tv Book TV CSPAN June 17, 2012 6:45am-8:00am EDT
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who knows how to do this? is there a normal thing to do? i do know. what i'm planning on doing is reading a sure thing, actually that karen was just talking about. and industry for telling you about what the book is about and then i will happily take your question and at the end of the night i will sign books. are there any objections? hearing none, all right. [laughter] i will say two things as a matter of preference. one is that it's really nice that you guys will come out to see me. you may know me from tv. i'm guessing most of you do, but whether not you know me from tv, you know enough about this book to know it's about the military and about the politics of war making in this country. and that is not your standard like saturday night let's go hang out kind of thing. i realize this is not tmz. i met some jerk to disagree with me. that can be more fun sometimes,
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so this is, just the fact you here and you would consider reading it and you hear to him and talk about is very heartening to me. you hear over and over again all anybody wants is easy stuff. this is not easy stuff, so thank you for being here. the other thing i would say is before you leave you should probably meet somebody here who don't already know. because if you all like me and want to come out on a saturday night and talk about them to do, you probably like each other. [laughter] so if there are people here who you don't know, i don't mean to like on dates or whatever. i'm guessing this is probably a place to make new friends. we will do a peace be with you thing at the end of the homily. [laughter] >> it is not a particularly large or regal bird. it looks like what you might get a few bread a common pheasant with an ostrich.
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like a miniature options with a shorter neck and legs or maybe it's like a pheasant on steroids with a stretched back and spread his legs and a much more impressive wingspan. but the little fellow has recently provided crucial assistance in making out with america's war in afghanistan and this spill over into pakistan the longest-running military hot show in our nation's history. in may 2011, pakistan got its nose -- nose out of joint when u.s. special forces sprung based prize mission without giving a heads up to the host government. the fact that any military service founders of having to explain how a tar, osama bin laden could be living in tranquility just a few miles down the road from pakistan's most important military academy. and neighbor crawling with current and retired military officers. was pakistani intelligence that
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incompetent, or were they protecting bin laden? and had to explain how u.s. strike force and is very large helicopters could fly into abbottabad, spend an hour on the ground and then leave the country with bin laden's carcass into without being detected, let alone stop. president obama and the rest of america took a celebratory victory lap, the pakistanis and the entire episode hugely shaming. but not so much on the bin laden in our backyard count. they focus on the lack of respect accorded their own nation by the united states. quote american troops come across the border and taking action in one of our towns is not acceptable to the people of pakistan. said former president musharraf after the day after the rig to it is a violation of our sovereignty. the pakistani parliament calls the military chief into a rare and marathon closed-door session with the generals did have a spot of trouble and covering their respective, but they do deflect much of the civilians either.
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the united states to remind everyone was real bad guy here. the generals have little trouble encouraging parliament to form a demand that henceforth the united states would ensure that pakistan's national interests were fully backed it in, the pakistan people deserve some respect. to add some bite to this declaration of sovereignty the generals suggested a good first step would be forcing you to shut shut down the secret program the caa had been running out of an air base in a corner of pakistan. unfortunately, and publicizing their demands, that the cia leave that airbase, the generals also revealed to surprise pakistan legislators that the cia had been using that airbase. [laughter] this was cause for an uproar in parliament but the fact that the caa has been flying armed drones out of the airfield known as shinji, came as much less a surprise to the citizens of the area of those thrones were targeting, the tribal region.
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the cia's dumpy looking high-tech unmanned aircraft had been used mainly for surveillance in the early stages of the war in afghanistan but they could also be armed with hellfire missiles. they are occasion from 2004-2007 and more frequent in 2008 the george w. bush ministry had use of drones to launch airborne attacks on suspected terrorists in pakistan. when the obama administration took over in 2009, the number of drone attacks spiked. connection to 2009 numbers more than doubled. the obama administration refused as a matter of policy to officially acknowledge the cia drone attacks but in the days following a big get, they announced some key al qaeda or haqqani network leader was killed as if the event were an act of providence or like a rainbow, a remarkable atmospheric happening. these drone attacks become the centerpiece of obama's recalibration of america's
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global war on terror, even if we didn't call it that anymore. the obama administration had no intention of pulling up stakes. that base is neither vacated nor being vacated was the anonymous but official word from washington. it was a mexican standoff in baluchistan. here's where it provided wiggle room and what was otherwise sort of a naughty situation. noddy with a k. you forget about homonyms. [laughter] when you are reading loud. that's weird. anyway. [laughter] this tiny forgotten strip of land that held the airbase in chance it turned out it did not actually belong to pakistan to a fading quietly signed over the united arab emirates 20 or earlier is any sign of friendship between the two countries. lucia stand, aside from being full of spectacular garden of
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eden natural wonders, it is supposed be among the most people place on earth, aside from that though, baluchistan is among the few wintry grounds of the foobar blaster, and the bar buster is a bird held in high esteem among hunters from the united arab emirates and saudi arabia and qatar. it is the sport of the arab kings. it has long been the preferred pray for falconers. so royalty or frankly really pleased to have this special foothold in baluchistan and right away they built themselves a sizable landing strip so they could get easy access to the surprising sought after remote corner of the were. the sheiks tell me it is the ultimate challenge for the falcon. the chieftain in baluchistan told a writer for "the new yorker" named mary anne weaver back when the time of the shamsi building. it is the fastest bird on earth.
