rogram was killed surprise when dr. lawrence wright and your phone calls. that is this spring on c-span2's booktv. >> coming up tonight on c-span2 panel debate whether the u.s. is becoming a police state. then a debate on how the west should deal with russia. after that china's finance minister talks about the impact of his country's economy on the world and later a discussion on the stage of working women in the u.s.. >> now a panel discussion on police and raise from the university of colorado's 67 annual conference on world affairs in boulder. gillick surprise when journalists authors and academics discuss whether the u.s. is becoming a police state in light of ongoing controversies about police shootings around the country. this is an hour and a half.

>> i am on, hope is light enough for you. welcome, everyone, to panel number 3117 entitled hands up, don't shoot. requiem for an american police state. don't you wonder about the people the wonderful volunteers who put these titles together in some room somewhere this winter's a and this will get them going on wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m.. ambiguity where you can too. but i can't handle it. this panel certainly can. here is good for. let me introduce myself, i am ginny corsi. i love being part of this all. all cellphones off, get them off 5 break too so we have no information in the landing.

i will open it up to the panel and ask each of them to give us a 10 minute opening. after which i will hope there are questions. after that, then we go to these microphones. first i might have a question or two. i could be coming up with a great question and don't want to waste it so i might ask a question or two but the questions are from you and you know you come to the microphones and don't be afraid. i know it is awful to come publicly in front of a microphone but please do it you often have very good questions as well as the extrovert. a word about the questions. first of all i will practice age discrimination. this is for the student so we will always ask the students to ask their questions first if you are kind enough to let them ask those questions. second of all we are in boulder and i assume we have rocket scientists here and

intellectuals and the range between. and we have a great deal of experience this is about questions. the tight with your questions and as clear as you can and let's begin. on my right we have, and who is the first speaker, i will go in the order of speaking, we have leonard pitts junior who likes to be known foremost as a writer. a pulitzer prize-winning writer and columnist whose topics range from the political to the personal. and insightful and challenging remarks. and we will hear from robert kaufman, political scientist and scholar who helped author books

about and by former presidents nixon and bush, he is adjunct professor at the heritage foundation and taught at many universities and teaches at pepperdine school of public policy. richard aregood is the writer and editor up who established his pulitzer prize-winning experience in philadelphia and new jersey and is now using his experience and wisdom in two colleges. i am summarizing in my own words ciara jeffery is a creative transformer in the school of journalism. she has taken the highly respected mother jones magazine known for its investigative reporting on controversial topics today and added a new level of online excellence. if you haven't seen mother jones online you should, is interesting. let's begin. leonard, i am going to ask you to kick off today because of some of the things you said in your opening remarks which were

noted in the newspaper and i found fascinating. would you agree with this title that we have a police state and we are about to honor its as a thing of the past? >> thank you very much for setting me up so nicely. the first note that i have here says requiem question mark. i am not great at titling things, difficult job, anyone who thinks this is a requiem, that we are in a position to have a requiem, a commemoration of the dead doesn't understand the police state. when i stood on the stage a couple days ago i asked a question i would like to repeat which is what do you see when you see me speaking as an african-american man and i think i would like to read purpose

that question into talking about a few recent episodes you may be familiar with and some you may not. i wonder what the police officer in south carolina, michael slage slager saw when he encountered 50-year-old african-american man walter scott? you may have seen this video or you might not have, shot in eight times in the back as he was running away. what did he see in this man to make him think this man was deserving of that treatment, what he saw in this man that made him feel he could very calm lee to judge from the body language pump eight shots into him and walked slowly toward the body in handcuff the body. it was summed up by at tweet i ran across from larry martin who

is a comedian and she said, quote, i have felt more guilty eating cookies than this officer seem to feel after having shot this man eight times in the back so what did this officer see when he saw walter scott? what danger did he receive? what fear? what threat was there to this 50-year-old man that he thought he deserved that kind of treatment? what did john gruber see when he shot law are jones? have not seen this case but i suggest you look it up because the video is in some ways as appalling, may be more appalling than a lot of what we have seen law r jones, that video is in south carolina where a state trooper pulls up on an

african-american man and we see him in the video standing outside his car waiting for the trooper at the traffic stop, the trooper tells the man i want to see your license. the man goes inside his car to get his license the trooper had x, says get out of the car. he is reaching inside his car, get out of the car, the man complies with this and the trooper shoot him. if you haven't seen this video you should, he shoots him and is continuing to fallout of frame. the officer when asked why he had done this his explanation to his superior was he came toward me and he would not stop when i gave him a command to stop. i believe that he believes that. which is the sad thing. i do not believe -- i wrote a column about this and first thing that happens when things of this nature transpire is we want to look to the character of the officer who shot and we look

