mo but we are still paying a huge p amount and risking the lives of 50,000 troops there. as well as preventing iraqis th from running their own country. we have realized that these area wars thatve we not only cannot win, but that we cannot afford. the escalation, president obamal should say, that i announced last year in afghanistan, thefga escalation of 0,000 new -- 30,000 new troops has not made the war better, and it has cost us $33 billion. and i think president obama should say in his state of thenh union address that i'm sorry

that i made the decision i did, and i want to bring those troopn back so that we will have thatrp $33 billion to use pause we know e -- because we know that with that $33 billion we could have 600,000 new green jobs here at home and still have $3 billion left over to start rebuilding our own infrastructure and begiu to pay reparations in afghanistan and iraq for the devastation that we've brought. for every soldier that i'mold sending to afghanistan today, presidentis obama should say, i, costing our country a million dollars. every soldier. not because the soldiers are are getting a lot of money. some of them qualify for food stamps. but because it costs so much too keep ast soldier in afghanistan- gasoline, fuel $400 a gallon because of where it has to travel. so from now on i'm going to say that for every soldier we bring home, a million dollar, that's enough for a good green middle-class job for that g soldier and 19 more.

for every one of those soldiers. that will keep our country much safer. so i think judith's challenge ty me but, also, the challenge to president obama is to say we can't afford this war any longer. the economic challenge for us an home is to say that we're not going to be able to have healthb care, we're notle going to be ae to rebuilde our education syst, we're not going to be able to create the new jobs as long as we're spending these billions of dollars. if you look, peter, at the military budget this year and add the cost of the two wars, you know, when they do the military budget, they don'tudge include the actual wars we're fighting. so if you add the military budget and the wars in the iraq and afghanistan, it's over a an trillion dollars.s if we're wasting that, how do wd ever imagine we're going to getg out of this economic crisis that we're in the right now? now so that's what i think president obama should talk about.t. >> host: red forest tweets this, would you say that life in iraqi

is better or worse post-saddam? please explain. >> guest: i think that the years of war have been far worse forhe people in iraq. saddam hussein's regime was terribly repressive. but for ordinary iraqis, day-to-day life went on. there were, there were hundreds of thousands of people who weref p imprisoned at various points, political prisoners, repression, but for most iraqis life went on. iraq had the most advanced healthad care system anywhere is the region. it's where wealthy saudis would go when they needed heart surgery or brain surgery. iraqis had the best education system. free right up through university and postgraduate work. in fact, iraqis traveled all over the world and then went wen home. they weren't all trying to escape their country. so life was hard in terms of lit call repression.

but the social and economic rights of iraqis at that timeh were much better than during th war when we've seen over a million people killed as a result of this war. the careers of sanctions -- years of sanctionings killedreds hundreds of thousands. we remember the famous statement from madeleinal wright back -- albright back in 1996 when she was asked on "60 minutes," what about the 500,000 children who have died as a result of000 u.s.-imposed sanctions?ve d and without missing a beat she said, we think the price is worth it. at that moment i think theat potential for the clinton administration to win publicin support in the arab world was gone.go when madeleine albright said those words, we think the priceh is worth it, that 500,000 children's lives was worth wor overturning saddam hussein's regime, i think at that time, of course, hadn't even happened militarily but was what waswa

being tried through the use of sanctions, i think that was whe the possibility of winning over support for the u.s. was lost. >> host: don in haiku, hawaii. please go ahead with your question. >> caller: oh, yes, phyllis, good morning. or good afternoon now, i guess. i had heard you earlier say tha iran is in violation of the iaea, and i've recently seen a documentary with scott ritter who said, no, iran is not in an violation of agreements, andreem there's a complete balance of all the nuclear material. for one. for two with, i had another -- i have more questions regarding this 9/11 that the whole world's revolving around. and this newest documentary out, www.9/11 missing links.com, as they do explain in depth more what happened on this fateful day. that two airplanes knocked down three buildings.at t 9/11 violates first grade math,n let alone basic physics.

and i'm just wondering what is it going to mean for jewish people in the united states s should it be proven that israel staged a falsified attack on the united states on 9/11? >> well, you raise a couple of:e important questions.uple on the first one, i think what scott ritter was referencing was that there is no iranianis violation of the non-proliferation treaty which is the fundamental nuclear nuc treaty that allows, of course, all non-nuclear weaponsweap states -- including iran -- tocd build nuclear power plants, nuclear power capacity. it, of course, also requires in article 6 that the five officiai recognized nuclear weaponsapon states including the united the states are obligated, obligated by law to move towards full andl complete nuclear disarmament. and i think it's the u.s.' refusal to take that requiremeny seriously that has led to so much of the nuclearolif proliferation around the world. on your second question, i think

that -- i haven't seen evidencen that there's a false flag issue. for me the question not so much 9/11, but 9/12. i think that what happened around the world as a result ofu the decision of the bush administration on september 12, 2001, is by par of greaterf import -- by far of greater import than the details of what happened on 9/11. the u.s. used that event -- which i consider a huge crime -- as an excuse to take the world to war, and we are still seeinga the consequence of it. and i think it's stopping those wars that are being launched anc waged and continued and expanded in the name of the so-calledglob global war on terrorism whether or not the obama administration has decided not to use that term, they are still using thatl policy. so i think that's really what's the most important part of what we can do. stop thoseto wars that are being waged in the name of 9/11. >> host: what should the u.s.the do, in your view, phyllis

bennis, to protect its national security? >> guest: i think we should start by redefining national security. i think that the united nations, forte instance, has done some great work through the u.n. development program in definingi human security. as a new basis so that national security is no longer defined a what does the pentagon want, ang what do our corporations want.ao unfortunately, in the u.s. that tends b to be how we define national security.is is the dow jones the highestgh rankinges stocks in the world, d is the pentagon the biggest and strongest military by such ao huge margin that no other government, no other group of governments could ever imagine even matching our military capacity. i've got to say, that doesn't make me feel safe, you know? i think that we need to start by recognizing that we live in an interconnected world. globalization on every level whether it's information technology, whether it's tradeis

and all the inequalities that that has led to, the reality isa that our world is far more integrated than ever before, and one of the con sense sequencesc of -- consequences of that thatr i think we miss at our peril is the understanding that we need to recognize that we cannot beu secure and safe in a world thata is not secure and safe. what we're seeing now around the world with the rise of new it terrorist attacks, new terrorist organizations springing up that never existed before, it's inpon response to what is perceived id most cases rightly, sometimes maybe in an exaggerated way, is seen as the u.s. and sometimes its allies, nato, other countries, coming in to kohl -- control other countries aroundex the world. the extraordinary work that's been done by robert pape, theyco political psychologist at the university of chicago on theof history of suicide bombings.'s he's looked at the history which, of course o, began first

in india. thate, was the first accounts. not the first, there was many earlier ones, but the modern phenomenon of suicide bombings began in sri lanka in india and then moved to the middle east.et that the single most importantsg reason that an organization or r community or a country devolvesi into suicide bombing is foreign occupation. by another country. in most cases by a democracy. so that's what's extraordinary about this. you see it in iraq, you see it in this afghanistan. only after foreign occupation goes forward in other countries. it's something that has emerged out of foreign occupation.fore not something that emerges out of a culture. this isn't about the 70 virginse or something. this is a political response in the context of a religious r

framework for political struggle, but it's a political response to a political reality, in this case foreign, foreign f military occupation. so if you're serious about ending that horrific phenomenon, yourr have to start by ending te conditions that lead to it. in this case, foreign military occupation. >> host: in her book "challenging empire," theengi forward, by the way, by danny glover -- actor -- phyllis bennis writes: in building internationalism, people'satio movements, defiant governments and the u.n. all have a role to play: >> host: next call for phyllis bennis comes from cal inl sacramento. hi, cal. >> caller: hello there. yeah.yeah i was curious about the question

of rights and countries havingrs rights. and it was, she's been talkingee for a while, or you've been talking for a long time about various humanitarian efforts, and i'm just kind of curious what rights do countries have, and are there boundaries to bou countries? >> guest: it's a very interesting question that cal raises. i think that we colive in a --wl do live in a world that's defined by nation-states. is that my preferred way of organizing the world? wor no. but it is what exists. it is the world we live in. the world's organized by nation-states. those borders are not sacrosanct.vere sovereignty is always a shifting reality. we see that in the rise of what i once called in this an artice micronationallisms in the places like the former yugoslavia where you kind of imagine that the

devolution of a country into several, in that case seven separate countries, could continue indefinitely. you saw bosnia created as one of certain country, and within thee bosnian-serb territory there was a little group that said, no -- this is something that could god on ad infinitum. i think that borders are something that are created as c the result of power. europe is one of the few places in the world where nation-states had some organic linkage to linguist tick and other -- linguistic and other what i would consider other natural organizations of people. in other places, if you look at africa which is perhaps the most overt where africa was divided up by colonial powers who went in and said we're going to create countries that we can

then control, and we're going to do it specifically in ways that divide linguistic groups, etc.,e so we can divide and conquer within each of these colonies. in the middle east something very similar in 1922 when the vast territories of the ottoman empire, there now was no longeri an ottoman empire, and the victors led by the french and the british went in and said go write a map, and they went in and drew lines in the sand and created countries where there had been no countries. .. same issue of linguistic divergences and they created kuwait to make sure britain would have an independent access to oil in the region. when france was given other oil concessions. so it was -- it was things that were done that had nothing to do with people's lives. and where people lived.