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it also is a clever weary bird with a number of tricks. among these tricks is my single-payer part of the book. it's really gross. [laughter] among these tricks, the cheating content come is an ability to inkjet a dark green slime violently from its event. you know what event is on a bird, right? [laughter] to inkjet a dark green slime violently from its events, its forces so strong that it can spread for three feet and it can temporarily blind the falcon, or glue the falcon feathers together making it unable to fly. [laughter] [applause] you now don't have to buy the book because that's the best thing in its. [laughter] they persisted the meat of the
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houbara bustard was an aphrodisiac. not hard to see why it has been sought and consumed with such sustained efforts at the bird was to extend on the arabian peninsula. cold war politics have added degrees of difficulty for the sportsman as well. the fall of the shah in 1979 a bustard hunting problematic for sunni arabs and shiite iran as have the near constant state of war in afghanistan. so baluchistan emerged as a destination spot for latter-day arab nimrods. for the last 20 years or so, sheiks and saudi princes and the more general run of ambitious arab dignitary had jockeyed for the best allotment in the last good place on earth to hunt this for bustard. what pakistan foreign office bestowed upon the m. iraqis, and allotment that was once held by the saudis, the saudis withheld oil supplies from pakistan and money for flood relief in retaliation. arab royalty of greece strength showed every a with according to
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weaver's description, pop-up tent cities, hundreds of servants, satellite dishes for better to mitigation and hunting vehicles tricked out with sophisticated laptops, infrared spotlights and bustard seeking radar. [laughter] maybe not sporting but certainly effective. the m. varieties had made one concession that did slightly cryptic their style in the bustard hunting department. in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, 2001 whatever he wanted to in, they had agreed with consents of pakistan president musharraf to let the americans use shamsi as a basis of why u.s. troops fighting the taliban just across the border in afghanistan. and also maybe for a few special and classified operations. into 10 years that followed as the cia and its many private contractors began operating lethal attack drones out of shamsi, the remote top secret base remained off limits to pakistan's own air force.
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so when the bleep hit the fan, when the slime to the falcon in the aftermath of the bin laden rate, thanks to the mubarak bustard, everybody had an out. the united states could make a claim that the cia was not vacating shamsi, and pakistan could still save face. pakistani government officials could say, if they did, hey, we just checked our land represented that this will strip of baluchistan is not legally speaking pakistan controlled territory after all. we give it to the emirates for bustard hunting. so sorry but there's nothing we can do to stop this part of america's secret drone were operating out of shamsi. but we do condemn it in as strong as possible language. [laughter] the united arab emirates went on record saying that only built the airstrip. sheiks and others use it for recreational purposes. what recreation the cia was pursuing better, the emirates couldn't say. shamsi they assured the world was never operated or controlled
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by the united arab emirates. and so, we still had our drone based in shamsi, and no skittish ally had to take the blame for having handed it over to us. [applause] >> so that's a little bit about the book goes. that is the best part. [laughter] it's not that whole section but that part about the slime. [laughter] i think is the best. i am not an expert on the militant. i'm not an expert on war. my gig is politics. that's what i pursued as an activist and what i studied as an academic, and what i talk about on television. this book is a book about politics. it is about the politics of going to war and the politics of not going to war, and the
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politics of ending wars that we are in. the consternation over the vietnam war led to a multi-front effort to make sure that we did not end up in a mess like that again. the congress passed the war powers act, which reasserted that president can just take us into big wars on their own say-so. congress having sold constitutional authority to declare war means they've got to not just be told, but be asked about were. congress, the body that gets to decide. congress aside from the war powers act also after vietnam got up on its hind legs, as they say, action only as i say -- [laughter] and exerted simply a more muscular attitude toward matters of national security. gerald ford wanted to essentially reengage with vietnam after we had left in a way that many members of congress believe what get us started into that war against a and congress stop him from doing it. he was set on doing it. he thought it was right thing,
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and members of congress said no. when he and congress have a very, very serious confrontation over it, one of forfeiture for, he thought congress was was overstepping its bounds, they went so far to tell him they would use the appropriations process. they would withhold dollars. the powers of presidency i think were confronted even if they were not changed by the newly muscular attitude from congress but it is a balance. that was a time when congress flexed its muscles. but maybe i think the most interesting change that is not brought us, that doesn't get as much attention in civilian life because we don't feel like it's our business really, was the abrams doctrine. creighton abrams was head of the army as the vietnam war was winding down in the divers shortly after the end of the war, but before he died he worked on something called the total force policy which usually gets shorthanded at the abrams doctrine. the idea was the military would be restructured so we couldn't go to war in big ways without
