tv Book TV CSPAN March 22, 2015 1:00pm-3:01pm EDT
1:00 pm
>> could i say one thing and. >> host: you can. >> guest: "going to pot" book.com, if people have questions, complaints want to say things about me, that's fine. >> host: at a point of fact if they want to say thinged about me they should also go there because i don't want to hear it. >> guest: yeah. everything you want to aim at joe, aim at me. i've heard it before. >> host: bill, this is great, thank you for doing this. >> guest: my pleasure. thank you, sir.
1:01 pm
now joining us on booktv is robert george, professor of juris prudence here at princeton, university. way want to talk to him about his recent book "conscience and its enemies: confronting the dog mas of liberal secularism." dr. george oh, do you you define liberal secular system. >> guest: a view about human detonation and dignity that competes with other views some secular but not liberal, some religious. it's a view that is very common in places like the one where we are right now university communities. i would venture to say it's the predominant view in the elite
1:02 pm
sector our our culture and prominent in europe, which has become a very secular society. it embraces ideas about liberty and the personality, about the nature of human beings about ethics that are distinctive in our own time. it's associated with socially liberal views about matters of sexuality, abortion life and death issues. generally identity issues. kind of the spectrum of so-called hot button morally charged issues in our own culture. so that is the view that i am writing the book against. although i hope respectfully because it's a view that's got very credible supporters, and i want to do them the justice that they deserve. they put forward arguments. i want to put forward counter-argentinaments. >> i found, you write that
1:03 pm
secular liberal views are so widespread as to go largely unquestioned, as a result many yield. the take that anybody who disagree with them is a -- reason and science they believe are on their side. >> guest: uh-huh. that's me. >> host: anything you want to add to that? >> guest: no. i think i said what i want to say there. i'd be happy to defend it, though. of course i wasn't talking about the dominance of that particular view of liberal secularism and the culture generally. it's dominant in the elite sector of the culture. our culture is divide. popular opinion is very different from elite opinion. by definition elite opinion is more influential than popular opinion. william f. buckley caulk the spirit when he talked about his preference for being governed by the first 800 names in the boston telephone director rather
1:04 pm
than being governed by the harvard faculty. he was recognizing on a range of morally important issues in our culture then and now if you ask 800 people in the boston phonebook or the trentup, new jersey, phone book, or the lynchburg, virginia, phone burk, for their opinion about abortion marriage affirmative action capital punish; you're going to get an answer very different from the answer you get if you asked 800 people from a major professional association. or the journalistic establishment, or university professors. that's the division that we have in the country culturally. >> host: what are your three pillars of a decent society? >> guest: they are respect for the person and his fundamental dignity. in a decent society, human beings persons, individuals will not be regarded as means to larger ends social ends, going
1:05 pm
beyond the person. they will not be cogs in a collectivist wheel, but rather will be the ends for which other things, including the great institutions of law and the economy and the political system are means. a view that persons are what ultimately matter, and persons have a unique inherent profound and equal dignity. and that is for the sake of which we -- for the sake of that that we want there to be a productive economy, we want there to be fair legal system we want there to be a political system that respects people's basic rights and gives them the right to participation, what we call democracy or republic republic government. so that's the first pillar. the second pillar is the institution of the family. the fundamental unit of society, based on the marital bond that brings people into the world and gives people their fundamental care and nurturing and
1:06 pm
education, at least until they reach majority for the first 16 or 18 or 21 years of their lives. i think we go astray when we try to substitute say, state-run operations for the family. the family in my view is the original best department of health education and welfare. it does better than any other institution can do. fundamental job of deliver those services and transmitting to each new generation the virtues, resources, traits of character and the understandings to be good citizens and to be good people of. all the other institutions of society, the economy the political system the legal system, depend on their being fairly large number of people who are decent honorable hard-working, who will obey the law not because they fear punishment but because they believe it's the right thing to do. they'll obey out of conscience. and those institutions can't produce such people.
1:07 pm
business firms need employees who are honest. they need managers who will be responsible. they need muchers of goods and services who will pay their bills but they can't produce such people. they produce the virtues that enable them to draw on a pool of hard-working, honest employees, managers payers of bills for good ands services. if those people are to intis exist they have be to produce bid another institution, namely the family. the same for the legal system and the political system. our political system our legal tent depends on most people most of the time doing the right thing, not because they fear detext and punishment but because it's the right thing to do. but president obama or president bush can't simply issue an edict saying there will be virtuous people. the supreme court can't hand down a ruling requiring that people be virtuous. if people will have those virtues to do the right thing
1:08 pm
most of the time because it's the right thing, it's because they have been brought up in a tradition of virtue by their families. so i think family is the second pillar of a decent society. a healthy functioning, vibrant marriage and family culture. it's indispensable. now, such a culture will not be only the family. there will be institutions that support the family in its work. religious institutions, for example. the other institutions of what tocqueville called civil society. neighborhood associations unions ethnic clubs, fraternal organizations, civic associations of every sort, boy scouts, camp fire girls, all of these institutions have their fundamental social significance in assisting the family in its health education and welfare function. to say what i've said about the family is not to denigrate the role of government and the state. we could not get along with
1:09 pm
simple play community of communities -- a community of families without any policy but it's to say that there's a fundamental role for the family that can't be substituted for. when the state, as sometimes it has to do, steps in to take over the role of the family, let's say because the family has broken down in a community, it's going to do the best it can but it will not be able to do well what the healthy functioning family can do. then the third pillar of decent societies is having a vibrant, productive fair honest, legal system. and political system. one in which people's fundamental rights, including their rights as individual persons to be treated with respect and dignity are observed, they're honored. where people are protected
1:10 pm
against predation from private actors where the government itself restrains itself from interfering, writ shouldn't interfere, or for violating people's rights or reducing people to the mere status of means to other ended or cogs in the machine. they're when things go hay wire you get tyranny communism, fascism, bit but where you don't have a fair, efficient system of government pretty soon you're going to lose those other two pillars of society. they'll disappear. so these three pillars, a culture of respect for the individual person and his dignity, a vibrant flourishing family culture, and a fair and effective system of government. those are the three pilfers a decent society for me. >> host: is the respect of an individual's dignity the same as respect for freedom for the
1:11 pm
individual? >> guest: it includes respect for freedom of the individual so long as we understand freedom to be not simply doing whatever you want whenever you want with whomever you want for whatever you reason you wont anytime you want. what our founders distinguished from freedom as license, respect for people's honorable liberties. their basic civil liberties, the freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, the free dom of the press, basic lischs we americans associate with our bill of rights. due process of law. the equal protection of the laws. those are essential to the dignity of the human being and there the role of government twofold. one, it's to protect those basic civil rights and civil liberties. what we now have taken to calling human rights and also to respect them themselves. so as james madison famously said in the federalist papers, the job of government is to
1:12 pm
restrain people from violating each other's rights but also to restrain itself from doing the same thing. so governments have to operate within its own limits even as i tries to protect people from other people violating their rights. >> host: often people think of individual rights they think of topical issues such as abortion or ought north carolina ya. are those individual right snooze i don't think there are. it's a moral argument for any punitive right. the free to speech is a moral obligation, the right that people have right to anything clawing freedom of speech,. is it mobile proposition and we need to identify what the reasons are for it. now, there some people who believe -- i'm not one of them -- that people have right to kill themselves or a right to assistance of others in killing themselves or have a right to destroy the life of a child in
1:13 pm
the womb by abortion. i want to know what the argument is for that and i want to be able to present the counterargument and in conscience and its enemy is present the counterargue in both cases. >> host: when it comes to family gay marriage, gay families, are those included in the pillar of family in your definition? >> guest: i think family is the unit that is based on the conjugal relationship of husband and wife. so i criticize the idea that marriage is simply a romantic sexual partnership of any two persons of either sex. i don't think any argument can successfully be made for abandonnen the conjugal of marriage a husband and wife in favor of the view of two persons of the same sex that won't by the same token entail entail as matter of principle that three people or four people or five people can be married in a sexual romantic partnership