so i think that the rights of countries have to be understood in the context of the rights to their citizens. i think countries have more obligations than they do rights. >> you told us when we asked you what you were currently reading, you told us one of the books >> you said one of the books you are reading is iran, turkey and america's future and you told us why. because turkey is transforming the regional and global power dynamic in the part of the world of work on most and i don't know nearly enough about it. >> absolutely. i was in turkey in may of june of last year. i was therefore a united nations conference on palestine. it happened at the moment the flotilla attack occurred, is really commandos who attacked a humanitarian aid ship trying to break the blockade and gaza.

leading to the deaths of 9 turkish citizens one of whom was a turkish american citizen. being in turkey at the moment that occurred was an extraordinary experience in terms of seeing how turks were responding to this. the level of support the last few years is quite extraordinary. democracy in turkey despite continuing contradictions that exist is flourishing in a whole new way. one of the things i realized in recent years when i have been riding a lot about you as wars in the area, for years we could say there were only two countries in the middle east that had the indigenous capacity to become regional powers meaning they had money from oil, size of territory and population and water. only two countries and both of

those, iran and iraq. israel at all three except size but it was not indigenous. the power was accessed. what we have seen is with the attack on iraq, the occupation of iraq iraq is no longer a country that has any potential to become a regional power so the only one of those that is left is iran which remains in the cross hairs. it is very much a threat to u.s. sovereignty in the region because it has the potential to be an independent power. suddenly without oil for money turkey has risen with an extraordinary policy of wanting to have no enemies among its neighbors, amazing bassists foreign policy and suddenly has the seventeenth largest economy

in the world. it is an economy growing enormously, much wider popular support in earlier militarily based government's effort did. it is engaged in a creative set of foreign policies led by a brilliant foreign minister working to make relations with europe and still wants to join the european union. an important priority but not the only priority. it is strengthening its ties with middle eastern countries. unlike the years of the iraq/iran conflict which included the iraq/iran war, so devastating to and million people.

it was quite collaborative. they do not see competition with each other. this is reformulating the middle east region and i find it fascinating and i don't know nearly enough. >> host: you are on with phyllis bennis. >> caller: i was curious as to the nuclear situation between pakistan in india. that we are experiencing, where there is fear of a takeover from al qaeda and caliban to acquire nuclear weapons or acquire them elsewhere. >> guest: the question of the relationship between india and pakistan as far as political and economic tension is a huge components of what gets talked

about not enough in you as discussions of what policy should be in that region. what we're seeing in pakistan today, i don't see the danger that pakistan's government is in danger of being taken over by al qaeda. i don't think that is a possibility but there is an enormous set of problems the government in pakistan faces. it is a weak and corrupt government, completely dependent on something from the u.s. and has little support at home. that is problem because historically the military has been willing to take over. the military set is very strong. probably the strongest component of our. in that context the military losing support of its nuclear arsenal is not a problem.

the pakistani military thinks the best way to support their self-interest is to support the afghan taliban with whom they have a longstanding two decade relationship. that is where the hypocrisy in u.s. policy gets frustrating sometimes. if we look at the 1980s wasn't that long ago that the soviet union was occupied afghanistan and the u.s. was sending huge amounts of money and weapons like shoulder fired missiles to the afghans through the pakistani military which were led by the pakistani intelligence agency that still is the main supporter of the afghan taliban and the u.s. continues to say as we hear from president obama and secretary of state clinton and admiral mullen and general david petraeus and his predecessor, we are frustrated with the pakistani government not doing more to go after the afghan taliban based

in their country. they are not going to not only not go after them but continue to support them because they see them as their only possibility for having a surrogate in afghanistan later. why is that? because the u.s. your and, russia and crucially india have all backed the same side in afghan's long civil war. parts of the afghan government which now they used to be called warlords and now they are called vice premiers and things like that. now they are called the government. that is where you have this contradiction in u.s. policy. asking pakistan to give up the one part, one component of afghan power where pakistan traditionally has a base and pakistan is looking to for the future to is a just stops supporting them.

for no particular reason. when india, pakistan's longstanding competitor his in the midst of the u.s. russian iran center in afghanistan doing very well in afghanistan through its ties to the government. is not realistic to give them up. >> host: this is a booktv's index. our guest is author and activist phyllis bennis. here's a list of her books. in 1990 she wrote from stones to statehood. she edited two books beyond the storm. shea publish calling the shots before and after wynton in 2003. understanding palestinian-israeli conflict in 2009 was the first in her four part so far primer series.

understanding the u.s./iran crisis and ending the u.s. war in afghanistan. richard in massachusetts. >> an honor to talk to you after that body of work. president eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, a global military power empire actually, we have a thousand bases all over the world. it is hard to get out because war profiteers, too much many made in iraq, more private contractors and private security all over afghanistan and iraq but in the meantime we are collapsing within our own

country. everything is falling apart. we don't have jobs. we are bankrupt. i read a piece that even the national parks are crumbling. even the laboratories of some of these parts are crumbling. priorities are out of wax. this is how empire's collapse, by expanding and not taking care of their own problems within. >> that is an important challenge for all of us. my good friend and colleague bob jensen wrote citizens of empire. one of the books i go back to frequently because it raises the challenge we identified. empires fall. empire's collapse. in the past empires have most often collapsed with a great fire and violence including to the people of that empire. it was true of the romans and

more recently than that. what was challenged in citizens of empire, the incidence of democracy which is as flawed as can be, we are losing much of our democracy but we have major prices and democratic capacity in this country and possibilities for global movement and a chance for a global organization of people around the world fighting against wars and empires. we can do that using tools of nonviolence. the tools of democracy without the kind of destruction we have seen. was it richard adjust called? what richard just mentioned, we have almost a thousand foreign military bases and they cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

when we see the opposition, in ecuador, after a huge public debate in the country, we will give you more money if you keep the base open. of the government not only agreed to cancel and for of the u.s. out. and the constitution to prohibit foreign military bases from being built in the country. in italy we are seeing a very wealthy industrial town, there was a u.s. base next to what nato base for some time but they wanted to build another base. some great mansions -- i will forget his name -- the renaissance architect, come to me after the show comes toomey i

am sure. and the wealthiest citizens come out to protest not because they are against war or nato but because it is ruining their town. this is happening all-around world. we are seeing opposition to u.s. bases and all that goes with it. if we just shut down half of them we would be saving hundreds of billions of dollars, making ourselves far more popular in the world and it would be the beginning of dismantling this empire of bases. one of the things that makes it so difficult is the military industrial complex richard spoke of that president eisenhower identified has been very strategic in how they have gone about their business. one of the things they do best is identify how they will continue to get more support in congress. what do they do?

when they build anything, a plane, a new bomb technology, they don't build it in one place. they make sure there are component being built in every congressional district around the country. when the decision to give money to that project comes out of recession--everyone in congress, 100 members of the senate are not going to go against it because there are ten jobs or a thousand jobs in their district that depend on that bomber. everyone of those congressional districts has some jobs that somebody depends on. all work is much harder. >> when people ask how you identify yourself politically how do you? are you a socialist or progressive or liberal or capitalist? >> i cut my political teeth in an era when there was a great

song by a great folk singer who wrote great protests songs. it was called love me, i am a liberal. it was a very cynical song about people who call themselves liberal except when it came to them. one wind said spend all the money you ask for but don't ask me to come along. those of us who call ourselves radicals were selling out. language changes. these days liberal seems to be the word most common. other times progressive. progressive is the most useful these days in terms of describing what i actually do. maybe i would say progressive. i would certainly say left. socialist? seems like the ear of socialism as we once knew it is over. we need a new kind of egalitarianism that takes into account the environment. one of the biggest things my part of the movement, the

anti-war movement and student movements of the 60s never took into account was the environment. that is a huge. i remember one guy in my old group when i was probably 17 or 18 say if we don't take the environment seriously class struggle will be the equivalent to a changing deck chairs on the titanic. that stayed with me. to my distress i never took seriously the need to integrate environmental understanding and climate understanding, climate justice into every bit of the works that we do. we are just starting to do that. weather we are too late remains unclear. >> host: glenn, you are on booktv. >> caller: thank you. a couple things to ask phyllis bennis about nato and russia. a few years ago, ron paul and

barney frank, someone like that, said that we have 100,000 u.s. troops in western europe and you can't find anyone to tell them what they are defending against. i was wondering, does she think -- i know nato is in afghanistan, technically on a nato mission in afghanistan. they don't seem very eager about that. i understand the history and everything, eastern european states like nato, does she think nato is really relevant any longer? and we promised russia that we wouldn't expand nato any further. i think it was the first president bush, to expand nato

after the cold war ended. we have totally broken that promise. >> guest: we have indeed broken that progress. nato does not have any relevance. it is a military you as controlled military alliance in search of a mission. we are going to be hearing more and more about that. the nato summit occurred a few months ago in lisbon. we saw that in 1999, first effort to craft a new definition of the nato alliance. to defeat the soviet union had not happened. nato was going to take credit which is not very important. was important was instead of acknowledging we were created to do something, what we wanted to be done could happen so what we do now is declare victory and go home?

