turkey and pakistan. so that constitutes the click of the taliban leadership in formally. second is the military side. people who may not be on the ground in afghanistan leading fighters but directing the insurgency on the day-to-day level. they either distressed u.s. intentions lower point* through the 2002 through 2004 period and many are people that did try to cut the deals and were rebuffed so know are on the military

side. said talking to them as well there is a sense that they can reconstitute the '90s taliban. so if they hold on a little bit longer they can do that. but it is to understand the different position those with ordinary afghans with a focus on the troop number and talking whether there is 6,000 or 3,000 troops in afghanistan. that is important in the village where it is thought

they would say they don't want any troops but in my discussion they don't think about it which is what we face today is a question of state formation. and in 2004. what i mean by that is and attempting to build the afghan state what happened was on the one hand they put money into kabul but at the same time we had independent and unilateral agreements in the periphery. with the private militia that were funded and supported.

stood to create the afghan police we also gave the government of canada our to maintain his private militia the does not answer to the afghan government. and you can create a state with the basic definition the there is a series that to give an example may be 200 scattered around the country to have afghan and militiamen these are irregular militiamen with private security contractors

we require those that need to be protected from the insurgent attacks to be paid directly or indirectly through the subcontracting machines the six year 70,000 young men those who do not fall under the afghan government purview whatsoever in all zero of their existence entirely so what happens when the money stops flowing? the afghan state does not correct through taxation but almost threw for repatriation but what happens when the money stops flowing?

one case to look to is very similar what the soviets had the government had militias around the country and out words to that province's but then the money stops flowing 1980 to. >> thank you very much for hosting this event. it is great to be on the panel but i want to reemphasize the point* that

peter made when you read the chapters that anand gopal has written the get the references. they are incredible. so i would like to look at would get the bigger picture when we were originally pulling together the chapters as they do hold up over time, some of the basic dynamics are still there even individuals and personalities killed, fundamentally you see the same issues that play. semantically when polling these together that is not something that's i thought at the time was a false

construct that created a false distinction that of scared of the cross pollination between the groups and did not shed light on the differences between them. with the new version was reporting in the newspapers of the draw on strike suggested the headlines he is referred to as the good taliban. but the distinction there is whether or not it is a taliban figure. attacking the pakistan the state. it is important that that judgment obscures a lot of

complexity need to consider. smart people in the government decided he was not that good of the taliban and those who think he deserved a drawn strike. so i will run through the six men identified in a think they still hold up. a slight tweak of the question should be used in all settings as militants associated with cockeyed a. the taliban is not outside of it they are associated with them. local groups associated with the trans national organization whether from syria or north africa or wherever.

six questions. first the key strategic question good vs. bad the the shapes the local of firemen and fundamentally frames how they will interacting with the organization that has the most power on the ground but the next leader overtime did have a better relationship with the pakistan need government than others in the fatah coming into power in 2004 after his primary rival was killed by the drones and he was in a prison that allowed for a lot of negotiation and was released and took a leading

role in south waziristan. so it was ended but his leadership also started with the drone strike as well. where the tribal and social roots? it is a key question. looking at conflicts of the organization's and workspace united states, often not the most crucial to those on the ground and sometimes it is difficult to understand. those other questions that they ask. who can i trust? to can i not trust? sow developed a policy that is the question we have to

ask what about the relationship of foreign fighters? what kind? overtime there is a pretty good relationship without chitin and i imagine they would point* to the relationship over time that they clashed repeatedly with millicent's and as a result he clashed with other taliban elements in south waziristan. stability of that organization we have to get down to the fine point* how he frames his politics. for. have aggressively do they target people in afghanistan? this is pretty obvious. he supported troops from

afghanistan but that is not the case for every militant network fare pretty -- many criminal networks that fought other militant organizations. it is a key question for policy going forward have the pakistan restate looks at the organization's. it is important to us but not the i s i hope they will define their relationship. to they engage supports of a tax of western targets? it is important it defines the relationship with the outside and the attack on civilians. he was never implicated in the global attack that distinguishes him crumb past

militants that were. those that took place from barcelona spain and when you did have a local pakistan a militant looking to attack with the teetwo style format. but to my knowledge there were not implicated but it is total speculation. but someone who had told relationship with the high connie network as they discussed relations in 2008 is if the militants engaged the terrorist styled attacks in the heart of kabul. that is the questions the

way people thought about these organizations. says the group take operational direction? especially as researchers said don't have the network and access that anand gopal has but be careful with what they say with the taliban and also teetwo. with the insurgent network to create power out of little on the ground force you have to create a myth of yourself with political power with relatively small amounts of force. you do that with strategic communications and attacks

that will generate publicity and by building a sense of cohesiveness within a range that run in different directions. that is what you see with the taliban. uc sub organizations in different directions. understanding those networks gives us tools to undermine them. i have heard is said and me criticized we need to dig deeper and put ourselves in issues of some organizations but not to understand how

they're able to exploit the drone strikes to recruit but how they operate to undermine them and so we can undermine them. the last thing i will say, this is the model not just applicable and they had close relationships with omar who reportedly intervened on -- intervened on his behalf. so that does look like a close operational relationship. but going forward on the future of afghanistan i could not agree more about the money issue. i published a paper called russian roulette that is a

