thus i capitalism isn't a zero-sum game. it's a positive spiral of games for all and ultimately reposes on the golden rule a judeo-christian morality. a good portion of others is also year-round. the image of capitalism is some vicious predatory system is the opposite of the truth. socialism, when you cut at the future through socialism block off the horizons of change and create creation. then you really do have a zero-sum game and everybody fights in the lobbies of washing 10. that is an ugly facet of the

welfare state. >> george gilder, are you working at all but the campaign? >> i am not working with it. i work for george who has missed out. i wrote for him the emission imaging, which is never published because he withdrew from the race. it is because i wrote that book that i could write up in poverty so rapidly. the wealth and poverty billy oriented -- originated a lot of research in a book i wrote for george romney, but the addition of the dream. after writing wealth and poverty, among the first people who came to me and asked me to speak with pain and company. the secret force in the supply-side.

they provided the microeconomics of supply-side theory. the learning curve, the fact that lower prices expand market share, which meets the lower cost and more prosperity. this is both for the government, which also administers price is. they are called taxes. so lower tax rates expand the economy and we need more revenues for the government and less zero-sum struggles over government favors. >> we been talking books tv but george gilder, author of several books with the new addition of george gilder, which came out originally in the early 80s. this is a tv on c-span 2.

>> now i program from the up to the archives. fatima bhutto kameny said former pakistani prime minister, benazir bhutto, talks about growing up in a family powerbrokers. may suffer chronicles her close relatives including her own father who were assassinated by political. benazir bhutto was sworn in as prime minister of pakistan on december 2nd come in 1888. this is about an hour 15. >> back at home this evening.

in the kitchen cooking at winning to my parents bedroom and sat as they watch television on the bed. he was a little child then in this so easy to take care of. we were lazily watching boston's ace, a show made in the 19th 60s about the same astronauts. there's nothing else on. sophie was laying on his stomach, hat in hand sand and i sat on side of the bed repining mse may hide against the head word. it was close to 8:00 when the phone rang. is to grow from ninth-grade class at the american school. she was going to arrange for us to meet over the weekend to discuss a history project. i slumped down leaning against the bad cover sitting on the fly with remy spent talking on the

phone. we were speaking when i first heard the gunfire. it was a single shot and kind of eerie close. and that the phone from my ear and waited to see if he had heard it. the sound was still ringing in the ears of several seconds later the echoes of kershaw was interrupted by a barrage of bullets. they were coming from right outside the window. i could hear the shooting right over our heads. i'll call you back a scream into the phone unlocked across for that to call my brother to my chest. he was close to the window and diet idealist type name, if that was the one dangerous position for us to be in the event of gunfire. i carried him into the dressing room of a small windowless corridor, slammed the door shut and went to the bathroom door. i closed that, too. sat down with a back against the

wall. small and gentle, shiny black hair parse neatly across this had. sat next to me. his birdlike features betrayed his sudden fear. both the shooting lasted five minutes at the very least, huddled against me. i hugged him and pushed his face into my arms as if i could protect him from the sound. where's mommy? i didn't know. i hope she was still in the kitchen and would not be as close to her as it was to us. we waited. finally it stopped. as i said to open the door, my mother burst into the bedroom screaming. she pulled me in sofia for in another windowless room.

we sat in the room for close to have an hour waiting period the shooting had stopped and we asked the gatekeeper to check outside influence what is happening. the area was crowned on it with an amount of the house. stay inside so it saves. i paced up and down the room. they have been banned by the then democratic government to manage to keep a few are closing down the market for this in the country. we have no way of reaching and no choice but to me patiently. it was past 8:00 in the evening message should have been back home i tried not to worry. i grew more agitated with every minute. not for one instant that i imagined my father had been hurt. maybe had been arrested by fighting with the police england three. i worried out loud there have

been a lot of gunfire, more than the typical burst of bullets when hurting tragedy in the states. don't worry i see the behind our father screen chair. it's only fireworks. they must have been close to 9:00, 45 minutes later when i had enough. i couldn't wait any longer and i decided to call the prime minister. by that point i was convinced that my antennae father arrested and i wasn't going to sit by and wait while he was going to jail. i picked up the intercom phone and asked to eraser to connect me to the prime minister's office. don't take no for any other, i have to speak to wendy. the phone rang minutes later, sooner than i thought it would. it is usually considerable hassle getting through to the prime minister, even or

especially if it is your father's older sister. i was put on the bind the prime minister and sat down. is everything all right? sounded shaky, scared. yes everything is fine. can i speak to my aunt, please? he kept talking. is your family okay? of several and find? is everyone all right? yes i respond to come everyone is fine. please put me through. the music on the other end of the line is i was put on hold was soon interrupted by a click and then a silent. hello? wendy i said calling night and spending only i used for her. no, she can't come to the phone right now. it was no secret that none of us in the family liked my answer

oleaginous has been. on the few social occasions where i saw him, we shared nothing other than a cursory hello. i need to speak to my anti-said, not wanting to talk to him. you can't he replied equally brisk. it's very important and i need to speak to her now. she cannot come to the phone. it's very important i don't want to talk to you. i need to talk to her insisted mably's quickening. i'd wasted enough time already. she can't speak. what? now, i have to speak to her. please put her on the phone i continued very confused at what seemed like a theatrical event to keep me from talking to the one in charge. don't you know?