for the klan robe and his clauses, look for the evidence of some this oral racism, i believe sean gruber is probably a decent guy, probably not a bad cop. i don't think he got up that morning saying let me shoot a black guy. because of how we have become comfortable in seeing african-american people and specifically african-american men as a threat first and foremost when this man came out of his car as he had been ordered by a police officer the police officer perceived the threat. think about it. why would you lie, why would you tell a lie that could be so easily disproved by your own-cam video. what did he see when he saw law are --levar jones coming out of? he survived the shooting, had a

bullet in his hit. the police officers finally conceded and looked to the video and said john gruber was the man at fall. another you may not have seen because it did not involve gun play, the police officers in minneapolis st. paul, chris wallace, an african-american man with dreadlocks, on the bench to get out of school. if you have ever been in those by ways they have to protect from the cold, they are sidewalks in the sky, public for of tears and he is waiting and the police comes to him who are you and what the wind? what have i done that i have to identify myself to you? is his response. eventually they end up taking him to the ground. there's video on this they end of taking him to the ground and tasering him and this guy has no

criminal intent. he is waiting for his children, he is waiting for his children to get out of school. i mention those incidents because there is video that attaches to them. we can go with a few keystrokes, look and see for ourselves what happened but you have to ask yourself what about married cases where there is no video? what about the myriad things that happen when there is no electronic i recording what happened? even with video i found in my experience the video is no panacea because we as the communal witnesses, this amazing ability to not see what we don't want to see. i am thinking about the rodney king case where the beating was so bad and so far beyond

procedure that even the chief of police in los angeles, daryl gates was not a liberal. he was definitely not a liberal. derogates's quote on seen that video was what i saw in that video made me sick made me physically ill. and yet still there are people who are unable to see what happened on that video for what it was including a jury in simi valley which exonerated the police officers. what do you see when you see me? i will return to the aspect of video because what fascinates me which we will talk about in more depth is it is almost impossible to holds police accountable for the things that they do on a daily basis and it should not be. police officers, we should respect them for this, police officers are there to uphold the

law. they are not there to be held above the law which is what i think a lot of this in this country in our fear over what we see when we see african-american men, we see something frightening, something that scares us, something that threatens us on a primal level so we are willing to turn our heads and avert our eyes and forego our obligation as witnesses to -- in order for that to be -- i'm getting the tweet 2-minute warning. the final questions and i have , i havethen , i have=, i have, i havehave asked what police see? what do african-americans see when they see police? we look at police and are more likely to see someone who is

there to protect and serve i try not to make blanket judgments about people based on skin color or profession so i try to allow for good police but by the same token i would be a fool if i accorded every police officer i saw the automatic assumption that he or she is there to help me and is going to see me in the same way he or she would see you. that is the question i will leave you with. what do african-americans see when they see the police and what should they seek? what should they seek when they see police? [applause] >> thank you. thank you for a very thought-provoking opening. let's turn to you. share the perspectives of

leonard? probably not the experiences. >> i don't share his conclusions particularly in the south carolina case. that is a case of egregious police misconduct probably murder and there is no justification for that. i would distinguish that case which is a clear example of an acceptable homicidal police behavior if you watch the video probably most of you have, this was the man stopped for a traffic, his tail light was out. he was obviously for being, did not appear to be menacing. what was a routine stop and the officer shot him in the back eight times as he fled. this is obviously a case of the

officer getting down probably murdering someone using disproportionate violence. i don't disagree with my eloquence speaker that this happens. this is where we do disagree. do we live in the police state? is this a systemic problem? that is where we do disagree. might main field is international politics, american foreign policy. i was put on this panel for amusement to see how i would do. compared to what a real police state is, nazi germany the soviet union, pteron, north korea, the united states in its worst days is not a police state. secondly we are not perfect and

no political entity is. if you compare the state of law enforcement, the behavior of law enforcement toward all americans including african-americans, that is not to say we don't have a significant way to go. if we compare the standards of today compared to 40 years ago, we have made significant improvement if not perfect improvement in the way we deal with everybody. thirdly, my cousin, my first cousin is a police officer in cambridge, mass. was policeman of the year in 2012 and was part of the teams that apprehended ts tsarnaev brothers who committed the atrocity in the boston marathon. my daughter is a student in my home town of boston at boston