comparison of the last days of the russian occupation in the '80s of where we are today. i don't think from sustainability we have done better. it is depressing but in a lot of ways you could make a strong argument that he was a more creative leader than cars i. with amigo going forward? especially with fatah. we have effective tactics with good trone strikes will not defeat the taliban or teetwo. with they will suppress them. is possible teetwo in particular will be feed

itself the last 10 yards because they lost important people and their ideology is a conflict with himself. i am not as optimistic with the taliban because i am pessimistic with the afghan government. so to see them rush back that civil war is a real possibility particularly after or if the money stops flowing after the soviets left. as how they got there in the first place they rose after the afghan government was shattered the danger is not the first three breeders'

not from the taliban after withdraw but the next five. if you can get through the first five years without civil war, and maybe you make it. but i worry very much that will not happen. thank you. >> thank you for this book and presentation. as peter mentioned i will talk about the poll that we conducted jointly and this will complement with the other provinces but focus on fatah has been on the militants as well as the

strikes in the area and not as much attention has been paid to those who live there and their point* of view. in the public opinion survey although startling it is insight into where future policy may head. here are some of the key findings set forth in the book. nine and a 10 residents in the fatah region oppose military operation. it is a passionate the and intensely held. only one of 10 fatah residents think suicide attacks unjustified against pakistan military, six other than believe they are justified against united states military.

but that one cause is they conducted drone strikes and militants in the area. more than three-quarters oppose the strikes with the supposition to policy does not mean that the people of fatah embrace the taliban 42. quite the opposite. more than two-thirds support teetwo and 20 percent support the taliban from pakistan. this is peter bergen idea but on previous polls conducted we ask people to

pick to they would vote for 1% of the people said they would vote so the support is limited to a small minority. instead of supporting the militant seven added 11 to the pakistan military alone and without u.s. help to pursue the militants legislates a stunning finding so that popular support that they draw from his response of america in action. it is not a strategy.

it was a fascinating finding. it was not coming from general anti-american feeling. in fact, they said the united states would improve if they provided humanitarian aid so this is not generally we hate america but very much related to the presence of drones. while hating the drones the people of fatah would welcome the chance to have the ground of america beneath their feet. i'll just take another minute but in my book they

delay interviews with me and the foot soldiers but according to the taliban i interviewed a seminal event to establish omar authority occurred april 1996 in canada are afghanistan. from there was a religious shrine and simply by standing in the presence there walked out speaking when the only a true leader from god will he stand out

and over the past 100 years he only came out if you will. we have another term. [laughter] but it is the closest translation but came now with everett's 1929 and again in 1935. the cloaked in the open when touched by a true leader that omar had the right touch so where they claim to be the leader of the faithful. after the initial american victory at the end of 2001

they retreated to pakistan. they did not fight and this is a lightning but i received a different explanation but omar was paralyzed with inaction but it could not decide what to do. he was waiting patiently for guide to tell him what to do. then is what caused him to go to canada our to begin with. he had a dream only after the taliban deputy as recounted to me is that he

saw the of the year negative of omar turn blinding light this was greeted with cries of praise god and why they took up the holy war against the united states. this reference, i am not sure about the political implications but they saw omar as a spiritual divine presence to guide them. whatever happens the reverence among the rank and file are very strong. there is a religious aura around him. that concludes my remarks

within eight minutes. [laughter] >> i am colonel thomas lynch iii and thank you to america to be here today it is truly an honor to be included because of the terrific piece from the authors that you heard from today and one is not here today but in the context in this special cahow because it is relevant thing you do it to peter bergen and kathryn. a research fellow at the national defense university. the comments i about to make regarding chapter 14 never represent the thoughts of my

institution, a miami lawyer, department of defense command present my own research and conclusions and i think the for the opportunity for that academic freedom and freedom to publish in the book. in the text with the 80% solution the death of the been long been teetwo and for security i worked hard to justify several points calling t to as constructed from osama bin london and with the american policies subsequent to the death. my general thrust is the following three areas. . .

into something galvanized and formidable and therefore a menacing threat to the west and outer regional areas. the unique and acute problem posed by bin laden's al qaeda was its credible effort to grasp itself on top of the wider movement and its one substantial progress ann option was brought together largely and in most significant ways in the region we are talking about here, talibanistan. so i think that's important and a marker as to why this is so important. in the chapter i establish and

assess the five elements of bin laden's al qaeda and made it historically unique and conspicuously severe threat and then go on from there to argue about why that threat has receded and what implication that has for us to better appreciate the dynamics, the regional dynamics underlying the present and future and south asia particularly afghanistan and pakistan. first, i argue that the five elements of an mlodinow qaeda that may unique was one that it inspired to be a co-organization dedicated to planning recruiting and training or in organizing and this is the important word here, catastrophic global terrorist events. against americans and other westerners that they refer to as zionist crusader targets especially in western homelands. this was for a specific purpose, to drive westerners out of muslim lands. second, al qaeda's core element principle was to serve as a vanguard for organizing and courtney being already existing regionally focused and locally

