centrists and in american politics and i will just kick off a few of them. one of them is the money. congress people spend an enormous amount of their time just raising money. and in american politics, the centrist reasonable generally nice motor does not have as much influence as the single special interest group that is funding the candidates. . .

>> even govern or campaign to the center if 90% of your constituency is democrat, it's exactly the same. i think we need to redraw constituencies so that candidates have a vested interest in running, governing to the center. because that's the only way they can be i elected. right now the opposite is happening. a third problem is the media. the quality or lack thereof. and i'll stress the lack thereof of news. it's not even news. it's fistfights on evening television. i mean if you want hard news

tonight, in the united states, you want to find out what's happening in the world, you really don't have many options. you can try to find the bbc world thing, you can watch the lara news hour. there aren't a lot of options on television. so that, i think, is part of the problem. and then finally, and this is more of a hypothesis than it is anything else. i wonder whether the shift from the industrial age to the digital age isn't creating regions of america that are more homogeneous than they used to be. during the industrial age, we had to move to the port, to the river, to the mine. and as a result, if you went to, let's say new england in 1955, or 1960, and you looked at who new englanders sent to congress, you would probably get 60% republican and 50% in the.

today, it's all democrat. if you go out to the mountain west, it's exactly the opposite. it's almost all republican. and to some extent, i think what's happening is the country is being regionally segregated and that region and party are started to come into alignment. the last time that happened in a real serious was at 1855. when the mississippi compromise collapsed, and we know what happens in 1860. that ain't good news. there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about where the country is heading. i will end with an upbeat note. that is i think when i travel around whether it's to here or the midwest or mountain west or whenever, most of the people i talk to pop pop -- pop pew latee

political center. maybe the center right as opposed to center left. most of the people are in the center. but that's not where the parties are. we need to find some way of bringing our political system back in touch with reality. and if that happens, then i think we can be confident we'll see a return to the centrism and bipartisanism that's needed to fix the problems that we have at home, which in turn is needed to deal with an international and diplomatic landscape that needs a focused, capable, vital america. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> this event was hosted by the naples council on world affairs. for more information on the council visit ncwa-fl.org.

>> we're here at c pac talking about "st. peter's bones." tell us what this book is about. >> this is a war novel. about the persecuted cute in iron. it's a narrator that worked as a special forces in iraq, and north of iraq with persecuted christians. i've also done many times for news max to jordan and lebanon to speak with iraqi-christian refugees. i felt as a journalist, the message wasn't getting out. i wanted to right a human side of the tour -- the story to understand what's happening. the christian who happen to be the indigenous people and they are being forced out by jihadi muslims. >> where there people that you met that inspired some of the characters? >> yes, this is a historical

novel. only, all of the characters are fictional. i met a lot of interpreters, people that work for u.s. forces in iraq, that is my narrator. again, i wanted to tell also the story of how the christians have lived in iraq for generations. so there's a family saga in this, there's a love story, a young syrian woman that comes to iraq to find her roots and st. peter's bones themselves and the relic where they might be such as in a monastery in north iraq. >> have you done any nonfiction based on your journalism there? >> i'm the author of ten books. "traitors, saboteurs, and the party of surrender," and "countdown to crisis." and on and on and on. my main specialty is the middle east. i write for news and magazines and tv as well. >> it's president's day weekend.

and book tv is featuring three days of programming from 8 a.m. on saturday to 8 a.m. on tuesday. for a full listing visit booktv.org and click on the tv schedule. >> what i'd like to talk to you about this afternoon, as walter says very briefly, is a catastrophe. a catastrophe in which 14 million people chiefly children and women and the aged were killed over the space of just 12 years. but two regimes. the nazi german regime, and the stalinist regime in the soviet union. this total figure of 14 million is in itself, i think, astonishing. it's a number which is too large to grasp. and i'll return to what that

means and how we might try to grasp. it's also a number which tells us something very special about these two regimes. we know now or at least have a pretty good certainty about the total number of people killed by these two regimes. it was about 17 million. of those 17 million, about 14 million were killed in a place that i'm calling the bloodlands. that is to say, not so much russia, not so much germany, but the lands between berlin and moscow. the western rim of russia, the baltic states belarus, and most of poland. from the atlantaic to the pacific, the tremendous majority of the mass murder was concentrated in the relatively small territory.

