fema's. >>. [laughter] >> again, that title of the book is called the eye of the hurricane. dr. rubin lowered by nelson mandela. take care. it has been a pleasure to be with you today.

>> the next 20 minutes of talk about things relative to afghanistan and what is the nature of the war, but it? the second is what is the strategy? the nature is that fills a rocky and afghanistan and

the generals are 0k and the secretary of defense and the president's may have rules, but they better keep their ego under control because tolstoy and his book "war and peace" what actually happens in war has more to do with the tenacity of those fighting the and the pronouncements from on high. i will try to show you why. i would like to bring you through very quickly house the strategy is abetted and open for questions. most of my time and afghanistan i have 18 months altogether 10 trips over four years and spend with different army platoons and special forces outfits associated afghan units. i generally has spent up in

the mountains that is the hindu kush area at the top of afghanistan. a wonderful place but unfortunately we have been pushed out of there and the coast guard for you look at mountain's 10,000 feet high this is classic afghanistan. the other half of the time is where omar and the taliban began their attacks and this is the plane this is similar in terrain to be a non. 90% takes a long the pakistani border. the rest is not as involved because the issue is the issue of the pashtun tribe glitches along the border on the pakistani side, accounts

90% of the taliban and 90% of the insurgency. this is the famous ballet that the movie and hoping it would win the oscar although last week was teasing them they were on their way out to be with the stars by would be here with you. [laughter] but in the if you looking at this it would not take too long why don't we just take a drive down the road and by the way all of the tribes are on friendly and you would immediately say that is not the smartest idea. we did that and for four years we attempted to get that under control and we couldn't because we could not close with the enemy in

the mountains. all of our troops wearing 80 lbs of farmer. of the enemy is not wearing 80 pounds of so there is no way to catch them in the mountains. as a result, when you think of the war in the north it is long distance. we were being shot at when i took this picture from the smoke on the other side. it looks like only 600 meters but you have to go down 2,000 feet then up 2,000 feet on the other side. view were in good shape you can get their in about seven hours. it is a lot of long-distance shooting because this is the famous actor landline. -- durand line but they were moving up to the border every night because that is pakistan they would bring down the ammunition and

issued at the colonel and his battalion so he said we will go up to the border and then some dumb son of a bitch will shoot at us than i can shoot back. of so we did and they just waved. [laughter] now over 1300 miles notice the road, they drove every night and i noted the ammunition. the other problem with afghanistan is called pakistan 1500 miles that extends here to miami. now understand the essence of what we are doing. we went in 2001 because the taliban supported al qaeda who had killed 3,000 americans at the world trade center's we went in to get the seven guns but what

happened? in my judgment several things happened. president bush, a god bless him, had a religious belief in liberty four people and i think he confuse that with his role of president and took that and extracted it to say we should give liberty to the iraqis and afghans which is a noble idea but if you are a president sometimes you have to be hard-headed how you apply an idea into action and we were not able to do with sell when they said who will do this idea? they said if we have the united states military. so we took counterinsurgency a subject i know all lot about because i thought to it really hard for many months.

but we perverted it and turned into nation-building based on a social contract. that was that the united states of america would give to the people money and as much security as we could. and in return we expected them to turn against the taliban and all we wanted was them to tell us who was to read -- taliban because they were wearing civilian clothes we don't speak pashtun we don't know who was about to shoot me but if you help me i will take care of the mafia. that was the deal and the social contract that underlaid everything we have been doing for 10 years. i will show you what happened. we had something called

tribal loyalty. look at this picture. this was 500 meters outside of a battalion base and for four years the italians that rotated through tried to say to the people what do you want? we will help you occasionally there were snipers shot in could not always persuade people. a year and a half ago they said the american and italian commander who was kind dispirited said i will help you with your mosque. and as we were driving and and, these kids were 12 or 13, coming out on the road as fast as we were going yen, and these were tough little kids. it ended up with a big ambush the tribe had sent

and during the ambush, eight afghan soldiers were killed four americans were trapped and killed and this young man was as rough as he looks, i hope he should get the medal of honor for what he did because when everybody fell apart the was corporal miter who came to the floor and when his commander choked and did not know what you do, a corporal meyer took over the entire battle as the 21 year-old and extricated the other americans and killed 16 taliban. but anything else was the treasury that was unexplainable. came not of nowhere and i walked away from at and is said what do we know about the pashtun and what to they know about america?

