transformation. >> what do we think it was in 97 an onboard? what do we think -- >> one of the things we know was the great chuck colson. we have lost him and others would've lost as well. dozens of columns about christian persecution and the situation in sudan at the time. and i think that there's a complacency, there was a complacency afterwards, after that success in sudan, after the north-south conflict of course in darfur, now the mountains is dreadful, and the repression of christians in the north sudan is horrible, but there was that success and then there was the international religious freedom act coalition that succeeded as well back in those days come in the late '90s. so i think those two things, people, the coalition fell apart

and sodomy with the mechanisms within the religious freedom act, the government didn't take care of it. and no, we must be vigilant about our freedom spent since the time that north korea a few months ago, what do we think accounts for the reticence of the koreans, the south koreans? that is a vibrantly christian nation, and i know that there are many very successful korean-american christians. are they not speaking up enough? wouldn't that make a difference? >> many of them are, and one story which needs some attention, one of our heads and colleagues has written about, is the exodus of refugees of north korea into china, and the networks which exist in china, a whole range of people including

made the koreans, mainly korean christians, who are working with them. this is sort of the only real hole in that fortress of north korea. and i think that's -- data leakage may affect the. as to why the commissioner shays word, it's nuclear weapons at the moment. we are at war with north korea. so those issues overshadow it. of course, we are all worried, very real things. but i worry about the fact that human rights questions are seen then as a side agenda to the realism of international relations. in many cases they are not to get to go back to the old example of the soviet union, of the third basket of helsinki which was regarded as just sort of keep the human rights ngos happy. but have sort of major effects of providing, criticism. so these issues should be seen

as, it ties in with other foreign policy agendas. tom, now at georgetown university, has written very adequately on foreign policy and religious freedom. >> i think we have time for one more question. perhaps in the front row here, we have a hand. we have a microphone, microphone approaching, approaching. and we'll have just a moment left. >> hi eric and all of you. i was the president of the first north korea freedom coalition. i just wanted to mention something about the state department, kind of a little history. just, we have an infiltration of islamist sympathizers. and i'm actually concerned about that. [inaudible] just something broke

yesterday. john kerry's son-in-law, which didn't come out in the vetting process, his son-in-law is an iranian. and iranian americans with very close world is in iran. and that is, it's a breakdown of the vetting process. and so i will ask you all, are you concerned about this? >> i would have to know more about the iranians. most iranian americans of course our strong opponents of every regime i don't know about this person. >> [inaudible] >> this could be a problem, to come in terms of pressure and blackmail. i would be concerned about that, you know. i would say if the state department is now aware of that fact, they may be able to take steps to protect him in some way or put him in some of the portfolio. but i don't know about the situation.

>> since we are losing some media coverage, i just want to reiterate that there's a book called "persecuted: the global assault on christians." three of the three authors are here on this panel. we are grateful for your time. also, new website, persecutionreport.org. please don't neglect to visit that had to keep up on these important issues, and maybe a round of applause for the office of this brand-new book. [applause] >> thank you. any closing comments? i don't know, i know there's so many questions, but anything you would like to say before breakout? >> thank you all for coming and thanks to eric at a hudson staff and for charlotte who is helpless with the new website. but i would like to have you think about some of the real cases and that's what we tried to do in this book, put faces and names on these stories.

people in pakistan on death row, mother of five for blasphemy and christian. in china, i loaded was defended christians has been in prison for about seven years. father lee in vietnam. there are just so many others. thank you. >> i would second that and add to my earlier comments, two related things. one is mainly stressed the negative things which are happening. the book also seeks to be encouraging and enlightening, inspiring hope. because many of these stories involve suffering. but they also involve victory unfaithfulness, and those are very inspiring. and in my comments, want to make a great deal of difference on these issues if we work hard and we are focused.

>> i totally agree. and i also think it's important to remember that we can all make noise of some kind about these things. we can write to the editor of the paper, we can publish small editorials to our local press. we can ask for prayer and our churches. keep it in front of people. keep people aware of it. it's up to us to really do know about it, to communicate to people that are less informed. i've been speaking about another book that i've written, and i've spoken a lot to jewish audiences, and they are very shocked that christians are not more mobilized about christian persecution because jews may fight with each other but when it comes to persecution, they are together and they work very, very hard. i think we can learn from them and learn how to mobilize ourselves. in small ways and in big ways. we can make a difference, and we can work with the system we have, and we can pray, which is not to be taken lightly. >> thank you, lela. thank you. thank you very much.

