all see, we would hope that you keep that in mind as you make the rules that impact so many people. so thank you again for being here. this meeting is aeuroped. adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> and now we're live at the atlantic council in washington, d.c. for a discussion about the rise of islamic political parties in pakistan and the current state of u.s./pakistan relations. we'll be hear prosecution the former pakistani ambassador to the u.s., husain haqqani, on various issues that may include drone airstrikes and, of course, the search for osama bin land. again live here, we're just waiting for the participants to take the stage here at the atlantic council. n. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> again, we're here at the atlantic council live in washington, d.c. for a discussion about the rise of islamic political parties in pakistan. we'll be hearing from the former pakistani ambassador to the u.s., husain haqqani. they are running a few minutes late here. they should start within ten minutes or so. and while we wait for this discussion to begin, we're going to take a look at a segment from this morning's "washington journal" talking about funding the united nations, their daily

operations and their peacekeeping missions. >> host: in our last hour here, we take a look at how taxpayer dollars are being spent, and today we're taking a look at how the u.s. funds the united nations. joining us from new york this morning is louie sharp know, with the reuters and the united nations bureau chief up there. louie with, i just want to begin with what is the united nations and why was it started? >> guest: well, the united nations, if we take a step back, there was this thing after world war i called the league of nations that woodrow wilson created. and it got off to a bad start because the united states never actually ratified the treaty to join the united nations. so this organization, which was the precursor to our current-day united nations, never really got off the ground. and was unable to prevent

another war like world war i. there was a big crisis in the 1930s when italy, fascist italy invaded ethiopia, and the league of nations was incapable of doing anything. basically fell apart. so after world world war ii, or, rather, during world war ii franklin delano roosevelt came up with the idea for a new and better international organization that would keep the peace, and it would have at the center of it the big powers; the united states, the soviet union, britain. and at one point he thought about having brazil in there, france was included later as a sort of core member of this thing. so the idea was to prevent another world war ii, to make sure it never happened again, because the big powers would be in charge of, basically, policing the world. and things have evolved, but

franklin roosevelt wasn't alive to see the fruits of his labors in trying to get this going. he really pushed for it very hard, but it did come about. and for all of its weaknesses and for all of the difficulties that the united states has had with it over the last six decades, it really was something that was created by the united states. if it hadn't been for the united states, it never would have come about. >> host: after its creation what was the role of the united states over the years, what role is it playing today, the united states, in the united nations? >> guest: well, it really remains the most influential member of the united nations. today there are 193 countries that are in the united nations. there are only, i think, two states that are not part of it. and from the very beginning, the

u.s. had this role, it was paying the lion's share of the u.n. budget. it still does to this day. it plays roughly a quarter of the u.n. budget. a quarter of the u.n. regular budget and then, also, the peacekeeping budget. so this gives the united states a certain amount of leverage. it's also a permanent member of the security council, it has a veto, so it can stop anything that it wants to in the security council which is the only u.n. body that has real power, it has the ability to send military forces to wherever it wanted to, it can impose sanctions on countries, it can impose diplomatic sanctions, it can do a variety of things. but it's a rather unwieldy body, but the united states is a key member of it. >> host: the united states pays

the lion's share of the u.n. budget, you say. we have, the united states has this veto power. do we have more veto power than other countries that are big players in the united nations? >> guest: no, no, we don't have more veto power. there are five veto powers; the united states, britain, france, russia and china. and these are the victors of world war ii. and in the general assembly, which is the kind of, you know, world parliament if you want to call it that of all 193 member nations, and no one has a veto in the general assembly, though its decisions are generally recommendations, they're not binding. though it does are a certain amount of -- it does have a certain amount of power. just recently the general assembly overwhelmingly voted to condemn the russian seizure of crimea and the referendum that crimea had, that region of

ukraine that has been in dispute recently x. this general assembly decision actually had far-reaching implications even though it's just a nonbinding thing. for instance, russia wants to take control of the delivery of the mail to crimea, and there's this u.n. body called the international post all union -- postal union. well, the international postal union doesn't recognize russia's seizure of crimea, and as a result a lot of international mail delivery organizations will not go to crimea because they see it as a kind of legal limbo there, and they don't want to run into trouble. so sometimes even the general assembly can play an important role in daily life. >> host: on the money side of this, how does the united nations spend the money that it receives from the united states and other countries?

>> guest: well, there are different parts of it. the most important or biggest part of u.n. budget is the u.n. peacekeeping, and that's actually a separate budget, and it's run on a kind of voluntary basis. and that goes to the various peacekeeping missions, not quite two dozen, but spread around the world. we have peacekeeping missions in countries like the democratic republic of the congo, there's one on the border of syria and israel that has been in some tense situations over the last few years because of the war in syria, there are peacekeeping missions in other areas we've, you know, africa has the lion's share of them. so i mentioned democratic republic of congo, then we've got offices in burundi and

elsewhere. one of the first peacekeeping missions that the united nations set up was actually after the first arab/israeli war shortly after the establishment of israel and israel faced itself in a kind of existential battle. and then the united nations sent observers -- generally, that's how the united nations has worked, having military observers in these places. and so these are costly ventures. let me give one example. this is one in the sudan -- there's one in the sudan section called darfur, it's a region of sudan that has faced conflict for more than ten years now, and that costs over a billion dollars every year. it has had a lot of trouble. it has not been using its money wisely. the united states has expressed its concern about how that particular operation which is

actually run jointly with the african union is being run. and they've said they want it -- >> great pleasure to welcome all of you to this very special and important event on rising political islam in pakistan, causes and consequences. we are delighted that we are hosting ambassador husain haqqani and dr. haroon ullah from the department of state at this event, and i also want to welcome the audience at home courtesy of c-span. we're sorry that you can't join the conversation after the initial presentations, but we have a strong audience here that will stand in your stead, i'm sure. i also want to mention that this particular event is part of our new u.s./pakistan program at the atlantic council, and that has been very generously funded by

the carnegie corporation of new york. so our thanks to the carnegie corporation of new york for this effort. now, religion and politics and policy are intertwined in pakistan, and they're also very closely tied to pakistan's relationship with the united states. this has not been a very easy relationship. in fact, it's been rather fraught. and particularly in the aftermath of the exit from the region particularly from afghanistan, there are many that think that there may be another downturn in this relationship. we have been looking very carefully at pakistan. we've looked at the very successful transitions of last year, particularly the transition of one civilian administration to another, elected civilian administration

in pakistan. so there is some sign of hope of political continuity and stability in the country. but one of the issues that keeps rising is the question of the role of islam and particularly the role of the islamic parties in pakistan. against the backdrop of rising militancy by splinter groups, extremist groups that are vying for the same space. and so we thought it very important to get two persons who have studied these issues at some length. and so let me introduce the two of them. first of all, ambassador husain haqqani. ambassador haqqani was pakistan's ambassador to sri lanka and then, more recently from 2008 to 2011, to the united states. he's currently a senior fellow and director for south and central asia at the hudson

institute, and he co-edits the journal, "current trends in islamist ideology." ambassador haqqani's also director of the center of international relations and professor of the practice of international relations at boston university. his most recent book is "magnificent delusions: pakistan, the united states and an epic history of misunderstanding." ambassador husain haqqani also as a young man grew up in the, in the folds of the seminary culture, and so when he speaks, he speaks from a lot of personal experiencement we thought it important to get that knowledge before you. dr. hah ruin ullah is -- haroon ullah is a member of the planning staff at the u.s. department of state. he joined that in november 2013. he's been dealing with public diplomacy and countering violent

extremism. he served earlier as director of community engagement at the u.s. embassy in islamabad, and before that at the belfor center at harvard's kennedy school of government where he's focused on democratization, counterterrorism and religious political parties in the middle east and south asia. he has a ba from whitman college, an mba from harvard and a ph.d. from the university of michigan. and interestingly, he has had not one, but two very recent books. his first book is "vying for allah's vote." and the bargain from the bazaar: a family's day of reckoning, which is his chronicling of the travails of a middle class, lower middle class pakistani family in the inner city of lahore as they cope with their family's struggles with one of the members who may have become