university. the preponderance, the preponderance of cities are decent, honorable people who enforce the law and follow it. and it is getting worse and systemic and endemic and i think it is very important in this area to make reasonable distinctions. by and large this is a problem. i agree with my first speaker. even though i disagree with him on this general point. in a state like ours authority should be under scrutiny to justify the use of force in my view state intervention in jenna row. where i disagree with my

eloquent first speaker is on the e issue that this is systemic. isn't. this is something that has significantly improved over time it. it has. i also think in treating this problem, we did a disservice to the police and the country by lumping things together. in response to my first speaker, what should an african-american see when he or she sees a policeman? i think he or she should see an institution for the most part that has significantly improved. i think he or she should also see an institution that benefits african-americans and all americans significantly. the greatest victims of crime in urban areas over the past 40 years have been african-americans. the greatest beneficiary of well

ordered liberty and law and order by due process are those african-americans who want to send their children to school, run businesses want to be safe. not there are not rogue policemen. that is true of any profession, true of the american military. what critics see it as a systemic problem i see as a problem more individual and specific and more of an exception to the rule of how most people in law enforcement behave in most places most of the time. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. your comments about leather. now i would like to turn it over to richard aregood.

would you comment on whether you think we have a police state or on anything leonard said? >> almost all hippies were not jaws medicine. that does not mean sharon tate wasn't mistreated. the large majority of american policeman are doing their jobs but that minority, that rotten apple minority is big enough to be of concern, changes in attitudes are evident. i worked as a reporter in philadelphia for 30 years that makes me an expert on bad cops. philadelphia is the capital of bad cops. nationwide, i saw little towns in north dakota dressing their

policeman up in swat teams. if you really think bill be, north dakota, is going to have a requirement to have a swat team and policeman armed with automatic weapons and wearing bug like helmets and all that sort of thing you may be as crazy as the people who asked for the tanks in the first place. this is purely anecdotal on my part but i have detected different attitude. i am a good citizen. if you notice i am an old man. i was stopped by policeman in north dakota. a lovely little town. he then proceeded to spent half an hour with backup, he had backup, berating me about god knows what and telling me he had the perfect right to have me retested for my driver's license because i was so old. i agree he had right to demand that i be retested and to please

do it and stop yelling at me. he said at the end issued a ticket one of those catch all ordnances every town has a, aggravated mobile real or something like that. and let me go and i am left with not quite the same attitude toward police as black americans would have because i don't have that much justification but i am able wary little wary now. and i think one of the reasons, i believe in unions police unions are more powerful than any union i have ever been on. calvin coolidge in 1919, when the boston police went on

strike, he and the mayor, the technical term is they went back --batshit --batshit. what they did was play it for political reasons, they did ronald reagan traffic controllers thing, the striking cops are not allowed to come back. the results of that is almost every city with unionized cops there is an arbitration procedure, cops can't strike. what they can do is win every argument in arbitration. the arbitrators are hired by both sides of the police union and the city if the city is trying to hire a cop. it is hard to get fired. the arbitration's of policeman accused of serious crimes and fired by the police department in philadelphia, 90% of them got their jobs back through arbitration. arbitrators split the

difference. arbitrators are at the mercy of the police union. like the great depression this is one of our legacies from calvin coolidge. so many things in our lives. friends of mine did the pulitzer prize winning series called tainted justice which has become a book. i recommend the book to all of you. shoe leather reporting. they went for roux hispanic north philadelphia where abusive narcotics cops had raided bodega bodegas and essentially robs them because they had plastic bags. plastic bags can be used to hold drugs. they could also hold drug leftovers. there was film. there is film of policemen climbing on the counter to cut

the cord to the surveillance cameras so he could rob the cash register. fortunately for justice, generally he got the wrong court. not a blatant concealer of evidence. they were accused credibly by women who were molested by one of them. the story ran for weeks. it was done with the cooperation of the commissioner of police who i think is a good guy. nobody at the top of an organization has absolute control of it. that is definitely true of the philadelphia police department. there are cases of horrifying violence, cases of dishonesty. the what the shoplifted to be a

policeman? they webinar robert to be a policeman? there is the difference between being convicted of a felony and being fired. all of us working in actual jobs where you can be fired without committing a felony. it almost goes without saying. most areas if you do something horrible under color of law in this country and you say to an arbitrator or a jury, and i was in fear for my life those are magic words that is your get out of jail free cards. i was in fear for my life. either we get rid of magic words excusing appalling behavior or we hire braver policeman. when they talk about -- more dangerous to be a farmer.

