it's a great read and its editor, joel whitney is here with us and he will be one of the panelists. verso books, we have been around for some 40 years. like i say we are one of the

leading radical publishers in the english-speaking world. we have offices in london and in paris and here in new york now. we publish throughout the world, a wide variety of radical literature, scholarship, philosophy, history, topical stuff, some fiction and in this case, this panel is in conjunction with a new series we have just launched which we call "counterblasts." the idea that theory is to -- it's a couple things. one is to revise the kind of clinical publishing pamphleteering in a sense. you know, witty but also -- of contemporary figures and pretty

topical, pretty fast publishing and with these three books, which we are going to talk about, we are launching a series now. so "counterblasts" is -- what we are doing is we are targeting a number of figures to our influential public intellectuals and one of the key aspects of this is that all of these folks, the folks that we are beginning our series with, are people who leverage the power of their prestige, of their scholarly reputation, of their intellectual credibility, to buttress rather than to challenge empire and capital. and in the case of the three scoundrels at issue here, thomas

friedman of "the new york times," michael ignatieff, an important canadian politician and the wonderful bernard-henri levy, frances most famous public intellectual. all three of them are important figures, and import and liberal figures and that is another aspect of this series that we are focusing on. we are targeting liberal intellectuals and folks who have a burnished reputation as leading progressive thinkers and that is in fact a big part of what made them important to us. so what we are also talking about is the panels are going to explore the relationship of the left to liberal intellectuals, two liberal media establishments so they are going to get into all of these things. i just want to see a quick word about the format. we are hoping to develop ample

time to your discussions with all of you so instead of folks giving along presentation we are going to explore each of these figures briefly. i'm going to ask them each to introduce the creatures and then ask a follow up questions and hopefully we will get a big discussion going with all of you. that will be the format. i am going to introduce all three of our panelists now, and then turn it over to them. so, right next to me is derrick o'keefe. he is the cochair of the canadian peace alliance. that's the largest antiwar organization in english canada and he is a founding member of stop war .ca, which is vancouver citywide peace coalition. is a former editor of a really great web site called rabble .ca, and he is the co-author of

a book that he co-authored with the former afghan mellow wide joy of. his book, his new book an ad to my sis michael ignatieff and it's called "michael ignatieff," the lesser evil and he will explain what that means in a moment. to his right is jade lindgaard who is a journalist with the new site and coeditor of a book called law friends and her new book, as i said, dissects the curious case of bernard-henri levy, and it's called the imposter. then finally, joel whitney is with us and as i said he is the editor of that excellent, excellent literary and clinical

magazine. he is also a writer and his writing has appeared in "the new york times" and the new republic. the village voice and other publications. he is also an award-winning poet and his poems have appeared in the paris review and the nation and other venues. he is partly going to talk to us about the third book in our series, which is written by a really interesting, very witty writer, who looks at thomas friedman of "the new york times" and her book is called the imperial messenger. unfortunately she could not be with us today but joel has run a piece and other articles about thomas friedman. he knows a lot about friedman and just the issue of going after these kinds of liberal mandarin pundits he will talk about as well. what we are going to hear in the first round is just introduce

these folks and we will begin with derrick. >> thank you. thank you and thanks everyone for coming out today. i know the hallways are packed. quite the job navigating over here. i had a panel at 10:00 a.m. and we were discussing the antiwar movement in europe and in america and my involvement in those movements brought me into contact with the writings of michael ignatieff and in particular in the months leading up to the iraq war. i started to learn and be annoyed by the name ignatieff. before he knew he was a canadian intellectual by origin, i knew him from his writings in "the new york times" and elsewhere and advancing the case that george bush and tony blair were making at the time to invade iraq. on the night the iraq war started, march 19, coming up on nine years ago this week in

2003. on the night the war started, michael ignatieff was hanging out with his friend, an iraqi intellectual, and they were having dinner at casa blanca, the restaurant on the harvard campus where faculty and students hang out. michael ignatieff and she had night -- dinner on the night of shock and awe. the two of them were teaching at harvard and ignatieff was the director of that center. mckeel was faculty at harvard and the two of them are probably the most important intellectual figures for the bush administration. mckee of playing the role of the native informant and the iraqi intellectual and intellectual version telling the bush administration what they wanted to hear and he is the source of dick cheney's intelligence that the american troops were being

greeted with flowers and an this intelligence came from this makia. ignatieff played the very important role of the liberal activist for imperialism which is a 100-year-old rule. there is another verso title that i should plug, the liberal defense of murder by richard seymour which does an excellent job of tracing the whole genealogy of liberal apology of for war and empire. 72,003 michael ignatieff was playing probably -- he was probably the key person playing the role for the bush administration because of that position at harvard, because the his human rights standing in the human rights community. i like to think of all three of these authors that we are trying to pick apart can debunk in the "counterblasts" series. they played an intellectual role of that black cloth that was covering at the united nations. i believe it was a press

briefing or breathing by colin powell and other u.s. administration officials and they were doing it in the room at the u.n. headquarters which is adorned with the gear and a cup prince. the u.s. officials actually covered over with a black cloth. so in the words in the writings and the speeches of these intellectuals that were taking -- we are picking apart they played a role in throwing up things to obscure and to distort and to divert from the crimes of war and imperialism. we hope that these books are pulling back the clock a little bit, debunking some of these voices that are the floyd and defensive war and empire. just to give you a brief find michael ignatieff in 2003 he played the key role with iraq are going to thousand four, he had a book called empire light. he also had a very important cover story in "the new york times magazine" two months before the iraq war started.

the headline on "the new york times magazine" on this piece was the american empire, get used to it. so this -- in 2004 get a book come out with a not so great timing. the book was called the lesser evil and in that book he made a very nuanced, quite sophisticated case they gave of -- faith to torture and other violations of civil liberties carrying out during the war on terror but unfortunately for michael ignatieff that all came out exactly the same month of the photos from abu ghraib of torture and systemic abuse taking place in iraqi prisons by u.s. soldiers came out of the same time that the lesser evil is published and this led many of his colleagues in academic community, important voices in the annie started to criticize him and he was labeled as one of george bush's useful idiots in the war on terror. because of the way he provided the intellectual space and justification for torture and

other civil liberties. unfortunately for canada, the country that i come from, because ignatieff started to come under serious attack in the academic community here in the states, he was looking for an exit and unfortunately his exit strategy was to come back to canada and try to be our prime minister. his invasion of canada worked out as well as the invasion of iraq. and he crashed and burned quite spectacularly in canadian politics. he was with us at the leader of the opposition liberal party for two years, two and a half years in the last election in may of 2011. the liberal party had its worst results in 150 years. ignatieff lost his own seat which was given to him as a base liberals see that they would never lose so he resigned in ignominious fashion from formal canadian politics. just to give you an idea of the staying power of these liberal