part of a militant group. i'm not going to go into all the details of that. the book is out and doing well, and i'm sure that you and others will want to read much more about it. so with that introduction, i would like to request dr. haroon ullah to come and speak be briefly -- speak briefly. after him we will have ambassador haqqani speak, and then i'll join the two of them on the stage, and we'll have a conversation with all of you. just a housekeeping detail, if you have any cell phones, please switch them off now so that we're not interrupted, and when we do get to the questions, i will remind you again that it's important for you to wait for the microphone to reach you so you can identify yourself for us as well as the audience at home. and then please ask a question. since there is a large audience here, ideally i hope we can get

short questions and good conversation going. so with that, dr. haroon ullah. >> i'm absolutely honored to be here with you today at the atlantic council and especially with shuja and his excellent team who i've followed from both here in the u.s. and in pakistan. they do excellent work. and also here to be sharing this panel with ambassador haqqani who i have great add admirationr some of the work he's done both in academic and policy. so it's a great honor. i'm just blessed to be talking to you about something that i'm very passionate about, and that is really thinking about what shuja said is the sort of connection between religion and politics in a place like pakistan. and what i'd like to do is take you back to pakistan. january of 2011. i was there based in pakistan, i lived there for many years, so i was based there at the embassy.

and i was actually driving out to a meeting. often times as we think of the embassy, we're more important than we actually are. and i was stuck in a traffic jam. so for those of you that are familiar with islamabad, i was stuck near f6, near a place called can kosar market. so i was stuck, 10 minutes go by with, 20 minutes go by, 30 minutes go by, i'm getting impatient, i've got to get back to this important meeting, and i start asking people, what happened? so again, it's midday in january, and so finally i find somebody said, look, something that's happened, we don't know what's happened. again, near kosar market. so, again, i go around asking people about what's going on. what i find is that monosir had just been gunned down, shot 26 times by a member of his security detail, his bodyguard. now monther is used to be the former governor of punjab,

somebody i knew well, i'd interviewed over the years, so it was shocking for me. one block from the doors where i was living i could see that restaurant. and what was shocking, he was assassinated, part of the reason is that his bodyguard felt he had crossed the line, that he had criticized blasphemy law in pakistan and that this person felt he needed to take it into his own hands to sort of take care of what had just happened. and so what was even more shocking was what happened afterwards. so i was there in pakistan, you had a lot of the religious political parties, religious organizations that got out in the streets not to protest why taseer had been gunned down, but in support of this person that had murdered him, the killer, saying that he was a national hero, he'd done the right thing by taking this into his hands. so tens of thousands of people out on the streets. and when this person was taken to the, as you might remember,

as he was taken to the courtroom, he was showered with rose petals. and i remember at the funeral, i was there, that, you know, they had a crowd maybe about three times the size of this, they could not find an imam, a religious leader, to preside over that funeral. because of the toxic environment that had been created, no religious leader wanted to put their name on the line to sort of preside over this funeral. so what did they do? they took a one of us. they took one of us from the crowd to get up there. and i spent a lot of time in boss -- boston or new england studying, doing research, and i thought in our context as americans could we imagine at senator kennedy's funeral, could we imagine not being able to find a to preside over that funeral? no, it's unthinkable in many ways. yet this is the modern reality of part of what we see in pakistan. part of my research was to try to explain this, why do you find this phenomenon? why do you find this happening?

and one of the things that came out of my research was that words matter. words matter. so is if you just go back a week earlier, the person had called, so taseer had gone to a friday sermon where a preacher called him out and said this was a person that was a hypocrite. and so this person listening to that friday sermon then went and took it into his own hands to sort of take care of what he thought he was doing the right thing. and, you know, why i think this is so important to study is because pakistan, i think, provides a perfect crucible to look at what i say islamic parties, to look at religious political parties that use ideology, they use religious symbolism to campaign and to mobilize. and pakistan's a fascinating place to study the this phenomena because if you look at the track record over, i would say a hundred years, you had political parties with the forming of the muslim league in

1906, i you have a long tock record of religious political organizations campaigning, mobilizing, agitating, adapting, evolving. and so pakistan offers great lessons not just to the rest of south asia, but also to middle east, what we see in the arab spring and southeast asia. i want to talk a little bit about that today. to take a step back, if you want to understand how things work in pakistan, if you want to understand the governance, the way the connections between the civil, military apparatus, you have to understand these religious organizations. these islamic parties. and i feel, in my opinion, they're one of the most poorly understood phenomena. we don't know enough about the islamly is other organizations. so what i want to talk about are three myths that i think about political islam and islamic parties and then sort of move on to sort of how do we internalize this and, again, how can we engage in a place like pakistan

and motivate civil society. so myth number one, we often times see political violence on tv, or we see things in pakistan, and we think it's ad hoc. we think it's a personal vendetta, or this suicide becoming happened because, you know, this group just happened to pick this pa czar or this -- bazaar or this sort of, you know, location because of a personal attack on somebody or a personal vendetta. my research shows quite differently. that, actually, violence is strategic. it's very strategic, actually. and a lot of my research -- and i spent over eight years doing my doctoral work in pakistan and cataloged in my book, have wheri look at district for district -- so if you look at islamic political parties, you'll find very interesting cross-sections between some of the political party ands their connections to some of these insurgency grooms and extremist groups. and that actually a lot of these parties in certain districts are

using their connections to some of these extremist groups like lash carral e tie baa that they're using these connections to the groups to leverage and push tear political agenda. it means they're using violence in a very strategic way. in key electoral districts, i would make the argument that you find actually the way that they're campaigning is you should vote for us, because if you don't, you might bear the cost of this political violence, and you won't be offered our security. in some of those key electoral districts. so what you find as a phenomena is that, you know, it's a very powerful signaling mechanism that's going on. and in a lot of ways fear is a big issue of why voters cast their vote. they don't want to bear those costs of political violence. and so they align themselves accordingly. that's one big point i want to talk to you about, and i have a lot of research, again, about

looking at violence and how it is strategic in electoral districts. the second myth i want to cover is that you'll find in literature and policymakers and academics will sometimes say about the democratic process whoever participates in the democratic process, whoever is a stakeholder in the democratic process, that they moderate over time. there's a moderation thesis that because you will play by the rules of the game, if you participate long enough, you have to have consensus, you have to make compromises, and you can't take positions that would be, that would marginalize you. my research actually in pakistan showed something quite different, that that doesn't actually hold true and that, actually, they can moderate, but they also are just as likely to become more extreme. now, i want to make a quick note on this. when i say extreme and moderation, we have to think in the pakistani context because often times we may use our definitions of what is moderate and what is extreme. and when i talk about extreme and extremism, i'm talking about

organizations that use extra electoral means, using violence, organizations that use exclusion their policies towards specific groups of people, maybe religious minorities or women x that they campaign on these. that they actually mobilize the rhetoric in their campaigns in using these type of devices. and that moderate in the pack a standny context may be different than when we think about moderate in the american context. so what we find in pakistan, again, is the myth that people think the longer you participate, you become more moderate, you just don't find that to be the case. and the reason is that in pakistan you have a winner takes all system. and so a lot of these islamic parties actually are stronger by being smaller. they're the tipping points. they're the swing vote. anywhere between 80 and 90 seats in the national assembly in pakistan and their parliament can be swung by about 5-7% of the vote. so a lot of these parties actually have become veto players x they revel in that --

and they revel in that they can occupy space where they can leverage this position. and a lot of ways these parties have become very good at being that coalition partner, whether the opposition or part of the government. and so again, islamic parties are like any other political parties, they want to win. they want to maximize their votes. and so what drives them is instrumentalism. we often times think they're ideology driven. often times they will moderate, and other times they will become more extreme if that allows them, again, to maximize their votes and to win. the last smith i want to leave you with -- myth i want to leave you with is often times we have the sense, policymaker, academics will say it's poor people that are getting recruited into these groups. it's poor people because poverty, they don't have