focused groups towards acts of violence against what they referred to again is the american zionist crusade nexus in muslim lands. where the presence was to defile islam and again for the purpose of driving westerners out of muslim lands. third, and although a lesser income the goal of al qaeda was to service and focal point for disaffected lone wolf muslims worldwide to act out on their frustrations through violence against the symbols that proceed oppression against islam and islamic world or the western world again for the purpose of driving westerners out of muslim lands. the fourth and fifth very important but lets a lesser level i argue here and indeed many scholars have argued about al qaeda score was to serve as a brand name. al qaeda representing the highest level of salahi jihadi element to bring successful violence and so-called crusader governments in which the senior al qaeda leaders of the jihad

remained free and this is important, free from serious punishment penalty or harm. this was indeed the mystical notion of al qaeda prior to abbottabad that was the notion of impunity that bin laden and to a lesser extent zawahiri were immune from justice and good hideout in the arm of contemporary international law and fifth al qaeda would serve and this is also important in the notion of the talibanistan service a case for the conquest of afghanistan and included in that notion of western pakistan in the name of global jihad. this is important because of the mystical origins origins of where al four al qaeda cat come from and how it looks up the anti-sovanti-sov iet jihad period in afghanistan itself or goa argued in the piece here these five essential elements of bin laden's al qaeda three of them were devastated by abbottabad in the passing of time eroded by 50% the other two. the notion of al qaeda is a brand name that was free from

retribution or unity against the impacting capture would explode literally in the manner in which the finality of which bin laden met his end. for most of us who followed jihadi web sites we saw in the traffic shortly after bin laden's death certainly for it period of two to three months that this notion of how could this have happened was followed by the claimant desire to have revenge that in many ways has never yet been served up with the notion of al qaeda's fear living above and beyond the law, that came crashing down by way of this rate and other groups, other salahi that would argued to exploit that for their own benefit and their own standing within this wider movement. the essential idea of al qaeda as a salahi jihadists organization able to plan recruiting conduct terrorist operations overseas that have been already eroding over the previous five to six years really came down on the heads of the organization with the death of bin laden. indeed we can show in our

intelligence of pakistan and the locus of al qaeda central was the point of many plots since 2006 but in western governments largely through their own efforts and we can talk about that in question and answer in terms of understanding identifying in being able to taking would-be plots and is aggregating them into unsuccessful plots. since the attack in the northern subway system in london england in 2005 there has not been a commensurate significant and substantive attack in the western countries yet there've been dozens of intercepts and disassembling of a terrorist act and the talk about some of those here in the chapter and talk about how that is led to a devolution of the credibility of al qaeda is a global catastrophic movement. finally there's this critical notion of al qaeda is at the certain for conquest in afghanistan. that is a long-standing and critical notion to the base at its core. this too was -- and i think it's

important for the work in and the piece about south asia understand as a target in the chapter that the relationship between bin laden and mullah omar as well as -- and several other taliban groups was personal in terms of the relationships between the leaders. i lay out in detail effect is our theory in the egyptians never swore a similar oath and to this day zawahiri, although he is referred to respecting mullah omar t. has never sworn the same buyout and so the linkage between all via matters far less to mullah omar and like haqqani are these days that the strategic link they have to pakistan in its military intelligence establishment. indeed watt i argue has occurred indisputably with the death of bin laden is that pakistan's national objectives don't ally with al qaeda and indeed they don't align even with the pakistani taliban aspirations to eliminate the pakistan government itself and as a

consequence to constrain and limit the effect of the afghan taliban and matters that do not represent the wider salahi john hollar bad movement. the erosion by 50% of of the other two due to the u.s. campaign in due to the continuous pressure change what i define and put into place and 87% solution to the problem of al qaeda terrorism. where does that leave us and south asia? here the latter two-thirds of the piece i discussed in some detail how it leaves us with an under appreciation of the need to rethink our strategy going forward in south asia. almost a year ago i finished this piece and i argued in three areas for the wider region for afghanistan and for pakistan. the proper understanding of the schism between the taliban aspirations and al qaeda's make it important for us to adjust the way in which we view moving

forward with a endgame in afghanistan which i argue should be an interim game. here's the point i make and i will update them briefly before i think things are just ever adapted specifically with them last year. the war in afghanistan needs to be reconsidered and has always been viewed and indian circles and that is as a pakistani supported rebellion in afghanistan that tajik uzbek governments with significant blanks in new delhi and tehran and only pashtun representation in the form of president hamid karzai who is mistrusted mpac hamid karzai who is mistrusted mpac as tynin too cozy with india. now that point i don't think is resonated in the west and it's certainly not resonating yet several streets down in this government. i think there is a grudging and slowly evolving understanding but not yet one that is of a policy from a front to address the substance point in going to make. the second regional representation is again to state

that was bin laden's death a critical mass of al qaeda score in western pakistan eliminated and compromised the essential dynamics in afghanistan or those with regional rather than international imports. fundamentally afghanistan is an indo pakistani proxy war between nations that have fought each other in shooting wars and several other martial conflict since 1947 and these are layered on top of the -- in afghanistan and the poise towards action between them as brian alluded to in my estimation is great and growing ever stronger as the state passes going forward into little western understanding of this and insufficient understanding for residual diplomatic and military presence to try to cleave together that which we are now armed and put into better footing is important before it breaks apart and moves in separate directions. applications in afghanistan and i will skip to the three i had to save time for questions. to critical notion that led by