>> well, there's a new online enterprise starting up. it's called the washington independent review of books. david stuart is the president of this organization. mr. stuart, what is your organization? >> well, it's a group of writers and editors and similarly-minded people in the -- mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the schilling of book review space and sort of the standard media. a lot of book review has been folded and shrunk. it's harder to find information about what's going on in the world of books. coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. so we decided to try to do something ourselves. this is really sort of from the old judy garland mickey rooney movies where they say let's put on a show. we would create our own book

review. about 70 of us engaged in it. we just larged. -- launched. and we've had a great response. >> what kind of books will you be reviewing on this site? >> a wide range, nonfiction and fiction. we suspect for now we're not going to be looking at children's books and we won't be looking at romance literature. but beyond that, we're quite open. and we will be reviewing recently released books. we hope to get our reviews up within the first 30 to 45 days after publish indication. -- publication. you can come to us about what are the new books? >> can people submit books to be reviewed? >> we'd rather not get the books, but bring them to our attention. we'll have to decide. you can get a lot of books that

way. that are hard to deal with. we certainly invite people to e-mail, bring their books to our attention, send us their publicity packages so we know in plenty of time it's coming and we can decide whether it's one we want to take a shot at reviewing. >> mr. stewart, you said a lot of your reviewers and people involved in the washington independent review of books have backgrounds in writing and publishing. what's your background? give us a snapshot of some of the people participating? >> my background, i was a lawyer for many years. i'm now an author, i have done a couple of books on american history. one on the writing the constitution, the summer of 1787, one the impeachment trail of andrew johnson, and one on aaron burrs western conspiracy, american emperor. the other books comes from

american journalist and book writers as well. we have been lucky in recruiting reviewers, and the back on the ikeman trial in israel, we were able to get patricia walls, look at the book, -- it's -- we've just had a terrific response from people. just as example, pauline meyer is going to review a new book on the revolution by gordon wood. we've been able to get topnotch reviewers. it's an exciting thing. you know, everybody in the operation works for the same amount of money. nobody is paid. that includes our reviewers. it's wonderful to see people willing to pitch in to create

this conversation about the world of books which is really what we are all about. >> and there has been a decline in traditional media review of books. but online, there's quite an active marketplace of reviewers. what do you bring to the table that's different? >> i think the depth in the quality of our reviewers. we are doing features, author interviews and q on -- q and as. we have a couple of radio partners putting up podcast. we will provide a full range of information. i think, you know, the other operations that are trying to do the same thing are doing the lord's work as well. i certainly support what they are up to. but i think there's room for a lot of voices. and that's important when you are reviewing books is that there are a lot of voices. so you are not just stuck with one or two reactions to a new book.

which maybe ideosin cattic in their reactions. >> will you be looking at all books? books from the left, from the right, and from the middle? >> of course, we are with washington writers we have a lot of interest in political and historical topics. we will take them all on. >> how often will you be putting up new material? >> we will have new content up every day. either a new interview, or new review. you know, as in the early days we're trying not to set the bar too high for ourselves. as time goes on, we expect the content to become richer and richer. i'm really looking forward to that. >> mr. stewart, you say on the web site, you got your cede money for the aiw freedom to

write fund. what is that? >> it's associated with american independent writers which is an association here in the d.c. area, and it's a 501(c)(3) fund. we have done various fund raising, enough to get up and running. it's been a great sponsorship. >> david stewart the president of the washington independent review of books. washington washingtonindependentreviewofboo ks.com is the web site. >> up next, marine captain thomas daly talks about his first six months of the surge in iraq. he presents his book as barnes and nobles in washington, d.c. >> i got a couple of things to go over with you guys.

thank you for coming. i know you are taking time to come out here and listen to one marine speak. i really do appreciate it. so before we begin, i kind you give you guys an idea of the actually agenda. what are the specific topics? i want to start off by giving you guys an idea is what is "rage company"? what is the book about? i want to give you a piece about the author, about myself. i'm going to tell you about the city of ramadi, the capital of anbar providence, iraq. it's two different books. first half and second half. once we get into it, you'll understand what i'm talking about. i'll drive us into why i wrote the book. i'll go over the importance and lessons of "rage company." i'll take your questions and do the signings after that. all right. so "rage company." anbar providence 2006, 2010. elements of the 15th marine unit are sent into iraq and spread

across three cities, haditha, ramadi, and rutha. they said anbar providence was not winnable. they saw success unlikely. however, within the city of ramadi from november to march of 2007, the city went from less than one attack to -- the "rage company" is going to tell you how it happened. how does that tie into tribal warfare at it's core? before we get into too much about the book. i'll tell you about myself. my father was a career marine. i grew up as a military brat. i never spent more than three years in any one place. i went into the marine corps straight from the nortc program