apparently not. we decide we will stay together as a u.s. controlled military alliance that is expanding and expanding including the notion of how we are threatening russia by expanding through ukraine to the borders of russia in a very hostile manner. there is no clarity of the threat. nato is the main instrument against al qaeda. we are turning the cold war into the war against terrorism. everybody gets to be in it who is not al qaeda. it is very unclear. talk about weather australia should join nato or should israel join nato. whatever happened to north atlantic? suspend some days last year in april of 2009 at the know to wore no to nadir of protests in strasbourg. i haven't been teargassed that badly in a long time. >> host: how did you get here

guest? >> guest: i don't know. as a student activist, it was flying a lot. >> host: but back to strasbourg. >> guest: we got away from the worst of it but it was a pretty bad batch. we had to hike about eight miles back to our hotel because the whole city was under armed control of the military. it was a joint french and german military. they had 30,000 troops. we had a legal place for the mobilization but we were blocked off and couldn't get back to where we needed to goes so we had to hike around the city. an interesting day. it was fascinating because there were people from all over europe saying not only now to the war in afghanistan which was the major focus at that time but no to nato as a military alliance

saying we don't want the u.s. telling the military what to do and we don't want our military using the existence of nato as an excuse to expand. it is a huge problem in europe as well as it is here that the military budget although much smaller than here they're much bigger than they need to be, bigger than needed to protect people. you need some kind of military presence to protect people in an era of nation states and possibility of war but you don't need what we have got, these of the tears that can go around a whirl and wage war in other people's countries. this is not what we should be signing up for. >> guest: dan, you are on booktv in depth with phyllis bennis. >> in 1964 a bunch of -- of free speech movement in berkeley

didn't advocate communist world revolution, they advocated meaningful dialogue and ultimately the vietnam war when you were young and demonstrating a lot of people were debating the vietnam war and the debate was very rational and very important so that by the time the pentagon papers came out everyone had a common point so there wouldn't be hysterics' about what we do in vietnam but unfortunately the internet did not promote that. it promotes more monologue and as a result we have stupid wars repeating all the stupid mistakes that occurred with vietnam and nobody can debate them because nobody is interested in debate. they are on one side or another. i am reading is jewish state or is really a nation. it brings up an interesting question. there is the myth of a jewish population coming back to the homeland and there is the -- we debate much of what they do on

total lies and tremendous opposition within the jewish community. 70% of the jewish people think it is a nice place to visit but not to live. could it be that the behavior of leaders now is more based on fear of losing jewish support outside of israel and schering the israelis through the concept of polarized mobilize so they try to polarize jews and force them in a position which might cause a lot of trouble in the countries in which their real citizens. >> host: we get the point. phyllis bennis. >> guest: there is lots of educational outlets including one of the great contributions of around vietnam. we did a big one on the iraq wa.

what that was all about. the economics behind it. and we took questions and it was great interactive thing. and the tape of that, the cd of it and the online version of it went viral as people like to say now. was used all over the country by other antiwar organizations. and i think was very helpful in helping to shape some of that dialog. i'll stick to one aspect of dan's second question which is on the divides within the jewish community. i think that there is enormous shifting going on rig ahtnd oth the political there is an enormous shift in ci the political dn iscussions in this country across the board a anywhere the jewish community more than anywhere else the rise of ewishe organizations like the jewish hs voice for peace which has t citd chapters in ten or 15 cities in the u.s. with 100,000 members their bread is a host of t i wok

organizations like that.ampaign the big coalition and ien work o with, the campaign to end 325 israeli operation has 350 or 30 organizations. of those there's probably 25 or jewish voi 40 jewish specific organizationy used against the occupation.ongg we are seeing an extraordinary a emotion among young jews. a there was a moment of few weekso ago in new orleans when israelie prime minister benjamin netanyahu was speaking not to e the council of presidents but the jewish federation council, biggest of the national pro in the u.s israel jewish organizations in n the u. s. in his speech he began to address those who would legitimacy of is undermine the legitimacy of ande israel's policy.h man in t as he began, a young jewish manr in the audience stood up and oth pulled from under his shirt bar across banner that says it is tl the occupation that delegitimizes is really began t.

shout it had benjamin netanyahu and people were s tunned. know, th this was one of their own. hustl as he was hustled out a young ed woman stood up somewhere else a and pulled out a batter that bt said -- i forget, basically they were saying it is the hustled t occupation, the policies that . delegitimize israel's. there were five of them.es of you saw in the face of the aud people in the audience the incredible anger. not just how dare you.opposition. it not just opposition but im opposition from within. this is why we are important seeing this that we are seeing this rise ind opposition. if they could ever claim that r y oanizations that say israel, t right or wrong ever spoke for ht the majority of jews is not the th case now. this change dramatically. changd the challenge for those who are

seeing this committed to changing the policy is to get that link between the policy that c shift and how that can come in discours aftere. this shift in discourseo discourse is already shifting.e policy what do we do to get policy to k recognize it. >> guest: that >> host: from the best-selling assume. nonfiction book of 2010. >> guest: not 9 i assume.e >> as i think about turmoil in l problem wa the middle east, the fundamenta problem was lack of freedom in , the palestinian territories. thei with no state palestinians' lac their rightful place in the thr world. with no voice in their future palestinians were ripe for with recruiting by extremists and ly with no legitimately elected te palestinian leader committed to fighting terror the israelis had peace. no reliable partner for peace. s the solution was democratic by d palestinian state led by electe answ officials who would answer to tu their people, reject terror and isra

pursue peace with israel. that is from george w. bush. >> guest: sounds like every ndse former official that write their memoirs after they are in officc when they are capable of doing t something about it. the discourse of officialdom in, this city where you and i live is different from the discourse ofth people. discourse of the discourse of people in powe one i seems to be one that ignores ad international law. we hear over and over again, th, issue of settlement and s are wg president obama, settlements ar wrong and there should be a insufficient settlement freeze. not that was insufficient. not just wrong but illegal.d the israeli answer which has n been accepted by the u.s. is ne settlements are one of a numbere of issues that should be decided by negotiation.iate violation i don't think they need to negotiate violations of the laws what a robber steals a car you r

don't have to negotiate with thr robber over what are the termsn you on which you might return that e car.the you take the car back and give l it to the rightful owner. a majority of people in people in president obama's own party believe exactly that. i was stunned by this. one of the recent polls during last year's talks about the u.sa and israel fighting over nts wh i settlements which was not reall over a fight over settlements. a real fight over settlement says you need to stop building settlements because there are a year legal. israel says no way you say ok, do what you want. you are a sovereign country but that $30 billion we promised you in military aid, you can kiss that goodbye. you know how we protect you and the security council so you are never held accountable for violations of international law? we won't do that anymore. you know we made sure in the international atomic energy agency nobody would even request that you actually signed the

non-proliferation treaty and bring your nuclear arsenal under international supervision? we are going to stop that. that is step one towards real pressure. there was no real pressure but there was a bit of back and forth about it. there was a poll taken by one of the big democratic pollsters and one of the questions they asked was on the issue of settlements, what do you think of settlements and the question was asked like this. the israelis are building settlements in palestinian territory. which of the following two sentences describes what you think of that? sentence number one israelis build settlements for security purposes and have the right to build wherever they want. sentence number 2 was something like israeli settlements are built on appropriated palestinian land, they should be torn down and the land returned to its original owners. that is a very provocative approach but those were the two choice is.