socioeconomics, they don't have anything, so they join these groups and/or some of these extremist groups. that's why they join, pause they have no other sort of social welfare to sort of turn to. a lot of my research shows that actually doesn't hold true. poverty doesn't drive militancy. and that, actually, the key thing is the thin middle class, the thin middle class is absolutely key. the thin middle class is one of the targeted sort of constituencies. that's where you find the recruitment from. what do i mean by thin middle class? a place like pakistan, it'd be somebody making between 200-1,000 a month. people that are educated, often times from urban areas, gone to public universities. that's where you find, often times, these groups recruiting volunteers, recruiting new members. often times when they design their political platforms, they're reaching out to this constituency. so that's important for us as

policymakers, as academics, as those interested in bridging the divide between u.s. and pakistan to know who are some of these key demographics, who are some of the key constituencies that we often times need to engage with. and i would make the case that it's the thin middle class. so these are the three points i wanted to cover with you, violence is strategic, democratization doesn't necessarily lead to moderation, and why it diverges is because of incentives. the incentives available to some of these political parties, if you want to understand whether pakistan should be negotiating with taliban, you have to look at the sniffs. you have to look at the incentives to whether there was just recently a new head of the party. if you want to look at why at his ceremony he's sitting next to leader of the lashkar-e-taiba, you have to look at the incentives. that's a banned organization both here in the u.s. and

abroad. and i just want to leave you with this anecdote as i sort of wrap up, and that is that recently, a few days ago, you might have seen in the news that one of the leaders of a well known cleric in punjab in the sort of southern part of punjab and pakistan, the largest province, got elected to parliament in election. and what's fascinating about this on many levels is he was the leader, used to be the leader of a banned terrorist organization in pakistan that's now in parol. parliament. and you only have to look as far as my fist point. you have to look at the incentives between islamic political party ands their connections to some of these groups to understand why that happens. and that, you know, often times we look and say how could that happen in place like pakistan? look at the incentives, where do they get their money, and you get a better picture. i can't emphasize how important

it is to understand these organizations, because i truly believe the most poorly understood phenomena in a very critical relationship, and that we these to actually study them, understand them better because then we can actually come up with ideas of how to engage both diplomatically and other side. thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you, haroon, for that wonderful presentation. i'm just going to add to it rather than say anything, repeat any of the points that you have made. i would also make three major points, and they don't necessarily address myths, but they do address some of the ideas about political islam in pakistan. the first of them is that political islam is somehow something that has grown as a result of general he can's regime -- huck's regime or thejihad in afghanistan and that it is a phenomenon of the last two, three decades. i would argue, and i have made that argument in my book, that

actually political islam is at the heart of the origins of pakistan in many ways. pakistan's founding leaders thought that they could use the slow taliban of islam -- slogan of islam in danger and somehow put the genie back in the box. i'm researching my next book right now, and it's amazing the kind of material you come upon when you go back to '45 and '46 and look at the what the muslim league was saying at that time. these were leaders who had studied at of course ford or cambridge -- oxford or cambridge, who had gone to other places for being called -- [inaudible] they were extremely westernized. their personal lifestyle had very little that can with be described as conservative islamic practice. yet, yet to achieve pakistan they mobilized the muslim community especially in punjab

under slow began of islam -- slogan of islam in danger. and it is interesting to see posters from 1946 that talk about sharia rule, how pakistan will have sharia rule or how the founder of pakistan talking about pakistan being a laboratory for islam. and so when pakistan was created, all the religious groups at that time, it was founded in 1941. [speaking in native tongue] all three major organized islamist groups at that time opposed the idea of pakistan because they did not agree with the westernized leadership for pakistan. but once pakistan was created, they saw an opportunity. they saw that now there was a overwhelming majority of muslims concentrated and, therefore, it was easier to demand an islamic way of life or an islamic system

of governance as they called it. and when in 1953 the first major religious riots took place in pakistan, in punjab, and it was held what was known as the inquiry and published the report, if you read that report, it's a very interesting report. he asked almost all leaders of organized religious groups to define what is a muslim. and to define what they believe to be an unbeliever. ask and to define what it meant to have -- and to define what it meant to have an islamic form of government. and none of them agreed. in fact, many of them said things like, things that could be construed as criticizing the other as being infidels or unbelievers. and yet, and yet they all agreed on what ought not to be there. so it was primarily a lot of political islam in pakistan, especially organized political islam, is about the negatives, not necessarily about the positives. they agree on what they do not want, how they do not want

society. it's, in many ways, there is an anti-western slogans, more recently anti-indian slogans that have been adopted and co-opted in their ideology. and so this whole idea, pakistan has gone from the slogan of islam in danger to pakistan in danger, and once again islam in danger when this was an attempt at -- whenever an attempt at secularization is made. now, if you see early pakistan think history, those demanding a secular constitution, an explicitly secular constitution all came from eastern pakistan. east pakistan, they were usually bengali leaders, insisted that the pakistani constitution should explicitly define itself as a secular constitution. ..

first amended the provisions of hot diffusion that clearly led the role that pakistan is going to be an islamic state. having said that, to get into an argument about what does it mean to be an islamic state? third, get certain islamic laws implemented through dictatorship and now that those laws have been made, to argue, you can't undo those laws, even if you have a majority in power. and lastly, what they have done very carefully and smartly as

they have usurped the pakistani national discourse. so what you find right now is a national discourse that is essentially controlled by political islamists. whether it is about policy towards the united states, whether it is about policy towards india, whether it is about domestic policy and therefore a rational political argument is no longer possible or is very limited, very circumscribed. and that has been a very strategic decision as well. if you go back in history again, in 1970, nature generally chari upon which his gaia hans minister was the islamist to win. the election of 1970, which is pakistan's first democratic election. several years after independence , shillelagh argued this is an election between islam loving parties and

non-islam loving parties. again, racing society on the basis of who loves islam boric peered for sin, for, the relatively new slogan islam is their religion, even though they said democracy is our policy in socialism as our economy. traduce in islam in to what was intended to be essentially a secular political party. and if people notice, almost all secular political parties in pakistan had ended up doing something or the other that has contributed to islamization of pakistan, including the most secular national party, which sets in the constitution this is a secular political party. and yeah, when it came to the question of honor killings, for example, they said you know, we don't support the idea of honor killings on the basis of just religion, but basically because

of posh to culture. this kind of twisted logic was again an attempt at dancing on islamist agenda. so i would argue that people make a mistake and i have made that mistake in my past myself in assuming that the number of the islamist matters, i think that the islamist actually will influence in pakistan disproportionate to their numbers by controlling the discourse, by having set up the whole argument about what it means to be a pakistani in creating the whole identity issue in pakistan that revolves around islam and therefore they end up having an advantage that is denied to sackler is to have become diluted over the years. and since washington audiences often like to hear what is a policy recommendation, my recommendation to pakistanis, who many icy a more honest evaluation of pakistan's.

pakistan's history as it is narrated among ourselves is totally admired in next be at a lot of those minutes, for example, what did they want, maybe people didn't know what they wanted. as somebody who was born after the creation of pakistan. i was born in pakistan. i don't need regional debt for pakistan because i was born pakistani. 85% of pakistanis according to today's demographic are born after partition. vitamin a to actually have a mythical view? like you accept that we actually have a country and i try to run the country in the best manner possible and have policy debates rather than ideological debates that always end up benefiting the islamist? whether they have the numbers in parliament or not, continue to hold a kind of veto and have sway in pakistan, totally disproportionate to their numbers.