1:14 pm
raise children together have a household together and so forth. i think that if we recognize same-sex partnerships as true marriages, we have abandoned the basic idea of marriage. we will lose any principled basis for affirming the traditional norms of marriage, such as exclusivity. permanentens of commitment. subjectively people may for whatever reasons perhaps just out of tradition or habit, feel that they want to stick with those norms that marriage is two people and not three or four should be sexually closed rather than open, it should be a permanent commitment rather than a temporary commitment. but those will be subjective desires there won't by a principled basis for maintaining maintaining the formed. would have to be in the idea of marriage as a conjugal partnership, protect --
1:15 pm
procreative union of husband and wife. my arrangement is that marriage is the union that brings together man and woman as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children born of that union, conferring upon those children the insystemmable gift of being brought up in the committed bond of marital love of the two people whose union brought them into being. and giving to those children of all goes well and things work out, but giving those children both maternal and paternal influences and care. not every marriage will have children but every child will have a mother and a father, and what think we need to do culturally from the moral point of view is our best to ensure that as many children as possible are brought up in the bond of the mother and father who broth them into being. that can't always be true and where it isn't able to be true won't happen or can't happen
1:16 pm
because of death or desertion or marital breakup or what have you, we have ways to deal with that as best we can to try to the extent possible to put children in the best possible situation, but culturally our ideals and laws so be truck toured to maximize the odds that children will be brought up in that bond. >> host: where kid you come up with the title, cop sheens and its enemies. >> guest: the tight of one of the essays. the chapters are eggs says i have written over the past eight or ten years, addressing a range of topics in constitutional law ethics political philosophy and related fields, and the essay, conscious and its enemies, was a criticism of a report by the american college of on stick tricks and gynecology which proposed placing strict limits -- it was the ethics committee report -- strict limits on the ability of physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers to decline to participate in abortions and similar procedures they had
1:17 pm
moral objections to. and that disrespect for conscious is what produced the title for that is say and then the essay became the title for the into. >> host: who is john finnis. >> guest: my doctoral supervisors at oxford. he is a professor of law and festival at oxford university. he is regarded as the world's leading -- i think rightly regarded as the world residents leading theorist of the tradition of natural law the tradition of thought about law and politics and morality that begins with the ancient greeks and with plato and aristotle that we find among the roman jurists, figures such as cicero which was articulated by st. thomas aquinas, and other leading chin thinkers, address by the informed and enlightenment thinker, the great protestant reformers like john
1:18 pm
lock which carries on to this day as one of the leading competitors in the field of political philosophy for the role of being the right view the best view, about law and morality and politics and the relationship among them. so dr. finnist is someone i learned an enormous amount from at a student and continue to learn from. still very active as a scholar. >> host: you're a professor here at princeton now but what has been your government service? >> guest: i've had three wonderful opportunities to contribute to government service, from 1992 to 1998. served as a presidential appointee on the united states commission on civil rights. i was appointed on president george h.w. bush's last morning in office so i was -- if not midnight appointment, was a noon appointment and i carried over
1:19 pm
into president clinton's second term. then in 2002 i was appointed by pressure george w. bush to the president's council on bioethics and had the pleasure of serving on the great leon cast a great bioethicist of our time from the university of chicago until he stepped down as chairman and handed the chair over to edmund pellegrino, another very, very distinguished bioethicist, and then since 2012 i've been serving on the united states commission on international religious freedom. that's a bipartisan independent government agency in many ways like the u.s. commission on civil rights. there are nine of us serving on the commission, five democrat appointees four republican appointees, i was appointed by john boehner and then elected by me colleagues to a term as chairman. so i've served as chairman of that commission. then served on a united nations commission, which is the world commission on the ethics ethics of
1:20 pm
scientific knowledge and technology and most of my work on that commission had to do with bioethics. >> host: the country's most influential conservative christian thinker says "the new york times," about you. >> guest: well, i'm a conservative so i tend not to believe things "the new york times" says. so i guess i'm estopped, as the lawyers say, from claiming credit for being an influential shall conservative christian thinker. >> host: george will calls you an intellectual pinup. >> guest: i'm glad he said intellectual. >> host: you have a plush on the book from elena kagan. >> guest: i do. >> host: people may be surprised about. >> guest: well, i'm delighted to have that. i'm honored to have justice kagans own doorsment. >> host: is she a friend of yours? >> guest: we're not close friends but we are friends. i have great respect for her. i'm honored she would say such a nice thing about me is what
1:21 pm
she says in that blush blurb. i have never had difficulty having good friendships across ideological line. i don't regard people on the other side as my adversaries. i regard. the as my friends and a common project of truth, seeking. for example i regularly teach, i'm teaching now, with my colleague and very dear friend, professor cornell west. professor west sees the world differently from they way die in very many ways. he is very much a man of the left. i'm on the conservative side of the spectrum. let i learn a lot from him and he pays me the commit he learns from me, and our students learn an awful lot about the engagement between us. we have bond that is stronger than dwight us and that is wanting to engage with each other with the goal of getting closer to the truth, closer to seeing what is really going on, deeper in our understanding of
1:22 pm
things. if i can venture to say so to gain some with from from interactions. very often i find that i've misunderstood a position he holds because i hadn't yet heard him make the argument for the position. he says the same thing about his experience with me. he won't understand why a conservative would hold a certain point of view until he actually hears the argue. laid out carefully in a circumstance that is not a formal public debate where somebody is trying to win. but you're just in the informal circumstance of the classroom or perhaps over a glass of wine at night, or over dinner, hearing the argument and presenting the argument and engaging with each other. and i feel the same way about -- i was going to say dean kagan, because when i got to know hershey was dean of the harvard law school but justice kagan.
1:23 pm
although we disagree about most of the great issues that divide liberals and conservatives and constitutional law and politics, she is a person i learn from. >> host: is your joint class with cornell west a sellout? >> guest: yes. it's oversubscribed. we do it as a seminar and that's too bad because we have to restrict it to 18 students and many multiples of that number want to get into the seminar but the seminar format does serve to enable us to engage each other in a very deep and serious way. i don't think we could do what we do with and for each other if we were performing in front of a class of 700 or 800 students which i think is what we would get if we turned it into a large undergraduate lecture type class. so we have kept it as a september -- those who participate will get the benefit of a rather deep engagement. >> robert george something you talk about in your book but
1:24 pm
does the judiciary branch have too much power? >> i think it has claimed too much power and the other branches have acquiesced in the claims. i am inclined more toward the views of jefferson, and particularly lincoln, about the limits on judicial power. the founders of our nation if we three-quarter federalist papers those great comment tears on the constitution that were published as arguments for the ratification of the constitution we see the judiciary there depicted as the least dangerous branch, the branch that would be weakest and least powerful but would play a very important role nonetheless. i don't think the founders had any conception of the judiciary as powerful as it has turn out to be in our own time. now, sometimes they use the power to do good. sometimes they use to the power to do bad. that the thing about power. the power to do good is also the power to do bad, and what i want to argue for is for each of the
1:25 pm
three branches to strictly remain within the limits of their own power and do toe avoid usurping the authority of the other branches of government and above all to avoid usurping the authority of the democratically constituted american people who are actually supposed to be senator our constitutional system. so can i'm with lincoln in rejecting the idea of judicial supremacy. i think what we need is constitutional supremacy, but that means that all three of the branches of the federal government and ultimately the people themselves, are going to have to take responsibility for the constitution and for respecting the scope and limits of the powers of the different branches understand the constitution. >> host: you have a chapter about liberal fallacy. what's a liberal fallacy? i'm trying tomorrow what that chapter was about. >> host: now i've lost my place.