come on. will horrible thing about being a policeman is generally so boring. i have great -- i was a police reporter in philadelphia the first two years of my career. i left police reporting because the group think was going to hurt my head. i was starting to think like a policeman. i didn't want to be a policeman. i wanted to be a newspaper reporter. i think a lot of instances you get an attitude, things coming out that passed around in the ferguson police department is an attitude thing within the department. that is not easy to fix. requires dedication over years. i have seen six different police commissioners try to fix the philadelphia police department. i don't think any of them have succeeded yet. i remember an incident when i was a young reporter at city hall, i saw a person -- eyesight take place in front of city

hall, being 23 years old and stupid, i tackled the door held him down called the policeman over. the policeman, a fine philadelphia person, started wailing the crap out of the man with his nightstick. i being innocent 23-year-old said did you really have to do that? he responded do you want some? the attitude that people, especially black people, are the enemy, is the key to all this. they are not -- they are not being officer friendly when this happens. officer friendly shows your children around the station house and let's you know how we protect you. these guys we are worried about, admittedly a minority, so what? if all policeman were like that we would not even be able to

have this little gathering. they are not all like that but enough of them are like that to make you desperately concerned about where this country is going to because it is going toward -- nobody is saying it is a police state but it is moving in at serbian that direction. if you don't worry about that, good for you because you are incapable of worrying about anything and probably living happy life. thank you very much. [applause] >> would you like to add your perspective with the you see this as a police state or moving toward one? >> i think in one way i would like to touch on something robert mentioned earlier. ..

what kind of bias are we all walking around with? not kkk member, not confederate flag-waving but an implicit bias that makes us a little bit more apprehensive around people who are unlike ourselves and when you're a police officer, -- they can sometimes -- my brother is a cop and it can be a frightening and terrifying and depressing job. they're walking into bad and

violent situations, mostly observing violence done by people to other people, to little kids, picking up after car accidents. but it's a hard job. and they like the rest of us have these implicit biases they walk around with, and science is beginning to understand this kind of bias and i think it offers all a little bit of hope. basically they think that some of the instincts that we had prehistoric instincts to sort of figure out, what was dangerous what's not what is different than who i am, what might cause me problems? something that was useful when you're running around on savannah or in the woods and trying to figure out oh, lion, generally bad. grizzly bears, help bay. you can't apply those generalizations to types of

people and when we that could we can get into trouble. they can measure this. there are a couple of differenttestes and you can take them. i encourage you to do. so it will be quite depressing to you but it's worth doing. one call the implicit bias tests and another one the weapons identification testifies. in both tests you're asked to quickly categorize between white and black faces even as you categorize between terms that are good or bad and essentially what you'll tend to find is -- this is true certainly for white people but sadly even for people of color -- that it's more likely that you will quickly associate good quality with white faces. the weapons identification test is sort of the same thing. you're asked whether or not you see somebody, do they have a drill in their hand or have a gun in their hand? do you shot or not shoot? police officers actually do much better than all of us civilians

at deciding not to shoot somebody in general, but they, like us, are more likely to say -- to shoot at the black man who has a sandwich wallet or power drill in this hands rather than a gun. i think all of us figuring out where our open biases might lie is a beginning and for police forts, where obviously the biases can become more deadly, it's really understanding how to train around it, where possible. how to put police procedures in a different way. so understood, las vegas found they had excessive use of force cases off the marks particularly when officers were chasing suspects. through neighborhoods generally minority neighborhoods. they said you're not allowed to touch a suspect you apprehend unless it's absolutely necessary. and that was the procedure.