i am going to stop here. i'm sure there'll be a lot to discuss what we all join shuja nawaz on the panel. [applause] >> thank you, ambassador husain haqqani and thank you haroon ullah. i was ideas and history and i am going to begin by asking if the underlying assumption behind any discussion of the rise of political islamists that somehow this is a bad thing. is it a bad thing? do you see a political change occurring in pakistan, where you

will see an assignment political culture and what implications would it have for pakistan in the region? >> if haroon allows me come i will go first on this was all because i'm the only one on the podium who has been part of an islamist group as a young man. it is a bad thing. it is a bad thing because most islamists, whatever their stripe of color essentially advocating a dictatorship that i would have a claim to self-righteousness and they do not accept pluralism a definition. so therefore, they do not accept others in society. they are devices for that reason. they are also very intolerant of non-muslims. they are also intolerant of other fellow muslims who may have other interpretations of islam. when you and i were kids, people would go and celebrate prophet mohammed's birthday. and we celebrated in the streets

buy him arduous violence free. now it isn't because the hard-core political islamists have decided what if islam instead of allowing society to involve islam. so anthropological, sociological explanations of islam have been taken over by a puritanical formation and definition of islam, which is essentially totalitarian, inherently violent and very intolerant. and my political islamists can be part of the political landscape in any muslim country and probably will be, the manner in which they are in pakistan, they are more likely to divide our society, break it apart, cause more violence and that is something we've been seeing for many, many years. >> before haroon goes, let me ask your second question. his political pakistan equally to blame for not allowing

pluralism? >> absolutely. political islam has its own weaknesses. levitical pakistan has its own problems. today we're discussing political islam. i focus my criticism i'm not. if you want me to open the criticism, i can go on to the military and political classes as well. [laughter] >> great question. i respect what the ambassador said. i take a little different view on this. i think having been in pakistan for a long type on our city mayor, i think there are ways that political islam, and began to sense and how you define it can be value added. i don't service for up to be with the bathwater in the same facing political islamists actually play a valid role in society. i've been to midori says, some of the religious schools where they are respecting religious minorities. or adventure christmas celebrations in mosques. i have seen where the key thing is getting religious leaders. some of these are a new breed of

religious political watch remarries in pakistan. it used to be very separate. either you are from the bully pulpit in a friday sermon and you have your congregation or you are political activists. i think he see a merging of those today. we see a lot of people using the friday sermons to run for office and said they are using that incredible ability to reach out to a lot of people. as we all know, fridays or the day with a political protest happen because that is or you have the street power where people can get out in the streets. to answer the question, i say it depends. i see ways for poetical islam can be value added. as the ambassador said, is criminalizing the insurgency. tonight is criminalizing a certain type of behavior, which is using violence and extra electoral waves, using specifically incendiary rhetoric that often tantalizes religious entrepreneurs to use as exclusionary towards minorities and women. that's the piece of it where i

think you find young pakistanis on the front lines who are trying to fight against that and present a very different narrative about pakistan's future should look like. >> just a very quick comment on that. i hope haroon lives much, much longer than i have lived in sees much of this. i was there when i was like 18 and doubtless because it's very appealing when you are personally religious. you find it very appealing, someone has the religious entrepreneur appeals to you. i have not yet found a single religious entrepreneur in pakistan and a single islamic politician who has not ended up either correcting himself, corrupting the process or causing violence. and here's the reason. what is the unique selling proposition when you're asking in the name of islam? urethane and the best muslim around here. what does that imply aquatic statements denigrating others whose practice of islam.

so as far back as 1970 when there was significant violent than i was 13, 14-year-old working with the jamaat islami -- jamaat-e-islami they are very different people, et cetera, et cetera. but there was always insinuation a suggestion that others are not as good muslims as we are. and that is the beginning of the process of exclusion. the women who don't cover their heads are not good women. they are somehow sluts. the men who don't practice five-time spare are not as good muslims ss. yes, they may be individuals who are particularly nice. i think religion is best manifested in personal piety. religion is best manifested when it is in your heart and it relationship between your soul and god. whenever you try to use it to drum up political support, it is by definition exclusionary and

it is by definition manipulative and exclusion and manipulation don't necessarily lead to different ends. the haroon and i can agree to disagree on this. >> the big difference that has occurred since those days in recent times is the introduction of violence into the political discourse in the emergence of extreme military groups, which are now fighting for space with the religious parties. how do you see that battle going on? quite clearly the religious parties are having to up their rhetoric in order to be seen as matching the militants. >> i think that there is violence -- avocet campus and there is people our group calling the university student politics with their support. they used to argue, you see, we should create some kind of a

force that should separate the others, for example a campus. boys and girls holding each other's hands who are not married to each other. the only means of violence available to them was a fistfight. faintheartedness days nobody had a woman. bill may hit the guys. i of course opposed that, what has changed is the availability of the means of being violent. if it could've been that violent and available then, there probably would've been equally violent. you go back into history. the gentleman known as trustee galen b. goes and kills a guy for writing a book against the prophet. it had probably a thousand, but his mother made the contents of the book even more well known. i personally feel addressing the question of blasphemy is the wrong approach. he was made into a hero of many, many thousand people.

it's been an was celebrated. the militant groups of course i become a threat to the state. they are organized. they have enormous capabilities. their safe havens and operational arrangement and say yes, everyone is focused on them. my argument would be track it and you will find there is a connection between jamaat-e-islami praising osama bin laden and al qaeda in pakistan being able to find workers from among the jamaat-e-islami rank-and-file. there's a whole idea of upping the upping the game and also the means of violence have become more readily available, but the desire to use force -- look, the whole idea of imposition of islamic system, which is indicative to the whole islamist argument need to impose a system of islam. imposing itself is a little element of coercion. >> let me ask haroon, the

degrees it is going on among the islamists, the regular political parties. >> absolutely. i agree with the ambassador. what you find in pakistan is as i've said, you look at the incentives that these political parties. they want to get a piece of the patronage. they want to be in power. what are their money sources from? oftentimes they share their sort of resources from the, you know, shrines. there are musick political economies, businesses around shines in pakistan. that money goes into a mosque. that money goes towards a religious judge burner that funds a party or religious schools are fighting over students because a competitive advantage for religious schools is the more students, more students equals more money. often times if they come to our school and not another. i would say there's a lot of competition between these

groups. the thing about violence and what i've noticed is it has become an urban phenomenon. partly as the ambassador said is the access to weaponry and access to the means of violence. it's become very visible. 15 years ago in pakistan there's only two channels you can watch on. i got 85 plus channels. you're 110 million people who have access to be. 40 million people at 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. in information where you can get new forms of understanding what's going on. i think you find religious political parties are now in that space. they reach out to young people. they reach out to that same middle class. the last one i want to say we actually mostly agree on the role of political islam. my point is if we are to brand political islam the way we are, we have to take up more than just the religious parties. we have to take out the charter, that could have a campaign, look at how they mobilize, to use a lot of these techniques that

political islam is using. he had a tough week and the ron hom. look at what he says about the taliban. he's in power in the northern province. we have to take them out as well. it's obviously an integral part of pakistani society, the party that is how to channel back on the chin of the division. >> i will open it up to the audience. i will recognize you in the order i see you. if i don't, please forgive me. but let's start in the front over here. for renault. -- fred bro. >> thank you very much. an observation and unquestioning. it struck me as no accident that some in city said six on themselves. a question that ambassador haqqani knows i posted many number of american national

security advisers and ambassadors here in ambassadors to pakistan. since september 11th, unlike world war ii and the cold war are we at really quite powerful campaigns of information and propaganda against the enemy, ronald reagan's take down this wall, we've had nothing like that against the extremists of islam and specifically in pakistan, or more generally, what is the united states not been able to come up with a counter narrative to discredit and delegitimize the g hottie radicals. i'm not talking about political islamic parties, but the theology that has become so perverse and so widespread and really many think is allergic to facing us. >> that is to your peer >> you can't beat me because i am a pakistani on the piano. [laughter] >> he is passing the buck. >> i think it's a great question. i see two ways. one is that as i say, they keep

being is for public diplomacy and engagement is criminalizing the. we are trying to criminalize certain types of behavior. the use of violence, sort of the way people working outside the system, not playing by the rules of the democratic system. you find a lot of programs that emphasize this type of values, emphasize civil society, not using violence and ways to push their sort of political agenda. the problem is these groups are so large in different countries. i spent most of my time before a joint state department and the northern areas of pakistan. in fact i have lived in southern punjab. i talked to these people. why did you join? was made to go in this direction? i interview their commanders. for us to combat this, we have to understand what drives people. what i found out a citizen poverty these groups. it is the ideological grievances

we touch upon. if we are going to combat this, what we have to do better able to use authentic local meredith from within those countries whether its pakistan, egypt or the arab spring to sort of combat and prevent a view that undercuts, to show those extremist groups, to show their hypocrisy. i like to describe it as a negative campaign ad. research shows us as you drive the negatives out that these extremist groups. recruit makers down. policy makers try to develop what you said is to undercut -- adding a mac [inaudible] >> we have a lot of days.