1:26 pm
>> guest: that is a critique of mario cuomo, the late governor of new york, who argued famously at notre dame, at the university of notre dame that he as a catholic and committed prolife person could nevertheless support also he did support, legal abortion at almost in point in pregnancy for any reason, and then epublic funding of abortion. and my argument there was that was simply straightforwardly a fallacy that if you believed that abortion is something fundamentally wrong, unjust a violation of human rights which would be the only reason you would have actually for opposing borings because it's taking the life of a child in the womb who is a creature of -- a human being, living individual member of the human speaks who has rights just like anyone else. of you accept that for the premise for being pro life, then the logic will take you to the
1:27 pm
need for that human being to enjoy the same equal legal protections of any other human being. now, if you don't accept that premise, if you think there's nothing wrong with abortion because it's not taking a life or you think it's taking a life but not a human life or you think it's taking a human life but not the life of a human person because you distinguish human being from person and not all human beings are persons, only some human beings are person, only human beings are persons if they achieved a certain age of development. if you take that view then you at least have a logically sound reason for your belief that abortion should be legal and perhaps even publicly funded. but that's not cuomo's view. he view was he had very good reasons for being permanently pro life but those reasons were not sufficient to warrant him supporting the use of public law to protect the right to life and the unborn child, and there was his fallacy. >> host: why are you conservative? >> guest: i didn't used to be. i grew up as a liberal at least
1:28 pm
in the old fashioned sense of liberal in the sense that we would call hubert humphrey, for example, liberal, or john f. kennedy a liberal or martin luther king a liberal. i grew up in west virginia. both my grandfather began as coalminers. one stayed in the mines his entire life. the other one managed to work his way out of the mines and into the grocery store business but they were believers in the democratic party, and the united mine workers of america and in franklin delano roosevelt and maybe not in that order. roosevelt in my house was worshiped as a kind of demi god but that was a different liberal jim. it did believe that government should be active in helping people. ill set operated roosevelt's -- celebrated roosevelt's new deal as having been important to keeping people's morial -- morale up in the depression and
1:29 pm
put food on the table for people who were really needy and getting us oust the depression. i have come, as many historians and economists have come to doubt that story about the new deal. it's partially true but also partially not true. the new deal didn't actually get us out of the depression, for example. but that was a belief in which i was brought up. in my high school years i was active in the young democrats and i was twice elected governor of the west virginia democratic youth conference in 1976 i was an alternate delegate from west virginia at the democratic national convention that nominated jimmy carter. i was myself a supporter of jimmy carter. ...
1:35 pm
processes that are typical for cities of the nation. it tells an american story. it is not just a freak accident of nature. it is not just baltimoreans living in poverty. it is about how our government and society interact with impoverished people a disproportionate number of homes happened to be african-americans. >> host: what is the population of west baltimore? what are some of the demographics? >> guest: the neighborhoods where he conducted my research and was immersed or neighborhoods which are predominately black were more than a third of young women in their teens have had at least one child, where income level numbers surpass 10 to $15000 a
1:36 pm
year and where most significantly government did to tuitions, are ever present. i believe one of the contributions of the book is to show for the first time the extent to which poverty in the united states is characterized not just find material but also by the overwhelming presence of government officials in the life of the poor. recently i was interviewed by a different organization and i notice that they do in the book that it is not unusual for a child born in west baltimore to be seen by a social worker before the child is seen by her or his mother. the interlocutor asked what is wrong with that good nothing in particular, but it -- at the beginning of a trend in which a
1:37 pm
child is as much the object is concerned of government officials faceted their parents. i'm sure you've realized that it's not exactly would have been too middle-class families living in affluent neighborhoods. a child or number those circumstances will soon be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, will be attending schools that are understaffed, overburdened and often underfunded well in the early teens already have had some contact with government officials, whether in the form of social worker's original form of correctional officers. it's not very difficult when you are a in these neighborhoods to be perceived as the potential risk to society. by your early 20s your life has pretty much been determined and it has occurred very much interaction with government
1:38 pm
officials. i do give special attention into this book a something that has not been sufficiently documented of which i feel constitutes the underbelly of success in the united states and that is the role that child protective services place with respect to impoverished families. impoverished families are overrepresented accused of actual child abuse. but i think we know now we both affirm statistical accounts that most people who are in trouble with an organization whose mission is to protect children are people who are impoverished. that presents a problem as they try to state in this book the mission of child protect its services is often in conflict and that is the intrusive
1:39 pm
measures on the part of these minimal institutions such as child protective services interfere with the authority of parents and fracture what they have with respect to their children. >> host: why did you choose west baltimore? >> guest: west baltimore chose me. i was a member of the faculty and i was affiliated with the institute the great institution. originally i sat out to do some research in baltimore in those neighborhoods after the publication of a very important book by william julius wilson bill wilson now at harvard, then i chicago. it was a book published in 1987 called the truly disadvantaged. that book argued very
1:40 pm
persuasively and very importantly a part of the problem faced by low-income african-americans had to do with processes at deindustrialization and outsourcing. i was curious to know whether that was happening in baltimore because as you know also more was a mid-level industrial city in the 1970s about 34,000 people were employed. by the time i started looking into this question, in much smaller number of people were employed as bedlam still have been curtailing operations and moving them to overseas locations. as they try to ride in this book, it was not very difficult to confirm what the wilson had found in chicago. that is deindustrialization to close their factories and other
1:41 pm
industrial facilities has had an especially dire attempt upon african-american working families. but then something surprising happened and that is that i found myself surrounded by lots of children children who were vivacious and had ambition before the age of 12 and that led me to become interested in the way in which children perceive their surroundings and with the actual conditions of their life were in those neighborhoods. i write in the introduction i need them long enough and well enough that i can actually trace their life over a period of close to 10 years so that children whose hands i have held as little boys and girls during that period to become high schoolers and by 1997 when i
1:42 pm
arrived in print soon at least two of those children in my circle had died violent that. so i ate part of what is a contribution of this book is to look at how things have been to children living in poverty in real time. this is statistical research and it is not a result of impressions. many of the things that happen to the people whose lives are memorialized in this book happens to me. it is a very sensitive material. it is part of how we do science in that it asks the knowledge production in ways that matter and also a very personal narrative. >> host: professor, what do you mean by liminal agency? >> guest: i argue on the
1:43 pm
research which may or may not interest that the government and for the reason that i think are obvious. the framers of the constitution and other institutions in this country have tremendous force i am a creative institutions that rewarded mostly enamored of population. these were the descendents of european endocrine that were about accumulation of property and greater access to education. those two elements that trace the american dream. i get teary-eyed when i think about it because i don't think it's rhetoric or some kind of sentimental tool by which we manipulate people. i think it is true that is what the nation did you as a result,
1:44 pm
what we got our whole series of mainstream government institutions which deal with citizens on the basis of their citizens.us or ask consumers. even the most kryptonian proof of mainstream government institutions as you probably realize is ultimately interested in only wanting to separate you from your money as a way to finance worthy initiatives in society. the social security administration is a dream come true. those who receive social security payments know how well that institution works. it works well because the approach embedded in the procedures than the mission of those government offices is to treat their interlocutors as citizens and consumers. by contrast and it is the main argument of the book, in the tuitions of everman that deal
1:45 pm
with impoverished people do not treat them as citizens or ask consumers right merrily, but on the basis of what i call ambivalent benevolence. that is a mixture of suspicion so that the poor are mostly understood to be potential burdens on the society. the consequence is that the procedures and ideas embedded in essays on the part of those institutions violate barbet at conventions. for example they often are for certification including the provision of fluid which you and i would find totally on except dual with government officials. this is a legacy in which we receive from england in terms of
1:46 pm
a conception in which we believe that poverty is always the result of personal or group limitation so that we always think for example evidence. because our government has been so successful in mustering human and financial resources, it is one of those and it says and what is different about poverty in the united states when you compare to poverty in other countries is that here we have enough resources come in both material and human in order to interfere with the life of the poor at a regular basis. and that is what liminal institutions do. >> the poverty and hopelessness in west baltimore for a couple of generations and if so what is your solution for breaking
1:47 pm
that equates >> guest: i think it is important to understand the overarching argument of the book that poverty as i understand it in these neighborhoods and throughout the nation it's not just about material deprivation but the special relationship between the american government and urban racially distinct population. so that blacks have always been overrepresented among the poorer. i don't need to go into the whole historical account. but a different kind began occurring throughout the 20th century when a very large number of african-americans moved from the rural south to midwestern and southeastern cities. was the great black migration, which peaked exactly with the
1:48 pm
beginning of processes at deindustrialization. so that is part of what explains the unique quality of this tourney, that blacks were the last to be incorporated, for example into labor unions and remember it is the tuitions even as the industries are beginning to close out. in addition to that as part of the same process, i make a big deal about in this this book, are the levels for hostility by black internal migrants are without precedence. there are some people out there who really think and i would want to name names but they are quite notorious. they tend to be economists who make the argument that other immigrant groups have faced hostility index location and difficulties and yet they have succeeded. where african-americans continue to ask. the large number of great
1:49 pm
difficulties and part of that has to do with the context of reception. in other words, the kinds of opportunities or absence of opportunity that migrants face in areas of destination. i can guarantee and i have facts to support the claim that african-americans represent a truly exceptional case in terms of hostility. what that resulted in, going into further detail is the presence throughout the nation of the highly segregated neighborhood in which you have what wilson himself called concentrated poverty. said this is different from having a few people, for example live in a neighborhood and when you have a majority of people in which everybody is black and everybody's poor the dynamics are very, very
1:50 pm
different. or for example douglas massey, my colleague at the office of population research has shown in his book american apartheid in more recent materials, one of them climbing mt. laurel. so high-level residential segregation has been a major factor contributing to concentrated poverty. so from the statement of the problem flows the possible solution. one of the arguments made in this book is that pro-program for the poor have been notoriously unsuccessful. it's painful to say this because i'm a liberally minded person. my people are liberals. the liberals have not been very good in the design program for the poor. you take the statement to a little bit of an extreme.