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disrupting civilian life. specifically without calling up the guard and reserves. when lbj was trying to the decision about escalating in vietnam, he knew that he didn't want to make the argument to the country about why that was smart to do. he had been making the argument as a politician for years that it was not smart to escalate it not a lbj would talk about not wanting to send american boys, thousands of miles around the world to do what asian boys ought to be doing for themselves. he was not in favor of the. he did want to make a political argument for and yet he felt like he had to do. so lbj's solution was we will expand the traffic nobody will notice that. [laughter] we have had a draft constantly at that point in our country for decades. bless you. [laughter] but was he a boy, what he didn't do because he didn't want to upset the country to much is he didn't call of the guard and reserves. he thought there's all these people are pretty well-connect
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well-connected, who of well connected parents only store in the guard and reserves and a don't want to go calling up the guard and reserves if i have to hear from all these well-connected constituents about this war that a don't want to defend. so we will do a draft. that will keep it quiet. not very many, guardsmen and reservists ended up serving on the ground and did not. the draft was used to expand the number of people we had there instead. but when abrams got ahold of this idea of restructuring the military he said you know what? hard and reserves are going to have to go. we will have to operationally structure the army so that you can't have a big military operation of any kind without having guardsmen and reservists there. why? so that civilian life would be disrupted by the fact we be in war and it would not be a divide between civilian life and military life that has so crippled the country. i think emotionally and politically at the end of vietnam. and i think that was important
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to the politics of war. it would keep the country focus on and feeling the sacrifice that were into. ronald reagan's presidency changed a lot of that. he started a war in grenada with congress barely known about. when congress said no to what he wanted to in central america, he secretly went around them to do it anyway, just frequently -- flagrantly breaking the law. when he got caught, they invented a brand-new radically expanded doctrine of presents a power that essentially said that a president alone as one person can direct any war related action anywhere on earth, even in direct contradiction of a law passed by congress, which is bizarre -- [laughter] and that bizarre idea, which i really do think was simply cooked up on the spot to save reagan's but at the end of the iran-contra, that became the basis of the political life of an obscure wyoming congressman named dick cheney. [laughter] and that became effectively
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important years later when congress previous muscular he on issues of war and not war actually went all flat. and dick cheney, as white house chief of staff and the letter s. defense secretary, came up with some that essentially security the abrams doctor. instead making sure that the manpower needs of the military engaged the whole country whenever we went to war, he restructured the thing so that manpower needs of the military would be met as quietly as possible with as little civilian upset as possible. those manpower needs will be met in part for profit. privately. the clinton -- clinton-gore administration was delighted and dashed it made much easier for them, for example, and the need to get around the own political constraints to use force in the balkans. and so, this book is not about the merits of any individual or.
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the congress waxes and wanes in its interest in constraining and overseeing and directing matters of war, even though the constitution does put them in charge of the. the president's new expanded powers, treats it as one man's arm, those powers have grown and grown to the military itself has become more and more cleaved from something like. the national security advisor keeps growing and become more and more independent judgment penetrable. more and more it's kept secret the politics gets more and more muted. the wars get longer and longer. in our sense that something is wrong, get steeper. i feel both for the guy who's putting the magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of his suv, and the person in the bike lane next to them cursing that dumb magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of your suv. that's self-defeating but i feel for both of those things because i think they come from the same place. they come from a sense that we are a country that has not gone to war.
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we sent a military to war in they went without us. and i think that people feel the on the left and on the by, and i think people feel that who have no politics at all. we barely notice when the iraq war ended. after eight and a half years, more than 4000 americans killed. even if you only care about americans killed and not the iraqis killed. after all, of that time, when it ended, when did in? the sender. it was a ho-hum shrug from the civilian population. st. louis directory, but new yorker didn't. these are changes to think of happened over wrote to the short period of time. i do not think it was a conspiracy, although i do love hearing conspiracy theories because i find them very entertaining. [laughter] i think essentially we had a series of understandable decisions made by people looking at the short-term political necessity. i see something i think what to do for national security purposes, but the price tags go to is way to offer people.