[inaudible] >> let me sum up what haroon zane because the audience at home as i heard it, which is why haven't we been able to do this? if you'd like to answer that. >> i think we are trying. a lot of people having served in the field, a lot of people doing the tireless work windows ce. a lot of people in public diplomacy day in and day out. it is tough work to do. so you know, part of it is what are the metrics of success? had we evaluate whether we do a good job or not? are trying to pick out key insurgent groups that pose a threat to the homeland. what we tried to do his undercut support, to the best we can't reach you now. a lot of places we can't get to. in islamabad, i can go to most places i need to because it is after benghazi, after what we see now in terms of the security threats heightened, you can't have public servants and diplomats getting into those areas. we do the best we can using social media, print and tv.

the key thing is used to counterinsurgency. the president on down and secretary had made clear public statements about undercutting groups and being very aggressive about sort of taken away some of their reasons and how they justify being able to commit violence. >> i pose a question to ambassador haqqani, which is this malacca site? >> actually at its pakistan spy. frankly the real problem the americans are having is in figuring out who to work with in pakistan. the traditional paradigm is always the state department's work with the pakistani foreign office kennecott pentagon work for what we talk about where the idea is essentially reaching the people directly. that is be very honest. the u.s. government doesn't do that too well. the reason you are able to do that well in case of germany, you are more directly. you understood them.

you understood the language. you have limited language skills when it comes to countries like pakistan. cultural understanding is difficult. pakistani americans have to be very careful because they don't want to analyze things in a way in which american south pakistan completely. so therefore they're silly to carefully cautiously make it much more difficult to have the kind of information operations you could have against the soviet union against communist ideology and you could have against germany. it is simply not something your government does well. >> thank you. going to go to content over there. and then the gentleman in the back first and then i will come to the other three that i see. >> thank you. thank you very much for the excellent presentation, sir. i wonder if either of the other

speakers would like to examine the role of the military in connection with the rise of political islam. i entirely agree with ambassador haqqani that political islam grows with the idea of pakistan and that was way back in 1940 actually. but, what was it that changed, even with the military? the initial military theaters, whether it's a rube or jhelum, they did not encourage any, should i say, of islam and their style of governance by and large. what changed? >> i have an entire book on the subject. if you allow me a commercial break, the book is called pakistan between mosque and military available on amazon.com. [laughter] if you order by the end of the

evening, you might even get free packaging and handling. just joking. actually, i think there was one major difference. hubley i had to engage the islamic rhetoric. by the time of the 64, he said pakistan has had [speaking in native tongue] et cetera, et cetera. he was not personally available to this man. so they were kind of -- for them to a more islam nationalists. he is a religious man about his own personal religiosity. secondly he arrived from development. guy johan to pressure being a yukon successor in the economist took over tweedledum takes over. tweedledee takes over. he derived his legitimacy for the campaign against bhutto by the national alliance, which is

religious. he needed religion indeed he was easier for him to do that. his family background was such that he did respect the political class a lot more than they did years of the political class got in power. but the islamist direction was always there. although the islamist that yours were not appreciated and approved of by the earlier military leaders. musharraf by the way, which i did not like the islamist political act or spirit but very frankly when it came to cutting deals, et cetera, et cetera, he was always cutting deals with the mma, gui. part of it was politics. it was pragmatic politics on the sharpest part, but also the military's entire national idea is based on a kind of permanent confrontation with hindu india on behalf of muslim pakistan.

so if you're going to defy the country that way, then you have to at some point or another lane on islam as a crutch. that always keeps coming back. the most sort of act as a sign that because of personal religiosity and need for religion for legitimizing it himself. >> ambassador, the most immediate red against muslims. so how does this jive with your description of the use of india? >> the pakistani military actually really does want to do something about the islamist extremists. it really does. the problem is the military fans have become policies and it does not take the bold initiative that same coming to work work, people people described as traders or unbelievers over the last two decades. we have to actually align to fight the people who are heroes

and not their problem because he was painted as a hero because he was a bullet resist to india and kashmir. now is a problem in the military doesn't know what to do with it. that has become a problem of how to change the national discourse. otherwise as far as the military is concerned, you've written about it in your wonderful book, you know, about how the military's character and the officers and some of the ideas from islamist ideas, some of the retired generals reflecting a very different ideology than the means to you. that said, as an institution in the pakistani attorney would be better off if we could have a free hand in pushing the insurgents and criminalizing as haroon said i'm a big hands are tied or by what i call the

national discourse. it is different in pakistan to stand up and say, you know what, let's go revisit our constitution. we don't need a provision in the constitution that declares the community as non-muslims. no other country has it. why should we have it? there are american religious groups that consider each other unbelievers. other christian denominations that consider the other not particularly christian, but you can't make laws about it. can the military do at this point? i don't think so because the national discourse is not possible and then there are people who will set themselves on fire or get killed or be violence in the streets. changing the national discourse is difficult. how do you do it? it is a multibillion dollars question and i don't think any one of us has a full idea of how it can be done. >> let's go to the gentleman at the back. >> thank you. i'm jake so with the american

hindu foundation. icebreaker questions. number one, giving the recent uptick in violence and attacks against minorities and temples burning, christians being convicted for blasphemy and always getting splattered or

demographics who in a direction that young people will be on the front lines to build those communities. ambassador of the christian which should not be too long ago. they were putting posters saying we are one community and quoting and we as a community. i'm heartened by a lot of the new media, current pakistan. 45,000 people came to this amazing open to the public, all the best authors around the world prepared to present the

vanities. so you have this resurgence of kind of literary education and so i think that's very good. a lot of that are profiles the role of religious minorities. a lot of the top dramas on tv. there's a very different narrative created and you saw the tragedies that have been to these other tragedies until other communities and the sunni shia sectarianism is a massive problem in pakistan. i think the new media is presenting the news stories, humanizing it to families, so you see changing over time. >> my response is very quick period of pakistan is to have a future, the reason why i say that isn't 1947, the shia, sunnis, the 73 world together to demand the creation -- demand the creation of pakistan. first, the other three ganged up and excluded them.

now you see people saying come you know what, shia should be excluded. if that is done, the next stage will be among the sunnis there were two basic major commodities. so this is a process that has no end because somebody will find somebody at the practice of religion and not equate or incorrect under all circumstances. and therefore, if pakistan is going through what europe went through after the reformation and pakistanis will have to start recognizing that they need to stand up for their religious minorities. if we don't, then it's not the religious minorities they don't have a future. it would mean that pakistan to teacher is not going to be very bright. >> a brilliant color among the topic, columnist for newspapers in pakistan, which makes the case that everyone in pakistan is a minority.