the united states the coalition in afghanistan must shepherd reconciliation talks among the afghan government to taliban and represent us from pakistan's military intelligence services to show how a federal system in afghanistan can meet pakistani and taliban while preserving the free market the afghan republic has opposed. here i think there is some room for cautious optimism although there's a great low back in a backlash about the recent high peace commissioner road map 2015 plan which to me in the spring mark that i have developed that i believe in is encouraging because it shows there is a recognition that the taliban pakistani leaders and afghan leaders each of whom hold different aspirations and ideations, must come together and produce a more confederate structure that allows for more southern pashtun representation. not all of that which is taliban but which is allowing that conclusion in order for us to have a peaceful future. finally with respect to pakistan

where think implications of the most grievous because pakistan is a country is the fulcrum of the issues that present themselves moving forward in afghanistan. american policy must do better at resolving unilaterally attacking al qaeda's remaining core leaders or mid-level at stanek -- afghanistan taliban leaders specifically with drone strikes. i think still too much or using drone strikes in the western region of pakistan and india have called for a two hault them temporarily and restructure the ma bell my next point is that i think we are in fact starting to see a limited recalibration of how drone strikes are being used not in the manner that i think is explicit enough to dampen the unhappiness with them in pakistan which i still think it's very important but rather in a manner where for the first time since back in 2009 ac activities in last five or six months with drone strike starting to converge around pakistani interests in

inhibiting taliban pakistan and also american interest in dampening the international forces of terrorism where i think the interest converts even though they don't converge on the elimination of people like haqqani and mullah omar and specifically a point to the same event that brian talked about and indeed a subsequent one which has to do with the death of commander bossier and south waziristan on january 2. long-standing travel ally of the isi to relations between naseer and the pakistani state have soured despite their importance over the last year. indeed naseer undertook a november 2011 alliance with tehrik-e-taliban pakistan and that is detailed in one of the chapters of this book, chapter number five about pakistan taliban and therefore pakistan is in a position of actually and coincidently being willing to allow for u.s. assistance in

eliminating naseer from his role, is critical role. subsequent to that several members of the tribe and tehrik-e-taliban pakistan including the suicide attack coordinator at cousin of hockey bola massoud had been killed over the weekend. my argument here is composed killings would not be happening without pakistan acquiescence at this point. so i think that's important and so some cautioned optimism retained any optimism moving towards common causal that there is not common cause. finally most importantly and diplomatically help pakistan were quietly to find the necessary accommodation to inhibit the possibility of a reckless proxy war between two nuclear-armed states that could seriously threaten calamity in the region and of global import and i fear unfortunately there is too little movement in this area right now not enough focus is a critical dynamic in the

region. progress in understanding by the u.s. the u.s. in the west in the series in the critical dynamics that exist after the 80% solution to the global catastrophic rob him of terrorism from bin laden's al qaeda and the growing problem of the looming proxy war and civil war in afghanistan is evolving since my time of writing but not fast enough and i really worry and am concerned that we do very diligent work in the next weeks and months to craft a residual diplomatic and military component in afghanistan and that is sufficient enough to show concern, strong enough to show bonding in an otherwise fractious military and strong enough to provide a suppress salvation which faces a very difficult security future that is quite independent of actors from the noble jihad. thank you. >> based on the paper or the

chapter trying to address the question of why pakistani military strategy since 2002 has either been limited toward -- and i go through that no body. to tackle all variants of

militants, militancy in tribal areas and in the rest of the country. it comes down to what i think is money manpower matériel and outline the cost borne over the last 10 years in the chapter and i think it's because of these cause they absorb since 2007 that shapes and fears of what the future might hold should they go whole hog into north waziristan and future operations. paying attention to what pakistan says or what pakistani military leaders for state leaders say about the cost is a think we are generally not attuned to this. i thought it was striking when there was news reports suggesting ghq released a report saying they had lost about two brigades of manpower just outright manpower to the military and the operational equivalent of two divisions which is dramatic. this might be inflated, but this

was based on estimations of the retraining costs and the replacement of material costs, the reorganization costs required to patch up these divisions but that was pretty significant if not for military that is a hostile eastern border and essentially western one as well. this is not an insignificant cost and something that doesn't get talked about a lot in terms of assessing what pakistan hosek and there. another cost that is unnoticed i think is the level of offense that has hit has hit in urban and core centers of pakistan particularly posts jalalabad siege operations. the numbers are staggering. is just looking to some of the data recently and if you look at the six month window pre-and post-bad operation a lot of violence in the urban areas and not just -- but also punjab and islamabad and the number of tax are maybe two to three times but the

amount of casualties goes up 20 to 25 times within a short period of time. and the states believe that these attacks are likely to come in the future should they go to certain other operations like the haqqani network. this is a profound sort of concerned that was voiced to me repeatedly right after the statements in 2011 about not doing much about the haqqani network and the arm of the isi. the explanation and again this can be taken with a grain of salt but nevertheless if they pakistan actually go into that and describe it as a hornets nest there would be an alliance of militant jihadi networks against pakistani states and bring that same level of violence in 2,072,000 which basically crush the pakistani public and the military. that would return again and that