in college. my career was artillery officer. my first two years were training. after spending about six months in the fleet, i picked up with the 15th marine expeditionary unit. i was an observer, which is coordinating artillery, close air support, heavy machine guns. when we actually deployed to iraq, i had a good conversation with my company commander with what it was he wanted me to do. in the urban environment in cities like ramadi, we are not dropping a lot of artillery or air support. what was it the artillery officer was going to do was a question that was up in the air. typically, what happens is artillery officers become civil affairs, public affairs, kind of handing out pamphlets, trying to interact with the local population.

i didn't really want to do that. i wanted to do something that was more meaningful. the infantry company level doesn't has an intelligence officer. infantry unit is 200 marines. there's nobody that's designated to handle intelligence at the battalion level, which is 800 marines. we decided we were going to create it into an intelligence section. as you go through the book, it paid off. it made a huge difference. it's kind of the piece that, you know, you think about police work. and counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare, it is about police work. for every four police police of, you have two detectives. you have two detectives sifting through the material. within the military, you don't have that. you have nine guys for 800. and that creates a problem for the disseminated information and

things of that nature. enough about myself and the background. the city of ramadi. it's the capitol of anbar providence. it's about 400,000 people. it's a very urban environment. very condensed. most of the houses are small fortresses. they have a courtyard wall, every roof has a retaining wall about two to four feet high. and it's a very interesting dynamic. you'll see from chapter one, from the onset seven minutes into the first patrol, there's a marine who's shot through the throat. and just getting that marine back to a combat outpost which literally they had one seven minutes away. they weren't that far. about 3 00 was tough. within the urban environment, it's a condensed fight. block to block, small fortresses. every house has a wall and retaining wall on the roof. fighting from fortress to fortress. the insurgents within the city

of ramadi. unlike baghdad where you have a mix of shiite and sunni, raydy was sunni. the interesting dynamic was that al qaeda in ramadi was that not strong. it's saddamist insurgents. al qaeda was a foreigner as much as we were. they were not seen as iraqi, they were seen as outsiders. that kind of precipitated when the fox company or rage company as the call sign says, we went to a population that was at odds with al qaeda. they weren't really helping america, but they were not helping al qaeda either. we went into this opportunity, if you will, that a lot of people didn't really recognize at the time. this is the very early fall of 2006. so the first half of the book. rage company arrived in ramadi

in november. we conducted small controls and operations. on the seven large scale operations, you could describe them as conventional-style operations. we were taking what we learned against fighting another military like the soviet-style army and trying to apply to a guerrilla movement. the affects for pretty unsuccessful. our plans for these operations would literally take about 36 hours. for 36 hours we were on a base talking about what we wanted to do. then the execution phase, the execution phase was no longer than 12 hours. we talked 36 hours what we were doing to do for 12 hours. from the interacting with the people, you are not doing much. for those 36 hours while you are talking about to one another about how to coordinate the tank, aircraft, get all of the supporting element in place, the enemy is out there influencing the people and you are not. so that also drove another

thing. the people did not want to work with us. because we were not the dominant force on the streets. the insurgents were. and so when the people don't want to work with you, it's hard to get intelligence about who the insurgents are. we would go out and execute the operations, bring back 20 to 30 insurgents every time. bring them back and had no real evidence that these guys were doing anything wrong. granted we had intelligence assessments that say said this individual is doing something wrong. unless we find evidence in his home, like weapons, explosive material, ied making, wires, you can't prosecute him. we were trying to institute a democracy where there had to be a preponderance of evident to put them in jail. without that link, we weren't -- it was a catch and release program. we would grab guys, bring them back, risk our lives, and watch 95% of them go right back to the street. another problem was that if you did try to prosecute one of

these guys, and they didn't actually get convicted, we would pay them $14 a day. so a lot of these guys, insurgents, this was the interesting fact, it was almost every single high level terrorists that was one of our targets, we had his picture in a orange jump suit. he'd been captured before and released. it was actually kind of a requirement within al qaeda, in order to be promoted, you had to be caught and released. almost every single one of them had that happen. that was another problem president the detainee process was not successful. it drew the actual civilians to not want to work with us as well. they watch them go right back out on to the street. that's kind of the first half. conventional operation against the guerrilla warfare. not really working. the second half is a lot different. you'll see this. the first day half is the first half, and second half started at chapter 9. in chapter 9, something different happens. the guys that we call the