>> the second part of your question is about bangladesh. their influences and bangladesh of course among pakistan until 71 the inferences they are. i think that there's also a countervailing force and bangladesh in the political discourse in which those calling for bangladesh has been far more powerful than those calling for secular pakistan. in fact, it is translated as ledeen, which means anti-religion, which is not true. and so, in pakistan to just say that, you know, i want a secular pakistan as attracting an attack, a physical attack, that is not the case and bangladesh. they will be a will to solve it a little faster and quicker because it does not overlap with

ethnic issues, which it does in case of pakistan and karachi, a lot of the shia have been to be the hot cheese and pashtun. those intertwined tribal ethnic issues and so why is a political issue there and i think they also have a countervailing force in pakistan. a countervailing force is relatively weak. the mac i spent a lot of time and bangladesh doing research on jamaat-e-islami and i agree wholeheartedly with what the ambassador said that what they had is a very high political consciousness. so pakistan is one of the most politically aware sort of developing countries in the world. you look at what information people get. participation in the heart of where the strikes that go on there. the one thing about it is you had these groups, as the ambassador said, that are mobilized, can be countervailing in jamaat. you have object renderers able

to rally with strong youth student groups on university campuses to make sure that there is sort of very vigorous debate, something you find missing in pakistan. thank you. >> stephen over there and behind him. >> nice presentations. i am at the george washington university. well said, ambassador haqqani that they are rulers in the military or civilian. they may not be religious, but the use islam as a crutch and pursue their own agenda. in that context we have to have a good look at pakistan, bangladesh first created because of 1971 and newer operations against nationalist, military operations and there was operation and send against nationalist and others ongoing

operation against nationalism. i disagree with you partially dead jhelum high politics he wanted to bring in. has it ever occurred to both of the panelists that islam has been used to suppress cultural diversity, nationalist and to keep pakistan is one nation, one islam, one country? >> i made that point earlier already. pointing out the difference between he and delete key, but i agree with you in many cases, islam and political islam has been the means of suppressing ethnic identities and ethnic nationalism and to try and forge a new nationalism that is based purely on an islamic identity and that has been a part of the issue of pakistan.

i thought i had addressed that question, but maybe it didn't come across, so now i made it far more expressive and haroon can speak for himself. >> what i would say one aspect we haven't touched upon his disorder that the personal level, i've met so many lower middle-class families within one family struggling with what you said. so you know, oftentimes we had -- it's very easy to say you're religious or sick or in the ambassador is right to point out that concept is different in pakistan when he traded trent late and understand it. i found families grounded, parents -- middle-class parents that had four children -- three or four or five children. one goes out the other way with the same set of values in the other child goes the other way. families are getting torn apart often times struggling with the issue of patio provide a better future for your kids and how do you with all the talk of the environment oftentimes run

political islam cannot he provide them with a better future and help them navigate? >> nationalism in particular something pakistanis -- some pakistanis, especially those from the punjab deal with all the time because many of them seem to think -- and there were people in other ethnic groups also who think somehow if you confuse the ethnic identity, that identity, that is why i always talk about pakistan as a pluralist nation. pluralist means religious pluralist and linguistically pluralist. i personally feel there's no reason why people should not be taught. india has 27 official languages. there's a reason my pakistan cannot have five. and yet we are functioning. so i always call for pakistan becoming functional rather than ideological state. the geology is essentially a means of trying to create a nationalism that is not ethnic.

it has other complications attached to it because then it creates islamism, which make pakistanis welcome someone from saudi arabia and nobody wants to know who was helping him stay there and rings like that. so those kinds of issues arise with the ssd and the language-based identities. >> thank you. >> i know what the the foreign service institute. the previous speakers asked a lot of the questions i was going to ask about the military. it's amazing but as far into the discourse without mentioning the military. the whole two talks usually in pakistan is like the first question. if i could just tie that --

>> on trying to learn to do it a different way. >> if we could just tie that one off though because my experience in pakistan was at the same time haroon was there, i was also there when he was murdered. i want your perspective on the last four or five years. i think he did characterize musharraf fairly well. i still felt that the military was somehow encouraging this phenomenon in my time there. last, i would like to as, is there a party that is particularly close to the taliban, the ttp? have the ttp gotten far enough to have the legal party the way the ira used to? all right. i will stop. >> i will take a stab at that. i would say that my view -- the

military is confused. i honestly think the pakistani military does not know what to do with some of these groups. they tilt between -- i actually believe they don't have the stomach to go and want to clear up some of the northern areas because it's hard for them to keep on going and as the ambassador said in a rally troops. i lived in those northern areas very tough terrain and to send pakistani soldiers up in those areas to clear out, it's very difficult and they don't want to lose more soldiers in the current climate. i felt there is some lack of military will to be able to do it. they have the strength. they have the human capital, but do they want to play that role because they took a huge hit in the past, even within the country and the surest time in terms of popularity. the crewmember down terms of recruiting the military. i'm not sure they are clear on what to do. it's almost like these things have been created and now the

unintended consequences you're not sure how to deal with some of them. that's in terms of what the operation is. the second point, the gui that is particularly close for a variety of reasons in terms of cooperation with the taliban. you see that revel in that role. they love to play the role as facilitator because that gives them a seat at the table and even though they are small, that gives them strength in the political landscape. the pakistani military created a national narrative under you, resent and called the bureau of national reconstruction to create a specific history of pakistan, you know, where we come from, how we are why we are, et cetera, et cetera. so, here's the military struggle. the only political force that fully embraces the national

narrative that pakistan was meant to be because of certain pacific care or six of the subcontinent, et cetera, et cetera but the warriors of islam are our heroes. now that national narrative coincides with the belief systems that these islamic parties only up to a point. the army still doesn't want to start instead of caps. they don't want to not speak english. they don't want to not have modern elements of life otherwise. so that creates a division. do they embrace a for example a national party or mqm or ppp who have a very different view of what it means to be pakistani, then at least as long as it creates another problem, at

least politically even though the national narratives do not compete that much. so that creates a lot of problems for the average military officer being able to decide which political parties they are on. >> looking at the military's role, it is a blunt instrument and is not ideal for this kind of an ideological battle. that's probably another reason why it would be unwise for either the military or the civilian leadership to rely on the military to solve the problem, which is a political, economic and social, cultural problem. >> i agree. they have contributed to it by using the blunt instrument in the favor of islamism. so yeah, it can't really help finish off with a blunt instrument. >> on -- in 2009, the military

did play a helpful role in the campaign. many people forget which talk about criminalizing insurgency. the pahlavi and in thousand nine during the campaign fell 40 percentage points. it's not static. these insurgent groups go up and down in popularity. popularity goes down camera crew down. you had information broadcasting and played a helpful role. those are the things that can happen. the big question is do they have the political will? >> was new to the gentleman right next to you. thank you. >> thank you. i was curious -- >> yeah, robert byrds. tunisia is far from pakistan. one of the interesting things in the air of spring is tunisia looks as if there is a fairly solid democratic middle that has nullified the islamist tendons

tease to enact the party. i am wondering if there is that kind of quirk is in pakistan -- there's not. i guess you answered the question. [laughter] >> tunisia is very different. tunisia has a higher literacy rate for women. much more inclusion of women in society and spooky the days. they have secularized society. selenium is becoming more bias in religious and spiritual women who are starting to call themselves up again et cetera because that is what the religion one. their understanding of political phenomenon is much clearer. so it understands that you know what, we voted in, but we should be except enough right in voted out because if we don't give the people the right to vote us out, tomorrow they will never vote is icann. the pragmatic side.

pakistan is not necessarily an election and the one election or the flood politicians he wanted me to talk about and i will in another panel sunday when the focus on them. secondly, we've very serious problems on the education front. we give only 1.2% over school-age children between the age of 515 u. don't go to any kind of school. two thirds of her female population is totally illiterate. the creates a very different political, social and cultural dynamic. >> one thing i would to its investors set aside in acute pakistan compared to tunisia is you have to sort of muslim democrats, what i consider them some democrats are played by the rules of green able to neutralize islamist. those elements within the party

that may have wanted to resort to violence. tunisia has a long history of repression. people say this isn't working. in pakistan most muslim democrats are currently in power and it's up to them -- these muslim democrats to bring the law or to visualize islamist because they can see the role. you often times see them as i just said with a jamaat-e-islami leader that got elected to parliament. they shared the same in punjab. that's where the key is because you could have a similar situation in tunisia. again, something he talks about in his book. >> i am at the new america foundation. a question on the narratives are talking about the money being spent. the u.s. government has history of a successful narrative in the

absence of a vibrant media in his population to the tune of $51 million with the university of nebraska to further a communism. since there has been lessons learned from successful narrative operations, how much money has been spent by the u.s. government was counting that narrative in the vibrant media in the country today? my second question is that the pakistani army since 1954, $21 million is the first amount of money given by the u.s. government and continuously have been that level of support. what would be a ballpark figure by the u.s. government to the pakistan army and how much is spent in education and pakistan tories the narrative in the media? unit that's a great question. i don't have all the figures to give you the money, but i can tell uniform is my time and energy goes into public efforts

in the region. particularly pakistan and the type of things bringing pakistanis, a lot of people don't realize we have the largest fulbright program of any country, bringing young pakistanis to american universities, schools, to sort of see the experience now on a smaller level. the one person goes back intoxicant community, gives presentations. that kind of a sharing of ideas. i grew up in small-town america. i grew up in a small town in the middle of eastern washington state. often times people when i was growing up, people turn to me and say what is going on in pakistan? we see this on tv, burning flags, all these things going on. i didn't have a good answer. so that inspired me to go back to packers in. i've cultural familiarity. to really understand in a lot of ways that would make the argument that there's a lot of crossover between small-town america and pakistan. the families i grew up with on my street.