and their cases of excessive violence went way down. so i think there's also a way we can measure and quantify what we're doing, and train ourselves out of it. interestingly, i would just say that also doesn't just apply to police forces. similar experiments have been run where people are sort of forced to think about people other than themselves, before taking different kinds of tests and essentially what it finds is that not only are you more likely to be open to, say hiring a person of color less bias as he typically understand it, but you are also more likely to score better on tests that measure entrepreneurial creativity. so it's fascinating. opening your mind to different kinds of people and different kind of experience can unlock entrepreneurial skills as well. just yet another reason for the tech companies and others to do better in their hiring procedures. so that i think is one sort of

systemic thing we need to get on top of. it's not just the police. it's just that the police have these biases and are armed and are put in more dangerous situations or at least what they apprehend to be dangerous situations. the second thing i'd like to talk about is the actual militarization of our police forces. ever since 9/11 we have seen an enormous amount of military gear being, in some cases handed out in some cases loaned out some case privated at a great discount to police forces. both in new york city and places where there's arguably a real risk of terrorism, but also little tiny towns. 5 bill worth of equipment has been given away to police departments and $41 million of loans have been given to buy things like armored vehicles and s.w.a.t. gear stuff that you see. it used to be that little towns didn't have their own s.w.a.t.

team. but now the only 20% of them did. just a few years ago, but by 2007, 80% of towns with 50,000 people or less had a militarized s.w.a.t. team and these s.w.a.t. teams aren't being used in your host yang rescue situations or bank robbery. there's being used to serve warrants, and some of these are drug warrants, a lot of this is sort of war on drugs stuff, but a lot of it is just failing to show up for a bench warrant. it's crazy. you go into someone's house with a s.w.a.t. team. like the little girl in detroit ian na stanley khost who was -- jones who was killed. they went into the wrong apartment. way then new with a s.w.a.t. team a reality tv show, and through flash bangs in and killed this little girl. we're just responding with to things that don't require this use of force and because they

have the gear and that is the training they get rather than training to help them be more open to the people that are encountering. and so i think those two things are in combination because i think that the s.w.a.t. indication of the police force is that everything is a threat all the time. if you're constantly arming up as for battle, you think you're in battle. it's just basic psychology. so i do think those two issues, our buy bass and me lail tearization of police forces have come together in an unfortunate way. we saw that in the figure protests more than anywhere but it's something we need to watch out for more broadly. [applause]

>> my question to you all, do you have questions of one another? >> i do but let me preface that in miami gardens there is a small store where a man worked as of 2013, man named earl sampson. earl sampson has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana which in some states is not even a cry. burt earl sampson has been arrived dozens of times for trespassing at this little store. and the kicker is earl sampson work at this store. he has been pulled from behind the counter. we keep hearing that -- from my learned colleague mylashed panel-mate, we often hear about rogue policemen. this is not a systemic problem. this is a few bad apples. and my question is, after oscar

grant, after eric garner, after abner, everybody diallo, after cholesterole, after lavar jones after sean bell, after walter scott, after rodney king and after all these other men i don't have time to name, how many isolated incidents do we have to have before we concede we have a pattern. that's my first question. [applause] it's a two-parter. my second question goes to the idea of decent, honorable cops. i don't have any argument with the idea that most police officers are deposit and honorable men and women trying to do a difficult job. as you recall i said that of -- explicitly of sean grew bert who shot lavar jones but is it too much to ask these decent, honorable cops, stand up against those other cops who are making

these -- [applause] -- who are doing these things at opposed to retreating behind the blue wall of silence. >> are you addressing that to robert? >> my learned colleague. >> whatever his name is. robert, do you see a pattern? >> you have me in mind for this? let me recover my bearings. one, it's very moving but not always enlightening to use anecdotal data and these case are serious but the cases you listed don't disprove the counterargument as to whether this is a systemic problem. i'll tell you that james q. wilson, the hands-down, greatest criminologist of the past 50 years, has argued that a massive

body of scholarship to the contrary again i think it's perfectly legitimate and reasonable to punish people for behaving at rogue cops. where i disagree whether it's a sim systemic problem and as for a couple of other opinions, the so-called militarization of police that is an assertion that is made in isolation. what you also have to know is that the police now are up against drug gangs and other threats, vastly better armed than they are. so what my colleague calls the militarization, some of us would consider a necessary and prudent response to the broadening and deepening of threats that law enforcement faces not just in cities but in towns and small places where threats that you

would have thought couldn't emanate, now emanate powerfully from meth clinics the potential of terrorism and all sorts of other things. this is the glass half empty or half full argument. if you want to be anecdotal will. i lived in new york in the '70s and '80s, before giuliani, at the worst time, and i lived in new york for my four degrees at columbia after giuliani, andry tell el tell you that were giuliani, when there was insufficient law enforcement life was thomas hbos, nasty solitary brutish and often short. overall, on balance and they should be held accountable and there should be panels like this and the police should always have to answer the question, are you responding dis proportionately? despite that all a., things have gotten vastly better.