intellectuals, despite his failure around iraq and despite his coming under justified fire for his support for torture and other attacks on civil liberties, despite his unprecedented failure as a politician coming back to canada when he was supposed to come back and be anointed as prime minister, despite all this as soon as he resigned from politics he once again not by that intellectual space almost like reading. it comes back to the skies and on the tenth anniversary of september 11, the global mail which is canada's version of the newark times the bourjois newspaper of record if you will, they gave uncle ignatieff a feature -- to explain the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 and also "the new york times magazine" where he had written 1000 words long ridiculous oath to empire in and the war in iraq. "the new york times magazine" invited them back on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 to contribute as part of the

feature in that prestigious publication as well. and of course the argument for liberal intervention at war and imperialism also enjoyed a revival in 2011, in particular around libya and the nato war. libya and -- despite all the evidence from iraq, all of the evidence in afghanistan of what happened with the imperialistic convention, the arguments that a lot of these guys made being systemically debunks not just by the those of us on this panel but also the attacks on the ground in those countries, despite all this, the idea of liberal intervention and imperialism is in the arun and it's needed. despite all their past errors with facts him analysis they were put into the position of prominence and i know that was

very much the case. remember seeing dhl with sarkozy and david cameron in benghazi you know literally bear with the heads of state who had launched this war. so that is michael ignatieff. he also enjoyed a 25 year career earlier in england in the 1980s and 90s. it would get a little more into it, but he started off as a bit of a marxist for a few years in england in the early 80s. i can speak a little more later about his 30 year trajectory as a public intellectual. it very much mirrors the air we are living through and hopefully getting out of. he starts a sort of a left liberal and ends up as george bush's cabinet in iraq and a canadian politician. obviously i have lots more to say that we will have another round so thank you for coming

and listening today. >> thanks derrick. jade lindgaard. >> hi everyone. it's really great to be here with you guys and i am glad to be invited here to talk about bernard-henri levy. even at the left form they are interested. at first look, i have to say that he seems just a regular annoying french guy, right? a public intellectual, printed them to be -- pretending to be -- a womanizer, arrogant, self-centered. why bother? than i thought, maybe it would be interesting to explain to them how unique he is even in france. he is the unit specimen and why is it so? it's because not only is he a famous writer, you know him, he

is also a publisher and he is also a columnist, a businessman, a film producer, an adviser to politicians, a filmmaker. if you ever have a chance to see his films, i would recommend it because they are so bad they are hilarious. and he is also a multimillionaire. and on this matter, it is worth pointing out that his money comes from and is linked to frances colonial history as his father had a company trading in distributing wood from african countries. among which in one bad working conditions as reported by some journalist. so he is a very powerful man and he is at the crossroads of several power networks and that is what makes him someone really special in france, because no one can occupy so many power

networks. the publishing industry, and i would say there are three main reasons, and there may be slightly different. i think it is not mostly about defending a capital. i think it's more specific than that and i will talk about this briefly. the first thing i think you should know, and it could be relevant to other things in the u.s., it's it is the project of the attack of the book industry against intellectuals, and in this sense, he is in a way france's best industrial success. what i mean is people have calculated that in france he has sold more than 1 million books,

which is for ask, a lot. he is a massive bookseller but he is also a manufacture of products himself. and what i mean is that he was made up by the book industry to match the rising book markets and more and more people went to collections, more and more readers according to the book industry. and he was also -- and book production. there was more and more competition between publishers and his publisher pushed a new kind of literary marketing and here is a marketing feature of that time. and the thing was it was depended on the permission of the -- which at that time is france was not so popular and really was the beginning of this era and also a policy of the

media crew and the media savviness. so they have this ingenious idea of labeling new philosophers, the new philosophy, if you have heard of that, nonexisting as it is just a commercial thing and so the labeled new philosophers a bunch of writers smashing revolutionary hopes and among them he was the more flamboyant representative. it must be said that the -- of television played a key role because he was so good on television. everyone was fascinated so he got invited to all the book shows at that time. there were a lot of book shows on television. he was the hero of those shows. and, the way we investigated him

from -- for the book, we had the chance of meeting him. we met him twice and we had a long conversation with him. she had known him for years. she was a former student and he was very much -- either phenomenon. he said to him, this invention is one a market environment was established. he also said something terrible. he said that it was possible in the sense that said prestigious intellectual that he was, and deciding not to go so much on television because again he was taking too much time from his work, he left room, he left space for people. i know this conversation has been going on between some real philosophers, but in a way when

they realized it, it was too late. the second is that it raises the issue of oligarchy. because we have an amazing concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals and he is the perfect information of that. in that sense, bernard-henri levy is the fortunate beneficiary and the mirror of deception and its compromises. we have this prepares class maintaining dominance over the race and it must be said that his power today, which is really strong and i could talk about it because for the first edition of this book, we had to work undercover. this tells you the extent of the french paranoia around him. it's pretty crazy, but he has

this thing, and through his network, he gives jobs, money, pressuring people to write good reviews and so on. so it is really in a you know like a group of guys just serving their mutual interest. the last point i wanted to make to each of you is that it's not easy to pin down his ideology. because he is full of non-traditions. he would speak for israel's right. he is very much pro-israel but at the same time palestinians right to an independent state and he would speak for palestinians is very confusing. also he is against the idea of a war between -- it doesn't make sense, it's too much conservative and so on. at the same time, he would say

that islamism is the new fascism and its everywhere and it's a major threat and he sees it in nigeria and palestine. so he is very ambiguous and he contributes to blur the differences between the right in the left and that is probably one of the points with my colleague when you look back at those 40-year-old career. the last point is that something even more damaging. with all the noise he is making about libya, iran, darfur, he projects the spectacle of a movie world, a world in uproar if. and being such a spokesperson, i think it's a way for him and a way for people supporting him do

you know, continue to be the center of the world and i think he is a major role in that sense. why is he so popular and why is he so supported whereas anybody here knows that he is a clown. why is he taken so seriously? it's because behind all the foolishness and the insecurities there is a very deeply buried but very strong i believe political sense of what he is saying and i think it has a lot to do with western well to remain at the center of the world and it has a lot to do with the former european colonial power. there is a tricky point i think and that dimension. he is an advocate for human rights. he is known for that, and to the point that he defends the idea of war in the name of human