to answer the question is we have to bring up further people to people exchange. i thought american bands come to pakistan. we saw a rock bands, country music fans and it was electric. young people loved it. i think that cultural exchange is critical. again, we may not see this in a year or two years. it's not going to change popularity. unfortunately this in mid-to long-term investment. 15, 20 years, these are people along the frontline. >> it is not america's job. it's not america's role and it's not something americans can do successfully. they end up giving money to individuals and groups that take them. ..

we really admire and appreciate them for what they do but let us stop framing that question purely in terms of what is america going to do to change her narrative? what are we going to do to change her narrative and doing it to change our national narrative for our sake and not for america's sake? >> if i can add one last thing on this i think is so important and i think of growing up in small-town america and it's become a bad word in a lot of places when i visit america. i think it's up to americans to have experience working on pakistan to help tell that story

of a different pakistan that we have seen and interacted with. pakistan is ignored. at ignored. at the end of the day is going to be young pakistanis in pakistan doing this work but there's so much i've seen in terms of the exchange. i agree on the fulbright thing but that's one out of 100 people. i can tell you 20 stories of young people that have done fulbright and gone back and it's because they met and stayed with an american family. they know christian customs. they know jewish customs and they can go back and talk to the community about that. my thing is that luck it's too important to ignore. we have gone through the story before where we have ignored pakistan to our peril so i would say we have continued to engage in pakistan. >> one question over here. trying to see who it was.

[inaudible] >> my name is al hahn and although i am totally in support of what haroon is saying in terms of the future that lies within people and you see that an arab world where it's young people through twitter and social media interactions that are really kind of giving a different picture to what's going on in terms of islamization and radicalizradicaliz ation of those countries but i'm intrigued about what you said earlier in terms of the solution in pakistan being a combination of two things. one is providing a countering narrative in the second is criminalizing violence. so it seems to me that to criminalize violence you have to have a working law enforcement system and a working judicial system and i don't think you have any of those in pakistan. so i feel like we are in the scenario of there's a hole in my bucket dear liza because you know nothing works.

i'm currently doing research on human rights in pakistan and it's very depressing because i don't see any ,-com,-com ma i don't see anyplace where i can say here's where we can grab onto it and start from here and then we can build on top of that everywhere you look it's a broken system. so i would like to hear your views on that. >> it's a great question. >> there are a couple of things. yes it's very easy to get depressed about pakistan. believe me you have lifted and i have lived there and shoot judge judge -- shuja went there. when i lived there i've seen some the programs whether literacy programs whether it's the fulbright program's education programs english access programs. there are so many things going on there and we don't hear those stories in the media. and yet they are doing it. i met the children learning english in the schools. we have the largest english-language access program

in the world. i was in the schools and i used to live in those swamps. what i'm saying is that we are empowering those young people and the people-to-people exchange. and it's amazing with the christian missionaries do in pakistan. we are set up by christian missionaries back in the 20s and 30s the st. patrick's in the st. mary's former christian college so i firmly believe the government may not have all the answers but it's civil society the people-to-people exchange of more americans going to pakistan and pakistanis coming to america. you see these young people have to take it up and they will have to improve. it's a very young nation, 60% under the age of 30 to have that fight against that narrative. it's tough and oftentimeoftentime s it's going to be depressing. you can become desensitized. i've lost countless numbers of france in pakistan and there are times when i'm saying i can do this anymore and yet then i meet young people that are doing

inspiring work and that reminds me we can't ignore pakistan because we did that in the past and he came back to hurt us in many ways. >> thank you haroon and my apologies to those i couldn't recognize it as we now run out of time. thank you again to the audience at home via c-span. thank you all for coming here and making this such a successful event in my special thanks to ambassador haqqani and haroon ullah for sharing their wisdom with us. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> here is google data center one and here is google data center number two and here's the line between them. the nsa goes in and sits on that pipe and takes in anything and everything it wants from that even though hundreds of millions of clinic patients are incidentally collected. why is that? >> let me try to understand the premise that you are suggesting. you believe that gmail should be a safe haven for legitimate foreign intelligence into the united states?

that's exactly how i translate your question. if i'm not on that wire i am not collecting gmail users. this begins to hurt your head. we just spend our whole evening here and we haven't gotten off until 2:15. the approach you use in collecting signals intelligence looks a bit like a funnel. so you have got access here in and the next step is you collect and then you process and then you read, or listen. you analyze, you draw up a report and then you disseminate. so you get the picture here? and the funnel gets smaller and very often people use that number out here that describes the potential access and then impede that number way up the

chain to the far more sophisticated and narrowly focused activities here. that's not true. i go back to my premise. gmail is not a safe haven. google is an international company. a lot of people -- google is a u.s. person in certain circumstances. by the way that's actually not their cable. it's a virtual cable that they use. again i ask you the question, hotmail, gmail safe havens? these are global e-mail providers. they are used by everyone and is your theory that you can't touch it? air schmitt is going to be really mad.

the first thing i would do is not let the largest cable tv company by the second largest cable tv company. that is where i would start. my job here on the judiciary committee is to you know at these hearings is to raise my concerns and mr. cohen. mr. cohen seems that the really smart guy and he's a really great guy i am sure it and i can say about him he earns you no sort of what he got. but my job was to ask the tough questions. you see they have 107 lobbyists on capitol hill. they are swarming capitol hill

with lobbyists. you know but i have 100,000, i have more than 100,000 people writing me their objectionobjection s. the first thing i would do is stop the needle and not let this go further. it's not up to me. it's up to the fcc or the doj. >> afghanistan's presidential elections were just over a week ago. they marked the first peaceful democratic transitiotransitio n of power in the country's history. the former afghan ambassador to canada and france called the elections historic and groundbreaking. he spoke last week on a panel that was hosted by the alliance and supported the afghan people and the partnership for a secure america. the discussion is about an hour. >> thank you off for coming.