[applause] >> we would like to from you. tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv. >> here's where the story starts to get interesting. i'm condensing a lot of things but i'm giving you the basics. he was sent off to fort leavenworth. a lot of people in the army didn't really like the trees. and elect officers who are too bookish or who stood up too much, at the trace was very much guilty on both accounts. so he comes to fort leavenworth and a lot of people are thinking that's great. we are sending him out to past year, literally. but he gets to fort leavenworth

and he realizes something. he realizes that this is actually the intellectual center of the army. they write documents. they form the curriculum of the command and general staff college. they organize a national training center. and the loop all these together. and he says to himself as learning all this, what kind of power see potentially has and says, holy cow, and he talks like that, he says things like holy cow and jeepers, super. he says, holy cow, they have put an insurgent in charge of the engine of change. he views himself as an insurgent. now, imo, meanwhile, has allowed me miles in this book, meanwhile, there's a professor at the school of advanced international studies in washington, d.c., eliot cohen. an imminent military historian,

also a leading neoconservative. you as one of the people trying to petition we have to invade iraq and overthrow saddam by force. is also a number of the defense policy advisory board. and so he goes over to iraq. he's the only member of this board that goes their indices it's a disaster. there's an insurgency mounted and nobody knows what to do about it. now, he comes back feeling really upset because, feeling pangs of guilt because he was advising this administration. he had advocated for this war. his son had recently joined the army and is going to be sent to iran. -- iraq tickets can be said to dismiss. that he sort of help create. so he thinks, well, he has to do something about this. so he sets up a similar in vermont and he goes through his rolodex answer is military journal but he invites everybody to be confined who has written

anything remotely interesting about the subject of water. and he comes up with about 30. and they all assembled for five days to discuss these things. the pivotal think about this meeting is not so much what they discussed as that they met. most of these people didn't know each other before. they didn't know of one another's existence. they thought they were out on a limb, here, on a daring slim just writing stuff that nobody is going to read that was way against what was going on in the mainstream army. a lot of these people were junior officers, some of them were mid-level officials and think tank types. and they realized they formed a community and they might be able to do something if they worked together. so they come away with a great sense of mission. meanwhile, petraeus sitting in leavenworth can he knows a lot

of these people who are at this conference. some of them were his students come his colleagues, people have been under his command. and he decides one thing is going to do in leavenworth is right a new counterinsurgency field manual for the army. there hadn't been one for 20 years. and he draws on this group from the conference to be his inner circle, to be his aides, deep be the people who help them write this conference. outside the usual doctrinal channels within the army. so for things happen at the end of 2006. one, midterm elections, democrats win, bush fires rumsfeld, hires robert gates. two, it's announced that the trace will be going back to iraq as the top commander. number three, bush announces that he is ordering a surge of

troops into iraq. sending another 20,000 troops. and number four, that he changed his strategy to essentially a counterinsurgency strategy. he calls it clear, hold, and build, which was an old phrase that came of some these books. the idea that you clear an area of insurgents, then you stay there, you hold. you don't just turn over to the iraqis right away. they were incapable of holding a. you stay there and then you help build an infrastructure, help the government provide basic service, build trust within the committee, help build a security structure. so these four things did not happen by coincidence but it was all part of this plan. and by the way, when they use the word plot, i generally am not a conspiracy guy, but these people refer to themselves as a plot. they call themselves the west point mafia because a lot of them came out of the social science department of west point which had a tradition of forming

networks among their own graduates. so this was very -- for example, all of this happened not by coincidence. for example, petraeus when he was in leavenworth, he wasn't just sitting in leavenworth. he had a vast network of old college throughout the pentagon bureaucracy. he's reaching out to them. he deliberately forms a back channel. he cultivates this woman and the white house named meghan o'sullivan who was president bush's chief adviser on iraq for the national security council. he sees that she's kind of wavering from the existing policy. they form a back channel. they're talking on the phone practically every day. picture this. this is really kind of outrageous. is petraeus, a three-star general in fort leavenworth. is talking on the phone everyday with the senior advisor to the president of the united states. she will be asking him, you

know, general casey who is a 4-star general actually commanding troops in iraq, general casey says we only need one more brigade. what do you think? petraeus we must reduce arguments that she could funnel to our seniors on why this really isn't enough. so you know when he comes to washington and meets and out of the way restaurants, by the way, this is not a paula broadwell situation. this district a professional, but can you imagine? this is someone, essentially subverting the chain of command, getting his own views across there. ..