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let's tell them it's free. let's give them a tax cut until the industry and how they don't notice when their grandkids have to pay for it. i want to devote a large number of americans i don't want to have to answer for how many americans i am deploying. let's have some of them be working for private companies because they're not going to have to not have to answer how much we're paying them, we don't have to and we do something wrong. and if they die or get hurt, nobody will ever know. i think of what to do something for national security but congress has passed a law against it. i'm going to assure that i am above that law. i did like to wage a war in idaho, say pakistan. but i don't want to get around the political constraints that are between me and a war in pakistan's wobble wage one in secret and not answer when asked about it. i don't think all of those decisions happen all at once. i think it happened over a short period of time and i think all about finding it around these unknowing constraints, keeping us from waging wars we wanted to
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wage, and keeping us from using the military in ways we wanted to use. those annoying constraints are some of the best things we inherited from the founding fathers. those unknowing constraints on their for a reason that the constitution is structured to put 535 squabbling members of congress in charge, because a squabble among 535 members of congress about that import is due to be loud and take a long time and be a pain annual engages all. that was the point but if they want it to be easy to go to war they would've given the power to the present and they emphatically did not have to talk about at the time and we can read their letters about it. so again, this is not about the merits of any one more. i think we have cut away from the morning we got from our constitution to make us not too warlike as a country got to make as it passes country and i'm not a pacifist and i have a lot of respect for pacifism as way of life and the way a thing about
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these things but it's not my point of view. i but sometimes wars are necessary. i warn us of an accident military, i do believe that the constitution instructed us to be a deliberately peaceable nation. where peacetime is our default and war is the apparition. and that's been flipped. [applause] >> and it turns out there's this bustard slimes falcons and make their feather safety of and a crash. if you leave nuclear weapons sitting around for too long they grow fungus. you know? i really enjoyed writing this. i hate writing them but i liked writing this and he came at the way i meant it too. and i'm grateful that you were here and would consider reading it because i would love for us to have a big national fight about the stuff. i think it can all be fixed. thank you very much for being here.
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[cheers and applause] >> no, no. you consider. thank you so much. okay. we didn't rehearse this so we're not sure where we stand but we -- >> okay, we have time for a few questions at and as i said previously we will start up in the balcony but i'll receive someone standing ready to go. go ahead and ask your -- [inaudible] >> so i actually the question about the prayed for the best in st. louis, i was wondering though if you seen any movements towards having a new york parade, and if you think there's any, any legitimate justification for not having
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that parade until all the vets come home? >> ask a question. i totally think that there are two legitimate sides to the debate. i'm inclined to think we ought to do, that we are to mark the end of the iraq war in a way that would let civilians say thank you to veterans, welcome them home and to acknowledge the thing that they did is include the the pentagon's line on it is understandable. and beuerlein on is listen, the iraq and afghanistan wars are separate legal entities but the same people have been fighting both of these would. we've got 90,000 americans deployed right now in afghanistan, and so to welcome them home from iraq, when a lot of them are not physically actually home. and i absolutely, i have a lot of respect for that viewpoint, and i, a lot of people i know who care about this issue as much if i did, i doubt that as
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the vistage. i just got a lot of veterans who say, i've been in both places, identically in both police and fire in afghanistan right now, knowing that there's been a parade at home to mark the end of the iraq war, -- so i don't think this, i don't think is an issue where you're wrong if you on one side or if you're right on the other. i would love to debate. i think it's with the pentagon wants there to be come it says they support there being parades in every other country, every other city in the country but not in new york. ahead of the the city council in new york still wants to do. the pentagon is advising against but they probably don't get the last word on uzbeks i think it's still sort of an open question. thank you. spent a question in the second balcony. >> this one? >> yes.