1:51 pm
i would say poverty programs have mostly benefited designers and implementors of the program. the reason is that these programs are by and large focused on changing the behavior of the poor not on changing the context which creates the problem of poverty. if you state that i would begin with policies that contribute to desegregate those residential neighborhoods. demonstration has shown that the transfer impoverished people into areas that are richer in terms of available resources, human as well as material and educational family seem to do pretty well. apparently it's a segregated neighborhood met with tremendous resistance on the part of people who really don't want poor individuals and families in their own areas.
1:52 pm
i have great hope and believe in the values of this great nation but at some point we are going to have a lightbulb go on and there are going to be new policy measures aimed precisely at creating lower-level residential segregation, which i think are without that i can assure you we will have a never to have achieved in those conditions the people who i write about, the book is organized around the biography of impoverished people partly because we never have given impoverished people the benefit that we extend to celebrities. that is they have a biography. we use the poor merely to illustrate the problem. the book that i try to
1:53 pm
acknowledge in this book represents between 20 and 30 million americans and they are almost invincible to more affluent and educated people. for them most of the work that i did for this book occurred in the 90s. the members of people memorialized in the book take us back to at least the beginning of the 20th century. it took me a long time to write the book. throughout the period when i worried about both materials which have meant though much to me the one thing i didn't worry about was whether they were time sensitive because they're not. in other words, now that the book has been published i am still in touch with many people who i knew when they were very little and they are basically reproduced in the same cycle of isolation and poverty that is a characteristic of their parent
1:54 pm
and grandparent. the majority of african-americans represented very significant number of people who are disproportionately affected by surveillance, excessive levels of turbulence containment, punishment and the overwhelming presence of the state of their life. [inaudible] >> guest: so, big floyd is a man who i met in the mid-1990s big floyd who is now deceased, by the way was a man who is constantly seeking to be a good father and that was part of what i found very moving about him because you it's not particularly able. i contrasted some biography to the biography of a very dear dear man in my life donald
1:55 pm
bradley wilson, who represents chapter one of the book and mr. wilson actually had come from the south and had actually been able to form a middle-class life. what is interesting to me is big floyd has been with the same aspiration is mr. wilson. one of the main differences is while mr. wilson had been able to land a job with an industrial firm by the time floyd came around, that was not comfortable. so as a result, the life of big floyd represents the 1990s in which an increasing number of african-american young men could not find gainful employment. and yet he kept on trying and trying to he was not the most able that ever met but he would really try to bring his children act together.
1:56 pm
a man who didn't train didn't smoke, didn't do drugs. he was like way ahead of me because i did smoke and i did drink but i never did drugs. the point they cannot respect is that if you are just going to use a moral yardstick in order to measure the worthiness it's not going to help him because he's a pretty moral person. he very much wanted to be a father. eventually he did get a job as a security guard and in order to make sure this would turn into a permanent job he needed clearance from a police station. so he enters the police station knowing he did not have a record and he was arrested because a warrant had gone after him because he had failed to appear
1:57 pm
before a court to explain why he was not paying child support. the image of a society is people who don't pay child support are people who are trying to dodge their responsibilities. but there are many who basically missed a court date because he didn't have the money and he didn't actually receive the notification on a timely basis. but the bureaucratic structures immediately went after him under the assumption that he was failing to fulfill parental obligation. the dramatic and ironic aspect of this life in that respect is that he was actually taken from jail even as he was trying to get the job that would allow him to pay child support payments. for him been able to pay child support would have been a
1:58 pm
wonderful thing. that is what he wanted to do. that is what is giving them a greater sense that he was fulfilling his manly responsibility. the point is the world is not perfect. i get it. the rules and regulations are not in sync with what is happening with people at the ground level or to put it differently, vertical institutions with liberal values helping the poor are vertical institutions trying to deal with horizontal problems. i plagiarize that from one of my best friends. >> host: "the hero's fight" is the name of the book. sociologists patricia fernandez-kelly is the author. this is booktv on c-span2. >> thank you. thank you very much.
1:59 pm
2:00 pm
booktv. he talks about the shifting alliances in the fight against isis and the u.s. government's relationship with the kurds and the current situation in sur ya. in syria. [inaudible conversations] >> yep great. right. good afternoon everyone, and welcome on this very snowy day to this book round table with david phillips. my name is alex cooley i'm professor of political science at barnard and also hammond
2:01 pm
institute's deputy director for social sciences programming and on behalf of the herriman institute. the peace building of columbia university, i want to welcome you to this book launch, "the kurdish spring: a new map of the middle east," authored by david phillips sitting here to your right. david is director of the program on peace building and rights at columbia university's institute for the study of human rights and he has worked as senior adviser to the united nations secretariat and as a foreign affairs expert and senior adviser to the u.s. state department. he's held positions at different academic institutions including the director of american university's program on conflict prevention and peace building he has been a visiting scholar at harvard center few middle east studies and a fellow at harvard university's future diplomacy project.