when they got the chance they turned just like that. we went into a tauber or will not give the name but notice the person with the blue arrow? for reasons i will not get into, i am just a journalist but sometimes when you're out there it would be unfair of me to reveal but the company commander knew that was the man he wanted out of the group so he randomly plucked people as it was a search but he was after the cellphone of one man from the brightest explosive devices and had killed some people thinking he had killed some americans he had blown up some vehicles. we had him right there but he reached into his pocket

to took out his cellphone his slipped it to the next guy and none of them do the first sergeant was watching and m&a he got to the end of the line he said give me the cellphone but what got to me was that man did not know the other pashtun. the odds of him knowing where very low but they cooperated right away. thinking he just killed some of you. what do you doing? this is a picture on the left very polite and emmys and out to kill you but they would never smile let you except when they needed medical supplies they would just look at you and they

would come out once a week then they would say you know, the rules 50 minutes then we start shooting again. i thought this was bizarre but i took this hodel and here is the same man shot the next week attacking a fort in another village and had on the been -- bandanna with all of the markings. we want to be political correct to say religion has nothing to do with anything and rear secular but that is wrong. the islamic religion to the strives very quickly becomes islamist and before they attacked, they do have leaders who sincerely believe in be islamiyah so while we say our $5 today fighters, some of them are

the some of them are hard core and they are terrific liars pry lost day shai ast the afghan soldiers can you tell? they said no way. so what you have is a situation in my judgment where the people as a whole whole, watching in afghanistan while the people fight. we have confused two things. in afghanistan i see that prize but not the means of winning the war. but to say if we protect the people they will reject the taliban so you believe one of the other and they gradually come to this conclusion you have to win a first don't think they will

help you to wind. this was one of my favorite stories comment a wonderful man was an aide to senator kennedy was killed shortly after this picture was taken but you could not find this village if you tried. they shot one taliban going and then we sat down and began our conversation with the villagers. i had on the boston red sox at and one of the elder said what is that? i said it is the world series champion. i said we are very good and he said did you play for them? i thought i can get away with this. who will note? he said what is your score? i said eight/six then he talked to the others in

pashtun and the interpreter was giggling. he said because they are used to cricket and a score is 100 or 120 but he said to the others now he knows why you are so old you are such a terrible player they send you to afghanistan in. they had a good sense of humor so we said what do you want? he gave a list costing $25,000. every single afghan commitee walk-in your the american. so he said okay but we just had a fire fight to us a favor and tell the taliban to stay out so we don't have to do that anymore. tell us too and we will take care of them. but they said how can we do that if you can? my thought out of the mouths

of babes. that was number but down south to get into the entirely different but you have the run off of the snows and you have their rivers cutting through afghanistan and as a result have the planes that are terrific for growing anything and the course of engineers the 1940's and 50's built thousands of canals and as a result it is highly for tile and looks just like vietnam and the same kind of foolish to hide and it is called the green sound and also is where 90% of the herald a share when a beam of the world, from that is everybody makes money down there. but down there you cannot

see this but every single afghan not trusting his neighbor over centuries has built the compound of mud and straw baked by the sun with walls a tank cannot knock over the walls so they hide and shoot at you knowing you will not do that much damage and that is the nature of the fighting. i was just down there two weeks ago in the area not too far. this was one of the taliban flags worry went on patrol the taliban would fall back but they brought their flags. i thought i am back in the 15th century than the marines were carrying their flags. then you push against and push against than thought