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[laughter] >> rachel, i read and really enjoyed your book, but what is the premise of your book is the demise of the citizen soldier after vietnam or can you discuss several -- one you don't discuss is the fact that a significant portion of the civilian soldiers in the town revolted, and you need, against their army, killed their soldiers, killed the officers when they resisted it. and this scared the shit out of the army. and ever since that incident, they have a limited the civilian soldier to have turned themselves into a professional army, so they never have to face the kind of think again. can you comment on that and why it's never mentioned in your book? >> sure. i think that it's implicit when you talk to the military right now about this i think left and right culmination among civilians that were not to bring back the traffic a lot of people
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say, a lot of people said to me about the book since it's come out, but i think people in of the talk about this, you should buy to how we need to bring back the draft so that people are more connected to, civilians are more connected to the threat of mr. service but has some skin in the game. and the reason that usually gets shutdown doesn't go much further than that because the military says absolutely not. military as absolute no interest in there being a trust. they don't want to be in and about whether to training assignment or a combat environment with people who don't want to be the. you're right, the last time that was true was in vietnam. and ultimately i think that the civilian soldier idea is broader than just the traffic is broader than just a description. it is the idea that we're not a country that maintains a massive standing military force that we are looking to use all the time. that's something that the founding fathers debated and sort of decided something different that what we ended up with. citizen soldier idea is that we have a peaceable autonomy and
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country that is dislocated tempered for the purpose of going to war and we go back to normalcy. that hasn't been true for very long time but it's a very good question. >> okay, down here, please. >> so, i will confess i am a big nerd. i had your book overnighted to me and asked to read in advance of tonight. >> thank you. >> i know spent the you agree the bustard art was the best our? >> i ask we grew up 30 miles from the fungus riddled wings of marshall air force base so that -- anyway, what struck me as interesting the most interesting about the book was to talk a lot about the executive branch, talk a lot about the legislative branch, and there's not a lot about the judiciary. we've over the past week, and, witness the role of the judiciary in determining what is and what is not constitutional. one of the process of the book is that the executive has
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overstepped his constitutional authority to declare war. and i'm wondering why you don't think there's been any role of judiciary in this, to check out our? >> it's a totally, totally good question. and it is because the judiciary has defer to congress because the judiciary looks at the division of powers in the constitution and says yeah, we know this isn't us, we know it's not you, it's you guys. you guys are supposed use your equal power ask congress to weigh in and take the power back. one point of the book, forgotten history there, it's not that long ago that members of congress sued in court in federal court to stop george h. w. bush from waging gulf war one. >> this was abbottabad 'tis of the? >> exactly. feeling the ways of the world as one man pictures want to scream into the book. dude, it's not supposed to be you all alone.
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[laughter] [applause] >> some members of congress were yelling that at him, and actually decided to seek a federal court injunction to stop the war. which is a crazy idea. and the ruling from the judge in the case, a beautiful thing, it is really beautiful articulated. i could plagiarize and made that the thesis of the booker but at the end of it he says and having concluded that you are right, and the president is doing stuff he says most be doing at these are congress' powers, dude, these are congress' powers. i and a judge can't stop them from doing anything. you ask congress have the power to stop them. but it can't just be this dozen members of congress, however many people it was, suing to do. you i should have to take action as congress which means you have to act by majority vote.
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it's in yourself as an institution to stop the president from doing this thing. to your job. and every bucket of cold water, but that's true. i don't expect any president, no matter, you know, you can reincarnate cheeses and a leg president jesus but maybe that would work. aside from president jesus i don't expect any president would give back power that the executive branch had accrued through the president of the actions of previous presidents. nobody gives way power. if you're president you think at the country's best interest at heart and your stomach all the time of the people who don't want the best interest for the country. you will not give way power to get something done if you believe that you are doing what's right and other people are stopping you. presidents don't give power away, like an aged rubber band that only stretches one direction. congress has to take that power back, and congress has to do it on their own behalf.
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and we don't have much faith in congress to do anything right now, to do something that big maybe seems like high in the sky but that's what needs to happen i think. thank you. [applause] >> so first of all, -- i'm really tall, sorry. spent time here. can you may? thank you for coming up tonight. my question has more to do with the nature of the world where talk about it in your book you talk a lot about more formal wars or formal deck relations of war. so my question is, what does the role of the sort of more stateless air of war and counterterrorism have to do with the military function, whether that's a -- a legal original patient wartime powers, what does that have to do with how the military functioning that is different than before? >> ask a question and very hard to answer. i think a basically, i think that there is reasonable wiggle
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room in terms of the way that were set up as a country under the president's commander-in-chief of powers to do some things in an almost unilateral or temporary unilateral way when speed is of the essence. i mean, the way the founders talked about, like retail in patients. there are some things what i think the president is given authority to act as a metric in outside what we think of is the constitutional prerogatives of warmaking. limited at its very limited powers. and to the extent that warmaking right now is about transnational groups that don't have governments and don't have borders that they respect, i think that those two things have worked together to expand the amount of miniature power we use without any deference to congress whatsoever. for example, we do a lot of
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military, a lot of our military work now to the cia. the cia is essentially functioning as another branch of military. they are one that has deniability i guess, they think. in terms of whether we explain or own up to their actions. i can see why somebody who wants the power to act in the nation's national security interests wants to flexibly to be able to act in were in the world in secret, deny they ever do, never explain it, and cover it up if necessary. i just don't think that's america. i can understand why somebody wants that power. so i think it's put pressure on all the weak points of where we are already drifting. thank you. >> up in the balcony. top balcony. >> good evening. >> don't be afraid of. [laughter] >> thank you so much for being
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here with us tonight. my question is after the war in vietnam there's a very clear period of reflection and questioning both on the part of the american public and american politicians as to what are the lessons we learned from this war. and my question is, do you think that a similar period of reflection and questioning will come about after, in the aftermath of iraq and afghanistan, or are we to removed as a nation from our military actions for that to happen? >> that is the big 64,000-dollar question. that's, when i was on "the daily show" this week, jon stewart's question, he said i see all these things that you are implicitly praising after vietnam, happened after the national of people that was vietnam, do we need something that big again in order to assert for example, congress of powers over these things governor timothy m. changes that you say.