scouts. this is the origin of anbar awakening. i kind of give you guys this story. i was -- actually running between combat outposts doing logistics movement, moving material, guys around, bringing ammo out and i got the call from the tactical operation center there were 25 locals that wanted to help us out. you know, from a marine stand point, 25 locals, i don't really know what that means. so i got in my vehicle, i drove outside the base, there's 25 guys all with guns on their shoulders, and i put my gun trucks with the machine guns. i got out of the vehicles, walked over there. there was one individual, very tall lanky guy, stands out front. he told me he wanted to cooperate with the americans. and from that point on, all of our operations changed. the way we did everything changed. the battlefield changed. and these 25 guys, we had some

serious problems at first. these are 25 iraqis who are all saddamist, exinsurgents, these are the guys that i envisioned killing when i arrived. they were not offering to work with us. naturally, there were some problems at first. a lot of mistrust, no one really believed one another, believed what each other said. you'll see in the book there are times we had to lie in order to get one another to do what we wanted. but the moment that we actually executed a mission together, it was very different than the first nine battalion level ops we did before. we tried to spend time plans tanks, aircraft, supporting elements, engineering, assets to clear the roads for us. and these guys were like why would you do that? we know where they are. let's walk to the house, grab them, we are done. you don't need to plan anything. very different. we wanted to start all of our operations as soon as it got dark because, hey, we want to maximize the darkness that get as much done in one night as possible.

their response was why would you do that? wait until midnight, they will be asleep, they won't want to get up and run away. they will be laying in the beds by the time you get there. we did that. first operation, we caught 28 guys. 28 insurgents. all of them prosecuted. local sworn statements say this guy is a bad guy. this guy has killed local civilians. and they actually went and every single one of them prosecuted, turned in. but from that moment on, the local population looked at us and said, hey, they are grabbing the right people. and when they had confidence in us, confidence in the iraqi government, the game changed. we couldn't handle the information they, giving to us. it was unbelievable. what happened was as we got more information and became more effective, al qaeda became more brutal. you'll see in the first eight chapters, the machines are are -

marines were wounded, but not one killed. in the chapter 9, there was violence. you can do all of the right things and somebody is going to get killed. you can do all of the wrong things and nobody is going to get killed. it's an important point. a lot of times when i'm watching the news, it's frustrating to see we are losing our guys. is it for something positive or not? that's kind of the key point. we'll get into that later as to why i wrote the book. as we became more effective and al qaeda became more brutal, it precipitated -- the population had to do something. because al qaeda was kidnapping local people, torturing them, beheading them, trying to figure out who the guys helping the americans were. the more they did that, the more they missed off the peek. we had a group of sheikh that decided they were going to

revolt. we did a couple of missions and practice missions. it turned into the revolution where they went all out. anbar is dominantly tribal. the supporting of al qaeda and the americans and iraqi government fell along tribal lines. you have one -- couple of major tribes. within those major, you have dozens of subtribes, under that, even more subtribes. it's an interesting dynamic to what the sheikhs of the tribe play. once you get them on your side and they decide to do something, without question, it's going to happen. when they threw their support, you had all of the rural areas just all of the, you know, historically supportive areas of al qaeda disappear. that's what it was in anbar providence. that's why you saw ramadi which were the deadliest places in iraq go from 30 attacks to less

than one. the revolution that occurred where you had the local iraq citizens hunting down al qaeda guys in the streets was a story that didn't exist out there. even on the marines, as we were sailing back from iraq, that story, they didn't even really recognize it. they kind of knew that things were getting better by the time we were leaving. but on ship, and you are kind of reminiscing about what did sergeant alqis give his life for? one machine -- marine was killed in an open field. what did his death accomplish? if you take it into the isolated event, it wasn't for anything. there was no person he was trying to save. there was no heroic action that was occurring at the time. as the marines are coming back, they didn't really know the story. i kind of took that as something they needed to know. that was one the driving

impulses to write the book. what made it really evident as we were sailing back, i was watching cnn, michael ware, this is guy that i have the most respect. he's been kidnapped by al qaeda and lived to tell about it. i watch it had as america hiring armed thugs to do the fighting for them. i started to thinking about that. i knew three marines that died in combat. not armed thugs. i knew we weren't paying these guys to fight for us. they were fighting with us because they hated al qaeda. that's it. we weren't paying them. they were melting down gold to pay other tribes to help them. stuff that had been in their families were hundreds of years. they were giving it up because they wanted to defeat al qaeda. that was the disconnect between the mainstream media and what was taking place on the ground. it's one of those the reality of warfare. there's going to be a historical