and, b., treating this as a systemic problem i think is going to make matters worse. i'm going to have to leave here in a moment to play the same role on the iranian panel but to cement my claim to the witness protection program i will respond to you that in the ferguson case, the law enforcement officer acted in a legitimate self-defense, and the jury was absolutely right to exonerate him. meaning that the mark of this is to make reasonable distinctions. >> can i ask one -- i'm sorry. >> go ahead. i do want -- >> i just have one quick question. he -- the gentleman says that we're relying too ouch machine anecdotal evidence. here's statistical evidence. less than 15% of african-american -- about 15% of drug use in the country and 15% of drug crime in the kiss country is african-american. the vaster majority of drug

dealing is white. and yet we have a system where the statistics, the statistics show that even when you correct for class and other variables somehow we end up with jurisdictions where 60 70, 80, 90% of the people doing time for a drug crime are african-american. it's not a systemic problem, i don't know what is. >> if i could clarify. >> not necessarily. so it depends on the type of the drug crime. >> well, that's a great song. ain't necessarily so. i love that song. i have a -- today there are two great columnists in this country. i am sitting next to one of the other writes a blog for esquire magazine. charlie pierce writes today no video no crime. that's the simple truth of it elm that's all you know and all you need to know about the

cooled-blooded slaying of scott by officer slayinger in charleston, north carolina. no video and slager drops his taser by scott's body and gets away with what he did. no video and scott goes down at a semi hoodlum that are operational hazards to our brave men in view. no video and slager is doing three nights as a week on hannity next monday. slager is a hero and scott is dead. now -- >> i am going to -- just for a second for that very important point i want to get back to that. but i did want to follow robert's thought for clara to have her answer the question of in fact the systemic and the militarizize -- >> can i make hi point other than just having the quote? >> okay, sure. >> we have a new standard here. for anything bad to have happened, there has to be a

felony conviction supported by video. and that is not exactly a standard that i can get behind. >> a good point and i want to get back to video, too. clara? >> the crime rate both in new york city and almost every major metropolitan area and almost every medium sized city and am lever small town and almost every category of crime has been falling steadily since 1980s. our police do not in fact face more crime. sure, there are drug cartels. i happen to know a lot about that on a family law enforcement basis but those cartels are not the individuals cooking up meth in their basement. the drug warrants are served on with the s.w.a.t. team. going after cartels with a s.w.a.t. team, maybe that's acceptable. but we're taking a militarized response to serving for bench warrants, too far failure to

appear, for a custody dispute or failure too appear for a traffic stop. it's absurd the level of fire power that we're bringing to situations where there's no reason to think that anything -- that they'll encounter force of any kind. accidents happen and accidents happen when eight guys fully locked and loaded enter a room with a presumes -- presumption of threat. the second point is although the data ills frankly not great and there's a lot of constituent ropes why the fbi and why police force does not willingly collect and hand over the data about who shot and killed and when and how and police custody we actually described what data there was out there. and what data there is out there shows pretty definitively -- you can look this up on mother jones -- in cases from new york and federal law enforcement cases, there are more -- in measured against every kind of incident measured against the

number of arrests blacks are more likely to be not only arrested but more likely to be shot. and these are not just arrests where where for violent crimes. these are arrests sometimes for no good reason and sometimes for petty crimes. we do need more data, but to say the data that is out there doesn't support this is going on is just a fallacy. [applause] >> richard, i want to come back to you with what you were talking about. you bring up the issue of video which i think could be very hugely important as we go forward. do you think that the wearing of videos now will make a big difference in the antipolice state? >> i don't know. videos can be confusing. i know that in the incident -- the much less serious incident involving my own self i mentioned, i filed a charge

because the chief said, why don't you? so i did. and it turned out he hadn't turned his camera on. oh well that a half hour of him screening -- i never saw the man's face, by the way. i was still in the car. and the initial -- the result of the inquiry was that he was exonerated because he violated none of the rule's the police department. so, i don't know whether video is a cure-all because there's so many ways around it. i think we're better with it than without it. but i don't think we can install video on -- the poor cops today are carrying like 400 pounds of stuff, guns and tasers. by the way tasers were supposed to be a nonviolent response. now they're other -- a torture device. they're carrying a lot of stuff already. i think it's a good thing but i don't know whether we should get