rights, specific way of understanding human rights, he has a very antisocial discourse. he hates unions, he hates social movements, you know, he has never been to the suburbs. he has this nightmarish vision of -- france. he never talks about unemployment, inequality, degrading work conditions. he doesn't like justice, he doesn't like judges. he writes a lot about judges, who keep on harassing political leaders and what he said about the substantial last year was a very good example of that. just as he said they should treat him differently than the

other people because he he deserves it. so what does it tell us? i think it tells us to rival power sources,, of anything that is not in explanation, all this discourse helps justify our undemocratic system in the end. because of the same guide advocating human rights in the same guy saying you know, bad judges, bad social movements, i mean it goes, it says in the end, okay, i mean, the same guy is defending these positions so to us we thought okay, who can we compare this creature to? the only comparison historically

that we could come up to was -- if you have seen the film or read the book, it is this character in italy during the movement and this young fellow. he pretends he wants to change society but he doesn't want to change anything in and. the end. he wants privileges to remain the same and the big sentence of the book is everything must change so that nothing changes and that is bernard-henri levy. thank you. >> it was founded in 2004 in the wake of a bit after the beginning of the long iraq

intervention, and some of us were creative writers and we wanted to do a literary magazine that would bring politics back into the business courses you described and we wanted specifically to engage into our argument and see. what we thought for lack of a better time, it was time we thought there was a great potential to improve sort of and push antiwar rhetoric to a higher level. that is how perhaps naïve we were back then but what we discovered in the course of doing this, we discovered there were mixed results with engaging with the liberal hawks. we have done interval -- interviews with paul berman, never tom friedman but we have also syndicated dispatch which i

call these guys for their pro-war apologies. and so when i saw the book which verso was kind enough to send me at wanted to run the intro. when you look at what is going on here, you see a liberal in certain ways. he is also not so liberal in other ways. you see an apologist with american power who a few months after the iraq -- told the whole nation to on this on charlie rose which is something that seems to have fallen off the radar. you see someone whose views seem to change and adapt to what the discourse seems to be at the moment with sort of and uncanny power of shape shifting, improvisation you see what

right-wingers might consider to be maybe it hit more relativism or you see one standard applied to any one circumstance and another standard applied in another circumstance. you see someone who according to research married into one of the richest families in the country and therefore, may be biased when he talks about lowering taxes for instance, wealthy. you see someone who wins awards from bodies that are chaired by the very business people whose press releases he reproduces as news or commentary. more specifically we engage in the book first on the friedman riff on well, i was for the war

before it was can did and john kerry flip-flopping on the war resulted in an attempt to find something good to come out of the war so it became an advocate for green tech and the american military intervention in iraq and afghanistan. so the first excerpt we ran was as was pointed out was an attempt to green wash the world's biggest polluter. i should call it the american military, and make them be like their champion, the vanguard of technology development and that compares and she makes is, he drops this fact about how he doesn't like the way the military has segregated -- desegregation so there is no concept for a lot of these

wonderful comparisons and analogies that are made and that we put in the display copy when we put it in the excerpt for the book. is sort of fair saying, the intro book give you the extent of the book and since i'm not -- and she is really the friedman expert -- though she can cite his point of view on green technology and give you all civil tablets. if you want to ask questions i would be happy to print them on the blog so you can send them to jade lindgaard.com. what you find when you look at -- joel whitney.com. his appeal must be linked to this sort of historical improvisation. it must be linked to this big picture of history, the sort of

way of flattering powerful politicians to -- i know bhl from carlisle because he advised all journalists in new york to come and we did a sudan event at 10 world voices on the state of darfur. so like bhl there is a flattery of american and western power. there is a universality that seems to sort of say in the area typically known as the west. it seems to go south. there is a universe of western value in terms to these folks. what happens with friedman is there is a metanarrative, which is whatever seems to be the dominant narrative of the moment

about how these western goods can transform the world, underneath that there are all sorts of thing consistencies that render it -- as you can get. so when i first started engaging after we published the second excerpt was trying to figure out why it was so entertaining. i think it has to do with this idea that he can write a theory about how freedom increases the price of oil, decreases -- and he writes it on the back of a napkin with the editor of foreign-policy magazine sitting there and the editor wants him to turn it into an article. it makes you feel as the reader, and that is what i am of this book are going just a reader who is lucky enough to publish it, you feel that sense of power and

you feel like you could write this formula on the back of a nap in. if only you could get into "the new york times," you could do the same thing as tom friedman. you can do it on your own blog and chairman of the flop theory of friedman. she took all of these ideas, all of these back of the napkin strategies and calculations that he had and it did look on -- [inaudible] and just a note about some of the engagement, what i found in the years, the little magazine was forced in the united states during the cold war and much of europe to divorce itself from big picture criticisms of america and western power.

there's a book called the cultural cold war by saunders from "the new press." this process, we didn't know about, but in a way the little magazine should be making these egg reviews and they should be engaging with the problems of american power and european policing the world. for a while you could get very rich as a literary magazine editor or an author by taking -- of the congress and cultural -- 1950 through 1967. you are you're getting all this funding. there was a magazine in the u.k. called the encounter where you would get this money and get sort of these secret loose from different sources of power if you would subject american

culture as something that is sophisticated and literary and sort of the big picture and sometimes it was the non-communist left that was being pushed but it was not sort of a right wing world. the idea was to downplay segregation and racial problems. so this book in a series complements our stumbling into reversing this process, straining out the big picture of power and intervention. >> thanks, joel. i really want to get into some of the sensitive discussion but maybe one quick follow-up question as matter-of-fact to set up the discussion. i wonder what kind of response each of you has gotten if

anything, from the target if not from ignatieff or bhl themselves, you know liberal defenders and what have you heard yourself? what kind of debate has been touched off a criticism from the folks on the left and just a little bit about that and we can get into some other issues. gerecht. >> on ignatieff, he is not stoop font person might publication of might look corresponded with a publication of a book that pronounced the death of liberal canada or the death of the liberal party of canada. this was done by sort of the senior chronicler of the canadian establishment, a journalist named peter c. neumann who is innovative now but he had started doing a profile of ignatieff that was supposed to come out and he was being sworn in as prime minister and he had to kind of changes but planned when ignatieff was crashing and burning.