take away from the iraq conflict. is that going to be what occurred on the ground? who knows? but that was really the driving impulse for me as to why i wrote the book. and it's really important because we are obviously in afghanistan. and afghanistan is even more of a tribal society than iraq. and as we look forward into the conflicts of the future for this nation, and you look at the conflicts that we've struggling with dealing with, they are guerrilla warfare. you got to look at, you know, islamic extremism within it's context. it's very -- it's all guerrilla warfare. and they have picked that because that's what they are successful at. it's kind of necessary for us to figure out how are we going to defeat this? how do we change the middle east? how do we change the interpretation of islam so that it is a place where america can feel safe. how do you win in the war on terror? can you win?

those are all questions that have been to be answered. the war has to end at some point. we have to look at our objectives. what are we trying to do? we are trying to influence the people of afghanistan to accept democracy. their own version. that's tough. that's all about the people. and if you look at the operation in the first half of "rage company" it wasn't about the people. it was about the enemy. that's where they have us. guerrilla warfare is about tricking western way of warfare. it's a little different. they are trying to trick us into focusing on them. you think about the conventional military. intelligence driving operation and intelligence is always focused on the enemy. in this case, the enemy is al qaeda in iraq. the enemy is not the focus. the enemy is protecting the people. he terrorizing and kills the

ones against him and forests all of the others into doing what he wants. if you forget about the enemy and you focus on the people, they will tell you that the insurgents are. that's the biggest problem is figuring out what the insurgents are. that's the big point in the "rage company." you'll see that in the second half. you'll see how it changed in anbar providence in early 2007. that's really the importance of "rage company" is understanding what took place in anbar providence. with that, i'll open up the floor to questions. yes, ma'am? >> we knew you were going to start to write. did you have any idea of your writing skill that you would be able to do this or had there been some focus on english glasses -- classes in high school or how did that evolve? >> that's a great question. for those of you who couldn't

hear, my writing skill and how as i was writing the book, how did i know i was going to be capable of doing it? i was a european history major from the university of rochester. no professional writing background. as the intelligence officer for the company, i got every mission debrief. so i debriefed every patrol that went out. i was aware of everything that occurred. when it comes to actually writing the story, you'll notice that when you are reading the book, it's very -- there's a lot of quotes. i mean i did some in-depth interviews with the machines of the -- marines of the company. it's really a story about the company, not my story. i tried to go at lengths as possible. you'll see it from my view, lieutenant point of view, you'll see it from a sergeant perspective. especially when a marine was

killed in combat. i wanted to right from the commanders, not my own. a lot of times, i wasn't exactly at the scene. i wanted to make things as accurate as possible. i think that really kind of drove my writing style. because as somebody who wasn't a professional and writing nonfiction, it's a little bit easier, because i can follow events as they occur. you also pick up on that as you are reading. i wrote not only the events, but also my thoughts. you are going to see me second guess people. you'll see a couple of pages later, i was the guy that was in the wrong. i'm judging someone else a couple of pages before. but in reality, he was right, i was wrong. you'll see that very quick chapter one. right away. i'm the new guy. i'm second guessing somebody who's been there for ten months. and it's very clear after a couple of pages that i'm the guy that's in the wrong. so -- but, yeah, no real professional writing background. just a european history major from the u of r.

>> was there much editing from your editor? >> i was surprised. i expected there to be more red. they want to keep the voice of the author. but oh yeah. trust me. i got a lot of editing. and i remember looking at it thinking. because when you are editing, it's a matter of fact. they are correcting your grammar and syntaxes and whatnot. i'm reading it and i'm like, oh, i'm dumb. you know. it was interesting. definitely a lot of read. good question. yes, sir? >> what do your fellow marines think about you writing a book? >> that's a great question. all right. so a lot of the guys love it because this was really what they struggled with coming back from iraq. you think about from the average lance corporals perspective, they don't know the specific objective. they know their target.