your father's been shot. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. [inaudible] >> it's my pleasure to do this and i come with admiration for a lot of the in your young, professional life. i suspect without being able to see very well there're some in the audience to know everything about scheuer believes they do and some others came because of your family name and probably

don't know exactly where to place it in the family tree and they have made the important decision to purchase your book. why did she started little by talking about your grandfather, his marriage and the four children of whom one is your father. >> well, like all good futile families, my grandfather's family tried to arrange his marriage considerably early in his life and he was a teenager when he was told he would be marrying a woman 10 years older than him. he didn't like the sound of it, so he was told if he did go through the merit should be given a cricket bats and he made the choice then to proceed. he was 13 comments you can forgive him for that choice. but he was allowed other freedoms and other luxuries. he was allowed to travel abroad and he went to berkeley to study

clinical sciences and 18-year-old unfair to oxford in 1970 was then returned to pakistan he began to work as a lawyer, that he began to make his name in karachi circles at least. he married -- you pretty merit rather my grandmother. it was a love marriage and their parents oppose. they'll vote. >> your family has to rein in marriage? >> yes, they had lived in bombay and had come over during partition and she was from a shia family, so they didn't quite like the sound of that. svea loped and married and their first child was born soon after. a year after that another daughter followed was quite soon after that but he began his career in politics.

>> and he was executed in what year? >> in 1979. >> so your father was at what age when his father was executed? >> he was 25 when his father was killed. the government has been overthrown two years before that when my father was 23 and financier would have been 24. they spent two years fighting for clemency for their father. the two sons traveled all over the world, including to america, across europe and asia. and ultimately it came to no avail. ..

>> it was 20 years after a very bloody partition, and it was a time in government that was a time of great possibility. the country's first constitution was written in 1973. the last land reform you had done were carried out in that period. you had an incredibly

progressive government. i just came from england doing a talk there, and it was in the 1970s that marital rape or earlier was considered a crime, but it was something, like, 1984 before the united king dome deemed marital rape a crime. there was a progressive period, not to say it was without fault. certainly, it was made, errors made, grievance ones, in his time. there was the first ever islamic conference, and it was a source of great pride for pakistanis, and they were asked to open up their homes for delegates combing from all over the world, open their home, and make space for them. they had to open their homes because many came uninvited, and there was a substantial

entourage that required more space that lahore had to offer. it was a time i don't think my generation has seen, and it was also the time of the -- >> which influences your father. >> very much. >> as we'll discover. so just to orient the -- be the most inclusive possible, the reading you just provided was the count of your father's murder in 19 -- >> 1996, and 14 years almost to the week. he was killed on september 20th. >> we've brought our story forward to 1979, your grandfather executed, your father grew up in the progressive pakistan you described, influenced by the secular left and also a little bit by the international

revolutionary left, and he reacts to the grandfather's execution along with his younger brother forming what becomes the people's liberation army, travels through syria and other countries, and then he decides to go to kabul, where the soviet union has recently arrived, and it is there that you are born, 1982. >> uh-huh. >> so there's a -- i marked a little page here where your father writes to someone about his revolutionary arian rhode island. >> yes. >> we the pla are unique in many respects, official spokesman is a dog, wolf, and we have more commanders than fighters, first organization of pakistan's history that believes in fighting. we consider secrecy nothing to be secret about, and pla can make secrets more than friends, no one know exactly who is the chief. the official spokesman has ticks

and likes to chew on borns. the official spokesman, well, undisciplined in personal habits. >> yes. >> so was that a true reflection of the character of his revolutionary activity? >> i think it was a reflection of the fact when they made the choice to confront the regime directly and militarily, they were 25 and 21 years old. they had, for two years, sacrificed their own lives, abandoned studies, my father gave up his post-graduate visitation in oxford to fight one far more powerful than their lobbying could have been. it's months before father is killed that he writes to his eldest son, and directing him to afghanistan saying be close to your country, go to afghanistan. also says to his family, if you

do not avenge my death, you are not my son. >> your grandfather writing to your father and uncle? >> and it's a choice that seals their fate. it changes their life, and it decides their death. >> did they have realistic preparations to run a guerrilla organization? >> clearly not. you know, i think it was a choice that they made rationally, and that they made passionatelyings but it was a choice -- passionately, but it was a choice much larger than them. they are in afghanistan in a time -- and you probably ought not to be there. they are fighting, not only, you know, a tremendous army at the time, but a tremendous army that is now the 7th largest army in the world, but had the backing of the first largest army of the world at the time, and they were young. i chose to put that letter in because there's this sort of