why am i surprised? and the british spent four years and believed in the hearts and minds in the marines came to take the position and the british said by the way, you cannot go outside 200 yards and they said what? you have been here for years? that is the deal. even after four years they spent $60 million and change nothing. but now good news before bad news. no way terrorists can win in afghanistan. it cannot happen. i never thought i would see the day where i would praise the air force to think they

helped in our fight but we live in a world that i never thought i would see. we have advanced so far in front of the rest of the world that we don't need as many troops. here is an adviser who was a great young man and that was very difficult looking through a tiny little scope. if you see that white markings that is a white shroud. one of the snipers just hit the taliban about 1 kilometer way and up at 25,000 feet taking a picture of the whole thing and sending it down a map and he is looking at the pitcher. where we go today when we were out there the first

thing the sergeant said is where is my air? every single company, there are plans tethered to the position at 5,000 feet but they have a camera that is incredible just like watching superable pitchers and the football move, we can see a person if he has a self on anywhere and they also have as 18 and every unmanned vehicle. this means tactically on the ground as fast as we get someone would be looking down to say they are over at 2:00 and the voice says i have a guy on the roof with a long rifle which one do

you want me to take first? take a long rifle it is probably the sniper it is the at 18 pilates so far up we could not see him. the notion how does the taliban take our? first pakistan gave them the equipment. how the move and a country twice the size of wyoming? get online at war with -- one of two kinds of vehicles or motorcycles. most of the taliban today is the equivalent to the 1860 comanche they deck and high very well but they all right on motorcycles. there is no such thing that we're not watching and if we're not watching we can

select who is struck therefore i am not that concerned about the taliban because i don't see how they do it. so what i see is the and point* is not to win over the population, forget it. will not build a modern nation in afghanistan. karzai is, what word do i use? it is difficult to run a country when it is beyond understanding. he may be different but the issue in afghanistan for us to withdraw is very simple. leave something behind. not us and that happens to be the afghan soldiers and all they need more than anything else at this point* is the infusion and a belief

that they can win. that is the most important thing to give them they and anything else. these are the guys that can do it. our special forces units are terrific. they like what they do. they are good soldiers. and if you put them together 10 sergeants over the army over 30 and gunslingers who were in their young twenties and so you have 50 americans and 500 afghans in the battalion with the ratio of one american for every 10 afghan soldiers and they held their own territory the same as any battalion.

when you say afghanistan is the wrong war for the current strategy of nation-building and immediately how do solve the problem of karzai and the government? turkey, south korea, possibly pakistan? egypt, what do they have in common? tunisia? they have in common an army that was so close to the people that they kept irena on the government and gradually got on the people side to become a civilizing force and what i am saying is the afghan army let them take care of their own politics of that happens that they control karzai to the certain extent, so be it. we should not continue with

the strategy of nation building but reduce our forces because we can add advisers and change the ratio. right now when american and 21 afghan. i would like to see the ratio be 10 afghans one american. but with a new air power and leave somebody as a sitting duck second, reduce the dollar's. 100 billion is a rounding error but we have to start somewhere. honestly, if you give something to somebody for nothing what do you get in return? lyndon johnson tried to have a great society and ended up with a culture of entitlement now we have that for the same reason. we give something and expect nothing in return. we cannot continue to do that and it is not good to

do that. stop the nation building and what our forces get back to do what they do very well which is destroy the enemy. that is why i call it "the wrong war" i am perfectly willing to take any questions you may have. [applause] >> hello mr. west i am at a researcher from the dc area, what needs to happen before the afghan government can say we can take it from here? >> we have to tell them because if we leave it up to them, they will never tell you to go home. why the one to tell somebody who is the golden goose to stop laying the eggs? it is possible to say stop moving forward instead of

allowing them to control the pace. i believe we get to the point* we will do that because the troops get it they like it the morale is high a but the notion of just building stuff all the time, they now believe that is the solution. i think we cannot wait for them to tell us. >> i came a little late but somebody said something about vietnam which i remember very well. >> so do i. >> that is what i heard. one of our problems is we were fighting what they call asymmetry we had conventional army and fighting the surgeon's fee and the government did not have the support of its people.