so, all that said ignatieff did have to respond and say he hadn't killed the liberal party. you just left it in the worst date ever so there was a brief response to that. there was no respond to my book from him but i certainly got a lot from liberal canada zero which is already down in the dumps because of their alleged role resorts. unfortunately a lot of them were able to just dismiss my book or my critique coming from the left as just part of a general pylon that happened in electoral politics. from both right and left in the liberal camp, people who are dissatisfied with the leadership. i think a lot of liberals from canada were able to say, someone else piling on ignatieff i don't have to take him on this sleep as far as far as other reaction that is worth mentioning, the

interest in this book has come from the left. i should say in the same 2011 election a democrat incorporated canada, for the first time the official opposition, but my book is by no means flattering of them either. i'm quite dissatisfied with their tendencies in recent years on foreign-policy and their failure to distinguish them from harper. even there i was fairly sharp with the official left so i was expecting rave reviews from that kim. i would say generally, if i can generalize about the indian ruling class, we have a very intellectually insecure and unsure he is ruling class so i think the people who brought ignatieff back thinking this he would be a superstar and the new

savior of the liberal party, think they are still convinced that he is really an intellectual and it didn't work out as a politician. don't think any of them who recruited him as a politician or built him up as a new star intellectual have read all of his books, have read most of his books or understood most of his documents. i think for him and the canadians in general it is enough that this is a guy who went off and wrote in in the london review book, was on bbc was in "the new york times," was on american network television for a sort of insecure ruling elite that we have in canada, that alone is enough to make you a big deal and to anoint you in canada. so yeah, i would say for a canadian lefty to make a critique of this guy who has been on tv in britain i think they are able to in their own mind not have to investigate it too much.

>> you know it's funny because the first time someone from verso in paris asked us if we would updater book for translation into the u.s., we said why? he said well you know, it's getting big in the u.s. and it has to be her. i said okay, which -- don't expect too much from this because it didn't work in the truth is the first time i published a book in 2004, we got actually many reviews on the book, but almost all of them were more about us daring to write on him than on what they were actually saying in the book. so all the lies and the mistakes that were pointed out and all that, it didn't get reviewed but what got reviewed was to french

people -- so the effect of that unfortunately was quite small. he didn't directly reply to anything that we said, but he never sued us and he never said you know, this is wrong and this is a mistake. to us it was important because it shows we hope, we think, it shows the truism of what we were saying. so he didn't do that, and the other point i would make is that today oddly enough it is -- in the sense that either people like him and can be criticized to critique him for being such too much on television, but

doing good in and. so either people like him or hate him. i am actually starting to think thate is becoming a little bit like abortion and the u.s., topic that you cannot discuss anymore because people have already their minds made up. it's possible, attention goes away and it's impossible to talk with him. and the thing is that, because of clownish effects, it's difficult to criticize him and maybe that is a common point with thomas freedom, is that eventually, what we try to do is -- his work and what he says. and he has not about france. he is about something else. the politics they were talking about, he is about some kind of fantasy so when you go to him

and say okay, this is wrong, no one cares anyway because it's not about reality. and that is really difficult to confront. a friend of mine gave me a very interesting -- who was trying to analyze power, where does power come from and this incredible development about the power of -- and he says that the power is in a way the sheer power and he described it as roman emperors, being so you know, made-up and dressed in a stupid way. he said it's not by accident that they should do that because when someone has a lot of power and this power has no link

whatsoever with the quality of that person it makes it impossible to criticize them, because that is the thing. if they are so stupid and so powerful, they must be powerful. so went away, it's impossible and i think that kind of really fits into that description. may be the best critique in the end -- he has gotten a lot of cream pies thrown at him during the year. seven or eight times. who is going to throw a pie at him? in a way it's a very good critique. >> i wonder what kind of response you got on your article

on friedman? >> we have done pieces that have been particularly one i'm thinking of last year that was planned in places like -- by christopher hitchens and a small piece by chomsky on osama bin laden's assassination and it was slammed by "the weekly standard," some right wing magazines and slammed by slate. that is when a piece really landed. this piece didn't do that. this piece got posted by myriad sites but i think it's incumbent on us to try to get direct reaction so i sent it to friedman myself a few times, each time trying to be polite, just to sort of see, shucks i don't know if you saw it but it would be great if you read it and we would love a reaction. that is their policy. it does feel like fair is fair

and we don't want to get too big of a platform to someone you disagree with but that the board -- the debate is more important than anything else. no response from friedman but, and i'm pretty sure i got it because all the wrong ones bounced and i tried all the different combinations of the time. but it was the left primarily as in the case of ignatieff book. there is a friedman fact check web site that wanted to reprint our reprint or excerpt that verso granted us and she allowed that. there were others who just sort of front page the small blogs on interesting sites across aleph. that is the reaction. it was relatively muted compared to the pieces that get a pretty angry reaction across the web.

no, i wonder if any of you can address this question. when you are talking there, it occurred to me talk about the way in which ignatieff was -- by the establishment and i guess this is one of the enduring mysteries of the "counterblasts" series. all of these folks have a hugely powerful influence, hugely important i guess and especially during the bush years we had such a robust and unapologetic imperialist policy. one wonders why they would need to have that policy burnished by the mandarin? what is the function of someone like thomas friedman or michael ignatieff when you have such again and unapologetic imperialist militarist policy?

what is the need for respectable, high and mighty and good and great liberals? is it something more than, it's nice to have like you said, that you know, coverlet over some of the ambience of it because it doesn't seem like it's necessary in the prosecution of these war to burnish them with such a high ideal. >> i think they do need both and you see that in bush and blair. blair, is a fellow warmonger kind of played, also played a the role of the intellectual justifier of that, so what bush would say in terms of smoking people out and bring it on, tony blair would say, that's a.

with more eloquence and more appeal to liberal universal him and -- universalism and less left term values. i do think even when you have this sort of more bulger party of imperialism in power, the more unadorned party of imperialism the deed need those intellectuals and yeah. in a way it's more dangerous when -- no problem, bhl. [laughter] >> yeah had one person say to me and book event, someone who is well-connected in the academic world, that i have been courageous enough to take on ignatieff. i don't know what was meant by this reference to the czarist forebears but somehow a reprisal would be coming from the czarist

side of the family. that only happened once but in the case of bhl with his networks being so wide, just find it interesting, the response to her work for her on safety or security or career and so forth. what was the point? in a way it is a more dangerous situation for all of us been the head of state waging the war is someone like obama who can play the role himself as the intellectual dresser off of these operations and can be eloquent and articulate when making the case. in a way it makes it harder to mobilize against it, so i think that is why in the early panel this morning we were really grappling with the lack of an antiwar movement in north america and europe despite the total unraveling of the occupation of afghanistan and a lot of it is just attributed to the obama effect. that is one of the things i'd

think of the left in canada, is they got completely seduced and obsessed with obama mania and even in canada days talks about renaming it the democratic party in canada. all latino speakers where obama organizer so because of this infatuation with obama mania afghanistan really fell off the table of the political left in canada, so in a way it's dangerous when the guy in power and bodies the ability to provide that intellectual justification but i do think they always need it, yeah. >> in france is very different because we have very few intellectuals who would say they are right-wing and they all want to look like the left-wing, and i think it's one of the reasons why the imposter of him can be

so strong, said he is very useful, you know, being where he is, meaning that the right of the left. he is very useful because he can still have this label of left-wing in that position and in our case it was nicolas sarkozy's strategy from the beginning to use less -- the left against the left. he tried to pull our strategy outside of intellectual life but that is how he got elected in 2007, pretending to defend people's rights, pretending to defend unemployed people, quoting it very important historic references of the workers movements, and the worker movement. people were opposing -- what is going on? he? he is stealing from us.