very grizzly image painted of them at the time. people love myths, and the myths are far more entertaining, at least, than reality. the reality is that it was not sustainable, the idea of an armed conflict, and i also quote another who is speaking here just recently, who was asked by my father about the idea what do you think, and he said it'll never work. >> and one of the endeavors that the book reflects, liz, your journalistic and also sort of daughter's journey to try to figure out what was true in the midst of the myth and political accusation and confusion, and, of course, many allegations of violence were leveled against your father and your uncle during the time they were revolutionaries. what do you believe they were

responsible for? >> well, they had, at the time, that they were in kabul, they have 90 counts of treason, terrorism placed against them by the militarily regime. the most famous is the hijacking of the plane. at the time they were accused of the hijacking, my grandmother also charged with the hijacks and arrested. however, the record on the hijacking is expanse by 1988 when she ascends the off of the prime ministership, but her brothers are not. that said, the same court that accused them of the hijacking in 2003, but it is a part of the story that's left out. it doesn't help to increase the

fact these courts are now honorably quitting the same people accused. what i believe they did do, and i wrote about it in the book is they made efforts, attacked, and it was the most daring thing they did, but that's about it. >> uh-huh. after kabul, damascus, presumably, your first childhood memories are, and so there was a long period of exile in damascus with intermitten travel to safe countries, i presume, for your for and yourself, but not back to pakistan for sometime. what was it like to grow up in damascus as the young daughter as an exiled revolutionary? >> fairly boring, actually, because i get asked the question, and people think i grew up in a james bond movie, but it wasn't. we lived in a two bedroom flat. my father was a terrible cook

and was under impression that he was a wonderful cook, and he was always saying the best cooks in the world are men, and only bad cooks say that, you know. [laughter] when were alone. he raised me as a sing m parent until the age of 7, and after he married my mother, a life stabilized and normalized, my brother was born, and we had an ordinary life. it was an ordinary life except for the fact i knew i was not home, that i was always being reminded not to get too comfortable because this was not home, and until the age of 7, i had never seen home or been to pakistan. it was, i suppose, typical in this way that an an exile's life is typical, dream and hear and eat in a different world than the one you are living in. >> when you were 6 or 7 years

old, your aunt returns to pakistan to lead to the restoration of the democracy through pakistan people's party, and your father remains in syria, and is not welcomed home. >> uh-huh. >> what were your impressions as a person figuring out how the world worked and how he figured out who he was with the relationship with his sister at that time? >> well, a year before they went into negotiations with the military, power sharing negotiation, killed in france, and it's on the heals of the murder that they begin to enter into power sharing negotiations. with the same machinery that the family believed always killed their brother and who they knew killed their father. that tension was the middle of

it. there was a lot i didn't understand at the time. the wind that they took in 1988 was rigged. she deserved a much greater play -- majority, and the army didn't give it to her. the army took an obnoxious amount of time to have her take the office position, again, which she deserved, which she should have been instantly offered at the time. all of these things were happening, and they were confusing to a child who didn't understand why everything wasn't better already, but it was not better because people who were involved in -- people who had very strong roles in the regime continued on in the government. the governor, in a sense, was an appointed fellow whose name was on the death warm, selected by his daughter. >> what was your father's relationship or view of the status in all of this?

>> it was tense. she felt it was very much time, and the tension really starts from there, but it is -- >> previously been cordial enough >> -- >> as close as any sibling would be with months between them. they were always very close and very fond of each other, but that changed, and a lot of the family changed when power came back into the qaition. >> you mentioned the murder, and i have to say this is a subject for reasons i can't explain, i was interested in 20 years. what i did was turn to the index and see what you discovered, and so for the sake of time, i will not spend as much on this as i would like, but i would like to, at least, share with the audience why this event mattered

to you, your father, and it has significance to the way the family thought about return. >> uh-huh. >> so you're on -- you were present when this occurred? you were young -- >> three, yeah. >> old enough to have some memory of people fighting and screaming at each other. you're out for an evening, come back to the flat where he's staying with his afghan wife, and tell us about the marriage between he and his wife. >> they were a young couple, and again, you know, this is 21, 22-year-old, father, life in afghanistan has not gone the way they imagined it would. he and his wife go to france

because nay want a chance at a normal life. they have a young daughter, and in the summer, the family gathers for a reunion, first time everyone's been together in some time. there's been arguments. there's an argument that you would have if you were 25 years old or 27 years old and married and dealing with extended relatives staying with you, i suppose. he leaves, and he and his family go back to the house, and the next morning, he's dead. >> dead of a poisen that he and your father carried with them in event they were kidnapped or arrested by the army. >> uh-huh. >> this was something provided to them, they were told it would take their lives quickly if mixed in another liquid and would not be easily traceable. as you go back and investigate,