it meant that we lost even though we had advisers and they did the combat themselves, why do you think that won't happen here? with the asymmetrical war. >> arguing by analogy always becomes difficult from one lowered to another. happened in that intervening variable was the number vietnamese with 18 divisions of artillery and tanks and they seized saigon. i believe in afghanistan the taliban have to mask to go in kansas city or any large target. i don't believe they can do that because of that her that we now have but also

because pakistan i know believe it will do again what they did in the 1990's. if it had not been behind the taliban it would not seize control. in order to have an army somebody who's supplies you and the pakistani is give it to them just enough to keep things stirred up the title believe they want to suffer america's wrath by saying here is all of this equipment. i don't think that will happen again. >> general petraeus? is the fighting with the last four or doing the right thing? >> i don't like to get into personalities. >> speaking of his strategy, it is evolving even as we speak. general petraeus has begun to emphasize much more what

our special operations forces have been doing to take out the mid-level cod draw on that side. i hope gradually everyone kind of chefs a little bit. but going back to my philosophy of history, not that the generals too as much as they think they are doing but what they're doing on the ground. they will get back to the basic task they are military not nation-building force i really think that is the way to go. i would be very surprised beginning this summer you did not see us really withdrawing troops we made it clear victory but by june beginning to say we need to wrap this up.

>> mr. west, i am struck by the similarity from what you are saying and the strategy you are recommending now and both the line that was taken from the u.s. military in the early years in iraq and the strategy pursued in afghanistan between 2002 and 2006 when there were 30 or 45,000 special forces troops and a grand total of those 10 nikopol to destroy the taliban with heavy reliance on technology. it profoundly did not work and most analysts point* to insufficient population security as one of the reasons and the reliance on local warlords and

intermediaries who used us to settle scores. how would that strategy recommending differ from the first place? >> three things. it has only been in the last year or two i have actually seen the maturation of the linkage between our air and ground if i have ever seen in combat second, not using local warlords we now have the entire afghan army. i say put that out in front the way it should be that we never had before. third, i don't believe the population protection and gets us anywhere. gradually you can have the afghans to a for themselves but we're just spinning our

wheels during population protection we should get back to the number one mission to put maximum pressure on the taliban in the way only americans can to build up the afghan army. everything is a risky and it could be it does not work but the only alternative is to persist at what we're doing at the level we do it for another decade. let me give you the statistic. we have 65 battalions and roughly and each company has three or four out closed at the platoon level so we have 1,000 outpost in afghanistan. there are 7,000 negative ton villages and we are only taking 1/7.

i say the arithmetic is overwhelming. >> if we are not protecting the population and you point* out the elusiveness, how do find them to kill them? >> that comes down to something we americans cannot do. the average soldier the average grant sees the taliban only three times her year and he may get one or two shots in the entire year. it is like fighting the apaches. thousands of americans soldiers in the west, we will not change that. we cannot. the issue becomes whether the afghan soldiers themselves can do it. but until we try them, we

don't know. i am not sure any choice will work. i am confident my choice will work because i don't believe they can mask but until we see that job we won't know. the other thing that bothers me is we have not turned one district over to afghan control. that really concerns me. even now where everybody says we did a terrific job. i know the marines are saying when will be tested? the there's always a risk. some people say watch out for this one. one other thing. how do i see this ending? like you are trying to pick the stocks of today's market and everyone knows they will

fail. no one can pick the stock market. no one. know when can pick the end in afghanistan. i give it 10% chance something happens that none of us can think of today. egypt, tunisia, something wild could happen and we would say why did we miss that? i give 10 percent chance karzai is gone. i don't know how but somehow not part of the equator sham. 40% we will muddle through and gradually pull our forces out and it will be okay. i give a 40% chance that karzai and those, if you recall secretary kissinger received the nobel peace prize for solving the war in vietnam and there is a messy

deal between the pakistani zandi afghans that cause us to scratch our heads to say why did you lose all those troops for that and resolve? another way to say i don't know what will happen. it was the book lessons then disasters talking about north vietnam from what i understand postwar interviews found it did not do that it infuriated them. these are controlled by a bill gates one of the. if i have a family member killed by the bill gates wannabe i would be enormously upset. what is the impact?