content because we have them wearing video. >> i think we finally agree. >> we lad to at some point. >> i feel badly about it, that we do agree, but we do agree on the issue of videos. for the sake of law enforcement because in this climate if legitimate law enforcement is second-guessing every decision, and people like here are treating law enforcement's legitimate actions with a presumption of illegitimacy, i think that overall though, it is nose a panacea. it benefits police and the public alike to have a video so that the vast preponderance of policemen who do their jobs correctly can act with confidence because they act in a split-second world where a mistake can be life and death. so overall, based on this

collective experience, even from my side of the spectrum, the evidence is fairly strong in the direction that putting videos on policemen would be the most prudent response, and it's something that the police should want i think to vindicate them, and i think it would that most policemen, most of the time, do their jobs in a way that is proper and consistent with the american constitution. [applause] >> i would just only add i think it's grossly unfair to assume that anyone on this panel has gone in with a presumption of uniform guilt against all police officers. [applause] >> any questions each ofow have for each other with opportunity it over to the audience? please come to the microphone.

we'll take students' questions first. if you could make them short and to the point. we'll take questions for the next -- until 10:20. can we have lights up in the audience a little bit? so we can be prejudicial about who we -- >> i'm obviously not a -- >> i wanted to go down from the police state to the smaller parts. the pestering. the pestering of police to the african-american community for the minor things. the friend of my daughter, during high school, who got stopped constantly, african-american, who got stopped constantly for driving his father's bmw. the instances where young teenage african-american kids are treated differently in their

pranks. their knocking down of mail boxes and the thing that young kids do, and they tend to get a police record and a lot of the white kids tended to go to the juvenile conference committees. it's all those little things that add up and then they say that the person has a record. and because of all those little ones that added up before, can you comment on those? because it seems those little things, rather than the big things add up. >> is there someone you want to direct that question to? i'd be remiss in saying if you could think about someone you would like to direct it to. >> it doesn't matter. if somebody has a comment on that. >> robert? >> i agree with you. i think the most compelling part of the ferguson report that i found problematic in many ways, but one of the most compelling parts of the report is that i think the data was robust that

african-americans were disproportionate yay and aggressively targeted for traffic violations and other things that aggregately created a record, and were stepping stones to other things. i think that's happened in a lot of places. again, i think this is where we're going to disagree. we have a long way to go. but in my native city of boston to use an example this has improved significantly, but still is a problem from the 1980s on the boston celtics guy, when the guard for the celtics, brown driving into his wellesley home in his mercedes, was taken to the side by the wellesley police because he wasn't presumed to be of the type to be in that neighborhood. i do think that that's a serious issue. although i also think coming

from california, that police departments generally are abusing their authority to raise revenue in all sorts of ways, and i do think it's a fair criticism that the african-american community has borne an even greater degree of that abuse than other communities. i think that concern is a national and a legitimate concern. and something that may be more systemic than the higher level we talk about earlier. that's a good point. >> um, d. [applause] >> i think it is easy to say that things have improved and that's certainly probably appealing to us on an emotional level. but i would like to see some statistics that prove this improvement. i would like to see some illustration of that. in terms of the sort of

pestering, you put it, that -- you're exactly right and the thing about ferguson -- my particular favorite part of the ferguson report was the man who got arrested for give has name of mike when his full name is michael. yeah. the fallacy is to treat ferguson as if it is somehow some -- this mutant town that is like no other big or small town in america. and for those who are tempted to treat ferguson as an outlier i'd ask one question. if ferguson is so different from many other up toes, what made it different? how did ferguson become what ferguson is and how did let's say, boulder or l.a. or boston or wherever manage to remain above that? i'd be curious to know. >> next question over here to the right. >> this question is directed towards bob. bob, my name is david baca, i'm

a graduate student in engineering, pursuing a ph.d. >> can you speak into the microphone. >> me question to you bob is frank serpico or rudy giuliani, who did more to make new york safe. >> rudy giuliani wassed the greatest 20th century mayor in united states and although there were many things who. provide new york, he used the broken window theory and the squeegee man on the bridges and subways, giuliani's enforcements of law benefited life liberty and prosperity, more than any single social policy in the 20th century in any major city. and he is a hero for it. and it's largely due not only to giuliani but the high quality of the new york city police department, and the d.a.'s offices there that are the

protector rather than menacers of liberty. >> rudy giuliani hired bernard kerrick to run police. bernard kerrick is a criminal who tide time in federal prison. rudy giuliani, as the best line ever from joe biden is, every rudy giuliani sentence has a subject, a verb, and 9/11. >> i disagree. >> rudy giuliani, if you look at what he is saying currently he it nuts. and we already mentioned that crime all over this country has declined. in places with or without rudy giuliani. so i respectfully disagree. >> i disagree, too. >> let's just not forget that -- [inaudible]