france was if you remember very -- in the decision to bomb the regime and today what we cover is that it's very possible that they gave 50 million euros to nicolas sarkozy's campaign in 2005. it's very possible that it happened and it is being investigated by reporters, by journalist and people that i work for. and then it makes you realize you know, what bernard-henri levy's role was. he was like a screen, pretending that history is about human rights and so on but he was not only about saving benghazi from the inhabitants and of course that was of course a difficult

question to save them from slaughter or oppression but it was not only about this. it was also possibly about erasing tracks of dirty money and that is why he is so useful. >> yeah, it seems like along the same lines with what derrick and jade have said. friedman is part of a long line of these apologists, going back to colonialism and imperialism where you need someone who can speak the language of the vast majority of earthlings who are against these policies and make them sound like they are in the interest of the majority. i think friedman played that role really well. you know, you don't even have to go back, just going back to the cold war.

[inaudible] cultural freedom that the cia funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. who knows what the numbers are? they weren't looking for arguments that were boldfaced arguments in favor of the empire or in favor of intervention or in favor of pushing back against stalinism. we will have to do these awful things because we think stalin is so awful. they made it sound like things that people tend to find universally -- the language of the declaration of human rights and friedman can do that in a way, although you know he slips out of that very comfortably and very often. some unlike sayeed talking about his orientalism or his views on shem palestine.

sometimes he advocates for war crimes and get you can cloak it in either this language of almost the language of the lesser evil, this is a necessary big mythology. that is fact checked tends to fail because it's a big picture thing that we are moving towards and don't bother with with the facts so he is really good at doing that. he is very comparable being close to power and by osmosis absorbing the big ideas and big power pressures that are pushing, but i'm fascinated by his personality, just in terms of the exuberance of power. i just keep thinking about that. it's sexualized and ritualized violence. it's essentially a time when war crimes okay and there is greater good that may come out of it even though there is no evidence

of how it would turn out which he acknowledges. you so much fun playing with the civil boardgame, that he makes you interested in the terms of power as sort of a fun occupation. and so, if you look at the power and transforming now the occupy movement, there is tons of evidence that these are not majority views that are being pushed so you need someone who can cloak them in ways that can be digested and i think friedman did that very well. ..

>> devoted to the idea of publishing, writing about, trying to broadcast the truth, but given that, you know, we're coming, we're entering into the debate with these folks who have, you know, mainstream

purchase and coming from the left, little magazines, literary culture, little scholarship, we're not going to get a hearing for these books. i never expected to get many reviews in mainstream papers. what is the, you know, where's the left going to enter in? i, obviously, thing it's important that we simply establish a record of misrule and, you know, error here, but then how do deploy that knowledge effectively is a bit unclear to me, and i, you know, i think bottom line is we just need to be thinking, publishing, and talking about these things, but then beyond that, how to have an effect on the debate when these kinds of voices dominate, and because they are liberal, crowd out any left critiques that they represent often, and, you know, in mainstream today.

>> you know, when we met jaque, and he thought it a hopeful message and thought things wouldn't always be like this, and his view of this media situation with people like this being able to, you know, be all over the place and talking nonsense, that this -- this era would end, and i think that it's very interesting to see the rising part of the website media , web televisions, web radio stations, and so on. what i mean is that the media landscape is really changing, and i know we're talking now, and i know routine media, obviously, but it's still creating a space that's much bigger than it used to be, and alternative space, and i know that in france, if you are unsure what people watch, regular network tv, and more and

more watch cable and web tvs so these things are changing. it's not always -- not always going to be that powerful all the time. i don't think that. also, i think it's really -- this is a message, to me, one of the key points of the investigation, and i guess it's simple. the two books is a message to the media. it's tough inviting those guys, you know? tough interviewing them. it's not interesting, you know? you want interesting people. there's tons of activists, you know, and maybe it's, to them, primarily that we are trying to talk, and also -- also to academics, stop being so afraid of not of saying political things. you can get politically committed and still, you know, manage to publish your works. you know, there is a little bit, and the more you're going to do it, the less room there will be

for this kind of guys. >> yeah, just a little bit in the sense of the fact based on reality. i mean, it is important, and we do have to be as rigorous with people saying things we like, and there was the example of johann, a star columnist in the "u.k. independence" whose career really collapsed in the last year or so over a number of weeks, and it was basically crowd sourced, technology-driven fact checking of his material which started, and it was an attack on him that came from the far left, not from the right, basically cyst -- systematically going through the work and citing failures and other contributions. he had basically play -- play -- plagarized, and although he was against war in recent years and

political points in the column, i think he deserved to lose his position at the independence, and the state he got in, and a lot was dealt to him by twitter, and people were really on it using twit enand digital books to search his sources and material. i think the technology and new forms of activism are allowing us to go after these people and just fact checking. counter blast is not just that we get to have a laugh and understand why they are clowns and scoundrels, but i think the act of doing that or the process of doing that, and it will empower us, but we can be more confident in going to the media and being aggressive saying we have to be on here. we were right about these issues from day one, you know, give us

space. i think sometimes people on the left, political activists on the left are reluctant to try or be aggressive to get on the media, and i think we have to push on those doors a little harder. there are examples of people who sort of plugged their way in through years of work in the mainstream. think of jeremy here in the states who regularly gets on network television. we need to push to have many many jeremy's that get on to the networks and speak truth. hopefully this series is a little part of doing that, and not just debunking the right and these guyings to make the argument, but giving ourselves some confident, yeah. >> yeah, just to add to that, i mean, i feel a little -- i just got a text -- i feel like george bush in the debate where he was channeling cheney, but just to go back to the other question,