they know don't the full context of what are we trying to do in the city of ramadi, what are we trying to do as a battalion, as a brigade. when i wrote the back, that's what i was trying to expain. that's what they like. i've gotten criticism from other guys in different units. combat is an emotional experience. when i wrote my event event evey thoughts in the sequence that they occur and i'm saying they didn't agree with somebody's decision, naturally, people don't like that. so i got a lot of criticism about stuff that i admitted that i was wrong. people were just -- they were getting to that certain point, but they weren't reading on. about me second guessing myself. and second guessing my own decisions. so it was an interesting experience. but all in all, the actual -- the marines and the company, they love the book. yeah?

yes, ma'am. >> can you talk about the image on the cover? >> that's a great point. this gentleman right here, this is another thing that i got criticism for. i got an e-mail from a fellow captain who thought it was wrong of me to put a picture of myself holding a marines gulf medium machine gun. it's not me on the book. this gentleman is much better looking than me. but this is lance corporal michael deshal. he was killed in afghanistan. which is interested because the book takes place in iraq. you see where it's blurred out here behind the guy. they were mountains. iraq doesn't have many mountains. so we took those out of the photo. but i was -- i didn't know for a long time who the gentleman on the cover of the book was.

even after the book had some out, i didn't know who it was. so i flipped over the dusk jacket, i got a question who was it on the cover. stop being lazy, get up after of your butt and figure it out. i turned to the dusk jacket. i looked him up. got his e-mail address. sent him a note saying your photo is on the cover of my book. could you tell me who it is? he sent me the note about how him and mike became good friends in afghanistan. how he got to know him very well and his fiance and their child. and then he informed me that mike went back to iraq and that he was killed. that he knew his family. and so that was really moving for me. because this book is about what the marines in anbar providence sacrificed their lives for. i think the photo of mike on the cover, even though we didn't do it by choice, is representative of the sacrifice. you can see his face is not

visible. it's blacked out. it's for a reason. it represents all of the marines that have given their lives in anbar providence. that's a great question. what else? yes, ma'am? >> do you think you'll write about book? do you think i'll write another book? that's a good question. considering i didn't think i was going to write the first one. i don't know. i don't know. it's got to be a cause that's worthy. it was something that spoke to me. it elicited a lot of emotion. it was something i had to do. i have to have something else that's similar. yes, ma'am? >> how quickly after you got back did you start writing or decide to write? >> that was a great question. i started writing right away.

as the events occurred in anbar providence, the marine core as a formal process where you jot down what happened and try to put it together as a lessons learned type of format. when i started writing, it was to do that. to write lessons learned, about how occurred, how the revolution in city of ramadi took place and what drove it. as i was doing that, i realed you know what, this is a great story. why do i have to make it an after-action report that's going to get fired away and not many guys are going to read. i started writing chapter 1 and wrote chapter 4. we sailed back for about a month or ship. i took my time. it was the opportunity for me to just kind of sit there and write and work out, eat, sleep, and write. that's all you do as a marine. i added writing to the mix. great question. yes, ma'am. >> you are going to stay in the marines or you are out of the

marines. because i was wondering what is the career track? >> right. >> whether you stay in or get out, how do you use all of this in the military if you get out? >> yeah, i'm actually out of the marine corps now. i work for i.t.t. corporation as a sigma black belt. when i was in iraq, i was about change in the battlefield. now i'm working on influencing change in the business. so there's a relationship there. absolutely. [inaudible comment] >> yeah, what people in the military fail to recognize, i'm one of them, is that you have the ability to do a lot of things. it's very easy to get kind of stuck into your billet and really focus on what your specific objectives are. if you take a step back and you look at the big picture and try to influence the people, and instead of focusing on the enemy, you start focusing on the people around you, the citizens, their security, what jobs are

they going to have? how are you going to feed them? it really changes the way you conduct operations. and so i think that's kind of what the military is starting to do. we've seen it happen in iraq. we're taking the approach in afghanistan. and it is, the military is changing. >> that's what you picked up in the military which you've been able to bring over into what you are doing now. >> right. right. absolutely. >> in the planning and the strategy and the formal thinking. >> yeah. it's all about the process; right? the process drives behavior. our process in iraq was you think about conventional style operations. we were clearing entire neighborhoods. we would go out and say you are going to clear the neighborhood. search house for contraband, and look for known terrorists. we would kick down the door. if they didn't answer, we'd blow it down. think about that. every house in a neighborhood, marines kicking it down, coming in, we are aggressive, wearing gear, night vision goggles, body