2:02 pm
he has written numerous books, this is the latest one, and he has been involved in peace building operations, practice theory analysis throughout the world. i've been to some far corners of the caucuses -- caw caucasus with him and so can testify to the thought and care he puts into his analysis. he's extremely prolific. the timing of this book takes him to one of his long-standing areas of focus; iraq the kurdish areas the middle east. and so what we'll do today is have a conversational format about the book its timeliness. we'll link up to some current themes and then towards the end we'll throw it open for some of your questions. so david, welcome, and it's a pleasure to be with you. maybe we could just kick off by telling us how did you become interested or involved this kurdish issues and the kurdish question? >> i moved from the himalayas
2:03 pm
where i was working with tibetan ref refugees to capitol hill this 1988. i assumed the post there as the president of the congressional human rights foundation. probably my first week on the job, saddam hussein attacked kurds using chemical weapons and i was visited in my office in the rayburn house office building by a neurosurgeon from maryland with whom i became fast friends and who's now the golf of kirkuk. and -- governor of kirkuk. and he brought with him photos of kurds who had been victimized in fallujah. and i write about it in the preface of my book, civilians who perished during the chemical weapons attack. these photos depicted old men in traditional kurdish garb sprawled in piles kurdish women
2:04 pm
and girls in colorful clothes and head scarves lay dead in the streets, faces twisted in anguish, foam running from their mouths pained expressions frozen in death. 5,000 kurds perished that day, but the attack was not an isolated event, it was part of a broader campaign that was launched by saddam hussein and implemented by his nephew, chemical ali, who was called the finish. [inaudible] which means the spoiled. and over the course of more than a year, 182,000 kurds perished and 4,500 villages were destroyed. is so my first assignment in washington was to respond to this gruesome attack using wmd. because of the close personal associations that i have with kurds, including a visit just soon after the attack, i stayed
2:05 pm
deeply involved with kurdish issues over these many years. >> tell us a little bit and especially for the nonspecialists in the audience, give us a sweep of the kurds in present day iraq, turkey, syria and iran and their historical trajectory in the 20th century. you devote various parts in the book to telling these stories. what are some of the common themes, and what are some of the particulars around the curd you should communities in these different -- kurdish communities in these different countries that you've on observed? >> so there are about 32 million kurds who live in those countries. that makes them the largest stateless people in the world. during the first world war, kurds aspired to establish a nation of their own. and while they were sitting at the dinner table carving up the map without regard to arab populations, the interests of
2:06 pm
kurds were neglected. at the paris peace conference president wilson repudiated the sykes-we coe agreement and he addressed the congress in the winter of 1918 saying that self-determination was a cherished right and that peoples and nations should not be bartered from sovereign to sovereign as though they were a chattel in some great game forever discredited. so the kurds hoped as a result of the paris peace conference to be able to achieve their national at prayingses -- aspirations. the treaty of receive rah of 1920 established a whole panoply of new nation-states. it also included a commission of british, french and italian diplomats to study autonomy arrangements for kurds living in
2:07 pm
the territory of those four countries. and that commission concluded that within a year of the treaty that kurds should be begin the right to submit -- given the right to submit a request to the league of nations for independence. so the dream of a kurdistan seemed within reach, but for the war of liberation that was launched by mustafa at a tar. his war of independence rejected the treaty. the allies had been as war for many years, they didn't want an ongoing confrontation with turkey. so the treaty was ultimately repudiated renegotiated, and the treaty of lausanne was finalized in 1923. it did not mention anywhere in its text the word "kurdish" or
2:08 pm
"kurdistan." so it really represented a blow to the kurdish aspirations, and it initiated a period in the 20th century where the kurds suffered terrible human rights abuses under the boot of the countries where they resided. that lasted until the end of the century. and those abuses were significant. kurds hoped that they would have a unified state. when they were sold autoby lausanne -- out by lausanne, they rebelled. in turkey, they launched a rebellion in 1925. that was suppressed. ataturk developed da series of laws -- a series of laws where the use of the kurdish language was prohibited, curd you should place names -- kurdish place names were denied. there was a resettlement law, kurds were relocated. there was a series of security measures launched against
2:09 pm
kurdish rebels which brought huge human suffering to the kurdish population. ultimately, as part of a decolonization movement kurds expressed their grievances through the establishment of the kurdistan workers' party which was established in 1988. it initiated an armed struggle against turkey which resulted in the deaths of 30,000 people over the course of several decades. at the same time, in iraq -- which became independent in 1932 -- the kurds saw their aspirations denied. faisal was an arabist, he agreed in a pan-arab approach. the kurds rebelled. they were suppressed, many thousands of kurds were killed. when saddam hussein and the baathists came to power, they
2:10 pm
negotiated autonomy provisions. these were merely in name only. they were never implemented. so the kurds rebelled again, and many many thousands were killed. 1980 iran and iraq ended up at war. it was perceived in baghdad that the kurds were supporting iran. the campaign was part of an effort to create a security buffer on the iraq/iranian border, and as i said earlier, almost 200,000 people as a result died as a result of that policy. in syria there was the show ban movement which was a kurdish independence movement. many kurds who fled from turkey when the sheikh was put down ended up in syria there too the kurds suffered as a result of a baathist regime.
2:11 pm
their identity was denied, there were citizenship laws that were adopted, and kurds were denied citizenship rights. they were not proviewedded identification cards -- provided in addition -- information cards, so they couldn't marry or hold property. they joined with other opposition forces in putting forward the damascus tech -- declaration in 2004 which is really the root of the opposition in syria today. throughout the 20th century, kurds in syria suffered a terrible fate. and the same can be said for kurds in iran. they launched the kurdistan democratic party of iran. they supported the overthrow of the shah with the expectation that they would be given greater autonomy and rights by the new regime. they were denied those rights.
2:12 pm
in turn, they boycotted the constitutional convention. they were distrusted by ayatollah khomeini. kurds are mostly sunni, and they weren't seep as loyal to his -- seen as loyal to his regime. as a result of that, we see across the four states where cuds reside rebellion movements that were launched. the tkk in turkey the kurdistan democratic party in the puk in iraq what has become the pyd in syria, and the kdpi in iran. kurds are factionalized, and there are deep divisions but when they are under duress, they come together to deten their collective -- defend their collective national interests. by the end of the 209 century we -- 20th century, we started to see a turn in fortune. the u.s. established a no-fly
2:13 pm
zone kurds were able to govern their own atears and -- affairs, and that experiment which culminated in an administrative law inspired kurds throughout the region to seek something similar a federal arrangement where power was decentralized. >> it's an extraordinary tale this dispersal across these four states and, of course, the struggle all with their own challenge, parameters and regimes. you hinted at some turning points there in your last comments, but how have kurdish movements networked with each other? has the relationship also had some tensions? has it evolved? give us a sense of how in resistance the kurds have managed to find political expression, or not at various points in history? >> was they were fragmented -- because they were fragmented between four countries, they
2:14 pm
never really coalesced as a coherent curd you should national movement. the kurds of iraqi-kurdistan enjoy special privilege because of assistance that the u.s. provided after the gulf war: kurds in other countries didn't benefit in the same way. and we saw a systematic crackdown against kurds in syria with by the baathist regime of assad. in turkey there was a resettlement policy. several million kurds were relocated. villages were destroyed en masse. kurdish political and cultural rights were is systematically denied. one of the things that bashar al assad did very successfully
2:15 pm
was to manipulate the kurds in syria against the regime in iraq and turkey. so the kurds, unfortunately, have always been the victims of regional and great powers who pitted curd -- kurd against kurd, the algiers accord of 1975 of essentially, expelled kurds from iran and ended the pan-kurdish vision of a republic. so the kurds until recently have never really coalesced as a group. and i say "until recently," because the defining moment in this transition was the recent ballot of kobani in syria. what we saw there was a truly remarkable occurrence. kurds from the four countries joined to defend kobani against the islamic state fighters. and kobani was occupied almost
2:16 pm
entirely by isis until the u.s. launched airstrikes, decided to deliver weapons to the people's protection units which is a part of the pyd the leading kurdish-syrian party. the pkk which has strong lowties with the p -- loyalties with pyd, wanted the join in the battle in kobani, is so did the kurdish militant group in iran. in iraqi kurdistan the peshmerga negotiated an arrangement where 155 of their fighters transited through turkey to join the battle. so you had kurds from all four cubs essentially -- countries essentially fighting together. initially, the obama administration said colapny had no -- bow canny had no strategic value. but it changed its view over the very strong objections of
2:17 pm
president erdogan in turkey. and kobani is really an emblematic event this the formation of the new kurdish national identity much as it was in 1988. >> very interesting. well, let's bring ourselves up-to-date now and delve into that a little bit more. it seems that the rise of isis has fundamentally affected and changed kurdish/u.s. cooperation. take us through some of the big changes going on now on the ground but also politically. how has the political terrain shifted because of isis? >> so in may kurds in iraq went to the u.s. government, they went to the government in baghdad, and they warned that isis would launch an attack against iraq. their warnings were ignored. i think that we mom that of wishful thinking and ignoring
2:18 pm
reality, it has been a defining characteristic of foreign policy in this region and of the obama administration in recent years. june 10th the islamic state stormed across the border. they seize mosul, which is the second largest city in iraq. the iraqi army garrison there certainly just fled, abandoning all of its weapons. between, over an eight-year period, the u.s. had invested $3 billion into a train and equip program for the iraqi army. and in a 24-hour period, the iraqi army garrisons in mosul followedded. and they left -- followed. and they left to the islamic state all of this state of the art military equipment made in the usa. the islamic state forces rushed south through the deserts of anbar. they got to within a bird's eye
2:19 pm
view of baghdad, and then shiite militias came out to meet them to e prevent the occupation of samarra where the golden mosque is located. there was an understanding that had been reached between islamic state commanders and the kurdistan regional government that they would respectfully leave each other alone, but that understanding was abrogated when on the 8th of august isis pivoted and attacked iraqi kurdistan. i was actually in turkey on the border at that time. i had a flight the next day that was scheduled to go into err will. -- erbil. the air space was closed all commercial carriers canceled their flights because the u.s. initiated airstrikes to stop the islamic state's advance. up to that point the position of the obama administration was to wait until iraqis formed the
2:20 pm
government of national unity before they responded to the isis advance. that policy was overtaken by reality and overtaken by events. >> yeah. >> and when isis seized the village just 28 miles from erbil, the president made a decision to launch airstrikes. that decision came at the 3 19th hour -- 11th hour, but it was a critical decision, and to the administration's credit, it came in just the nick of time. so the first response of the u.s. was to had -- was to halt the advance of isis. you remember reports of a humanitarian emergency on mount sin jar so that policy quickly morphed into addressing the humanitarian crisis. the u.s. delivered humanitarian supplies and airstrikes against the isis fighters in sinjar. ultimately, it was the pkk and
2:21 pm
the people's protection unit that opened the humanitarian corridor allowing tens of thousands of yazidis to flee mount sinjar. so the second phase of this operation was really humanitarian in its focus. america's approach continued to evolve, to a point where we mow emphasize retaking territory. we assist the kurdish peshmerga and some iraqi army forces in the battle to retake the mosul dam. the peshmerga also launched a counteroffensive to regain territories in schoen gal, a region on the syria/turkish/iraqing key border. peshmerga liberated mount sinjar and the villages around sipjar, and all of -- sinjar and all of this was happening around the same time as they were getting involved in kobani. is so isis is a real threat to iraq, to syria.