she said friedman was proud he never listens to a response from his critics, and that's an interesting way to answer the question too. i worry a lot about ton, and i want to there's stories, and the first thing to go for us are works like "elite" and "establishment," and i love to hear those words, but i want the stories to last beyond politics, and i don't want to sound like a leftist pamphlet. i try to ensure the stories avoid that, but at the same time, i mean, i feel like engagement is really important. it's something we experimented with with mixed results. i feel like from dave from axis of evil, and he cited it recently with a piece in "new york magazine" where he had a

link to it, and i asked if it was him or "new york magazine," and he said he suggested a bunch of articles, but it links from the phrase "i'm haunted with my experience with the bush administration," and i think there's an element of faith that's needed. there's an element of trusting that sane arguments can get through if there's enough persistence, not to everyone, not in all cases. there will always be an element of the left being marginalized on certain arguments, but the left has to be confident with its cases, and now they are representing the majority. it's been marginalized by a language that pretends it's not, and so i think internal engagement is important. shaming is important in some cases, but i think it was an argumentative interview, and he,

you know, he tried to be passive aggressive as much as he could, but in the end, i was glad that he did it. i was glad that i did it. similar thing to paul berman, and with him, i tried to couch my own biases because in the media environment, you sound bias if you're against what most people are against which is being bombed or bombing other people for some strange reason. i said it could be snobby, but i came from quakers, and we're against things like slavery for some reason, and i said so this is my -- you sound like a hawk to some people, and you're defending her as this liberal in the muslim world, but the hawk, that's what we hear. she wanted to inprovide, not iraq, but saudi arabia first, and people get bombed when you talk like that, and that's happened, and he said, well, if your ancestors were abolitionists in the civil war, they must have been for the civil war.

i was perplexed. i researched it. they felt the civil war was an inevitable result that was so devicive and so awful that it would fracture the culture as it had so i went back to me e-mail, and i told him that, and he wanted to continue engaging, and so i think there's people who can be engaged, and sometimes it feels naive, but there needs to be an element of faith where you say, okay, in some cases i feel comfortable calling these folks scoundrels, and in other cases i may try to maintain a competitive friendship where i want them to keep answering me and keep answering for if they call publicly for war crimes, if they are calling for bombing people who, that's, perhaps -- i mean, i feel like friedman in particular as a donkey hote figure. what are we fighting for? let's go. sometimes that same kind of

blind faith or opposite of blind faith, educated faith, that i think needs to exist on the left. >> okay. why don't we get some other voices in here. we have a question or a comment for our panelists, and if you do, would you wait for the microphone to come over and speak into the mike so you can have you record it? back there. >> so the books discussed are part of the counter blast series, and they plan to continue to publish more titles in the series, and so i'd like to ask the panelists, but also the audience for suggestions for subjects for future counter blast books.

who do you think needs to be taken down? >> i'm going to say arianna huffington. >> blasted by many people. >> neil ferguson. >> yeah. [inaudible conversations] >> i'd go with that. [inaudible conversations] >> you took the words out of my mouth. >> we have a book coming on jeffrey sacks. that was a winner. [inaudible conversations] >> trying to get a book on her as well. we actually had a book coming

out on bono as well. no? well, he's a built of a clown and all of that, but it's also about the whole idea of celebrities getting involved in charities/political work and what that means. other questions? comments? reactions? wait for the microphone. >> i think the comment that was made about different venues for the left who talk and to be heard is a very important one, and i was disappointed this year. i didn't see any panels, or perhaps i just overlooked it, but on new ways to communicate people. for example, i watch tv every night, and i didn't see a single word about them anywhere. today, and on free speech tv, i

watch the tom hartman show every nights, and through the tom hartman show, i heard interviews with the cast and what's featured this weekend, and there are ways, you know -- but i don't think that the left is communicating with each other about ways to be heard. >> you want to address that? i mean, you do a lot of work with other publications and other outlets and so forth. >> yeah. you know, when we were young and didn't expect to have any readers, we started -- we did a piece on what's called "forker's conservation" where america's model of saving the environment involved kicking out those who lived there sustainably, and the piece included india, and so we thought we are new, we don't

have readers in india, so we plucked e-mail addresses from indian bureaucrats, and then we heard from ngo worker who read the article and upset at the accusations and rethought the program. i quickly became an advocate for the idea that sometimes interested, honest people will read critiques, and thinking of this new inquiry critique of nick christoph, and he qeeted that saying this criticizes pretty much everything i have done. it hurt his feelings the way he tweeted that. i'm a fan of the technologies here, and also implied in your question you feel the left could be doing sort of more coordinating, solidarity, maybe new media. i like free speech tv too. i think that's all true. i think, you know, bring on the funding, and we'll, you know,

we'll bling out our site with new media stuff, but i think some of it has to do with it's harder to make a living on the left because you're, in some cases, deliberately marginalized through processes like the cold war, privileging of anti-communist or non-communist left arguments put forward, and it's seeped in the culture in such a way that it's a closed loop. as soon as you say something beyond the pail, you are re-marginalized every time you do that. i think the question of engaging across the aisle is one way to sort of step out of that closed loop, and i think your point is, i think that part of what occupy did is take all the desperate movements and sort of funneled them forward to the young people who this --

who had this energy, and it was on the twitter and facebook feed, and craig, who runs the facebook page, is always putting free speech tv on there, and it's having an effect at certain times, and we all get busy with whatever distracts us like reality tv or dating sites, whatever is not helpful for these things, we all have addictions, and winter comes, and then it's important to sort of believe that the technologies that are there now probably empowering bigger mass an hi tf war movements, bigger worker right movements, other down sides, and it spreads so quickly, and so i think there's a lot there to be optimistic, and unified sort of unifying the

voices out there. >> other questions? other comments? >> i wanted to come back to the question you raised about the facts on the importance of the truth because i've been thinking about that, and thinking about really powerful intellectuals on our side who you are always struck when you read the footnotes; right? all the sub stanuation of what he's saying because i think it's so, you know, we're cul -- we're so vulnerable for being simply rhetorical and things like democracy now, speaking of -- so important that the actually facts come a every day because so much of what's in the

alternative is not factual at all, and i think the other important element is the historical record in some other panels today, talking about the u.s. civil war and the historical record is important for the future in dealing with future liberal icons of these sorts and countering them, and speaking of the facts, i'm a canadian as well, and with regard to the derek's book, i wonder if you can comment on this, derek, how astonishing it was to me that the comments written about indefensive torture and war, positions as liberal leader in support of greenhouse gas emitting tar sands and against green initiatives and whatnot, plays a little role in the general

public's discourse at the time he was the liberal leader, and then it became about issues like was he in the u.s. too long to be permitted to run as prime minister, and why it is that those, you know, the real facts about, for example, defensive torture. we're not really the main critique of him at the time, and what should have been the reason why he should have never been considered as someone who can run for prime minister. >> sure. i guess, yes, to start on that with the canadian situation. well, i mean, the right wing framed or drove the critique because they had the money to. as soon as he returned to politics or as soon as he timely became the liberal leader in 2008, the conservatives borrowing from their republican cows pes in the -- cousins in the states ran wall-to-wall tv ads saying he was not canadian, just visiting, spent 30 years abroad.