was something they greatly feared so there is a degree of calibration as to how much you can do given the cost he would have to absorb for the cost he would have to bear that motivates with the limited strategy. another question that comes up a lot is collectivity. good taliban versus bad taliban. i like to hold it aside for a second and say it's not just about the target or insurgent groups but also the territory being contested. i believe it was referred to the distinction between settled and unsettled areas and this is something that resonates in terms of how pakistan calibrates areas. they are expected to be lavas and there's a degree to which militancy or armed militias or the lack of state control and the lack of control to use a non-term is acceptable and this is something we have a hard time grasping in the united states or the western world because our

concept of the way the state is meant to be total anthropic entire territory of the country vistas and exists in most parts of the world. doesn't exist in pakistan. doesn't exist in india which is our democratic ally in the stronger state. so i think dispensing with that idea will help to understand where pakistan state goes bid where there's much more manpower, the concern about civilian casualties in the south waziristan that are far more limited in scope and strategy. i think a third thing we need to bear in mind is -- wanat there is still cost that every leader has to pay whether it's authoritarian or autocratic government or a democratic one and in terms of utilizing force against john people is something we don't have to think about because we authorize force to be

deployed elsewhere and the only cost that the american public bears are fiscal costs and obviously the loss of our troops and loved ones but in pakistan is also -- it's not just the strategic cost but the political cost especially their important constituent groups, the base of the militancy and the pashtun community which is not an insignificant community. they are a key stakeholder in the state in military and so the idea of trying to utilize forces against it is much harder to stomach both for politicians as well as military leaders as well. i will leave it at that so we can get to questions. >> thank you for your presentations. [applause] we have not a huge amount of time for questions. if you have a question, either a

question or statement. wait for the microphone, state your name and please directed to a certain person, say-so. in the back here. >> hi. thanks to much for being here. my question i think is most pertinent to brian. it has to do a stratcom. what can we do effectively these days to interrupt taliban stratcom that insert messages of their own? >> not a whole lot i think. you know i think it's really important when we talk about strategic to recognize that oftentimes you get this dynamic where we think about operations and think about strategic medication and that is clearly

wrong. actions speak louder than words and it doesn't matter what we say if what people are responding to her drone strikes and that is what they are going to respond to. not convinced the drone strikes are as important as sometimes people think they are. i think the most important thing that we can do is to eliminate any sense that there is a gap between our actions and our words. even if our actions are positive. we just need to explain what we are doing, state clearly why we are doing it. peter bergen wrote an op-ed in "the new york times" a long time ago saying that we should acknowledge drone strikes. at the time i thought he was crazy but i came to actually agree with him, and this is the point. we have a story to tell. it's not going to be popular a lot of the time but we need to

explain that very clearly. when i said that village and groups try to create myths, what that means is that we counter those myths when we tell the truth. fundamentally, when we tell the truth we tell a clearly. we are encountering the myths that terrorist organizations and insurgents try to create to enhance their own power. so when you just objectively state the truth, that is strategic communication policy and that is what we ought to be doing. at the end of the day, certainly al qaeda and major elements of the taliban have very little to offer from a sort of governance standpoint. they're not that popular as ken indicated so what we want people to be doing is assessing those organizations on their own merits. and we don't want to get into the way that process. so we want to sort of set ourselves aside and keep the onus on the terrorists, the onus on the militants to establish

their own credibility because they have a hard time doing that. >> in front of you, jennifer. >> thank you very much. i'm a pakistani journalist. last week pakistan made a treaty on a strategic plan. can you speak up at more about it what it means for the transition in afghanistan or whether it's a policy of appeasement or operations against pakistan? >> a great question. i think this new statute and doctrine that is talked about in pakistani media and the chief of the pakistani army has given a -- three different statements. he is talking about a document that we have no exact document. what is it indicative is pakistan and the pakistani military and intelligence is

actively supporting u.s. negotiations with the taliban at one level. he went to afghanistan and met them and invited some of the leaders there. the taliban leaders -- i think it's 10 or 11 but fit teen taliban leaders are headed over to return to pakistan. there are some rumors about a meeting with mullah but he refused to go back and in fact was quite aggressive. the point i'm making, this whole effort seems to me to be -- pakistani strategic thinking is the pakistani version of of the dependent mounting groups i

would argue it's a bit late in the game. i really wish this would have happened in 2007 or 2008 and it was partly delayed. now things are not as easy and much more complicated. i would like to believe that this is an honest effort. we have seen many other related developments as well. the meeting, the increased meetings between the united states and the government in pakistan senior levels and -- is meeting another so i thought that this was a façade or this was not a well courtney did well thought out policy. we would not have seen his many statements but from the previous developments we have seen if again anything which will empower any of the militants that would be problematic. i think it is a flawed belief because we think that a

negotiated settlement with the taliban will make it easier for pakistan to deal with militants in pakistan. the reason is, empower taliban or even mullah omar or taliban in the public coalition in afghanistan, that will inspire and motivate pakistani politics. so i don't think that by dealing with negotiatinegotiati ons in afghanistan it will automatically make it easier for pakistani military intelligence deal with the pakistani side of taliban. and military action to be frank has not delivered. military option has absolutely afraid to deal with the weaker taliban in pakistan or to deal with the taliban on the afghanistan side. i hope that this military strategic change is also parallel to that. there is some new vision and new