you discover that, in fact, the record, the police report in france, confirm he died of the poisen. >> of the poisen. >> but you describe you found the confessions or the interview statements of hahana and say you don't know what to make of them. >> suffering at the hands of the pakistani police for the last 14 years and knowing what the police are capable of, i can't, in any good faith, trust a police confession on its own, and at the time of his murder, there were three theories. the first was suicide. the family never believed it. they didn't believe it because he was a sound mind and body. he never left, any indications to the fact he may have been considering taking his own life. there was no note, nothing. the second was this was ordered in some way or facilitated in

another way, how it was ordered, carried out, that was a mystery, and the third was that his wife was involved. it was the theory i had grown up believing. it is a theory that the family had followed and had believed for a long time, and it was not until i met his daughter three years ago, two years ago, that the idea of anything else occurred to me for the first time. i have 20 say, i think it's important to say that in the cases that the family suffered, there's never been any justice. there's never by any culprits apprehended or taken to task or held for account for their crimes. the most pee peculiar, hardest o research because people were not

willing to talk, were not willing to speak about it, harder to find people to speak about it, and the files were never opened in pack stapp and closed in france for many years. >> well, that's a very poignant observation of the four political violent deaths or murders that i assume you mean your grandfather, your father -- >> yes. >> and i should say in the case the family was told he was hanged, but they never saw the body, burieded by the time the family heard the news. how he was killed is still an issue of great debate. >> so let's spin forward to where you were when you stepped offed podium, receiving the news your father was gunned down within earshot of you were watching "lost in space" with

your brother and speaking on the telephone, and there's, you know, obviously, charged filed, a great deal of investigative reporting, political discourse followed around for your father's murder, and i want to talk to you about what you thought you knew when you workedded on the book and when you ended up. before we start that, set the stage for everyone else. last we left, your father in damascus, your aunt in power. what was the circumstances in 1996, was it? or 1995, scene of this accident -- 1996 that your father returned from syria to pakistan. >> the government overthrown on grounds of growth corruption and human rights abuses, and in the two years that she remained in power, her government passed no legislation, which is not to say no meaningful legislation, just actually no legal legislation.

you then have sharif come in, there's a reinvolving door act, and he returns to power in 1993. wins the election. my father returns to pakistan. >> is he welcomed by your aunt? >> arrested at the airport,s plane -- >> welcomedded in a manner of speaking. >> welcomed as -- as they react to each other, but, anyway, he is arrested at the airport on all the scharnlgs held over from the last period and taken to jail, again, all charges that carry the death penalty, charges of treason. one by one, the cases against him are acquitted in them. , and he comes out of jail, and he starts to travel around the

country. he founds a reformed movement, an elected member of the prudential assembly. in quite early on in the regime, she empowers the security forces in the city, and under operation clean up to, quote, clean up the city, and what that means, really is it means whatever the security forces would like it to mean. in the two-year period it's in effect, some 3,000 men are murdered, and in what we call police encounters, which is, you know, a flagrant abuse of language because encounter is what happens when you run into a friend on the road or a book you thought you lost. these are murders. her, herself, and the government not only condone, celebrate, but allow the murders to take place. when my father is killedded, he

is one of thousands. the police now have set up squads. they have assassination squads, torture squads. the city is on fire. he's coming home at night from a public meeting he's addressed on the outskirts of the city, and as he reaches cliffton road, the cars, there's 70-100 policemen on the road that night. some of them are in positions in the trees. the street lights have all been turned off. the road we livedded on, some of you who know the city, is one of those difficult neighborhoods with a british high commission, the io tan yals, the russians, and everyone's favorite, the iranians, have an embassy there, and all the guards are told to retreat within their premises.

my father rolled down the window to ask why he's being stopped, and it's then one shot signal. seven men killed that night. four of them are killed instabilitily with sniper shots to the head or heart. two men, my father and another are shot several times, but they are killed by point blank execution shots to the back of the neck, and any father in his jaw. the autopsy showed that the shot was -- the facial shot was fired from the position of someone standing over him as he was lying down. the seven men are left to bleed to death on the road. while we were in the house waiting, trying to get through to my aunt, trying to leave the house, they were all feet away from us. when they are moved, none of them are moved to emergency hospitals. they are all moved to different locations. none to any medical facilities

that can handle gunshot wounds. the aftermath is that the police clean up the road, almost per taste. all the survivors and witnesses of the assassination arrested, and they are held without access to lawyers or to their families until the government falls in november, two months later. at the same time, the police are honorably cleared in an internal review. they are put back on their beats. they continue to remain in power until this day. >> and what is it that leads you -- let's say with before you undertook the work for this book -- >> okay. >> as you were coming of age, if i understand it correctly, you concluded that your aunt's husband, at least, if not your aunt, had been responsible for

making the decision that had led to the events you just described. what was the basis for you reaching that judgment? >> well, besides of the fact that all of the survivors and witnesses were held without access to lawyers, two men died in custody, immediately after the murder, we were stopped from filing a police case, an fir, first information report, every pakistani's right in the event of the grievance. the government stopped us from doing that. we had to go to the courts to have rights returned to us. when it was returned to us, we were against filing criminal charges. the government, instead, put a tribunal in place, a tribunal with no legal authority to pass sentence or issue verdicts, and that tribunal still concluded that the order to assassinate them could have only come from the highest level of government.