63% of democrats chose sends number 2. i was stunned to see it was that high given how provocative the language was. the key is it is linked to international law. turns out like the united nations despite what the government would like to believe, people in this country care about international law. actually care about the united nations. we don't want our government to act like a rogue state. on this question of whether international law should come up when talking about palestinian a arrangements this is a fight we should not have to be having but we do. international law is never in the language. when hillary clinton talks about what our position should be she never talks about we should be standing in favor of international law and whoever violates it should be held accountable. the goldstone report which was described as being 1-sided

despite the fact that it held both sides accountable for violation, clearly there were more violations on the israeli side because that is the history of that completely unequal conflict that might well be a violation. on the israeli side is where the massive amounts are they should be held accountable. the u.s. position was we stand against goldstone. it is unacceptable and we will do everything we can to get rid of it. that is a big problem. what it says to the world is we don't care about international law except to protect our own interests. it goes back to this issue of empires. if we look agrees, the ancient greeks. in the ancient greek writing when you had the athenians, the athenians were supposed to be the democrats. the more advanced civilization. they start feeling a nervous that their fragile democracy is

in trouble so they want to expand their territory. they will take the island of new york. and the others say we don't think so. we are taking your island. what about democracy? the athenians come back. there is democracy for us. for you there is the law of the powerful. this is what the u.s. is doing. we are saying international law is what we used to explain why we're going to overthrow saddam hussein but if it is us or our friends, international law simply does not apply. >> this is booktv's index. our guest, phyllis bennis. we recently visited her at home to see her writing style. >> guest: i worked in an amazing part of washington that is perhaps the most mixed economically and racially. a lot of latinos the increasingly some of them are

being squeezed out. it is going faster than i thought. we are doing our best to hold back the gentrification part but an interesting neighborhood. there is a weekly latino market. all weekend every weekend every quarter from here. there is a farmer's market saturday. is walking distance to everything i need to get to from the zoo to my office to protest at the white house. a pretty great location. i have my book in different places, my own book in one place. so i can see them but more or less by subject, these are more or less israel/palestine and the history of the region. this is my afghanistan book. the newer one. my newest book is about

afghanistan. these are about iraq in here and then they get mixed up because i am constantly taking one out and putting it back. this book, books from vietnam. others are about vietnam. i spent years working against the war in vietnam and the last few years of the war and after the war working on the relationship between the u.s. and vietnam trying to build solidarity with people in vietnam and force the u.s. to make good on its commitments, recreation promises that it never made good on same as it is doing in iraq and other places. this photograph was from hanoi in 1978 a few years after the end of the war. i was on the delegation of the national lawyers's build being ripped by the vietnamese lawyers association. and the leader of vietnam, one of those extraordinary moments, an opportunity to be there seeing how people were still

coping how the bomb craters were beginning to be made into fish ponds. it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life seeing a work from the other side. this is from the first anniversary of the war in iraq. i was speaking in rome. there were a million people protesting the war. for me it was a powerful moment of seeing that mobilization. this was following a year after the rally when low world said no to war in february of 2003. there were demonstrations in 665 cities around the world and the new york times the next day admitted what we have all known at that point. it said on the front page once again there are two superpower is in the world. the u.s. and global public opinion. i tend to right here in this

study in the morning, i can to go the old-fashioned way. i clipped newspapers. i read the papers in the morning. i clipped them. i know it is not as easy as using on-line versions but somehow for me having a stack of clippings that i can leaf through is something i knew was there and i could go through and find it. i go through what i think based on what i have been reading or thinking about talking about what other people for the last six months for the last three years and i just start writing. i am one of those people who writes in fairly simple language. i right the way i speak. for me it makes the writing part the easiest. the harder part is figuring out how what my framework is. getting all the facts i need to get in there. once i have that, that is the hard part. sitting down and writing, i am almost bored with it and want to

get it done fast. i send it to the editors and say do what you want.

>> host: 30 years of reading pablo's memoirs. what is that? >> guest: the most extraordinary book i ever read. i got the book shortly after he died in 1973. i had known his name only in the vaguest sense. and heard about it and bought the book and what a life this man has led. as a poet to, as a communist to, as a senator, as a diplomat, as a savior, and in the midst of it, such an incredible life, his friends, lovers, and poetry, one of these books that says i could do it all, why not you?

for me the discussion, an incredible chapter where he talks about how he envisions the names of cities, he talks about going to these places that were spots on the map and how excited he is to go there and talked about going to mongolia and drinking fermented horse milk which is the national alcoholic drink. you can make a face like that but when i had an opportunity to go to mongolia, to go to a conference which was not -- to go to mongolia was completely driven by my recollection and after of the conference a day and have to explore the country and to see the horses.

the horse ran away with me. driving back to the city, visiting a family that i have not seen their lantern on the top of the step, the driver had driven off of the road to meet this incredible family to meet modernity the versus their traditional way of life. their oldest son would inherit the heard. in germany he learned german. an amazing opportunity, to meet this transition and their country. there was fermented or silk. i would not have made him embarrassed. he got through a third of it. >> host: would you drink it again?

>> guest: deegan on the circumstances. is not as bad is it sounds but it sounds dramatic. >> guest: >> host: how did the girl from los angeles end up in santa barbara? >> guest: that is a good question. in high-school i was clean for genes. who was already feeling very engaged for the mccarthy campaign. which didn't get very far but did organize the children's crusade of flour power so i was already thinking in the context of the civil-rights movement. i was too young to see the high points in a conscious way but the vaguely knew about it.

supported came and talked about social justice. my parents supported civil rights. when it came to vietnam, to santa barbara, i was originally going to go to berkeley and basically a bureaucratic snafu, once i got the chance, on sy was thinking about this i would stay here and do it. it might have been different, i was more academic than i was but not involved politically. trying to be a rebel in a different way. santa barbara i got involved very early. we worked closely with the black student union. the coalition of three groups, and the black students, we ran and won control of student

government so sadly i was made the chair of the lecture committee. to do people want to hear? the conspiracy defendants and i brought angela davis. somebody from the french student revolt, that was how i set my student youth. >> host: when we were in the break and we'll get back to phone calls in a minute. our guest is phyllis bennis. 737-0001. when we were in a little break, you told me you spent 20 years as a private eye. >> guest: it was part of power made a living when i was doing this other stuff. my real work was my political

work. when i worked for the national lawyers's build, and organization of progressive if we look at the words we use, legal workers and a loss student in a legal corrective with basic paralegal skills and went to work as an organizer. i went to south dakota and spent six months working on the trial that came on of the wounded knee occupation. the american indian movement, and jury investigations, which i was involved in and did the investigation for the first case for the inability to the panelists non racist jury. i gave you a change of venue, have the right to be tried in

our own county with a fair jury. and after putting jurors on trial you could not get a fair jury in south dakota. when i went to los angeles i was working with the lawyer's guild lawyers, leonard who had, and -- started working with a man doing jury selection. we did a lot of iranian student cases. i said why don't you get a license that you paid decently and are thought that is an idea but a license with what? you can do that? of course you can. just get your license. i tried and it was a silly -- i started working and i did work

as a public defender investigator which was more of a full-time thin where i did powerful defense in the bay area but that is when i did process serving to make a living when i was doing political work. >> host: this is in depth on booktv. >> caller: first question is what do you think of the supreme court decision, money given to organizations designated by the government as terrorists even though it is non terror purposes can be prosecuted and a related question is the supreme court has decided, why isn't this speech? i will take my answer off the air. hart senate office building >> guest: the supreme court decision in citizens united last

year was the most significant, wide ranging, horrifying decision we had in a long time. the right to control our elections. the humanitarian law project case, is a very dangerous case. is okay to give money to an organization that is defined as a terrorist organization. that is bad enough to fit is aimed to be used for a school or for healthcare. it would also be illegal to provide services of to and including legal representation so a lawyer fighting to get them off the terrorism list could be charged with terrorism.

something like the teaching a class on how to be non-violent for an alternative in its past. training people how to access the united nations human rights system, it is a devastating ruling that expands beyond what i consider any legitimate concern about the real threat of terror. >> host: in pennsylvania, good afternoon. you bring up so many possible things to say. the main reason i called was to recommend a book. and for everyone to read.

from of former pentagon adviser about the military-industrial complex's power in this country. the book was written by a man named buck mccan, and he talks about from the beginning of this in the 30s, a man named bob gross began a little plane company that became a huge business, all the way up until today. i am going to get the books. the detail that he gets into

which is money, so easily talked about. like lockheed martin among others. just makes your blood boil. >> guest: i would think was spelled the other way which is one of the biggest problems we face. awards are profitable. including iraq and the expansion we are seeing in yemen and somalia. these of the first wars since the civil war not accompanied by a law to prevent war profiteering. to prevent these great companies that are so wealthy.

if you don't make mind making a killing in the war. each year the report indicates fins like the number of times greater than the average worker salary. it has been at a i 500 times workers salary and slightly lower than that. 50 times the average salary worker. targets a certain set of poster children. the poster boys, the ceos of the war industry reaping the killing from what they were producing for the war efforts in iraq and afghanistan. it is a horrifying fame to read.