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and i think it's arguable. i mean, to have fought not only the longest war in american history, but alongside that, to have fought another eight and a half year long in iraq, to current with the laws were in american history, and have had only 1% of the population fighting those wars? and for them to be completely unpaid for and for the southern population to be continuously granting itself tax cuts over the course of those wars? when you put all those things together i think you're approaching unsustainable crisis. just in terms of how think of ourselves as a country. [applause] imdb believer -- i am a big believer in protests movements that i think it was so me changes after vietnam because people were in the streets. [applause]
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>> i don't foresee that happening on this issue now because we are -- it feels like it's something separate. we don't even know when iraq is but i don't foresee that mass social movement. but we also the situation on which there's no partners and affiliation in terms of how people feel about these things. how people feel about the afghanistan war is completely disassociate with people for decision at this point. so that's pretty radical. almost every controversial issue of american politics is bifurcated by party or liberal and conservative ideological lines. not this. so now we don't have a mass social movement pushing to this. but if anybody does push on these issues, i think you'll find they're pushing on open-door but i don't think is going to be as much resistance to these things as within. so to me it feels fixable. i think the crisis we're in is
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big enough. the way it is manifesting with a national discuss rather than with a national protest movement will remain to be seen. i do hope that this book can be part of fixing the problem. >> thank you. >> middle balcony. >> hi. your show and information on your show, the stories you tell and you poker so well researched. and just kind of curious, how do you ensure that the facts are fact? >> through long hours and cross-referencing. i mean, you know, we get stuff wrong, and one of things that i find weird about tv is that there's not, there's not a history of on air corrections for factual statements on television, which i don't understand. it's like cause for a giant ripple of excitement when it would to a correction on air. but if we do something wrong i tried to correct it. for the record, i called john
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poindexter a marine in the book. easing naval admiral. very subtle but mistakes happen but the things they get screwed up. i think it's like an academic work, you have to do everything you can possibly do to make sure you know what your talking about, before you say anything at all. read first, talk later. you have to have somebody with fresh eyes checking your work and then somebody checking their work. then you have to be willing to be wrong. you be willing to make it right when you're caught out for something that is wrong, especially if you catch yourself and nobody else nails it for you. expect from and -- there's no magic bullet. you just have to work really hard and care about it. thank you. >> congratulations on the steinbeck award. >> thank you. >> you are talking about how the republicans are willing to lose battles and order to win the war. and you just said that is is a
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door to be pushed on. do you think that that's a good way for liberals to bring the discussions back to center, and perhaps move a more progressive fashion? to open the door of conversation and what you think are some steps that we can take to bring the country back toward the left? >> it's a good question. and they don't think i know the answer to. the basic problem and left versus right politics, and you notice i can tell, it's -- basically my day is that on the right, you've got the conservative movement, which is well-funded and well organized, think and generation, those exact words going and know that we'll get there and has almost infinite resources to do. then you have the republican party which is not that awesome. [laughter] [applause]
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>> i don't mean republicans are not that awesome. the republican party is not a good organization. they are not very good at what they do. they are not as good as what did you ask as the democratic party is. but, no, i don't, if you're uploading to your democrat and you like the compliment, okay. [laughter] i don't mean democrats good, republicans better dining democrats good at running a political party. republicans that running around political party. there's the conservative movement. so they just hope themselves onto the concert move and they do what they are told and if it sometimes means they have to lose election in the short run because they're advocating against contraception or something in 2012, the conservative movement doesn't care about the republican short-term electoral interests because they've got their their eyes on generational change your and so because of that, that's what you get this phenomenon on
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the right that you don't get on the left of democratic politics are essentially in the same, or most of my adult life. the policy positions have not changed except the skewed a bit to the right but they haven't got more liberal and they haven't moved very much. republican politics moved so fast, so far to the right that they are constantly turning on each other and having to reinvent themselves to john mccain and sarah palin ran on a cap-and-trade bail out the banks platform in 2000. sarah palin. writes? i mean, mitt romney has to run against not only himself as a governor mitt romney has to run against the us the guy who ran in 2008. [applause] they are constantly outpacing themselves and us because the conservative movement is making them -- whoever got the furthest right decision and politics, the