there was no one higher than her at the time. in the years that followed, they didn't do much to remove suspicion. sharif, who was, at that time, head of the intelligence bureau and reported directly to the officer of the prime minister was on the road that night, and he was inducted into the people's party central committee. last year, actually, as on the first pakistan day of president, awarded them, an national medal, to one of his co- accused in my father's murder case for services to the pakistani people. at the time that -- well, up until three years ago before he became president, standing trial in not just my father's murder case, but in three other murder cases involving the death of 11

men, and he was acquitted mid trial to become the president. >> huh. and did you, prior to her murder, ever have a conversation with your aunt about this case? >> yes. >> and tell us about that. >> i did. i had many conversations with my aunt about the case. she did not like to be questioned. she did not like to be questioned. just generally. >> generally. >> and one of the last conversations or one of the first, actually, was i asked her why it was that the witnesses had been arrested while the police were free, and she said to me that it was not the movie. this was not hollywood. this was government. they did things differently. i asked her why the streets had been washed up because by the time that my mother and i left the house, you know, an hour later, there was nothing on the road.

the blood and glass washed off. again, i was told i was a child, and i shouldn't involve myself in adult business. then 11 years later in her assassination, the blood washed off and the glass was removed. >> well, we got only a few minutes before we turn to the audience, and i've taken upmost of my time with the story of your family and your own life, and i want to stay a little bit longer just to ask about yourself. you came to the united states for your undergraduate education, published poems, journalism, and now this journalistic memoir. how do you -- you're now the most visible member of your generation of the family, of the generation before you, there's only one survivor, a woman not much involved in public life,

how do you interpret your inherent? do you see yourself as a leader in some way? do you reflect on what your responsibilities are? how do you interpret your inherent? >> it's bad to think of it that way. it's that thinking that got us here in the first place. the idea that six letters of a last name somehow qualify anyone for leadership is dangerous and served pakistan dangerly, or, rather, it has not served pakistan so i never wanted, actually, for as long as i can remember, i wanted to be a writer, always. that -- or an actress or a swimmer. [laughter] my father was not pleased about the other two choices. i'm doing what i always thought

i would be doing, what i always wanted to do, my heros growing up were always journalists, writers, and i think the notion of dynasty is one that has to be repudiated in my sense because we've seen what dynasty does, and it doesn't strengthen constitutions. it doesn't strengthen democracy. it doesn't encourage transparency. it does the opposite. i'm -- that's my story, and i'm sticking to it. [laughter] >> and that's very eloquently said and very convincing. you carry the name, and even as a writer, you bring that forward and interpret it. you're now living in a city that you've known, i would imagine, for a good while now. >> uh-huh. >> and at least as a young woman. how is -- how has the city

changed just in the last four or five years? we saw each other there maybe two or three years ago, and it was pretty bad then. >> it's changed, i think, since we met. the city is a survivor city, to me. it's the city that, against all odds, thriving. it shouldn't thrive. it shouldn't live. it shouldn't survive, but it does. there are moments when it is like any other city, like bombay or cairo. there's a wonderful energy, amazing pace. it has all the other things these cities have in terms of life and excitement and thrills. there are other -- there are other times when the city is a city under siege, you know, the bbc estimates this year alone, and by this year, i mean until the beginning of august, some 300 people were assassinated in the city, some 300 political

activists killed in extrajudicial killings, which is familiar for those who lived through the 1990s. it's a pattern we see repeating itself. >> presumed this is basically a gang war between the mqm and -- >> it's ethnic, political, turf, and it's reared its ugly head again, and violates mutates in that city, and before 2005, or even, yeah, well, you know, it was embassies targets of violence rather than people. it was mcdonald's, it was, you know, but the city adapts, and it adopts itself to the violence of the region, and of the country, and now people have watched the floods that have devastated the country and particularly in recent weeks, the provinces, and so the city

is reeling from that now, that violence. >> and, of course, most people here will be aware that the government led by -- is perceived from most pakistanis as failing, nots just by those who have the history with us that you have. you are gentle at the podium saying the family didn't much care for him, and, you know, he is sort of a stranger to the culture of the family in a way. >> yeah. >> he's, you know, here's not really of the experience and for good or for ill, he's different when he enters the family, and just e plain a little bit how you see him as a political leader, not just as a man accused of murdering your father. if that's not too odd of a question. [laughter] >> that's a big question.