it is frightening to see the power corporations have that the best paid not just life styles but the amount of economic power goes to the people whose companies are producing weapons of death and destruction. >> host: phyllis bennis is our guest. here's a list of herbal. 1990 from stones to statehood. she edited two books. beyond of the storm and altered states. in 2,000, calling the shots before and after. written in 2003. challenging empire in 2006. then she began a primer series and the first in that series was understanding of the palestinian/israeli conflict in 2009 followed by ending the iraq war in 2009. understanding the u.s. iran crisis in 2009. this past year ending the u.s. war in afghanistan. are there parallels to be drawn

between the vietnam protests and the buildup to the iraq war in 2003? >> yes. that was up period if anything, the opposition to the war in iraq in 2002, very much a parallel to the social divide around vietnam but even more powerful. even more people were against this looming war in iraq, it looked inevitable, there was a moment that culminated on february 15th, 2003, when people all around the world held protests in the streets on the same day. 665 cities and countries across the world, it began with the sun as the sun rose in the south pacific, in australia and new zealand and small island states

and followed the sun throughout the day and in capitals around the world, largest demonstration ever held whether it was particularly true in the countries where troops are -- government forced by the u.s. to join what was known as the coalition of the willing. what we call the coalition of the coerced. places like london, rome, madrid and barcelona it was even bigger, these were going to war with the u.s. and in the u.s. new york, at the foot of the united nations and san francisco there were and billions of people. the guinness book of world records said it was the largest protest held in the history of humanity. .. and 14 million people. and it was one of the most extraordinary things. i think by that time, peter, i think most of us who had been involved in organizing -- and it had been over just a six week period, it's been a very rapid decision at a global movement, a global meeting of the world

social forum had decided we should all do a protest on february 15th. and lo and behold, it actually happened that way just six weeks later. i think most of us knew the war was going to happen anyway, but there was this scrap of hope somewhere that if there was a day --we sagh mobilization and, >> indeed, what we saw that y dave.or i was in new york. was the day before was the day that the security council had met. da that day amazing things that happened in the council for the first time win the frenchrench foreign minister -- this wasstee after the two u.n. inspectors t come in and said we don't have evidence of weapons of massn't destruction. we cannot prove it yet because we need another few weeks to finish. but we we have no evidence. in response the french foreignfg minister said the united nationt must be aned instrument of war d not -- must be an instrument for peace and not a tool for. the security council burst intor applause. it had never happened.re

the next morning before the a ually began a win with a very t small group to this it the nan, secretary general of the unitede nations. through this we got through this frozen zone i solicit by the police were wee were not allowed to the. we get up to that 38 floor. he looked across the table and said, we are here on behalf of u the people who are marching in 655 cities if to tell you that e those people marching on all of those cities, week when the united nations as a round. aazig it was an amazing it moment of,e oh, my god. this is what things could look like. egter that daoly,de we had goned out, the coldest day of thed off year.the ea ast bitter wind of the east rivr there were passing out in ondwarmers because people weret shaking. i went out to speak. everyone went out to speak. thirty seconds -- know, 60sort f

seconds. it was sort of ridiculous. the backstage of a sudden someone get a call that a wire story had just come across the ap wire. the story was two lines, but bao they thought it was important.id ndscribbled down and convened a the lead people and said, yound, know what we should do the color should we tell them were not? t maybe it ishi not true, but it d important.y stunned by the outpouring of outpou global criticism of the war the u.s. and british authorities announ today announced they would no seek a longer seek a second resolutioni for war. the the resolution and the u.n. tuld not call for war.teant it was used because it meantas they worked. so i was pushed back up onaid, status second time. the somebody said you with you in g person, taphyllis. you have to do it.ut l.a. that this have but that was about a half-million, 500,000 people. we hed

another couple hundred thousand that the police had not been allowed into the area because there was no more space.hateverr i read -- i just added one linet a set for anyone thinks that our protests don't matter : listen up. i've read this little too low jt and clipped. the crowd just roared. three was one of the most day extraordinary gains that anybody gets to part ticipate in st. at the end of the day we did not stop the war. everne in it did transform things. everyone in the world knew this for was illegal.did made clear that whenever the u.s. did, it did not have globar support. pa the government's who supportedy going to pay a price. as we saw, the government ofas f spain fell less than a yearmazig later. so it was one of those amazingt. moments that i will never you' on wi forget. >> host: dallas, texas, you are on with phyillis bennis.r: i a caller: i am overwhelmed tope be able to talk to you.it's it has been so long since i havi

heard anyone particulate what i really think and feel. it is just amazing to hear you. you have done so much. i live in dallas, texas. you can imagine that might be a conservative state as theyallash elected this lettie governorlotf again. in dallas county we have a lot the progressives. we are electing progressive grou individuals. of mullings to a group of women, all ourselves the democraticher thesis. we get together and protest for health care and other things and have a lot of fun.themll a umberger taft to tell them allbo about you. you fo this -- but just wanted to said ha they do for articulating what t you have an letting us know that there are people like us outwoui there that feel this way. i would like you to put down

your e-mail address the and so what everyone can keep in touch. up like to w you tell us what wa as individuals can do to bring these were still and and and bring the money home so that th. -- and, of course, the lives.tr, plane to bring the money, and use it in our country and thevide jobs and fix the infrastructure. >> host: we get the point. we put yourhink e-mail address up, but i did they put up your website.te. we will put that up again. that in kentucky to that upset. >> guest: absolutely.at a think right now particularly in this next. ry diffic congress will be very difficult. , we are trying to assume more and more of our political focusv at the local level, the kind of work that we did in the run-upec to the war over rock and, we are

seeing that now where we are going to see efforts to seek to the council resolutions saying we want to bring the weapon -- n money all. we do want to use it for more jobs. that is going to become more anm more of aor feature of what ours work looks like. thank you for all that you do in dallas. ♪ moorhead, minn. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i admire all of the knowledge that has been been embarked em dropped the show. i ve a f i have a few off statements of.r can we go -- draw an analogy to. lead the u.s. policy for not its withdrawing all of this continued occupation inh afghanistan, 18th march 1971. and i quote. you abandon india.

it would be an active role inegn nakedce negligence.so wou also wouldld like to commend thf state of affairs with india in spite of the reaction.i ♪ >> guest: well, keep. these are very complex. the u.s. >> -- questions as early as a client of the u.s. makes that we cannot leave afghanistan because of what will happen if the taliban and comes back. the answer is, i think, we aret. making it worse, not better.eopo we are encouraging people to join. we are strengthening the tell a band.else and it moves somewhere else and the mi emerges.of the military part of it is a f me o game of lacrimal. mole. but the bottom line is the television series is anndigenous indigenous organization.on pow when they came to power and won power in 1996 after several

years of a devastating civil war, it was not only because they won militarily. they did, butma they also won massive popular support because. they promised to end the they dd fighting among the board loads, and they did so. they did so brutally and with tremendous repression sociallyay above, but they did in thefghani fighting, which is what so many people in afghanistan wanted.ors .kabul have been brought to rui. it was the promise to and did ta that got the television so much support. so i think that we hear that th. fit. we have to recognize that with the u.s. is doing does not matcs that rhetoric. if the goal of the u.s. is to allow the afghans to establishn their own government based on their own traditions, culture, a kind of government we have to t. get out of the way and let thems do that and insure there it is regional negotiations kanaan, regional diplomatic moves, but g

without controlling it, withoute trying to impose our own or government, whether it is karza. or somebody else. the u.s. imposed government is simply not going to work.pove the repression of the televisios is terrible thing, but these warlords i know better.we som we sometimes think it is aquesth question of caliban bad to the government could. the reality is the culturalgs tt things that we respond to did not stunt. one of the most terrific, andth you have heseaerd of these caset where young studentsud have hadn acid thrown in their face by islamist factions that don't want them to go to school.iban. that practice did not start with the telegram. iversitarted in 1976 by a young afghan student at kabul university he became somebodyn who in the 1980's close one of the lead members of the merger

had been who was brought to then white house by president reagang introduced as one of the new family fathers of the new eat afghanistan, introduced to the . world as a great hero. that same man was the one whonoo went back to afghanistan, is no- part of the resistance, not the taliban, another organization,t but was the one who firsta of invented this terrific idea ofgl throwing acid in the face ofpros female students. the problems that face women inb ryghanistan a much broader thano just the television.. there is one great story, and wg will take other calls. a young woman from afghanistan m who became the youngest member of the new parliament. she was in strasbourg at the time of this anti nato protest that i was at.and t nd she is an extraordinaryo young woman who has faced death

threats, a i tobacco only inuise disguise, not openly because there have been several assassination attempts. she said something that i found very important.ery she said, you know, we, in civil so society in afghanistan, womens t face three enemies that create chaos and bloodshed in our country. we face the taliban, we facewarr this horrifying government of war lords and the u.s. rid occupation. if you can get rid of the u.s. occupation will only have to.go i thought, that is a very goodsa way to putn its. it is a step toward allowing the afghans to reclaim their >> h country.rdinary since >> host: in now, what is your view on the extraordinary silence of american foreign policy makers and the administration on pakistan's att role in the horrific terrorist attacks in india?