i mean, picking a leader spending 0 years out of the country left themselves wide open, but the right wing drove that in the most sort of as a rule gear patriotic bs way, and so it's true that right wing attack near job crowded out the substantial left wing critiques, but, you know, that's just what we're up against. we're up against the right who want to appeal to people's worst angels and worst instincts and not get into a discussion of the fact. i wanted to say on the whole issue of the facts and the importance of it, this is like, i do think it's a commercial point, and i didn't mean to single out, but the things of his career basically went down for are like a drop in the bucket caught not contributing a series of quotes from other sources and potentially, you know, some of the things he

described in the international reporting are not factual, and he wrote an entire book object on the murder of daniel pearl in pakistan where he says in the book this faction, like he's basically boasting that what what you read is partly based on the death and partly the invention including his own investigative work in pakistan, and so, i mean, -- >> at least he hasn't done. >> which he didn't do. >> nothing true. >> exactly. others exposed this book, but yet it's there, and not only is the book there, but it's advancing this new genera of faction, and there's a huge market for faction, especially based in, you know, central asia and the middle east when it's faction that demonizing the culture of these places, and glorifies the west's civilizing

role there, and so another guy recently under attack is greg mortonson on afghanistan. you have to read "three cups of tea," he's doing incredible work, and a well-known investigative author, known for his research on the mormon church as well, he's done a book taking down mortonson's book "three cups of tea," and his charity work called three cups of defeat. i don't think that book got attention either or critique because you see "three cups of tea" doing fairly well. if we don't check this development of faction, there's a real material basis for it to grow much bigger especially when it comes to these very orientalists narratives and stories about places where the u.s. and the west are at war so it's really alarming that books have been exposed as frauds, and yet they stay on the best

sellers' list. it's very disturbing thing. >> in regard to finding a situation where they don't have the intellectual and moral authority they have now, and so for today, i heard from you guys a few times, especially the internet being a positive trend in that, but there's other people who argue that arian -- the structure is the proximity to capital and imperial power or whatever power you might have so i want to ask you guys if you see any trends or possibilities emerging out of other areas other than the internet, and reflect a little bit on the idea of the internet. >> of course, you're right. when i mentioned the internet, what i meant is that it's not

because it's on the internet that it's anonymous of any kind of pressures and, like you said, you know, influence and power structure. of course not, and you're right to remind that because we have to keep it in mind, but what i met is that in our media structures that rest so, you know, like locked in a way because it's so expensive to do media today, to do launch television, so expensive, that new opportunities, new spaces opened up, but it's just the conditions; right? just one of the conditions to sl have a space for a bigger critique, and i know that in france, it's a lot interesting situation today because after years and years of, you know, like, institutional media being a-critical of powers for years and years, now we see new media

coming up. there's some stuff going on on the internet, and, for instance, the media i work for was created four years ago by people coming from rwanda. at the beginning, anybody was laughing, like, ha, ha, they are just trying to trend and venture younger on the internet, but i think it's different story because they created an up vest -- investigative website, so that is a major perk, and their whole thing was to say we're not advertising because we want to be independent so we only depend on subscriptions. today, we have 60,000 subscribers allowing us to have a 40-people team and 27 reporters and investigate heavy cases. what i'm saying is that an

example of council power in a way is the combination of internet with no advertising, and, you know, people who can be enough to devote time to investigations. it's simple. it's not a model. i think stuff like this, other examples happen so that makes me a little optimistic. >> yeah, if i could jump in, i'll offer as well a more positive and more negative critical view of the internet. i mean, starting with the negative, we just to make a little bit of money, we like so many joined google, and that paid for some of our technical costs, and then we ran a section of innovative memoir, and one of the writer who was sort of an emerging memoir, it's not quite faction because it doesn't try to purport any facts but about

his childhood, but he engaged in something as awful as explicit discussions of sexuality, and the scene that i think ended up offending google was perhaps, since it's originally an algorithm that is offended had to do with the word "penis near mother," and there was a section in there he talked about being aroused, basically freudian stuff, and he couched that in a woody allen sense, and he quoted that movie, everything you want to know about sex, and google sent us an e-mail, no human spent time looking at it, saying we were in violation of the ad policies, and all we could do was wait for a chance to appeal, and no chance to talk to a person, and then they appealed not just our ads, but they

revoked our rights to use the google search across our site so we had to use some inferior search algorithm which really, if you think about what our blog team does is sort of link up daily things that they are running with archived things. it made our lives really hard. it made our readers' lives harder, and we got a link to answer three questions to appeal. ..

>> that is where we are stuck now. and organizations work behind the scenes to soften them up.

is a business censorship predicate it on a monopoly. and look at the antitrust verses censorship bingo. that is the negative. a lot of that happens with google and facebook selling private data. on the positive side there are those that in some ways the field day test each other like fox calling out cnn one that says al jazeera is beholden to the government which is funny.

coming from rt we are supposed to understand that is not possible. my humble opinion there is some positive stuff. that is off the cuff of couple of things. >> it is a huge question. being is lower manhattan the contradiction facebook and the ipo. it seems like a natural thing to kill facebook. but you could not kill facebook if you don't have the open source alternative for people to move over you would never get that

critical mass if you don't have the alternative to court make people. i was love to participate in a further discussion of that. here you have the biggest technical ipo, and goldman sachs making tens of millions of dollars so will the other firms the natural thing it seems that there is a target for other occupied movements but it a -- man not be possible. >> we are closing down.

federal flourishing right now. we talk about the mainstream

figures. the action and tries to engage the other parts of america. not just left. it is invisible. where are the left ideas getting into circulation? maybe this is the period to grow the movements. there is something sad about the media landscape we have the fact laden analyses army ourselves with more knowledge. >> dae think it is one of the biggest issues for us is and who do speak to?