we'll be here for awhile. there's no way of overstating what it feels like to be living in that pakistan, a pakistan that's opened up the skies and borders to unman predator drones over a thousand, just about a pakistanis killed in the attacks since 2009, and we know thanks to bob's recent book that when the cia brought the idea of this -- these drones, and he was recorded to have said kill the seniors, you americans worry about collateral damage and don't worry about things like that. of this is the first time in our young history we allowed foreign power to kill our citizens, for free, for nothing. at the same time, there's

amazing initiative that come into place since the government has taken power so in 2009, last summer, we had the prevention of electronic crimes act, which applies to anyone of any nationality across pakistan, and carries jail sentences so if you have an e-mail address not registered in your fall name, that's a jail sentence of six months. if you are found guilty of spoofing or character assassinating the president, that's three years to 13 years. what constitutes that? is it a blog post? that's unclear. you also have this incredibly inept and criminal way the government has handled the floods. while the floods raged, they

embarked on a pr join to the cross, dubai, france, england -- went back home for a bit, back to russia, impossible to ground the man at a time when the money that goes along with those kinds of states that's put to immediate use. we knew that 20 # million are affected by the floods, and we know that transparency international, 70% of the world bank money given for dam maintenance was siphoned off. it doesn't take anyone, really, to guess where that money went. you know, this is a president who was called mr. 10% in the first time, mr. 50% in the wife's second term, and now during his term, mr. 110%, and that's, you know, the corruption is not according to me or pakistani sources, but it's

according to john burns of the new "new york times" that places the corruption at $2 billion to $3 billion. >> so you don't approve? >> i wouldn't vote for him, no. [laughter] >> this, of course, has been the struggle and the tragedy of pakistan over a long period of time that when something like democratic elections occur, the sighfullian leaderships that take office fail the mandate that brought them there, and they often fail in space that's pinched and constrained by the military and the intelligent purposes. we were talking before we came out that the army's out putting tv ads up bragging about the performance in the flood as if it's something they -- out of the ordinary that an army would do. >> yes. >> so are we in a phase that's going to feel repetitious?

lead to another military intervention? is there an alternative future in your estimation? >> well, you know, there's a nightmare merry-go-round you see in pakistani poll sick -- politics. heafter he was made president -- we don't call them elections, we call them selections. the same selections that brought him to the presidency were the same way in which they become president, chosen by his own parliament, and he didn't run for any con sitwent sighs. what's also nightmarish is sitting on the bbc or looking on the interpret finding he's threatening to come back because people want him to return -- >> his belief. >> because eight years wasn't enough. absolutely, there are other options because in a country of 180 million people, you can't only have three choices, and three pitiful choices that they

are, you know, whether it's sharif, or what is now, you know, an incredibly corrupt and ineffective inept ppp or the military which is corrupt. actually, they all share that, but what i think is hopeful is -- is the narrative not picked up, which is the narrative of the floods. we know that what helps families and communities are local activists and community leaders who came forward and given food aide, medical aide to people in the community. it's not come from the government or the states. it's come from people who are surviving the floods. the same is true of what we saw during mashad's time, and i talk

about it because there's no way of overstating how important it is, and i see journalistic folks here today that i bored them with, but i'll do again. when there was thousands of people disappeared on rendition from bliewsh stan, we knew it happened because not of human right watch pakistan, which every once in awhile received awards from the presidency. it was not from the bbc. it was from the family members was people who disappeared, who stood out on the roads, outside the supreme court, stood out at round-abouts and press clubs until we knew that the families had been hit. that gives me great hope. there are, i think thousands of pakistanis who feel this way too, just the volume is turn down on them. >> yes, as you say in the case

of the movement, a resilient wish for a constitutional pakistan -- >> yes. >> that returns despite betrayal by those in power who are to carry it out. >> absolutely. >> another question about the theme. when your aunt died, a certain baby boomer generation of pakistanis who livedded through the progressive 70s and educated in the west and identified with that, symbolize even if she was executed in the midst of a strong female leader in a muslim country who lived between worlds, the fantasy if that's easier, and when she was murdered, i think, certainly a lot of boomers who had lived that experience says there goes the death of the idea of pakistan, but here you are speaking about a different generation, a different moment

in the face of greater pressures, islamic violence, changing borders, about what is acceptable inside pakistan so is this idea of pakistan as a normal country in some interpretation or another, is it still alive? the place you lived 20 years from now? >> i think it's very much alive, and i argue it was alive way before the 198 # 0s. it was in the 1960s, who was the region founder's sister, was an unmarried woman, a single woman, who didn't cover her hair, fought an election against a dictator, stood up against that, and so we always had that, not just in the last 0 years. most pakistanis, difficult to make statements like this, but want that pakistan.