armor were pretty cool for me. i like it. if you look at iraqi perspective, we are like aliens. they don't even have ipod. you think about night vision and lasers. it's foreign. they are scared. here we go. we kick in every door and scare every single person in the neighborhood. if you look back and the guys that we called the scout. we only went to the house that is had insurgents, we kicked down the door, dragged them out, and put them in jail. they didn't come back. the people see that. americans know what they are doing know. give them all of the information that you want. it was very different. big change. yes, ma'am. >> do you think they need to do the same kind of thing in afghanistan? like employee the sheikhs or tribe leaderships in afghanistan

to be successful there? >> yeah, absolutely. look at afghanistan. we've put a lot of money into the central government. look at what happened in the anbar awakening within iraq, and general petraeus authorized u.s. troops to pay sunni iraqis to fight for us. what happened was you had the revolution within the city of ramadi. then you had petraeus, reviewed the results and visited with sheikh sattar. sheikh sattar is the first sheikh to step up. very charismatic gentleman. he was killed in september of 2007 by a suicide bomber. but once we had the success, and once we saw what was occur, that was when petraeus instituted the sons of iraq program. once they instituted the program, sunnies needed jobs. they had no jobs. future was bleak.

especially within the government. when we started giving the jobs to secure their own neighborhoods, you had guyed lining up in droves. because they want to work. they want to make money. they want to have a wife and kids. when we started giving them a future, whether it was securing their neighborhood or actual job, things really turned around. and that's exactly what we need to do in afghanistan. but if you look at iraq and afghanistan, the literacy rates amongst the populous extremely different. iraq fairly modern. secular under saddam. afghanistan, hardly anybody there is literal. in fact, you know, a lot of my buddies when they are over there, the only person that's literate is the translator. everybody else, not literate. so you've got a very uneducated populous which necessitates you have been to interact and explain yourself to them. we speak english and they don't.

it's very tough. that's why afghanistan poses it's own challenges. you know, the taliban. taliban used to rule afghanistan. you think about al qaeda and iraq. they never ruled iraq. they were viewed as outsiders by most iraq. the taliban don't have that problem. they've ruled that place for quite a while. they are drug in. and so there's different challenges. you can't just say, what we did in iraq, we're going to do in afghanistan. but if you think about the principals of the conflict and understanding the needs of the people, that's what you can kind of transcend and apply to both. what else? yes, sir. >> tribe the -- describe the dynamics when you brought the scouts back to marines. one moment hunting them down, now you are supposed to work with them? >> yeah, let me give you guys the situation. when i actually picked up the scouts, like we discussed before, i was taking them out to combat outpost rage.

which was nothing more than an iraqi home that we had taken over in the region east of the ramadi, there's a map inside the book if you wanted to look where it's situated. it's the suburbs and area that was historical taken over by al qaeda. before we set up this combat page, there was no troops there. no iraqi, or american. the surge was we surged combat troops all over iraq. but getting back to your question. so the marines at combat outpost rage didn't realize that i'm bringing 25 iraqis, all of them armed, none of them vetted as a, you know, local source. they didn't know that i was bringing these guys back. so i drive into the compound and the back of my seven pound truck is 25 armed dudes that look like insurgents. that sent up red flags.

i bring them inside the base. here's guys we would have killed a couple of guys before, and now i'm bringing them inside to scope it out. see where the weapons are. and they can plan their attack basically from the inside now. and so i bring them in. we put them into one room, crowd them there, put a bunch of marines at the door, shut the door, and talk about it in our operation center. as we are talk abouting it, here i have all of the lieutenants and platoon commanders telling me what are you doing? what are they here for? they wanted to kick them out right away. don't give them a chance. kick them out. and eventually, captain smith, the company commander showed up. he explained that i knew these guys might be coming. we're going to try to work with them. and so immediately the first thing that we tried to do was take away their weapons. that proved to be very problematic. the first thing we did, here's 25 guys that want to help you. they hate al qaeda. they are fighting al qaeda

themselves. we put them in a room and say we need to give you the rivals before we work with you. hunt out there and work with al qaeda insurgents where you could get hurt, but we need your weapons. we are not going to give you our weapons. we are saying, yes, you are. it just kind of backfires. when that happened, we kind of took a step back. all of the iraqis were saying we're not going to patrol with you, we want nothing to do with you. we want to go home. put us back on the truck. drive us out. we've been gone. they are going to figure out who it was. you got to remember the neighbors are al qaeda, supporting al qaeda. they realized that if we do an op with them and don't get them all, they are going to figure out who's not home? those are the guys that are with the americans. so what we ended up doing, we didn't have trucks. we lied to them. they were outside.