>> guest: i think the u.s. isrey facing this very tricky for a oe policy challenge. relahe one hand they are trying to build a strategic relationship with india because they see india appropriately as one of the rising new economic powers along with china. the relationship is partly to u. bolster the u.s. presence, vis-a-vis china, not quiteat against china, but certainly as an alternative to china.e and at the same time they have to continue some kind of strategic connection to the the pakistani government and military because that is the only way that they can continuer even this sure rate of a war that is killing people in theora real world, but his victories are a raid. they need to maintain that timee with pakistan. thethey had to balance this rhetorically. they cannot certainly focus on the role of the pakistanacked the-backed guerrillas who are

thought to be behind the mumbai attack. at the same time they have to to make clear to india that they ta are saying something about who is responsible for that terrifit attack that killed 167 people.ta it is a tricky business.the the problem is the u.s. policyta is not based on international law or real internationalism. it is based on u.s. interest being superior to all others. we are going to build at relationship based on what our strategic interests are, even when they contradict the strategic interest of our so-called friends in the region. >> host: what is your position on the wikileaks revelations and your position on policy and corporate whistle-blowers ind general? >> guest: people are asking all kinds of questions. for some of these of would urge people to look at our website. o

i wrote a piece on the huffington post up on our website also.the a few weeks ago we have a a seminar / today / discussion about wikileaks which emerged out of a staff meeting when we realized we had quite differente opinions about the significance and validity hands is that s democracy requires its opennesse war requires secrecy.i th i don't like war. know, i don't like secrecy. the more we know the betterad empowered we are to fight against wars and bad policies. having said that we must bef clear that any of thesend documents, and we have only seee about 2,000 out of more than 250,000 faugh in this cash flow but i think that any individualn one that we are seeing may or may not be true.

mayor made it not reflect actuat government policy. never fight the goal of some young and ambitious addressre junior diplomat trying tome. impress somebody back home.but e all those things come into account. at the end of the day will we ts know is on that day this is what the embassy index country told the state department. whether it's true or not you knt don't know, but you know that is what they were told pfft. that becomes very important. we heard that there were aa nber number of arab leaders in the co small gulf countries but told pi theva u.s. privately that theyo. supported u.s. military action against tehran.they'ved well, that is not new thefts. they have said things that make that public. ap what did tell us is just how fas apart those governments and their positions are from the vast majority of the people. fop that is useful for people tome

know. i had somebody asked me aboutatp something that came up recently, about zimbabwe.ently, there was apparently an indication from the leader ofleh the opposition in zimbabwe who is in this very fragile and fra, precarious coalition government. he apparently told the u.s.diplv economats privately that he supported the crippling economic sanctions that the u.s. hasare d imposed, which are opposed by pa the vast majority of the population, including his own w party. thin somebody said to me, do youk think that makes the possibility aore difficult of reaching -- s and there was an article sayingy this but, that it makes the possibility of pressuring the leader of zimbabwe to no doubt nationalism in the interest

of a very repressive regime, makes the solution more iit difficult. well, i'm not sure, but i'd zime chang ry is important that people know that he is saying one thing to them in public ando another to u.s. diplomats. make it may make it more difficult to arrange the kind of politicalmpt solution he wants, but it is important that people know he does not necessarily representis what they thought he did.i so again is geared and important that there be whistle-blowerft r protections. >> host: we have about 40 guest minutesth left. hartford, connecticut.nnec thanks for holding. >> caller: hello. h how are you?year to happy new year. ori afghanision, i am moving in from pakistan. i haveve read about the afghanistan war. definitely by assessment is that the my as afghanistan war right now is a a war by proxy within the civil

war. do you agree with that assessment? how doding you see it ending? >> hos >>t: host: phyillis bennis. >> guest: thank you. it is a very hard question. it is a civil war underway.it the u.s. is one of the players.m itan is one of many militaryt players. by far the most powerful. it is calling the shots for the. government in kabul as well. the question of how it will end. is very complicated, not because it has to be, but because of the politics of it. president obama and his administration and most of congress is simply reluctant to say we have to pull out. it's not working. we have to do something else to bring stability to this country that we have destabilized.ing becauslitary version is not working. impl there are not prepaiered to say that because it implies they know that they have lost. the

they know they're doing the wrong thing, and they don't want to be called on.s a so the problem that we face is a th political problem, not ai just military problem. there will never be a moment, and i just wrote a new piece about a week ago. the head of peace action, the largest of the peace organizations. he and i did a piece together analyzing president obama's most an recent speech. we started by saying somet somef version of it seems that theregn is nothing the u.s. can do wo militarily that won't signify of c of thein the rhetori obama administration. if the violence is up it is because we are bringing theif ve ight to thenc enemy.because sty the violence goes down is because our strategy is workingv our problem is the military pari is not working. there is no military solution.hi yet we hear from the military, o this is all we can do because we have to keep doing it.l, the problem is political, not military. the military renmioli will losew

they will not win. the question is, how many more people have to die. how many more young u.s. soldiers, nato troops have tothe die before we a knowledge of the military is not going to work.il it is a political challenge thoe which means it is a challenge for those of us who live in this mu country much more than the tosibility that it is going change and the ground in afghanistan. >> shirley and i welcome the goodd afternoon. >> hello.s. >>st: hiwith most of what you said.. i would just like to make ahat e mggestion for you with a couplo of caveats. when somebody asks you if you're a liberal but by not answer for directly for myself i am liberal compared with the radical right feather. but before you to call me a communist and dublin not a a fom

communist. of a i am a former ceo small-businese third who was put out of co business by some for copper the corp's. that is one of our biggest problems fifth, the northern half of our businesses have noto petrie patriotism to this b country because they are reign- doreign-owned.orke but two of my sons have workeds for foreign-owned businesses and found them not very good. one as executive the other as at manager. i wanted to ask you, also, have you read general bottlers book, war is a racket?ich he named whichco corporations wh back in the early 1900's, whichs corporations in which countries on behalf of this corporation in

this country and that corporation in that country. we still have the same things going on, but we don't name the corporations. >> guest: thank you. but think that the issue of whal you call it patriotism, i guess that is the right term, is a huge issue. for me the most unpatriotic corporations tend to be americai like aig, goldman sacks, theseps banking companies, bankamerica.t these of the companies that i consider to be unpatriotic peak as there interests are those of their ceos and stockholders, not the people who depend on their services or the people who inth the country where they live and itain work. british petroleum is not patriotic britain or here, notuo because they are british, but'sf because of their destruction ofk people's lives. diffently,

that b would define in a little bit differently but i agree the problem we face is the lack of concern of corporations for people's rights. these are the struggles we haves ahead of us. as we struggle to end war we have to look at who is wars. profiting. >> host: next call comes fromseh luis in johnson city, tennessee. you are on the air.or >> caller: thank you. thank you for c-span, and thankm yous so much, ms. dennis, for what you're doing. please keepan doing it. drown without c-span i would drown in beautiful east tennessee. uerstn i do not understand why congress allows the corporations and the military-industrial complex and, why they are allowing them to destroy us. >> host: let's take that andth talk about the new congress that is coming in.

>> g: yeah.on what could possibly occur.loui >> guest: let me just say one thing on the question of the hu, media. huge, the corporate control of our media is a huge, huge, huge problem. the existence of things like c-span is very important.in we have a vibrant and growing independent media sector which i ok at would urge police and others to liggett as well ranging fromstat sillegeions radio stations,telei democracy and television andallf radio, all of these are media as important outlets for new media as well as the internet.yes. now the question of car wrist. rugg oh, yes. congress's door to be aread abou struggle. it is interesting to read about how these new tea party members who are political neophytes, hog

they are finding their way ingoh washington, the assumption is that are born to be bought off.o it will be interesting to see how that process happens or does is not happen. what is interesting is that the left-right divide in congress, k this next time around, is going to look much more like a tha republican democrats split than it used to, mainly because the right wing democrat, the so-called blue dog go what are known as moderate, but are quit, right wing, they of the ones who eost in the overall scheme.mingh overwhelmingly it was not aresse progressive carcass to came out of this very well. almost almost all of them a weren the f reelected. the senate is a huge loss. the death of teddy kennedy.enne. in the house the progressives

did very well and came out mucho closer. so i think what we are going to see now is that the right wing g will be much more republicans. e the progressive side is trying to be much more democrats. it is not entirely that way.l be never is. to but think that on the issue of n the war's it is going to be very difficult. despite the fact of the economyt remains the key issue, key particularly for the newcomers,s those who want to stopovernmen government spending, most had not yet been challenged. use that money to provide jobs. we don't know if they're willinh to doav that.n of and the question of support for the israeli occupation we arete-

not doing anything except do antagonizinghing people by this kind of massive run critical support e for israeli policies that reg violate international law andisr don't make israelis or palestinians or americans in the safe for him. here will be some new 'reas and energy on that issue.e i don't think we are seeing it yet. it is early. thankst: arnold, new york yity. >> caller: the key for taking tocall. i would like to hear about the obama justice department lands