when they are surgically applied, that is great but a family of six is killed and then it sets us back so far i question the net effect. >> i don't know. you can argue either side, i don't know. i know what i would do if i was in charge. but that doesn't mean that we are not right and stirring up the hornet's nest and that it gets back to the great hall that radical islam has on the villages out in the middle of nowhere. i don't know the answer. i do know one thing but al qaeda has put the word out are you more concerned about your enemy?

if al qaeda or the taliban were concerned the compounds with the kids they are trying to use them as a shelter. i tried to put the word out to common no three operatives will go to any outside cafe and that is how scared they are. no three of them will get together. you can figure the marine would give you that answer. [laughter] >> i wonder how the afghan army will do a better job and i presume the great majority are non negative 10 and other than speaking the language i am not sure how

they do so much better. are there significant numbers in the afghan military? >> i don't mean to be like pollyanna, you are right. it is all tribal. they believe it is their birthrate and we came along to upset the applecart and gave them karzai and they were in favor because he is one of theirs working with the americans, but the army is mostly tadzhik and then speak starry and when they get down in the south, they don't speak pashtun. you are absolutely right. i have friends of mine say you know, as well that to

their army is as much occupying as we are and i say i know that but what other option is given that is not the same? which the other gentleman is right. there are those that we cannot break so i am not sure how that plays out in the end. but it is a problem. you are right. >> it is more about the u.s. structure, talking about the warrior culture coupled with an incredibly super sophisticated advanced technology culture and you call on a strategy of advising, d.c. that this

administration and the american culture generally will continue to support the abolition of this very sophisticated multi dimensional culture? that is because we will needed elsewhere and there are not many of these folks to go around they do not speak for c o.r. pashtun which they need to do. can they do that? >> i will give you the answer but it is our wanted to end. this book is 70% about what our troops are doing every day. that is not it by try to show what is happening on battlefield after battlefield and the grit of the young men. this is my next book if i can figure out how to

calibrate there is an american at a military e those and you cannot be as strong superpower and unfortunately no one in western europe still has that now it has gone from the united kingdom but i don't know where it comes from but one half of 1% of the eligible population, 75% of all males under the ages of 18 quote or 20 are not mentally capable to be recruited into the budgetary. and somehow there is a small group that it volunteer for the military from knowing exactly what you do with the rifle and one to be the guardians.

their enlistment rates are so high they cannot keep everybody that wants to be in. i should not say kids but i can. they are my sons and grandson's. i was just with this platoon the commander lost his arm and his leg to the ied and those rescuing him were blown up and killed. the platoon wants to stay on active duty they also lost to the others killed so 12 of 40 we're gone when i got there and all they want to do every day is take flight from the enemy and make a difference. there were also scratching

on the wall which is what you have to expect and the other side has its leg but that causes me to believe this core group is larger than we think it is and it has not been as careful as it should be to indicate this is a fairly large proportion that will go into harm's way what am i talking about? there are certain people who do it and as long as we keep the warrior ef- those and united states of america does come in every single person here is proud of the troops. that is so different. something about the american spirit i thought toward the and we were losing it, and that military defense is

alive enough i'm convinced we can send advisers and give the pile of forces that we need because we just had the pirate attack and now libya in charge of the central command is a werewolf. and then to take some action but in order to do that we have to recognize we cannot have all of our forces in afghanistan. but i think we have enough to keep it going. thank you very much horror sharing this time with me on a rainy night. thank you. [applause]