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news ever for the right to them, they all screw. so when you do the company will the democrats are like, standing over here. [laughter] but if these democrats are standing here, kind of fighting amongst ourselves, interest group, how much do we care about you? is it okay to senate majority leader is anti--- i don't know. that's democratic and republicans are over and they are like -- [laughter] looking to the right but as you tragedy that democrats, whenever that you can be in general election in terms of the republicans are causally screeching over to try to be centrist thinking. that means the center moves to the right, which means there are republicans who fall off that rightward edge all the time. [laughter] but it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter to the conservative movement and the longer the they don't care about short-term election cycle but in 2012 they will lose all those midwest governorships that the one in 20 because they got to vote those guys in 20 and have
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them run like they're running alabama. wisconsin is not alabama. they will lose it. [applause] that dynamic doesn't exist on the left. there's nobody who is pulling the democratic party to the left. so how do progressives of the democratic party to the left? disgust. [laughter] [applause] spirit we are going to do three more questions. go ahead. >> thank you for the work that you do, logging those long hours. in large part through what i've learned from your show, i have begun to realize that we do have a shadow army of private contractors who fight in our name, if not under our banner, and i'm wondering who has the leverage to dial down those
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forces when that becomes, you know, i think, before it becomes a crisis? >> this is one of these things that i think is doable. you here in washington that it's completely undoable. remember back in a 2008 democratic primary, both secretary clinton and senator obama were very outspoken against the use of contractors for what used to be noted purpose of the they both said they without those things where that, there was no reason we need to use contractors for things the military is to do for themselves. but it's not saving us money. it was causing us, it was causing all sorts of problems but they're doing all sorts of bad things that can our soldiers had to answer for in a way that wasn't safe, even just for our military. they both sort of said am i paying all the right things. now our secretary of state, and as president in charge of everything, the number, the contractor issue has not gotten any better. to what they in washington is the contractors are just too integral to what we do.
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if we killed all the contracts, ever got rid of all the contracts in the short term we can do anything tomorrow. and maybe he feels that way. i should contractors have themselves seem indispensably are the reason i write about it a lot, it's some sort of disturbing detail about what happened in the balkans in the book, is to remind everybody that it happened, it wasn't that long with halliburton and dyncorp and all those groups stealing data. it was not all that long and we were fine before a miniature car before for that happen. there's always been some involvement in warmaking, but outsourcing of the basic logistics of being at work, things like laundry, food, building bears, driving god bless, vip security, that kind of stuff, that was a purely military function really not that long ago at all. and so it could be created in 20
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years, it can be gotten rid of, too. we can go back to the way it was. where it came from is kind of a funny story. and i think it's chapter four. [laughter] thank you. it could be done and it takes will to actually depend on, if of those things where there's been some interesting across the aisle leadership on. claire mccaskill is a relatively conservative democratic senator. she is conservative on some things, progressive on others, but one, if she gets reelected in missouri i expect her to be the one who holds the banner higher for doing that. thanks. [applause] spirit untamed. >> good evening, rich but i've been watching your show since the 2008 electoral system so it's an honor to finally ask you to speak in person. >> thank you. >> my question relates to the u.s. and home in the recent crisis in libya where the u.s. working with nader and the libyan rebels themselves as able to oust moammar gadhafi out of
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power without laying a u.s. boat on the ground, so to speak. do you see this kind of involvement working with intergovernmental organizations and focusing on less manpower and less financial burden as a viable kind of path forward for the united states and alternatives to long costly wars like afghanistan and iraq? >> there is no matter what doctrine. there's this really, really smart guy nation security guy who is younger discover think it's like my kids buddy. spencer watch for wired.com. i didn't interview with him about the book in which he is super harsh on the book, controversial interview. which exactly what expect them to fy11. but he was like what i'm surprised by there is no maddow doctrine, how we should go to war and that we should get out of or. and boy howdy, am i not qualified to do that. to be that.
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i think it is worth really in a non-ad hominem, and a sensitive nonpartisan way engaging with what is essentially barack obama's way of waging war in the world, and he is a multilateralist for some things. he is happy to wage a secret war in a great expand way all of the world anyway he does have to answer for because it's secret. that's the beauty of it for politicians. but when it comes to interventions that are not secret, that are overcome his absolutely a multilateralist. and that was typified by what happens in libya. and that is a form of american, that is a form of exerting american are using the fact that we have a military that we spend as much money on as the rest of the world's militaries combined, to advance international interests and foster international cooperation on national security matters. we would not have gone to lead if the arab world have not said go to libya.