thinking also, which will protect the ideological space that has been taken over by the militants. that we cannot do anything about. only through democracy and through progressive religious discourse and education can do that so even at the pakistani military changes its as doctrine it can only have a limited impact. i would like to see a much broader effort to these resolutions. >> thank you. we will take three questions and blends them together because we are almost out of time. maybe the questions could be short in the answers could be short. thank you. >> i really thank you for the presentations. i have several questions and one is to mr. dove -- when no one of your main arguments is that it's a good

environment for negotiations of a similar situation, describing 2004. now, i want to know in light of all the -- that we have heard the government perceived by the taliban and the u.s. is pulling for the americans why would you say that the americans -- to talabani's in a situation -- [inaudible] could you please elaborate more and the other question is that in passing i heard something about india and iran. i would like to hear some more on that to see whether iran and india together or individually have any role in the play as

you'll discuss. thank you very much. >> hi, katie from the department of state. you kind of reference the growth of ttp to the lack of support received by the pakistani civilian law-enforcement bodies. i wanted to see if you could kindly clarify whether the support you are looking for there was financial or domestic, political will and why do you think that support is provided to you? >> the gentleman behind. >> hi. i'm with the u.s. -- religious freedom. the role of religion and the narratives that the afghan taliban offering the pakistani taliban offer often couched in militant terms, does that play with the populations of taliban -- talibanistan and something that brings something closer to them or is it just political verbiage with a different addressing?

>> answers have to be like 30 seconds please. sorry. we have got to wrap it up. >> in the case of police, the reason there was not investment and police in pakistan is because of sheer incompetence. of course that leads to lack of political will. i will also criticize the government as well as the pakistan government. in 2001 to 2008 the u.s. started looking at the police is an important institution. but why from 2001 to 2000 adobe's departments and organizations in the u.s. never talked about counterterrorism as a civil law issue. >> a good point. >> there are elements of the taliban who believe this is the right time to negotiate because they don't think that the '90s

taliban will be reconstituted. there are others who disagree with that, but that is essentially wide. they think they won't win. and a quick follow up to that, did the search work at least on that level in getting the taliban to think there is a chance of military success? >> the search i think successfully halted the taliban. it didn't reverse it and it didn't put the united states or any other actor in a position to win whatever that may mean but i think it did hault moments him and that informs this position i think. the role of the militants in the taliban the ideological battles that play out in the countryside are very much couched in terms of religion so the taliban are rooted in the countryside as mullahs and people who sort of have a discourse in this is why the afghan government and other actors try to sort of repeat -

-- compete with the taliban on those grounds. speeches quickly asked about india. i refer you to chapter the book but india has a critical role to play in my estimation that is because the narrative of what afghanistan is has played in a south asian -- is that afghanistan is in place between india and pakistan. and the individual tribes in the country of afghanistan ally in one way or the other, rightly or wrongly, with either indian interests or pakistani interest. pakistan's military apparatus not wishing to see india advantaged either to perpetuate mr. from afghanistan against its ethnic minorities in the country or to gain decisive advantage gia strategically in afghanistan really mistrusts fundamentally what it sees presently in kabul as a new delhi leaning

government and that america western efforts have been either intentionally or more likely and inadvertently because of sheer naïveté instrumental in giving india a leg up in the country and one that cannot be tolerated for the long-term. >> i would argue that while it matters in the country but nowhere near as much as to the continuation of violence as does the pakistan india dynamic, iran if you up into western afghanistan, it is pretty heavily invested and embedded there as it is with some of the community in afghanistan. i would argue that is nowhere near as is significant in terms of dictating the level and the degree of violence as is the interplay between india and pakistan interest in the tribal relations. >> any final observations? thank you very much everybody for coming and thank you to our panelists. [applause]

>> there are a little less than two months left before the election and in many ways this was the time this book was designed for because it's winter these last two months, this is when the election really gets going and to me, one of the great untold stories is not just obama versus romney. it's obama versus karl rove. he is in behind-the-scenes the

whole time and he has put together over $1 billion that will be spent in these last two months and we in new york are not going to see much of it. it will be spent in the battleground states. and he has becomes the king of the super pacs. when you put together his money with the money that romney has raised and the republican national committee has a total of about $1.8 billion. to put that in perspective and no eight, mccain had $375 million to spend so this is a factor of five and you will start seeing it coming out now. and the other thing i wanted to discuss about him is who is he really and what does he do? yes a political operative. how does he operate? what does he really do? i talked to a couple of sources about that and one who is one of

several who has said because there's a dark and terrible beauty about what he does. another source that is a former cia agent named larry johnson who told me that you know the cia could learn an awful lot from karl rove and the way he has deniability and all these operations he does. he is both very very visible. he has something like a 70% name recognition united states. that is up there with justin bieber. but we don't really know what he does. most people don't and when you go back over his history and look at the things that are starting to unfold in the election, he has deniability one level after another. to me, the story became interesting in a way because i think most people thought karl rove was finished in 2008, when the bush presidency started to come to an end.