for the statutes of how the extent, including americans, whether they can just put yourey away and hold you indefinitelydy and not charge you were put you. on trial. >> guest: one of g the mostmitme disappointing on commitments ofe the obama campaign, one of the things that was violated so to quickly was the commitment tomot shut inor guantanamo, in theat. torture, and all claims related said that. righre seeing guantanamo continue, the expansion of the right of the u.s. government any president, potentially for ever, you a new -- anyone deemed aapte threat. no back this kill or capture last without judicial oversight.overi so thisgh whole range of expansh of the rights of the executiveae

branch to essentially waging a secret unaccountable war, a counsel to the congress to of the courts.e to the this is a serious violation to r the division of power that is supposed to characterize our ca democracy and is one of the ways in which we can see how shredded our democracy is becoming, how endangered. of fighting to protect what remaini remains one of our most important obligations. ord >> linda in santa barbara c neighbs and, in order to combat gentrification might i suggest that you g move out and give yo. condo to five latino offenders -- families. le that is just as likely that thef israelis will move out of their settlement and let l palestinian families live and. one man's occupation is anotheri man's homeland. done su a perhaps the u.n. can sort itrica out. they have done such a wonderful job in africa solving their

problems. oh, i forgot to read it is bill. gates to resolving their she wag problems.bank. ps israel was burning down the y bank. >> guest: first of all, the 197, bank turned down not by me in p. 1970, not 1969. first of all, i live in a cooperative, a condo. i hiso, it's not real relevant.ifs the issue of gentrification is d huge one. i have fought against it and continue to do so.s an i don't know how much of her comments were serious and how oe much or sarcasm, but i would say one thing. n the question -- and not sure ma, where she said one man, but one person's home landing another harson's occupation is w absolutely right. the question is, what is the homeland and what happens to the people who actually have a home and live somewhere when someone else comes in and claims the

physical claimho makes it theiro homeland. i have no claim to israel be ine my homeland. it is not my homeland. there. i don't come from there. no one in my family comes from e there. don't th i don't think, even for those who believe that biblical claims have some validity, i don't ink go think that got rights real-estate contracts. i think that leaving out the lng indigenous people who livewheree somewhere because someone else h comes in and says we have aral i moral claim based on what someone else did to us somewhero else does not work.t: john rorta >> hilost: john robert e-mails n and. i listened to your response regarding whether people in iran or better. no i understood your responseule

that although the populace in doors of your politicalerives wc repression, millions live bette lives to a tactic to mean it would have been better not to oppose him. ir he. >> guest: the answer is itd would have been better if the co iraqis haveul deposed him themselves to reedbuck one of the sting's widow like to talksr about throughout the years of the 1980's when the iraqis were aboard, the u.s. wa, providing, among of the things o money, seedstock for biologicale informs. targeting information to gocheme after, to use chemical weapons. theth u.s. has a lot of obligations that kept saddam hussein din power.ly if we had stopped that it isnt r quite likely that the governmenv

that remained in power in iraq would have been a different kint ofhe government. that would have been much better.. call, beaverton, ms. ore. >> caller: hello. i want tcoo compliment you won your high intelligence and knowledge of the issues. i would like to know more of a personal question. if you believe in god, if you do, do you believe that people that do believe in a gun should be in control of the world what do you think that it should beho more people who would like to control the world because ofwlee their intelligence or knowledge of the issues vibrato to back. >> guest: that is a differentt e

kind of question that i am used to giving.ev i don't believe in god.th. h believe in people.at t habib i have faith in people'sir movements and how people cany as change. i believe in the history of this country as being something that despite starting as a government and the country based on genocide and slavery hedblom, it aatas is also a an country that has an incredible moveme history of social movement toacf challenge genocide and slavery and the lack of rights. at think that both of those exist side-by-side which is whyp i am grateful to howard zinn for his history of the united states and what that thomas. it is not just to is elected governor, but the movements thao changeover. so for me that is what is mostnk wo important. i think who runs the world needs

to be those people. be different the forms of government will be different everywhere. lot but i have faith in people that we will figure that out.la sev >> host: over the years we have featured several authorss oh who were atheists. is that a movement?s it i >> i guess its is. i frankly don't see it as much o hoes wovement a so much of an individual.kinghat for some who just make that their self definition which, toe me, is kind of irrelevant.do i am more interested in what yoo do to make the world a betteroui place. if you don't believe in godif yv fine, if you do, fine. n i am not that interested one way or the other. i am interested in what you do and make judgments about what i good think works, who i think is abay oood person based upon what thet do more than what they profess to believe. >> host: you are on with

s bennis.span >> caller:'s hi. and th question, and then i would like to attack one on.ne my big question is this. in in a rational non mudslinging, non name calling sense how would you defend yourself if someonesn way over their on the right claimed that you always blamet? america first? >> host: okay that was your big question. what is your followup?e >> caller: if -- he mentioned something about the two-party folks being neophytes and gondered how that would play out. we have an example. isn't obama kind of a neophyte?a thantly what we will be looking for.ksg >> host: thank you for calling o in.ho >> guest: good questions. how would i defend?ts to , i think there are two parts. one is that i think in thehe w history ofor the world of the lt 40 years, many more the u.s. hat

been by far the most powerful country in the world, militarily, economically, socially, politically,ically, iy diplomatically, in every way. not the best, the most powerfule that means thant it has had mors responsibilities about when things go bad, whether it is ths responsible for making them go bad, not responding when theyseg do, whether it is responding mil badly, militarily rather than diplomatically. so often it is a problem.oblem s the other is i am an american. this is my country about. wa i want this to be a different kind of country. at i spend much time focusing on what our country does wrong. i have worked on the issue of i ending the israeli occupation long than for way longer than i care tosue remember. opped hands basically since i stopped pergu supporting it. do

but what i'd do differently now and have done differently forerl these last two years is keep the focus on u.s. policy rather tha. focusing on israel during this.d when i am concerned about is d what is the u.s. doing? we are providing protection andt security. we are making sure the nuclear s weapons are not talked about ind the discussion of proliferation. those are big problems, and i my want to keep my work on mys. country, my government where im. pay taxes, what is done in my of name. so that is a big part of why i keep the focus of the unitedst l states. >> host: phyillis bennis over the last couple of years has been writing a primer series, "from stones to statehood: the palestinian uprising," "ending the u.s. war in afghanistan: aua primer," by the more?

>> guest: there is another one that i did not right. i think there are more to come. i don't think i will write another for a little while. whi. i think they are useful. g i think that they are very important and useful tools for activists, people trying toing d understand hot issues as they ly emerge. my next book isbe likely to bege something a little more challenging for me. >> host: have you started?ome >> guest: i haven't.want to i have some ideas. what to do some study. inv i have the honor of being lennon to do a writer's retreatis in texas later this spring and am looking forward to having five weeks to read and study and maybe begin some writing.re a andhost: talked a littlebo bit more about the foundation. od it is kind of an odd thing.

>> guest: i guess it is unique. the foundation is based in santn fe, san new mexico. it historically has done a lot r of work in supporting the arts but andpa poetry. but one of the key people in the foundati foundationon has also been very interested in the middle east and the question of palestine.ep he was a great developed the drug developed a great edward relationship with the saee palestinians dollar.tors one of my great mentors and challengers. i learned more from that were e. challenging me. they, amon among other the rings they haveo this extraordinary opportunity sr writers to go to texas to, o write if they're working on then book, study or read if they'rear not in the middle of a book, ang think about their next book, plan, and get away from their go

day-to-day work. >> host: what is olive branchthl press? >> guest: what would i callof it?e the political arm of interleagug books, which is the publishing company in northampton, massachusetts. they publish a huge amount of a work from politics of the middle east, a lot on the palestinian-israeli conflict, ab lot on arab culture, cookbooks, art books to great fictiond interrelation including probably the most comprehensive amount on fiction in translation from arabic of any publisher in this them f country. published many for the first time, the first sudanese book.e the first yemeni novel published in english.terlin contrihink that these were a

greatbu and important t contribution, particularly as moments as it has been, our country is at war either militarily or through the use of sanctions against so many people and in the middle east. we understand so little of who these people are, with their culture is, what these countrien are about. t it is often through fiction that weekend learn that.. es interleague has been a huge r gift. unfortunately not as many hardeo independent bookstores exist these days, and it is harder to be sold in the chain's, but youe have bookstores like the teaching for change bookstore.s, one of the great culturalers centers here in h washington d.. they themselves publish and sell all sorts of books. the question of publishing and selling books becomes so important in the internet era it when books are becoming passe to

pe some people. i think there very far from it. i think they are important. publishing books that are not understae available is a key part to getting people tond understand what it means when we go to war.who who are the people who liveheir there? what are their aspirations,of t history, the dreams? some of that you can do. mu not much. needo much of it you need to read thee poetry, the novels, and ginnie publishers that our billing touh publish the stuff of knowing that it might not make money,a but it is important to have access to it. >> host: but they available at cons the institute website?nline >> guest: they are. ll can also get them from the py publisher. >> host: next call, 15 minutes left.michig please goan ahead.-span. >> caller: think you for takin aking myg call.g

my question is concerning the israeli occupation. i happen to be a secular jew who has had his heart with israel i since this whole thing began. i know very little about everything concerning it. p i have one question that plagues me, and that is, israel took tok occupation.they were they occupied because they were attacked but i did just the palestinians, a consortium of arabs. why i they so criticized for the occupation due to the fact thatu they were attacked?e >> caller: thank you for your questions. i assume you're talking about the 1967 occupation. there is a school of thought th

that says whatwa was created in 1948 was also a kind of occupation, albeit approved nations. partly by the united nations. israel ended that war in 1849 with 78 percent rather than 555e but they took over the additional 22%. hod that attacklar met says thated israel was attacked. in and 1967. in fact, it was not. it was in response to egypt having told the u.n. that they wanted the u.n. troops, the w border observers, to be removeda which was there all right. they had not attacked israel.