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so similar, with the airport and a very different world on city i think that's part of reason we've taken a very different approach on syria to so you are constrained by the fact that you're checking in with everybody else who is being on the same side of you on an issue. you can in a sense into being less on the other hand, you can intervene more because you have a clear international coalition, everything looks legit but it's much more aged -- george h. w. bush than any other modern president. i think that's obama's way, i don't know i'm qualified to weigh in what is right or wrong, but it's a very, very different approach than what, for example, that romney is offering. >> in the middle, go ahead. >> first of all i'd like to thank you, rachel, for everything you do. i think if there were more rachel mapped out kind, the country would be a lot better off. [applause]
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>> that's very nice of you to say. there are more rachel matos. [laughter] >> and sadly, i've got a quick comment, and the question. >> are you just give it to the question? we need to end in a few minutes. so brief question. spent i'd like to say that i was drafted in 1968. i found it extremely valuable thing to happen in my life. i also found that my family and all my friends became extremely interested in the outcome of the vietnam war. the day i was drafted. the question i have is, money is behind war, and i want you, please come to say something about the corrosive influence of money in our campaigns. president obama, i'm told, needs $1 billion for his reelection. what's wrong with this picture?
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thank you. [applause] >> thank you. and this year, do we feel any differently about the idea that however many hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be spent on each side, that some hundreds of those billions will be spent my money that we can trace to know where? front page of "the boston globe" today is about how the likely nominee on the republican side, the super pac that is supporting them, is distinguished by the fact that a lot of these donations through the pack are listed as organizations as corporate shells, and so even when people are willing to give him people are forced by the few election rules we have left to disclose something about where a donation comes from, if you pursue a corporate shell, there's no way to chase a back to human. i always wonder if there's no way to trace about the country the. like if china had a real
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preference between barack obama and mitt romney, do we think they wouldn't figure out a way? don't know. that would be against the rules i say. [laughter] >> if the fec was in charge of enforcing, implements every american road would be an audubon. [laughter] the corrosive power of money is as old as politics itself, but we have gone through in a sense of fortified supreme court decisions that have guided what was, what remained of the american election law. we are now in the wild west period where, not only are we looking at mysterious thunders on a massive scale like we've never seen before, i mean one person could write a 1 billion-dollar check, and to
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fund somebody's campaign, right? and we are amazed by the fact that barack obama needs to raise a billion dollars and i'll raise a billion dollars on it is, what about the fact that somebody wanted, i don't know, this year's steve forbes or this years ross perot, or dishes, i i don't know, somebody to be competitive, why not find one of america's billionaires, so you're one of these guys are worth seven or $8 billion, write a check, now it is a three-way race. not by virtue of any campaign but my purely out of interest of one billionaires interest. we've always would about money and politics, but never worried about it like this. so i think that we are in a position right now that is a very, very hard, i hard environment for political reform because the corrosion are mostly came through supreme court decisions, and you don't appeal supreme court decisions. what you're talking to a note to fix this, i think, and i don't say this lightly, it is by the
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anonymity the american constitution. and that's a really big undertaking. [applause] >> so, you know, i think we're a long way off from fixing it as they continue to strike down state efforts to even regulate at the state level it will be hard to even set a good example around the country for something how they might want to in the. it's the thing that worries me the most in all of politics. [applause] >> we keep adding questions. two more brief brief question. you have a question? go ahead. >> to what extent has the u.s. government changed its concept about constitutes a threat? you go further back in your book and the global war on terrorism, but in announcing this a bush administration advisor waged war on a tug of war, on promulgated by scattered covert antics i guess my question is, to what extent has the unborn of the locus of a military threat
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actually further enabled the unmooring of the military itself because i see it more as a symptom than a cause, i think are coming, i should say, it was the war on terrorism and then became the war on terror excellent from it being a war on a tactic to gain the war on a bad feeling. [laughter] can you get any more -- war on, right? so it was like but by the vagueness of what we were having a war on should of been a thank yous that there was something wrong. i think there was something wrong. i think people are creeped out the with the department of homeland security when does america have a homeland? right? it's creepy. we don't think of ourselves that we. assembly, a war on terror seems like deliberately they decide to do all sorts of things that wouldn't otherwise justified a need to call them a war. but when you don't have to win
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the argument, your argument can suck. when you don't have to engage in a rigorous debate that if you lose that debate you will not get your way, your arguments can be flabby and you can point at, and me, the way i write about -- not back into the founder said, but you can agenda anything as being worthy of this warmonger that you get what you can justify massive international expense. so i think that when a president can decide alone what is that we are waging war on, when there is no price tag put on it, remember, and, the post-9/11 war funding was not factored into the budget, it was a emergency supplement is, look, every six months, the war is still on. it's like a fish going around a goldfish bowl, look, a castle. look, gaza. look, a castle.
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[laughter] >> when you do not have to explain yourself to the public because it's secret, when you do not have to win the debate in congress because the debate doesn't happen in congress, when you do not have to justify that is nobody knows how much it is costing, your arguments can be incredibly vague and difficult anything worthy of war. you can pick up a transnational terrorist organization, you can pick a country that has no connection to terrorism and say that it does. when you don't have to have good things come you have had good against -- arguments. >> i think there needs to be a customer mind. when you are -- [inaudible] for the whole time you were there. spin i'm so nervous. you guys don't know what i was like the
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