we are having a panel today entitled the afghan elections and the future of u.s. afghan relations. as you know the elections to place on saturday in afghanistan and our panel will discuss what we know so far and what the consequences are likely to be of those elections. my name is andy. i'm the executive director of the partnership for secure america and we are proud and happy to co-sponsor this panel with the alliance in support of the afghan people a staff. the alliance itself is a group of individuals who are in a coalition dedicated to support the promises made by the afghan people over the last decade. the psa partnership for a secure america is an organization founded in 2005 dedicated to the idea that we ought to end the

need to promote fact-based bipartisan approach to foreign policy and national security. over the years what we have done has issued a number of statements on key policy issues and we have a very exciting and very interesting model professional staff program that we have been doing since 2009. i want to get right onto the panel discussion. let me introduce our moderator from the panel caroline wadhams who is a senior fellow at the center for american progress. first of all i should say we also welcome c-span3 who are going to be telecasting this program today and those of you who are interested and want to twitter we are at hashtag afghan elections panel, hashtag's afghan election panel so caroline wadhams is as i said a fellow senior at the american progress and she is an expert and is written extensively on issues in south asia and on

terrorism. she has had some time and spent some time here in congress on the senate side as i have in my previous incarnations. she has also worked at the council on foreign relations as an election observer in the afghan parliamentary elections in september of 2010 and in pakistan's parliamentary election in february 2008. so with that i will pass on to caroline who will give the introductions and we will get started. >> thanks, andy and hi everyone. thanks for coming today. we have a great panel here and i'm going to quickly add a little bit more about the alliance in support of the afghan people of which i remember as an alliance bipartisan coalition of afghan and american individuals and as andy said it's really organized around this idea that there has been progress made in

afghanistan. maybe it's not to the extent that we hope given the investment but there is progress and it deserves to be sustained. and while the members of this coalition don't agree on every detail of policies moving forward we do have a general sense that there is a shared belief that we should remain engaged in afghanistan and that we should continue supporting the afghan people. so we have a panel here to discuss saturday's events and the implications of the elections even though we don't know the results yet. i think it was an exciting day and exceeded many of our expectations. i think a lot of us were especially concerned about some kind of spectacular attack and we saw you know, while there were incidents overall it seemed to go off well and the turnout

was great especially in the cities. i know that many of us who were on these lists serves received e-mails from afghans in country who were just so excited and it was really inspiring to see that unfold. so i'm going to quickly introduce the panelists here. i'm not going to get into all the details of their idols, but let me tell you a little bit about all of them. to my immediate right is ambassador omar samad who is the founder and president of silk road. he was previously with usip and then before that was the afghan ambassador to both canada and france. he is a prolific writer and is often commenting on politics in afghanistan and the regional implications. so thank you so much for being here ambassador samad. then we have jeb ober.

jeb is the director programs a democracy international and he is responsible for overseeing the implementation of di oversees programs. he in 2010 was the chief of staff in kabul for the election observation mission on which i served and so i have worked closely with jeb. jeb knows how all of these technical processes work for elections in afghanistan but also around the world and we are really delighted to have him here to explain where we are now and where the process could go. and finally we have lisa curtis who is a senior research fellow at the heritage foundation. she has been there since 2006 and prior to that lisa was a member of the professional staff on the senate foreign relations committee working for senator lugar who is the chairman at the time. she has also worked for south

and central asia office at the state department for the foreign service for the cia and has had a wealth of experience so thank you lisa. we are going to start with ambassador samad and if you could just give us your assessment of what happened on saturday and what you think this means moving forward for afghans but also for the united states. thank you. >> thank you so much. thank you so much and i'm happy to be here and thank you to partnership for a secure america and a staff as well for putting this together. glad to be on this panel. saturday turned out to be a historic and groundbreaking day for afghanistan. i think not many people expect it this type of turnout on

election day in afghanistan and didn't expect the afghan forces, security forces to be able to control the situation as best as they did and didn't expect the afghan, the men and the women of the country to line up in a regimented manner in an organized manner which was not the case in afghanistan and be very patient, patiently await their turn to cast a vote and didn't expect these polling stations to run out of forms. so in my opinion as an afghan and i'm very proud of what happened and i feel that it was momentous and it was historic in the watershed wamp -- moment in one that set several very important messages. the first message was from the afghan citizen to the country as

a whole and the nation as a whole saying we all one. our destiny has one. we have come from a common background and history, 35 years more or less of turmoil, conflict and now in the last 30 years have laid the foundation for something better for the country. there was a lot of doubt as to whether the foundation has been labeled in afghanisafghanis tan and from a political perspective and from a nation in a state-building perspective we see that the constitutional order that was put in place in 2004 and then resulted in a lot of work on different fronts trying to develop democracy in afghanistan is paying off. i do not want to sound overly optimistic to cuss i think that we have crossed one hurdle or

maybe several but one major hurdle on saturday and we have several more ahead of us and this electoral process itself is still unfolding by the minute. just half an hour ago or so i saw on twitter that there is breaking news saying that one of the leading candidates, one of the top three is thinking of dropping now eco-'s his team does not seem to be picking up traction and he may be dropping his discussion with at least one or two of the other main candidates, the front-runners. so you can see afghanistan on an hour-by-hour, day by day basis

is in my opinion trying to find its way and doing so in a peaceful manner as we are going to be experiencing the first peaceful democratic transfer of power in the history of the country. the other message was obviously to those who wanted to distract this process. we all saw what the taliban did and are capable of doing by sending suicide bombers and planting ieds and targeting candidates and ordinary people. mostly soft targets and that did not happen. that was not realized. on one hand because the afghan security forces did an amazing job. i think the intelligence services in afghanistan did an amazing job. the head of intelligence today said that they had 3400 reports of incidents that were going to

occur across the country on april 4 and 5th and that almost all of them were neutralized. as a result more than 50 or so militants who had been sent by suicide bombers and so on and so forth were killed and more than 90 were arrested all part of different types of operations. i think that speaks very loudly to the fact that the afghan security forces have now reached a certain level of capacity that was not observed in the 2009 elections at least. i think the message sent to the taliban is that your narrative does not have any followers in afghanistan, that the afghan people have chosen to support a democratic future, that you know

this tactic or the strategy whatever you want to call it used over the years of trying to intimidate and threaten and kill and maim and so on and so forth is not going to dissuade afghans from a better future. and it also sent a message to regional supporters of the taliban that their strategy needs to be probably reviewed, that now they are facing the afghan people and the afghan forces now numbering more than 350,000 and there are other ways of trying to come to terms. i hope that message is heard loud and clear in afghanistan by the supporters of the taliban and outside afghanistan that those who have historically supported radicalism and such a

mind-set on the afghan people. then there was a message to the international community, a message i think to especially those who have been on the side of the afghan people for the last 30 years and that obviously includes the united states at the top of the list was that well, you see we are not that backward and that much tribal as some people pretended and we are not as primitive and that this democracy is not all bad and wrong and that we do, we are going to embrace it. and so all your efforts, all your blood and treasure that has been spent in afghanistan has not been in vain and so we look forward to continuing to work with the international community. i think that the message was clear that the afghans are not yet ready to take care of

everything themselves. they do not have the means and the resources to do so but they are i think appreciative of what the united states and others have done. they do understand the international community has paid the bills for this election and that this will be the path to the future so we can look forward to a reset in relationships with washington and others and i think we can look forward to the signing of the psa with a new government in place soon. there are also rumors that mr. karzai may decide to have one of his ministers sign it before transfer of power but regardless the psa in my opinion is seen by most afghans have not all afghans as a cornerstone of future relations with united states and they need to be also another partner in the future.

there's the whole donor community those that have pledged to continue to help afghanistan for the next few years. so all of this is good but let me just and. we are going to have a discussion later on but let me end by saying that there are some major hurdles ahead as i mentioned earlier. there are challenges ahead with the process that the expectation in afghanistan is that everyone's vote, the vote cast on saturday should count and everyone's vote should he respected and the afghan will be respected and in order to do so the process whatever mechanisms are in place, have to deal with elections and the next steps in the elections which is counting the votes and handling the votes and transferring the votes from one place to another and eventually tallying the votes and doing the part that has to

do with the complaints process of adjudication and so on and so forth has to be handled in the same manner as the elections were handled so far. it has to be according to the rules. it has to be transparent. it has to be as fair and as just as possible. if we can overcome these challenges then i think that we all may be in a position to celebrate because i think that will be very good news knowing that the afghan electoral system has functioned as it should and the results would have to be accepted by whoever is the winner and the result has to be accepted by whomever is the loser. >> thank you so much ambassador samad. jeb we know democracy international has a team of people that are there and has

been following this and i know you just returned recently from afghanistan so could you talk a little bit about sort of the initial assessment of what is happening and where things are going with the process? thank you. >> thank you caroline and i want to thank the partnership for secure america and asap as well for having us here today on this extremely well-timed discussion of the elections that just took lace in afghanistan on saturday. we have had a modest election observation, international election observation on the ground there in kabul. we have been a large part observing the political process in afghanistan since we observed the 2009 presidential provincial council elections so we have been followers of this process for quite some time. our initial assessments are very much consistent with then