they couldn't see outside. they didn't know that. we told them they didn't have trucks and convinced four of them to go with us. four of them said, we're doing to go. the rest of them are like if we are going to be gone anyways we are going to go two. we went on our first op together. it was very successful. it was an interesting dynamic that occurred where we -- it almost didn't happen. it almost didn't happen. good question. anything else? all right. with that said, let's do some book signing. [applause] [applause] >> for more information visit

thomaspdaly.com. >> book tv is on twitter. follow us for a regular updates on our programs and news on nonfiction books and authors. twitter.com/booktv. >> we are here talk about with brigitte gabriel. >> it's about a islamic movement in the islamic religion that's trying to cause problems through terrorism and bringing back their islamic counterfeit. that's what the book talks about about. it talks about the history and what it's doing in europe, the islamization of europe, what happens in the united states and why we need to be mobilized to understand the threat and how to protect our societies. >> what are some of the findings? >> we are finding out the

radical islamic terrorists cell are very well organized whether in europe, united states, or australia. they are networking together and linked together through the internet. we are finding out that al qaeda, which means the base in arabic, is nothing more than an umbrella organization with many other organization that come underneath it that share a goal. lately we have been hearing a lot about the muslim brotherhood. the muslim brotherhood is the mothership basically that launched the terrorists activities. it was solved in 1928 and has 20 islamic organizations including al qaeda and hamas. so a chapter in the book is dedicated to the muslim brotherhood project and in particular to the muslim brotherhood project for north america. >> tell us about your background. how did you become an expert in terrorism? >> i was born and raised in lebanon. my 9/11 happened to me

personally in 1975 when the radical islamic blew up my home bringing me down under the rubble. i ended up in a hospital and lived in a bomb shelter under ground for seven years, hiding to survive. i became very concerned about national security. even as a child. i grew up and went to israel, and became news anchor. as a journalist, i wanted to understand what's happening around the world. what contributes to certain things around the world, certain movements. i worked at news anchor for world news from 1984 until 1989. as i reported the events, i started connecting the dots and realizing the name was always the same. the names were always the same. ahmed, mohammed, hussein, ali, the name of the victims were always westerners and jews.

and i can go on and on. and i started connecting the dots and realizing that what i used to think was a regional problem between a majority muslim middle east trying to kill or expel the christian and jews had become a worldwide problem. but the world was not connecting the dots. when i came to the united states, i thought i left everything behind me. i'm an american. radicalism is left behind. 9/11 changed everything. the way we travel and live. you cannot turn on the television without hearing about some radical terrorists activity happening around the world. that's what drives me to do what i do. >> quickly, tell me what your next project is? >> i'm working on another book. st going to be discussing the grassroots movement around the world. not only in the united states, but how the internet gave power to the people to rise up and mobilize and get involved in their own government. we are witnessing a revolution

around the world right now rising all over the world and the internet is empowering that. i can tell you my organization started out of my bedroom on the internet with nothing but a web site. today with are the largest national grassroots movement in the united states. 160,000 members, 510 chapters, a full-time lobbyist on capitol hill that started on the internet. next book is going to be about power to the people. >> c-span's book "abraham lincoln: great american historians and the 16th president" is the unique perspective from scholars, journalist, and writers from the early years as a springfield lawyer, and his presidency and troubles, to today. the hard cover edition for the special price of $5 plus shipping and handling. go to c-span.org/book and click

on the abraham lincoln book. be use to use the promo code lincoln. >> we're here with thomas woods about his book. >> turns out the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. we have the best scenario to pay $1 trillion just in interest on the national debt by 2020. also unfortunately the untitlement programs are under funded by like $111 trillion. there's no combination of taxes, borrowing, or printing the money to solve this. we have to start acting like adults and fix it now. >> where did you come up with the night >> -- title? >> it's the publishers idea. it's from the old war days. we have to roll back not just what government has done, but the expectations. unfortunately, the resources won't be there.

the government is going to renege on the promises. >> do you proprose solutions? >> i do towards the end. no good author gives them all away. there are some things to do to ease the burden. you turn 65, the government says to you, you can either get all of the benefits that you are entitled to under the problems, or fore swear them and the rest of your life you are extemplet from income, or estate taxes. no one would have considered that. but we are staring default in the face. it's a choice between that and unplugging granny, i think people will consider unconventional alternatives. >> elaine showalter profiles american female writers from the 17th century to today. :