one of the main motivations is boring because you have to read all of his books. i would not punish anybody with this. is awful. we had to do it. a lot of people by his books. some that are not very educated, they don't read in the newspapers allot, they don't get much informations. lower class people. will were middle-class are the buyers and other readers. the bottom line is to try a2 talk to them. you are being fooled so the circulation of the work is

important in that regard. how can we make the ideas that we try to put out here there is a way to prevent them how onto the access these people? i do not see any easy answers. the biggest threat to all activities being a journalist is to end up and then there a nice and smart ghetto to be well-informed. a tiny minority would be concerned. you are right to raise the internet issue.

you could have a very lively web community that is another threat to democracy that we could not answer it. it is very important. >> last question. >> what is under discussion recently, here in america those who are highly visible, in france and canada do you have the similar figures? is the product of television coulter to present

themselves murder their these figures who have that? you don't have that to in the united states. they're offended by the agency's. >> >> i think chomsky is a rare breed and we're losing that generation. i think there is a challenge to academics. to play a bigger role in the sphere of of the public but to be committed to the movement to be generous with their time.

it do have access and chomsky puts other figures touche he will respond to e-mails of all hours and engage in dialogue and debate which is incredibly generous with his time. matthew challenge other academics to be more engaged are there figures of authority? fav naomi klein who now off 10 rights as a dual citizen america and politics and is less engaged in the canadian politics. we have the cbc which is

always under attack but increasingly being filled with fox news type of characters who character raise being left-wing not to talk about occupy wall street those who read the whole population they now are taken over by rate weighing shock jocks brother is not a lot it is feel we have to rely on our own independent media radical publishing. of how allot to that is good to report. >> we don't have figures that are recognized us now tops the to be intellectuals

lake noam chomsky. we do have researchers was famous and less prestigious being interviewed in media and a new phenomenon a 99 year-old who wrote the book it is interesting. he is extremely old% today. he talks may be at and television radio shows years and years. he was not very famous. started a campaign of ill

the gall immigrants and began signing petitions to talk about it and that led him to rates in this book of political as asia and for him and because of the incredible success of the book it was used and in different ways he now becomes a figure. it did is really a of the left side of the zero ways to go up to the rally

demonstration. it will be the air -- maybe not. i don't know. [laughter] >> thank you for coming to the panel. derrick o'keefe for about jake lindgaard. joel whitney. [applause]

>> i want to read the but what do we do? the inside look line with what you manage the. [inaudible] some shows just how crazy it can get with the freshmen put in by the tea party sadr controlling the way the house is running and even though their freshman. apparently and one meeting john boehner told people get to your ass in line to. i think this congress has been so polarizing mehsud be

great for summer reading to kickback to figure out the drama of going on behind the scene as we watch nothing happens. another buck is written by somebody who works for "rolling stone" bid is a personal story how he fell in love with somebody. and they make a and unlikely pair and i believe she dies. he is devastated. but then i did a mix tape for years and years to al my ex-boyfriend sprout it is in her honor because it sounds like it was his final mix tape for her.

i cannot wait to read that. >> that would like to talk about my book and then ask for any questions about it to. this book came about as a result of may reading a newspaper article of the

young american soldier 2007 hailed as a murder by a iraqi is. i thought that is interesting. he died in the ied attack in the history of the iraq war i never heard of such a thing. this happened in this city that was the epicenter of the insurgency. and at the memorial service via army specialist of delegation of security officers came to pay their respects to the fallen americans to offer islamic prayers of morning which is the striking scene. i had to find out more of

the story as i found out from the colleagues perhaps his story is critical to understand america is the world stage and maybe to discover what it means to be an american. the story that patriquinn was a key component as the war began to turn around to months before the surge started to happen as patriquinn and his military colleagues hope to reach the awakening al qaeda of course, has never conquered or howled large pieces of territory but what happened

then on it -- on burper augments they conquered it should be a lot the parallel ministry of government and the rule of this version was so offensive of baby bell against it and the awakening was born both help to save iraq from a total collapse and civil war to a different outcome that is terribly dangerous but has transformed over five years first yahoo! is travis patriquinn? he was born in the midwest

and was a devout catholic and christian who happen to believe our refuse to believe his religion was right and others were wrong he studied the q'uaran very carefully and concluded authentic islam was our greatest ally to call kurt al qaeda to help to lead and inspire the world that was a radical in sight. he was fascinated with arab history, arab culture, food, poetry, he learned arabic thanks to the military and traveled to the middle east and plunged into middle eastern culture he loved it and went to

afghanistan the first wave to strike back after 9/11 and one a. braun star but in 2005 he was assigned to the tribal affairs officer in room id which was what one journalist called the most fucked place in iraq. it was compared to hiroshima up. but three things obvious to patriquinn the had to attack with firepower and shatter

the local iraqi police force which went out to the tribal shake. there were not many left. he became the key liaison in the attempts to launch the awakening movement to help transform the war. travis patriquinn was not only a simple for those who served with those who died and helped the iraqis tried to build a new nation of this war. perhaps the best way to understand who he was is what the iraqis said about him. in the words from the man who created the awakening movement, cohmad anixter mariane who played a very important role. he was my brother and spoke arabic. when he came at the start of

the awakening we needed somebody like him he helped us with but then zandi ammunition, deliver food and defended women and children against the terrorists. he would build rapport and cap 10 patriquinn was extraordinary and said he was in love with iraq and addicted to the culture the food and that people and another interpreter told me i iraqis can like you but they loved him. he had a magical personality the presence was noted immediately propelled he had dark skin and a muscular body and a mustache. his heart was connecting.

iraqis can be hard to talk to but he enjoyed being with his hands. >> host: ed -- gave the impression he would do what we he had to do. he give the most honest picture of the american military. they thought he was the true heart. my god, and nobody in the world who perform a closer connection the and travis. they adored him. of former iraqi air force general said americans have not appreciated the lessons of what patriquinn did. in an obstacle it -- absolute miracle. we need people like patriquinn in the military afghanistan, pakistan and elsewhere.

principal come up winnings hearts and minds with their culture, not the weapons. patriquinn thought we had to patriquinn thought we had to reach out to the grass roots and could not do things from top down. and policy-makers tried to force from the top down. villa also thought we should reach out to insurgents and identify them as irreconcilable and negotiate and flip them to our side. because of course, it was very factional. patriquinn also thought we had to be humble and show respect to iraqis to deal with that on its own terms been to make them more like us.

he said if you want to stabilize things, cut the crap and deal with the sheiks. his iraqi partner who launched the weakening, some thought tony soprano of western iraq. a rough character. also and inspiring leader. in his late thirties, he was the man who declared war on al qaeda. the closest american contact was patriquinn who told anybody he is the key to room body. nothing will work without him. he is the center of gravity. this might be the way out for us. it turns out that larg