>> there is a new on-line enterprise does starting at called the washington independent review of books. david stewart is president of the organization of. what is your organization? >> a group of writers and editors and a similarly minded people in the dc area who are very dismayed by the shriveling of book reviews space and the standard and media. many sections have been folded and it is harder to

find information about what is going on in the world of books these days. the publishing industry has shrunk so we decided to do something ourselves from the old judy garland movies where they say let's put on a show. to decide we would create our own book review. 70 of us are engaged it was fun and gratifying. >> we have of wide range and we suspect for now we will not look at children's books or romance literature but beyond that we are quite open and will be reviewing recently released books we hope to get those up within

the first 45 days of publication. you can come to us for current information for the new books out to there. >> host: can people submit books to be reviewed? >> we would rather not get the bucks but they can bring them to our attention. you can get to a lot of books that way that are hard to deal with but we invite people to e-mail us so we know and plenty of time with their publishing packets that we can to decide if we want to take a shot at to reviewing. >> host: use a lot of your reviewers are people involved at the washington independent review of books have backgrounds in writing and publishing. what is your background and others that are participating? >> my background i was a lawyer for many years but

now have done a couple of books on american history and one on the impeachment trial and i have been new-line coming out this fall on arab per western conspiracy. the others involved come from journalism there are book writers as well. we have been so lucky to recruit to reviewers. on the eichmann trial in israel we can get patricia wald we have been able to get leading constitutional scholars to look at the first amendment for us and we just had a terrific response from people and m.i.t. has a wonderful book

they will review the book from gourde and woods we have been able to get topnotch reviewers and it is an exciting thing. everybody in this operation works for the same amount of money and that it is wonderful to see people pitch 10 to create this conversation which is what we are all about. >> host: there has been a decline in traditional media but there is an active market place. what do you bring to the table that is different? >> the depth and the quality we have author interviews and q&a and a couple of radio interviews and partners who will put up the podcast so we will provide a full range of information

and the other operations trying to do the same thing are doing the lord's work as well and there is room for a lot of voices and that is important. you're not just talk with one or two reactions which maybe idiosyncratic. >> host: will you look at politically slanted books as well and books from the left lowered the right toward the middle? >> predominately with washington area writers may have interest in historical topix and will take them all on from every point* on the spectrum. >> host: how often would you have new material? >> new content every day.

interview, review, in the early days we try not to set the bar to high but as time goes on we expect content to become richer and richer. >> you say on your website you got your seed money from the freedom to write fund? >> it is associated with american independent writers which is an organization in the dc area and it is the 501(c)(3) affiliated and we have done very modest fund-raising. we need to do more but enough to get us up and running but enough to get a great sponsorship. >> host: from the american independent review of books,

>> we're talking to the author of the upper house in the journey behind the closed doors of the u.s. senate. samuel, in the middle of the book cover is an elevator button? >> it is a book that talks about the privileges of being a senator including on some levels, the ability to ride the elevator all by yourself for with colleagues but it is about a class of people who win the election and the adjustments they have to make for the first year and a half for two years how to figure out how to be a senator. >> host: as we began the went to of congress what

adjustments will they be making? >> it is completely unexplainable and somebody has not been in it. that is what i have been trying to do people have ideas how it works and is not exactly what they think and slowly but surely people who come to change the senate and that been changed and i expect the 112 congress will find they will have some difficulty in achieving the things that they promised during the campaign. >> host: give one example of how the senate changes individuals? >> take the class that the end of the george bush presidency a lot about 10

days of the war in iraq with the republican filibuster now we're at a place where republicans are doing them bob corker the senator from tennessee and overtime to say these are very big issues with no easy solutions so to do with as much consultation as possible it would be more frustrating than that is lowercase. >> what is your background? >> i'll s a writer for "u.s.

news and world report" and cover the sun and congress in general. i got there exactly at the time when the senate went 50/50 and saw a grand ancient arcane institution come down to the personalities of two people trying to make it work in the minority with trent lott and tom daschle was completely fascinated by how the institution but coming to two guys trying to work out. >> host: the attorney behind the closed doors of the senate.