he had been forced out of the white house in 2007. he was the prime target in the two biggest scandals of the bush era, the valerie plame affair and the united states attorney scandal. bush left the white house with a 22% approval rating, the lowest in the history of united states and even top republican strategist like ed rollins said that his brand was tainted forever, no one would ever would want to -- with bush and karl rove. the fact of the matter is he was back working again within a matter of weeks. and it became evident to me in 2000 -- to early 2010 about a year after obama took office, three things happened. the first was -- it came from united states supreme court and i think no person in the united states that i can think of has benefited more from the supreme court then

karl rove. two decisions. one in 2000 obviously was washed the gore which put his candidate in the white house and two, in 2010, citizens united decision. that opened the floodgates for contributions, unlimited contributions and in many cases from secret sources with no transparency whatsoever that is just unprecedented in history. the second thing that happened was running the republican party and it kind of ran into a ditch. he couldn't raise a dime and early in 2010 you may recall there was a revelation in los angeles that they republican national committee had been entertaining its donors at a

strip club. and for the party of family values, this did not work too well so they could not raise a time. this gave wrote his opening, so in april he had a luncheon at his house in washington d.c. at weaver terrace. it was cohosted by ed gillespie, a former chair of the rnc, and they had about two dozen people over and came away with tens of millions of dollars. that luncheon alone gave him about four times as much money than the entire republican party. so rove was effectively establishing an apparatus that gave him an enormous amount of our and authority with almost no responsibility. he reported to no one but he had his hands on the pursestrings. this led to the 2010 legislative election and they raised a total

of $300 million swept congress. 63 seats in the house and suddenly obama's but big advantage was gone. he had no real authority. so the question is what what do they do with the money? it's going to go into the battleground states and i started to look at what he was going to do now. i decided to look at what he had done in the past, and i found again and again that a lot of it was really had not been reported in depth. one thing i found that he had was this huge technology apparatus, and i went to chattanooga tennessee and i found a company called smart tech. i saw a row for about a year ago in ohio and i asked him about this company. he told me he had never heard of it. well, i find that hard to

believe. this is a company that has a history but if you go to all the fronts within fronts and corporate changes and find out who put up the original money, the original money came from two very wealthy republican donors named mercer reynolds and bill dewitt. i research them and in the 80s, they had bailed out george w. bush several times. he had three oil companies in the 80s that went belly-up and each time they came to his rescue. they were also baseball royalty. his father owned the old st. louis browns and they gave bush ownership in the texas rangers which is the only lucrative investment he ever made. he put in $600,000 came away

with about $15 million. his company smart tech which started out as part of a legitimate technology company, soon became the republican operation and its all it's all good and well that the republicans or the conservative movement should have their web sites and so forth. but this was very in usual. i saw george w. bush 43.com up there. the republican national committee hosted its web site. hundreds and hundreds of conservative groups were there. again, that is all fine and well but this company which is highly highly partisan, also over time required the contract should not have gone to such a partisan company. and let me just say two of those. one was, if you were in the white house, your e-mails

according to the presidents -- are public documents and they are supposed to be posted on whitehouse.gov. but rove made sure that his e-mails were posted on smart tech. 80 of his staffers and the other people who worked with him in the white house also had their e-mails there. so when rove was investigated for the valerie plame affair and again in the u.s. attorney scandal, suddenly 22 million e-mails were deleted and these were all government documents and they have never been found. so that was one thing he shouldn't have gotten away with. another thing was, in 2004, smart tech played a central role in the presidential elections and the secretary of state, of

each state, part of their job is to oversee a fair and impartial election and you may recall and the 2000 election kathleen harris in florida was secretary of state of florida and she also happened to play a central role in the bush election and there was considerable controversy over that. well, very similar thing happened in ohio in 2004 where tim blackwell was secretary of state, and again he was supposed to see -- oversee a fair and impartial election but he happened also to be the cochair of the bush-cheney re-election committee. and he decided that to tabulate the returns for the 2004 election ,-com,-com ma the secretary of state's computers weren't enough and they needed to get another set of computer servers. so who did he go to but smart tech? and smart text role in this

raises a lot -- an enormous amount of very very interesting questions. i went through the returns of people who studied it. they were civil law students. you could see when the returns came in that night and what happened as the night wore on on i believe it was november 2, 2004, it was a very very close election. it was clear the election would come down to who won florida, who won ohio and these were the last two key battleground states. around 11:00, the network finally called it for florida and that meant there was one crucial state outstanding, ohio. whoever won ohio would be the electoral college. the exit polls were in and they showed kerry winning ohio by 4.2% and suddenly millions of people started logging onto the secretary of state computer in

ohio. traffic went through the roof, it went up 700%. that meant the computers in tennessee had to be kicked in at 11:14:00 p.m.. suddenly in county after county there were striking anomalies and in the next 10 counties in a row. this raises a lot of serious questions about who actually won the election. i went about as far as i could in tracing this down, and the terms of pinning it down conclusively, unfortunately, there were still some unanswered questions. the reason for that is that again and again, all the evidence was damaged and there was a court order as a result of one of the lawsuits to impound all the ballots. but suddenly over a million ballots were damaged or disappeared.

in 2006, new secretary of state, democratic secretary of state was elected in ohio and she was about to take office. she went by her new offices just before she formally took office and when she when then, she saw everyone there under the direction of the old secretary of state, shredding thousands and thousands of documents. and finally, in the civil suit a man named mike o'connell was scheduled to testify. he deposed once and gave one deposition. he was scheduled to give another and he was rove's cyber guru. he supposedly had all the answers and on december 19, 2008, his plane crashed. so there were a lot of unanswered questions about that. c. you can watch this and other programs on line of booktv.org.