2:22 pm
it controls a third of iraq's territory, a half of syria's territory. there are 8-10 million people who live on those territories under isis control. isis is well armed because of the arms that they seized from the iraqi armed forces. they're well financed. when they came into mosul they took $340 million out of the mosul bank. they were operating 18 oil wells and refineries. they've generated revenue through hostage taking, through selling historical and architectural artifacts. it's estimated that the annual budget for the islamic state is going to be $2 billion. so they are a force to be reckoned with. >> i want to back up just a little bit and i ask this question of you because you have always been very straight with sort of criticizing u.s./iraq
2:23 pm
policy, and you've done so across both administrations in terms of the governance of iraq and some of the decisions that were made after the american military intervention there. so i want to get your take on the failure of the united states to reach a status of forces agreement with iraq. at the time there are different issues this in the negotiation status of contractors, you know, different rights of p command and control. the sides just couldn't get to an agreement. also i think the u.s., according to gates' biography sort of told the iraqis they should consult with some other countries that have hosted u.s. military forces in the past, and as it turned out, that backfired because they went to the japanese and korea, and they got all of these details of issues of things that should be of concern to them. so we have this parting of the ways this withdrawal of u.s.
2:24 pm
forces. what's your take on that? was that just one of these, you know pivotal points? if the u.s. hadn't withdrawn would we have seen the isis problem in all of its fury and complexity now? >> so isis goes back to the invasion, occupation of iraq. it was originally established by as al-qaeda in mesopotamia. and the surge of 2006 and 2007 was intended to deal with the sectarian conflict between shia and sunnis. it was the election of nouri al-maliki and his avenn dance to the post of prime minister that further eau lahrized -- polarized iraqi society. and we should ascribe respondent to the withdrawal of u.s. forces where it belonged, which was with president bush. it was in 2008 that he announced that u.s. forces would be
2:25 pm
withdrawing. a date was set for their withdrawal. the timing and procedures for withdrawal were negotiated with the government in baghdad. the status of forces agreement to which you refer is something that the obama administration tried to negotiate with maliki's government. it broke down for a variety of reasons, mostly because the obama administration didn't want to stay. the iraqi government didn't want to have them there, and the rationale for u.s. forces staying as a residual deployment was a hard case to make. so by the end of 2011 you saw the u.s. essentially withdraw all its assets from iraq. and mind you, this was after we had invested enormous amounts of troops and treasure; 4500 americans killed 30,000 maimed, $2 trillion spent. and let's not forget 134,000
2:26 pm
iraqis that we know of who were killed. and so it was really time for that war to end. but in order for iraq to be viable and stable in the future you needed to have a government of national reconciliation. and nouri al-maliki was just the wrong person to be in the prime minister's post at that time. he replaced sunnis from the armed forces, he created his own shia-led battalions, he turned to iran and iranian-backed militias assumed a more and more prominent role in providing security around the country. so the sectarian divide in iraq is fundamentally at the root of the country's problems today. we talk about a government of national unity in iraq. maliki left, al-abadi replaced
2:27 pm
him as prime minister but fundamentally nothing has changed. abadi is iran's choice for the prime ministership. the u.s. has also fallen into a little bit of a trap which has further polarized sunnis in iraq starting with the raich spring in 2012 -- the arab spring in 2012. the traditional allies of the u.s. in the gulf felt that we were too quick to throw hosni mubarak under the bus. we announced that assad would go in syria, and then we didn't enforce those warnings. we didn't enforce our red line. the recent nuclear negotiations with iran which essentially will preserve rapp's nuclear program -- iran's nuclear program are also seen in the sunni muslim world as u.s. acquiescing to shiite demands.
2:28 pm
and even today when we look at armed forces in iraq battle which is boeing on right now for tikrit -- going on right now for tikrit where there are 30 thousand iraqi forces massed to retake the city from isis is dominated by sulemani, the general in charge of the quds force, the iranian revolutionary guard. he's not commanding from afar he is on site. shiite militias are on the front line. the capabilities of the professional iraqi military still leave an enormous amount to be desired. so the perception that the u.s. has essentially shifted its alliance through its negotiations with iran by finding common cause with hezbollah against muslim sunni fighters in syria have all polarize toed the sunni- the
2:29 pm
sunni-shia divide and makes iraq's reliability even more difficult to achievement and. >> what about u.s. traditioningal allies in the gulf? how have they responded? what is their role in this political dynamic? >> make no mistake about it the initial funding for al-qaeda and for isis came from individuals in the emirates. it may not have been official policy of saudi arabia, but members of the saudi royal family provided significant financial resources. monies flowed from the uae. there's a widespread view that the u.s. hasn't preserved its traditional alliances. particularly the arab spring and what happened me egypt raised all kinds of red flags because none of the sunni heads of state
2:30 pm
who we supported warranted -- wanted to fall to the same fate as mubarak, and they felt america's loyalty was a question. >> interesting. another neighbor turkey. take us through turkey's performance, its strategy its objectives throughout this whole crisis, the multiple constituencies that they're addressing. how do you view the turkish role both now and going forward in this? >> so turkey has proven to be a false friend of the united states. it has betried the interests of -- betried the interests of the strategic partnership in the kurds. the kurds and ankara began a partnership in 2011. a pipeline was built from kirkuk to jay hand on the eastern
2:31 pm
mediterranean. oil would be exported and stored in tank ors. in 2013 there were $13 billion worth of turkish goods sold there was a lot of economic cooperation. what happened in 2012 in turkey was a seminal shift in the country's approach. then-prime minister erdogan felt deeply offended by president assad of syria. he turned against assad with whom he had worked to establish friendly relations. he thought that the u.s. would heed an effort to support the free -- lead an effort to support the free syrian army so there would be a regime change. when that didn't happen turkey decided to support arab-sunni
2:32 pm
extremists as the point of the spear foughting the assad government. -- fighting the assad government. and that included support for al-nusra and ultimately, for the islamic state. so turkey was serving its own national interests without regard for its longstanding loyalty and ties to the united states. when isis invaded iraqi kurdistan, the kurdistan regional government sent an envoy asking for weapons and support. they were told by the turkish counterpart that they couldn't respond because there were presidential elections coming up on august 10th. after those elections the envoy went back asking for help, they were too old you are key couldn't respond because there were 46 turkish diplomats who were being held hostage. they were seized from the consulate in mosul. during the battle of kobani
2:33 pm
president erdogan equated isis and the pyd, saying that they were terrorist groups cut from the same cloth. turkish tank battalions parked on the hills above kobani and watched the battle unfold without coming to the rescue of the heroic defenders of kobani. and i should add that 40% of the defenders were women, were kurdish women. this was a huge strategic and public relations disaster for turkey. it showed turkey's loyalties to isis. there were reports that were published, including a paper that i prepared documented logistical connections between turks and the government of turkey with islamic state fighters. they operated the jihadi highway through turkey to syria. they provided weapons and financing and logistics.