they want, you know, a just and free and open, a tolder rand pakistan, and the only reason in my view the extremist outfittings are popular is not because of their nuanced political philosophy, but they have a videocassette consume, a service that corruption robbed the service of. we saw this in the floodses, the earthquake, come in with medical aide quickly, tents quickly while the state is twid ling its thumbs on a foreign trip to france. i -- u -- you know, i think as a young country, it's only 63 years old. when this country was 63 years old, you know -- >> still ready for the civil war. >> getting ready for the civil war so i think there is -- and an incredible amount of space

for hope, for pakistan. >> good, well, the fact you are still living there is an element of that. let's take questions from the audience. starting here in the lowest reaches. wait for the microphone, brief, ask the question, if there's a paper to read a speech, put it down. [laughter] >> this is just a paper handed to me. during your reading and during your speech, it's clear that, first of all, a pleasure listening to you. >> thank you. >> it was clear that i just want to let you know we don't like him either. [laughter] more importantly, my question is, you know, after he, there's another, and we have not touched upon that, perhaps, you can spend a half a minute talking about him. >> uh, no. [laughter] no. i don't because it's not -- the

people you should be asking about him are the people who -- >> explain who he's asking about. >> sorry. a co-chairman -- >> who is junior to you in the family? >> we. i'm not qualified to speak about him because i knew him as an 8-year-old so i should not offer an opinion. >> where's he living now? england? >> i don't know, i don't know. you're better off asking someone who's within that party, i think. >> move back up to the left side, the gentleman there. >> thanks, i think you argued in the book and in your comments that, you know, pakistan is confronted with two stark choices. on the one hand, you have a military industrial complex that does not want to seed power, and that's been, you know, we've seen the regimes, and then on the other hand, you have this incredibly, inept, corrupt,

self-serving, feudal hypocrisy. the question i have is there a third alternative? if so, what is that? are you, you, as in the next generation of post-modern feudals, perhaps, more enlightened -- >> [laughter] >> more educated, more liberated, hopely more socially conscientiousness. do you think you can actually take away power from the two other power bases and, perhaps, save the country? >> yeah, well, it's important to say that, you know -- that i don't -- i mean, i'm -- as a post-modern feudal, whatever it is that i am. -- [laughter] means that one doesn't have land anymore and one that has to write and do things like that for a living.

[laughter] but i absolutely think one of the great betrayals has been this scaling back on land reform and the lifting of ceilings on private land holdings. there is, of course, a third option, and that third option is the fact that you -- you have an enormous country held hostage to its bureaucracy with the civilian or mill fair, and at this point in time, pakistanis do not have access to justice or budgets, and there's a centralized system that in the arenas is a complete devra davis luges of power. we've seen that happen in small spirits, and usually quite self-serving for it, and in government rolled back on it now and taken away the sort of system, and that moves us further away from it, but i

would argue that that is just third avenue, and nip who stands in the way of it belongs to the literary complex or your civilian bureaucratic contacts. >> other side of the woman, gentleman there. >> microphone's nearest to the man with the hand up right now. >> quick question for -- well, a comment -- briefly what you read from the book, several years ago, i heard the story from robert kennedy, jr. telling me that his sister's roommate in college was telling her the story of her brother's assassination, and it's very interesting to hear it the way you read it in the book. i'll share that with you at some point. >> [inaudible] >> steve, you just recently, not

even a year ago, gave a congressional hearing; correct? you spoke to congress? >> briefly. [laughter] >> this is, you know, this is about as clear as the impression you get at of the pakistani administration right now, that is very well-supported by the american government. what could you, you know, what could you take away from this, and what do you think the forces -to-be can do to discourage bringing a certain level of democracy to pakistan? >> well, i'd rather your thoughts on that question -- >> oh, no, we get to hear you now. [laughter] >> well, i thought one thing that's important to emphasize, the last answer was really an important sort of sense of direction because, you know, the problem is that even american policy, when it tries to prevent military identity inside pakistan by encouraging the

restoration of the democratic parties, can't reach the fact that the ppp has not had an internal election since time and memoriam, can't reach the fact that the pml a basically gang operations for families, and so then what is exactly the pluralism you're constructing? it's, perhaps, better than military dictatorship, but it's not really democracy. if you're thinking about investments in the long run and the people in afghanistan and the aspirations described, which deserve investment, then you really do have to start in a completely different place, away from institutions and -- >> yeah. >> around principles and around transparency and, so the movement is a good example. wonder what you thought about it? on the one hand, it was sort of breathtaking and moving that people would be willing to stand together and defend the constitution they don't actually have. >> yeah. >> but wish for it.

>> yeah. >> on the other hand, you see the movement, and, of course, lawyers no better than any other institution in pakistan, you know, some of them have big gold rings and watches, and you are not sure if the rings are were punching out the opponent in a courtroom or what so it is what it is, but to what -- what can you invest in in a systematic way in pakistan, do you think, that would yield something 20 years from now? >> well, i think the problem, you know, when we talk about investing, talk about people-to-people contact, and that sort of investment, then there are so many possibilities, but if we talk about direct investment, i think anything that bears the stain of outside, outside benefactor, is immediately tainted in people's minds, and this comes to the point, watching the government talk ridiculously about the

floods, you know, and saying, oh, look, you know, when us aide comes in and gives wheat, people see it, and think think wonderful, we love america, but that doesn't address the fact that while america's giving helicopters and bags of wheat and bananas to the floods, they are also attacking us with drones. it's been the heaviest month of casualties drone-wise in pakistan. i'm of the leave us alone philosophy because pakistan needs it, i think. it doesn't -- it won't be easy or smooth. we have been a country interfered with too long, even when the intentions have been, perhaps, good, but you know what they say about good intentions, so -- >> i heard something about that, yes. this gentleman here. wait for a second until the microphone so everyone can hear.