>> the book starts out with a combat mission in 2003 ,-com,-com ma with a combat mission in 2003 north and its town in iraq called nasiriyah. are you guys marines? no? okay. there was a marine unit that got cut off there and the biggest sandstorm i have ever seen in my life had rolled into saudi arabia and iraq and covered the whole continent except for that one little corner where we were.

and somebody had to get down a need that stuff try to save these marines. so that is what the book opens with. i talk a little bit about the history and most of what i did. i was a wild weasel. anybody know what that is? you guys or air force? cadets? okay, good. you have already been there, done that. i was a wild weasel. wild weasel is a very unique and screwy kind of person whose job in life is to go out and get shot at by certain austere missiles and antiaircraft artillery. if you survive in when and when you survive to go back around and you remove those threats so they don't bother anybody else. not going to tell you with the first guy said when asked him to do this back in vietnam. you can read about in the book. there's mixed company and youngsters here so i won't go into that but it's really a screw job and it's most of what i did. i talk a little bit about how all that came to pass.

but it's not a textbook. i like, when i learn i like to learn without knowing that i'm learning. have you ever read albrighton's looks? i love his books because i learn a lot and i don't even know i learned anything. you get some history and then you start out with what happened when i was commissioned as a lieutenant and a process that it takes to become a pilot and then a fighter pilot after that. i talk a little bit about again, the first gulf war. there are some funny things in there too. do know it's hard not to spend 20 years doing something without some funny things. my first combat mission was a very very long day that culminated in the officer's club at an airbase in turkey. there are some amusing stories and their. i won't ruin the book for you. and then, i did an exchange tour with the egyptian air force for a year and a half. i had to go out to school and learn how to speak arabic and learn about them and how they

think and how they operate. i got to do that for a year which was interesting. there's a chapter in there and it's called fly like an egyptian. anybody old enough here to remember the egyptian? walk like an egyptian. anyway, again some amusing anecdotes in that year that i spent and some not so amusing. i think it opens with a morning when i was doing a test flight and as soon as i wrapped the airplane up to a.g. climbed thinking how cool is this, the engine quit and it was suddenly not so cool anymore for the 50 seconds it took me to get the airplane back down on the ground. so that was kind of funny. i will tell you as i was sitting there on the ground and it catches up with me and i start to sweat a little bit and i'm grateful to be back down on the grand. this egyptian peasant walks across the runway. the u.s. airbases lot down tighter than ft. knox.

you don't get on the flight line with all the pieces of plastic any. i was surprised to see this peasant plot along across the airplane leading a donkey. the donkey promptly relieved itself right in front of the airplane and they both kind of shook their head at me and walked off. so there are some funny things like that. it basically traces than the path of at least my path as a fighter pilot. i came back from egypt and i have been overseas for six years with a good life. i lived in europe. any of you guys in the military you know you get to travel and do things. it's almost the capitol cities, a lot of neat things that you don't normally see. how cool is that to go writing and look over and see the pyramids. i wanted to come home. i hadn't had a sonic order for a long time in hadn't been to a

store that was open past 8:00 for a long time and i wanted to come home. and i did and i got selected to attend the fighter weapons school at the air force version of the navy school. i had already done the navy school, kind of an abbreviated exchange. it was okay but they are not half of what we are. you guys or air force lieutenants, right? nevermind the football game today. that is a relevant. that whole taking off and landing on a carrier thing, they can keep it. it was a school. it was anything like ours. ours is six-month long and utterly miserable. i came out of that a change human being. some say for the better. i lost almost all of my cockiness and quite a few tailfeathers and then spent the next decade being a weapons and tactics officer at different levels in the fighter wing. i was a khobar towers when that place blew up. do you guys remember that?

you may not want to sit too close to me because i'm eyes at the wrong place at the wrong time. i was there when that place blew up. you know we had to really -- i don't think any of us were thinking about terrorism about terrorism and then the waves thought about now. wasn't something we were prepared to fight. we were geared up, my generation was geared up to fight the soviet union. is my teenage daughter and she says you know, what's going on with russia? it was the soviet union. she said what's that? it was a big thing back in the late 80s and early '90s before topple. we were geared up up to fight them and most of us had never really considered iraq or knew who saddam hussein was. after that war was over, which winning was a forgone conclusion, you know, the terrorism thing kind of took us all by surprise. we just thought they were rabble-rousers and never gave them too much credit. interestingly enough all the buildings that khobar will build at the bin laden construction

company and they had the bin laden stamps and all the buildings. how is that for irony? after that things kind of changed and the world trade center bombings and september 11 of course we all know what happened that day. i was actually flying that morning and we had come back from the middle east, from another rotation. monday september 10 was our first day back. on the morning of september 11 i was actually flying and i had come down very very early and somebody said you have got to look at this. i remembered thinking as i looked at that first tower, what kind of a of the pilot could hit a tower that size on a clear day? i thought it was an accident. and then the second plane hit and we obviously figured that out. they sent a bunch of those up to close down the airspace over the united states. i talk about their too because for pilot that is really eerie. ..