2:34 pm
when jihadis were injured on the battlefield, they were transported by turkey's ministry of health and given health care in turkish hospitals without having to declare their name or country of origin. so let me, let me lab rate a little bit to -- lab rate a little bit on the ideology. when the prime minister says women shouldn't smile or laugh and they shouldn't draw attention to themselves, this is no difference can an ideology that baghdadi's ideology with the islamic stays. the difference is that turkey momentum chop off people's heads, they use other forms of coercion. so i really put isis and turkey in the same category. when we launch the multi-national coalition, turkey agreed to sign on, but they signed on in name only. there was no agreement no implementation of the agreement to allow the air force base in
2:35 pm
southeastern turkey to be used as a staging ground for coalition war planes. there was an agreement to train and equip the moderate syrian opposition. here again turkey didn't implement that agreement. it was just announced telephone days ago that -- ten days ago that they would, in fact, set up a program for 400 fighters but even now there's confusion about what the purpose of this is. turkey's saying it's to turn against the assad regime, the u.s. is saying it's to counter isis. when vice president joe biden goes to turkey and asks for turkey's help, he's repudiated by president erdogan, and within hours of boarding his plane to leave, the the president of turkey himself is uttering disparaging and degrading remarks against the united states. so i would say that beginning with -- [inaudible] 2012 turkey has taken a decidedly undemocratic turn. if we were constituting nato
2:36 pm
today, turkey would not qualify as a member. nato is not just a security alliance, it's a coalition of countries with showered values, and turkey -- with shared values and turkey has demonstrated repeatedly under this authoritarian leadership of erdogan that it's no longer scribing to western ideal that it's going to go its own direction. and as a result of that there's serious question about the u.s./turkey alliance. >> okay. let's talk about the possibilities of an independent kurdish state for a minute. what would be its viability what would be the political obstacles that would have to be overcome? are we any closer to that now than we were before this conflict? how do you see the dynamic in northern iraq playing out? and, you know, what are some of the signposts we should look for in the future? >> if we had this conversation in june after isis invaded iraq,
2:37 pm
i would have said that iraqi-kurdistan was on the verge of independence. iraq was falling apart. it couldn't control its territory. when isis turned and attacked iraqi kurdistan, that changed the whole dynamic within iraq. two elements for independence are are security and economic viability. security has been restored in iraqi kurdistan, but it hasn't been restored as a result of u.s. weapons provided to the peshmerga. the first country to actually land and deliver weapon during the crisis was not the united states, it was iran. and the heavy weapons that the kurds need in order to deal with the isis armor are not being provided by the pentagon. milan missiles are coming from germany, france is providing 20 millimeter armor-piercing
2:38 pm
munitions. when i was in iraqi kurdistan a month ago, i spoke with senior kurdish officials and they explained the problems they had with the pentagon in getting the equipment that they need, their desire for heavy weapons including offensive heavy weapons like tanks and artillery. they said that the training has been sluggish. when i asked a senior u.s. firm he said -- official, he said well peshmerga are on the front line fighting we're having trouble organize toking them. that notion was reputeuated. so the u.s. is an obstacle. the conditions of security and economic viability are being established, but they haven't been fully manifest. kurds have been trying to el oil around the world. -- sell oil around the world. the u.s. has actively lobbied
2:39 pm
countries not to buy their oil. there was a kurdish tanker, a tanker filled with kurdish oil that was going to no to rock coe. the u.s. sewer teened repeatedly with the moroccan government not to buy the oil. some of the kurdish oil was in a tanker off the coast of galveston, and the u.s. brought a legal action through a federal court to block the offloading of the oil. the kurds say we want to have income in order to procure weapons and defend ourselves, so they haven't been allowed to do that. largely because the u.s. iran and turkey stand in their wayment -- way. so bear zanny is not going to declare a unilateral deck declaration of independence. that would only invite the rancor of front line states. there's not likely to be a coordinated declaration of independence like the united states did with kosovo.
2:40 pm
>> yes. >> much to the bush administration's credit for having stewarded that process. as long as the u.s. and turkey oppose it, this won't be a c -- there won't be a cdi. there needs to be some kind of negotiation with baghdad, and in december the krg and the iraqi government signed the baghdad agreement. that essentially renewed the distribution of funds from the central government to the krg. there's a 17% payout of national income that goes to iraqi kurdistan. that was suspended in january of 2014. because the kurds were moving to develop and export their oil without a revenue and royalty-sharing agreement with the central government, baghdad agreement essentially was a revenue-generating agreement. but it's a temporary deal. it exists for just a year.
2:41 pm
it allows the 17% payout ore assume. and it establishes an important precedent of the kurds and baghdad negotiating their differences. meanwhile, iraqi kurdistan needs to start acting more like a sovereign state rather than like a tribe or a hill shah. militia. they need to establish greater transparency over the oil revenues. there are an estimated 45 million barrels of reserves. they need to have a crackdown on corruption more inclusive and participatory politics. the operation was launched in 1991, the kurds have gotten a running start on building their institutions and establishing a democracy. so they're far ahead of iraq and other p cups in the region. i would say the kurds have a
2:42 pm
positive democratization effect in each country where they live. so they can have a positive effect on events in iraq. with turkey having national elections this june kurds are standing as an independent party. if they pass the 10% barrier, erdogan's going to need kurdish support in order to change the constitution and establish an executive presidency. so the kurds will be the dealmakers there. the kurds in syria have established an autonomous entity called row jaba. it's a reality it's not going away particularly now that the kurds have shown some battlefield prowess. when the asyrian christians were seized in northeastern turkey it was the syrian curd who came to those villages and sought to liberate them. finish so the kurds are earning a reputation as a responsible actor. they are conducting their
2:43 pm
affairs in the interests of kurds under their control and kurds in the region, but we're not going to see an independent kurdistan anytime soon. i think we're looking at a three to four-year project. and, ultimately it's not something which is going to be achieved through confrontation or conflict, it's going to be achieved through a political dialogue. and fundamentally that political dialogue is going to be between erbil and baghdad. >> interesting. so let me ask you one more question and then just to invite the audience to think about some questions to you while i do so. you know, you've given us the map of the challenge of statehood. what about just bringing stability to the region? all of these moving parts, the kurds i would take it should be part of a longer stabilization strategy long-term outlook in
2:44 pm
the region. but, you know what advice are you giving policymakers now regarding this new middle eastern map and all of these changing -- what should be our priorities? >> there should be closer security cooperation between the u.s. and iraqi kurdistan. that means that weapons should be delivered directly through the airport in erbil. instead of light and medium defeintsive weapons -- defensive weapons, we should be providing heavy weapons, including those of an offensive nature. our training program should be intensified so the peshmerga are better skilled to go into bat. i had a conversation with the state department 48 hours ago about these very subjectings. i made the point that treating the government as an ally and a friend isn't going to encourage their breakaway from iraq it'll actually encourage a more moderate and slow approach on their part, because they'll be treated with the dignity that
2:45 pm
they have shown to deserve. we should also be working closely with the kurds in syria. the head of the pyd, mohamed, was invited by columbia to come to a seminar here. he submitted his visa application at the u.s. embassy in stockholm almost three years ago. the u.s. government still hasn't acted on his visa request. since the pyd has shown that they're cable of taking on -- cable of taking on isis in kobani and elsewhere, we should be meeting with them, we should be supporting their political objectives. >> not having these relationships mediated by national capitals. >> we don't have a relationship with the kurds of syria. there are occasionally meetings between the u.s. special envoy and -- [inaudible] in paris, but he should be invited to washington for full scale consultations with the pentagon with capitol hill and
2:46 pm
with the state department about closer cooperation. finish and when it comes -- and when it comes to turkey, we should recognize that the pkk which is on the u.s. list of foreign terrorist organizations is has now become a force for democracy and stability in the region. their participation in the battle of kobani was critical to defeating isis there. there are direct negotiations between abdullah -- [inaudible] and the turkish national intelligence agency about a peace deep. so if the government of turkey is negotiating with the pkk, why should the u.s. keep the pkk on its fto lust? as a -- list? as a way of galvanizing those and recognizing the positive contributions the pkk can play, they should be removed from the list. and we should keep in mind they were only listed in the first place right after 9/11 as part
2:47 pm
of a deal that established turkey as the head of the stabilizationing force for afghanistan. so i advocate a kurdish-centric policy. looking at kurds as sources of stability, as proponents of democracy and having a positive influence on regimes in the region. time will tell whether or not the u.s. pivots and provides the kind of political and diplomatic support to the kurds that they deserve. when they do, they will serve u.s. national security interests and democracy in the middle east region. >> okay, great. well, on that note, i think this would be a good time to open it up to questions from the the audience. and there is a music that's going to make its -- there is a mic that would make its way round, so i would just ask that you identify yourself. i think right here if we could -- >> [inaudible] >> identify yourself and your
2:48 pm
institutional affiliation and ask your question, that would be great. thank you. >> testing testing. >> i'm -- [inaudible] chandra kellison can you hear? all right. an organization to benefit refugee children. question going into erbil the capital of kurdistan it's very westernized, very liberal it has a jaguar dealership and a sushi restaurant. of it's amazing how normal it seems. but when you stand on the border of erbil, the fighting can be seen from the border, front line is 26 kilometers away. and it's so small that the u.s. government is hesitant to, you know to assist with air raids. is so how safe is it in this period of time and in the next four weeks more aid workers to
2:49 pm
go to erbil? >> great, thank you. >> so when i was on the border i was having images of kurdish friends of mine who i've worked with and moan for many years swing -- known for many years swinging from street posts and lamp posts in erbil. we really came within a day of erbil falling. the obama administration intervened to prevent that. after benghazi we didn't want to have another consul general collapse. we had major oil corporations with headquarters in erbil, and there was also an obligation to the kurds who have been steadfast allies and friends of the united states since 1991. today iraqi kurdistan is still precarious. islamic state fighters recently attacked kirkuk, they launched a major offensive. you can see them on the horizon.