support of the criticism is for that.at. the larger part is for holding on to the territory.thathy that is by resolution 242 of the united nations, which you hear a lot about is what should be thes basis for solving the problem,at very clear. the it says that it prohibits the forc acquisition of territory by force. terrory it says there can be noe. acquisition of territory bywar,a force.at the whole pointtl is that in the war, about, fight to mo boardy. creates changes in territory, somebody ends up a plan that they did not have before. the point is, you cannot keepken it. that it is the keeping it that is nor intemajor violation. if you look, the obligations of an occupying power of based on the idea that occupation is a temporary phenomenon. of the if you look at the most recentel reports of the speciale repertoires on the question oft

human rights in occupiedo territories, they are proposingr the international court ofjustim etheice examine the question of whether thisr kind of long-term atcupation in the case of these '67 war, we are now looking at 43 years of occupation of that territor iy which the u.n. itsef said is illegal. that should be too soon it's a big difference. there is an entirely different, new, more sitagnificant violatie at stake when the land has been and next and stolen and permanent buildings put up. villages knocked down to build israeli settlements. that is continuing day-by-day. a when we hear from the obamaze, r administration that we want to h

settle this. to me that is simply not sufficient because it does notna deal with the ongoing violationg of having half a million illegae israeli settlers, illegal cobecause the geneva conventions -- and sorry, article 49 says p, that the occupying power may not place its own population in the occupied territories. that is illegal. on theseave 500,000 israeli jewish settlers living on theser illegal settlements breaking the ng up law simply by waking up in the t morning. goes that is a huge problem that goeh way beyond, do we stop the settlement activity now?ready that is why this thing becomes b so complicated. as >> host: as a peace activist what, if anything, have you done to secure the release of theom soldier kidnapped from the sovereign nation by moss?

ve guest: i have repeated that a they should have immediate access to the internationald crs committee ofi the red cross. i would ask mr. garrison cur similarly i am curious what woro he has done to secure the release of the 11,000 palestinian prisoners currently being held by israel. >> host: the look, you are on. >> good afternoon to you both. me say, i never heard about youe and tell a week ago. it is so refreshing to hear sucs honesty.t it truly is.kground, anyway, as an outsider i am apun liberal and republican.is all anyone who wants to know will ha blow in this is allts about, trf wearing those two hats.if you i would like to get away from the war. i have a question. i am suffering from more a

fatigue. colleg so as i remember being a freshman in college andin washington d.c. 2:00 in thene i morning, a couple of friends ann i went to the washingtonhinke monument.securi p we brought champagne. i think we saw one security pret person.reagan likewise when the hostages were released and presidentwe reagan gave that speech will run the chilly outside one of the white house gates. see anything.within we were within probably 50 yards of the president. eithe of course today you know if i sd was in either one of the spots today i do not think i wouldostp remain vertical. >> host: bring this to ar. conclusion. >> guest: looking down the road with all of the increaseatn security in combination with all this technology, is the spirit of activism, can that still bewu enhanced by these powers or do thu see it being diminished?thi >> guest: i thatink that the prl

security issue has created apror huge problem logistically but io also they will have come to aste point where protests in theform street are not our only form.tro demonstrations are still ty cou important. kidding a city council that we warassed saying one or more dollars to stay homa has a huge impact.tting thegove getting the governor of montanaw to say we want the montana for national guard brought home.we we don't want it wasted in iraqs that is huge. very these local activities becomewiu very important. i challenge you with one. i am not prepared to say it is acceptable for anyone in this ad country who pays taxes and partf especially someone who votes for either party to say they havewa. were fatigue. our tax money is preventing the in the wars in afghanistan and ma iraq and to many other placeswe around the world. we don't have the right to say we're tired. the people against whom our troops are fighting, against hm fr money is buying our bonds too

drop, they are the ones who aref very tired of war.e >> host: e-mail. the you see any differencema between the bush a administration and the obama administration foreign-policy? >> guest: on many issues,treatyh absolutely. and the the start treaty, although k it pro and limited and does notn go far could not have beensse passedbush underration. the bush a ministration. it is an important step that does not to go far enough, but s think on other issues as well, s on some of the relations 11 america, china, even peron had been significantly different fever.nt, on the question of the issues that are h the most urgent we hn seen farsi too much consistentln and far too little distinction.e >> host: do you see your next

book breaking out from the middle east? >> guest: maybe. i don't know what i would write] about. phos died don't know much about anything else. and not sure i am enough of a sd generalist. as i said earlier, i am very interested in turkey. people u 5i have had people are urged men to write, you know, fiction, more, whenever. i don't think ofer myself as a i writer in that sense. i i write a lot, but i think ofacn myself more as an activist. t myo riding is what i do to help build social movement. a thi it is like ips is a think tank,k but it is a think tank whose whh goal is to change the world n which means our audience is nots necessarily congress. sometimes it is congress. movem more oftenen it is social movements who will then try to d influence congress. if you belieinve, as i do, and s en institute, we all do, as aem

social change is madeo to we have a lot of work to do to build those movements. that is what we have to do.witht >> host: how is ip us funded?o >> guest: great difficulty. no cover -- no government orour. corporate money. we get money from individuals and foundations and private big foundations. it is a big struggle. projects have to raise their own funds which is not an easy hall. in anyone listening who is fnd interested in helping to fund,ee you are welcome to get to ourwet website at the doorhe a button.t all about private foundations prov educational institution whose kd goal is to they provide movements with the kind of educational they need.

>> host: david, you spot bar gre on. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. one specific thing.egality you ought to bring anotherissuef person and to talk about theemes legality issues of the settlements because i do think s she is misstating the facts about the restrictions. id they that is by the u.s. has never brin said there were legal. out helpful in bringing about a endition, but as a more general thing phyllis always used the be term ending the conversation, but there has to be another wara symmetry. you cannot end the occupation without ending the war against israel. when israel signed the treaty peace. with egypt should give up land t for peyace. and israel signed the treatyd fr with jordan she gave up its lane for peace.he

the problem is the palestinian a stork tea it -- authority bar obstacles to peace.th if israeley was to give up landt would lead to a disaster. >> guest: i appreciate the vernme comments. first of all, the u.s. sents government has on occasion said that the governments are fiing illegal. in a legal finding by the statei department back in, i believe it was 1986. i'm not sure the exact date. t there was a hole finding on thep roillegality of the process.hat but i think that the point isono that israel has an obligation tt withdraw from territory that itf illegally occupies, which includes all of talhe west bank, gaza, and arab east jerusalem'si and on the political side rights now the epa and tomas have both indicated their willingness to except a two-stage solution. tomas on what they call aid culd long-term basis with this it

could last up to 100 years. the cease-fire with hamas wasng. holding, but the cease-fire in hoing unti 2008 was holding until it was b violated on november 4th of that year by israel which led to eterioration of the anthen the cease-fire and then the guns ofw war. the question is, under international law israel still has to end its occupation. be >> host: phyillis bennis has on been our guest this month on "in ok wi depth."beginning once again here is a list ofhoo" books. "from stones to statehood: the palestinian uprising," edited at "beyond the storm: a gulf crisis reader" and "altered states: a reader in the new world order." "calling the shots: how washington dominates today's u.n." was published in 2000, after 16 commited thousand,d three, and then she began a premier9 series published in 2009 and 2010. the understanding that palestinian and israeli conflict nding commending the a rock war, understanding the u.s. iran

crisis and ending the war -- ending the war in afghanistan. if you get to ipf you can find access to all of those books. >> it has been a pleasure. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here. type the author a book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page. you can also share anything you see on book tv easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format streaming live on line for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. >> robert kaplan, writer for the atlantic monthly magazine talks about the geopolitical importance