>> thank you. it seems to me, jo as a citizen in his 60s, viewing pakistan, that the united states treats pakistan like a tossing dwarf. we support them during russia's occupation of afghanistan. we then abandon l them. now we're out at them supporting theming because of 9/11. now we're sending drones there. my question to you, as a young person, is way is the baseline feeling of the pakistanis about american haj monic presence as a foreign power in the affairs of your country in >> well -- >> well, every single dictator we ever had counted on great american friendship in regards to military aide, economic aide, and political aide.

america has supported every single dictator we've ever had. i imagine when we have our next one, they'll continue to support him too. there is, you know, the sense that we are a country that on foreign power, survives, and richard drops in every couple weeks, every couple months to see how we're doing. we allow him that, and that's because of great shame, and, you know, mr. holbrooke, who i count as one of my many cosmic enemies -- [laughter] >> really? >> many. david miliband is another. i'm biting my nails over sanity, but so, came into pakistan to push for the lugar bill to give

$7 billion to pakistan over five years for development aide, and the conditions are completely repugnant, and we have to open up everything to receive this money, and richard holbrooke came in and said those against the lugar bill are against democracy in pakistan. that's rich. >> yes, down in front. microphone, two seconds to get to you. >> thank you for your presentation. fascinating. this is a little bit off the subject, but i wonder if you followed the case and if you're aware that she was sentenced yesterday here in new york to 876 years. -- 86 years in prison. >> yes. >> comment on why she's become a national icon in pakistan. >> i think she's become the face of those disappearances, who

became the face of the renditions, the fact that she was taken and what remains in highly illegal way, and that, again, she is one of thousands, has captured rightly so, i think, people's anger. you know, the -- there's a lot, much more to it that i think we need a whole lot of time to get into, but the fact is that pakistan has thousands of its citizens who are unaccounted for. we don't know where they are. you know, there's 10,000 just from there alone, with no clue where they are. she speaks to that anger an that confusion. >> one or two more. a woman there right near the

microphone. >> this is just based on antidepressant -- antedoteal observance, and pakistanis who live here and live in the gulf, is brain drain a big problem? is there any way of bringing some of those people back? >> it's a huge problem. it's a massive problem. when you speak to, you know, pakistanis who live abroad and work for development agencies or banks or whatever have you around the world and ask them why they don't come back to their country, it's because they feel they have nothing to offer them because they feel fear there, but those might be true, but for so long people keep leaving because of the reasons, we have no way of turning the tide back. it's -- >> why do you say? >> i say because i grew up outside my country, and i know

what exile feels like. i would never willingly return to that, and i also know that if we leave, if people leave, it's very clear in whose hands we leave the country in, and i'm not willing to make that job easier. [applause] >> okay, so the woman there with her hand up will be the last question. >> thank you so much. i'm actually really afraid for you, ever since i've been listening to you, i think we need your voice, and it's quite radical as well and quite on-point, so i hope that you continue and that i hope you -- i'm interested in finding out how much -- because i've been asking cows pes and relatives in pakistan if they heard of you and what they think of you, and i have two questions, if you can talk about that, how, you know,

you are perceived in pakistan, and, second, you know, we have not -- we didn't hear anything about india and the relationship of, you know -- yeah, its goal in the region as well. >> yeah, sure. >> what does the polling show about the reputation? >> what does my polling show on my reputation? [laughter] >> it depends on who you ask, steve. [laughter] first place we launched this book was in the city, in the park outside in which my father was killed, and i was very heartened to see hundreds, 700 people came to the launch, which is important only because when you write a book critical of the army, the current president, the ruling elite, the establishment, the isi -- [laughter] you would forgive people for lack of attendance, and i think it showed, i don't -- you can't ask me what people think of me. i don't know. i think it demonstrated that,

you know, curiosity and solidarity, and it's not those two things, and certainly, a willingness to engage to ask questions, whether they are critical ones or not. i -- i feel very welcomed. i mean, people like me, i think, i don't know. [laughter] you tell me. i think i'm nice so that's where that stands. [laughter] india, i think, you know, what drk the second place i went was india, and i'm always amazed as how warmly i'm received in india when i say i'm from pakistan because they -- they are sibling countries, countries that have far more in common than they have apart. peace is in our interest. the oil pipeline in our interest. all of these things in our interest. it's really government that get in the way keeping us apart. what was