2:50 pm
the kurds are better prepared. they've adapted their battle teeld technique -- battlefield technique because of rep -- weapons they've received from around world. they're better equipped and better able to deal with the islamic state challenge. but we can't assume that the kurds would withstand an islamic state assault. we need to stay focused and continue our security cooperation and band the kinds of -- and expand the kinds of assistance that we've been providing. the u.s. can take the lead but we should do that in coordination with other countries that are supporting the kurds. when you look at the potential security partners of the u.s., you have the iraqi army which folded in mosul, you have the shiite militias that committed terrible atrocities inty y'all la. when tikrit fell, there were a
2:51 pm
thousand shiite members of the iraqi army who were slaughtered. what's going to happen if tikrit is retaken? despite the great effortses of the u.s. to fund them i'm not sure who they are. so when we think about security partners, we need to think about the kurds in the region. and it would not be in our security interests, nor would it be correct for the u.s. to allow iraqi kurdistan to fall to the islamic state. so it has a tenuous situation but ultimately the kurds will prevail. >> so for now -- [inaudible] >> so you have a trip planned, you'll be okay. >> okay. >> when you're in erbil, you'll have a great sense of normalcy. but we have to remember that the islamic state is a real fighting force, and if we don't keep our eye on the adversary and support our friends, the islamic state
2:52 pm
could very well roll into iraqi kurdistan. now, i've always maintained that the u.s. should stop trying to placate its adversaries and start working more chosely with its friends -- closely with its friends who are the kurds. the only thing that arabs can agree on in iraq is their shared dislike of the united states. >> okay? take some more questions more david. yes, sir let's just wait for the month to make its way. great. >> great. thank you for this presentation. i'm ali from turkey. >> where are you from? >> from turkey. >> okay. and i'm "strange inheritance" professor in -- i'm assistant professor in turkey. the first question about the beginning of history, kurdish -- >> we just ask you sir to speak slowly and clearly into the mic? because we're taping this. >> okay. >> thank you. >> my first question and comment
2:53 pm
is about the beginning of history. your frame of the beginning of kurdish independence is the following: u.k.-france establish a commission, the independence of kurdistan was about, was a matter of time. but it was interrupted by ataturk's independence war. this was your framing of the beginning. but why we ignore the elephant in the room? the u.k. and france were there in this region and they colonized iraq syria and some part of the middle east region. and why they do not let the establishment of kurdish state in their own colony of territory. if they were so good. it is my first question. second is about the current process in turkey. and the government is quite out of -- [inaudible] in a sense okay in but this
2:54 pm
same government is doing a peace process with pkk. they are negotiating which was -- >> sir can you just get to your second question? >> yeah, okay. this is my second question. but this was unimaginable at the get go, and many turkey kurdish -- in turkey kurdish party is trying to be a party of turkey, another party of kurds currently. >> okay. >> trying to refrain -- [inaudible] as a democratic issue in turkey. an issue for independence. how do you take this recent development in turkey? >> thank you. and i'm going to have to cut you off there just to get david's responses to those two important questions. initial u.k.-french reactions, and then how do you judge this process that the pkk party is involved in and the formal representation in turkey now? >> so i talked about the
2:55 pm
sykes-pi coe agreement. clearly written in france carved up in the middle east. they sought to institutionalize those divisions by creating mandates later with lausanne. they would have stood in support of kurdish national aspirations but that required military con problem trawtionation -- confrontation with turkey and with ataturk's forces. and after fighting a hong world war, no great power had an interest in continued violent conflict. the u.s. was offered as a product rate of the kurds -- protect rate of the kurds. wilson's health was failing, and he didn't want the u.s. to become a colonial power, so he demured from that responsibility. clearly, the problems that exist in the region were set in motion
2:56 pm
by sykes and picot and then institutionalized later by lausanne. receive rah and lausanne. so your question about the negotiations with the pkk. we should be absolutely clear that the kurds of turkey do not want an independent kurdistan. they want to enjoy rights and democratic privileges equal to the citizens of turkey. the problem is that other citizens of you are key don't have -- of turkey don't have rights and democratic privileges. in 2012, since then turkey has pursued a decidedly authoritarian presence. there was a heavy-handed police response accusations of police brutality, and protests spread
2:57 pm
to 60 cities. since then we've seen a systematic cracktown on freedom of -- crackdown on freedom of expression. article 301 of the penal code still exists which makes it a crime to denigrate turkishness. it's used to clamp down. so turkey has, under erdogan adopted decidedly authoritarian tendencies. these negotiations that he's having with the pkk aren't motivated by any respect for the kurds or any desire to institutionalize kurdish rightsment they're motivated by -- rights. they're motivated by one single goal. erdogan wants to establish an executive presidency through constitutional reform thereby further consolidating his power. in order to do that, in order to gain the vote, he needs support of kurdish members of parliament. if the kurds pass the 10%
2:58 pm
threshold in the june election is the and are seated in the parliament, they will represent a swing vote. and as long as that possibility exists these negotiations will continue. a leading kurdish personality in mardin told me we've seen lots of democracy openings but very little democracy. so ultimately, the government of turkey will be judged by what it does not by what it says. and the kurds should be circumspect about entering into agreements. those agreements need to be monitored, and they have to be verifiable. >> okay. great. let's take another question. in the back. yes, sir. >> i'm robert -- [inaudible] a librarian here at columbia. could you comment a bit on the internal politics of iraqi kurdistan? you mentioned there have been real divisions in the past and there was more or less a civil war in the '90s. how have those divisions been
2:59 pm
affected by what's happening now, and could they come back in some form once the pressure's off? >> so that's a good and important question. there has always been a balance between the kurdistan democratic party which is run by bar sanny and the patriotic union of kurdistan which has its space in suggest ma nia. that balance has schefted over time -- shifted over time partly as a by-product of the civil war that you talked about, but also the arab spring also was contagious among kurds. and a new party emerged called goran which means "change" in kurdish. and they fared very well in kurdish elections. so there is political pluralism in iraqi kurdistan.
3:00 pm
there is power sharing. but there are also still these divisions and systems of nepotism. two sets of security forces, two groups of peshmerga. so kurdistan's democratization is still a work in progress. the fact that the kdp has essentially consolidated governance under its control, under its umbrella has been a positive contributor to stability in iraq and kurdistan. but there's an ongoing process underway for kurds to articulate their desires for rights, for power sharing and for those to be reflected in the laws of iraqi kurdistan and in the quality of their political leadership. a lot of progress so far, but more work to be done. >> okay. i think we have time for one more question. >> hi.
151 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CSPAN2 Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on