>> where is the mic. can you keep them on all the time? >> i just want to say let's not forget two of the worst police misconduct cases occurred under giuliani's watch. diallo, 41 shots on one hand being ain'tally rained bay broken broomstick and the other the nypd has had a lot of problems and at lot of great officers but hardly a beacon of understanding in the giuliani era. >> thank you for your interesting question. i'm sure we'll have rudy giuliani on stage next year. students, please come forward on the mics. >> hi. thanks to everybody on the panel. i think i had a bit of a difference of view from mr. kaufman as far as whether

the united states can actually be said to have a police state. i am wondering if perhaps you work on an international level, primarily, your understanding of how that could apply to the u.s. might just not be nuanced in terms of we don't have to have all people subsubjugated under a police state for perhaps one group of people to experience something completely different than the majority of the people in the country. so, when you said that, i was left wondering if mr. pitts might have a different view that perhaps the african-american community lives in a different united states than you do. and that i do. and that being very legitimate way to approach this panel might make us go back to -- i guess i'll reveal myself as a liberal here -- the fact i think this is

a systemic problem, so being of the systemic type, i am wondering if we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. mr. pitt, you mentioned about how many more proportionally black people are arrested for crimes that statistically they are not involved in, as much and we're filling our prison system with african-americans. we are -- i believe creating -- >> your question is? >> my question is, for him do you think that this is something that is a self-fulfilling -- where do you think it goes back to? obviously you don't think it's just the attitude of people. >> what is your question, please? >> i'd like to get to -- first of all first of all mr. kaufman has to go, but at for mr. kaufman or dr. kaufman's credentials, it's misunderstanding, i have a law degree from georgetown as well.

i had sam dash for criminal law. ken feinberg. i understand the issue. i don't agree with you but i have also studied the -- the kgb, so i understand the difference between a police state and the situation that is in the united states. our disagreement is not based on misunderstanding or my not being enlightened with the information. it's based on a different view of the information and a different degree of sources as to whether i get my information. on that note i have to play the same role on the iran panel so i have enjoyed it. thank you for your forebearance. [applause] >> i'm sorry. what ways the part of the -- briefly what was the part of the question for me?

make it up? is there a partial police state? i think that the fallacy -- my learned and now departed colleagues understanding here is we're acting as if the only way we can have a police state is if wore having some recreation of the nazis or some recreation of some other infamous dictatorship. i think the architecture -- if i had to live anywhere i would live here. certainly not as bad here as in other places buts the architecture of a police state is very certainly being put into place, and particularly in the african-american community and i should say the nonwhite community because if you go to arizona, you are required to show your papers upon -- if you're hispanic, you're required to show your papers upon any encounter if police to prove you have a right to be here.

that to me is chillingly reminiscent of some things we have seen from history. in terms of the african-american experience, if you look at ferguson, if you look at the protests of ferguson, look at the police with the space suits and high-powered rifles. if you saw them eject white reporters from a mcdonald's where they were customers, and eject them and arrest them for trespassing, then you have to be concerned about the prospect of police out of control and police with no oversight. it's not just a racial issue at that point. it's a first amendment issue. there are repeated stories out of ferguson of journalists being mishandled, be tear gassed, cams aroundded towards the street so they couldn't record what was going on. this ain't a black thing or soley a black thing. this is something we all should

be concerned about. >> it's spread spreading because it used to be if a crime was committed you just went to application headquarters and they gave you the basics of it. now days you have jurisdictions in which the police won't tell you squat except something happened. i haven't done on academic study mitchell own credential is was a police reporter, journalist, and i went to a state university. i don't have a law degree. but i do look about me and i see a lot more of it. there was a gunfight in the parking lot of of a hospital in grand forks involving three police agencies, the border patrol, the university police, and the local police. so far we have no idea what happened and it's been a month. >> our next question. again, i'm going to remind you these are question. please limit it to one or two sentences in your question.

>> i'll do my best. i graduated high school in houston, texas in the early '7s so where the police perfected the throw-down -- i'm getting it to. please. perfected the throw-down gun and police are still doing it today. so it's been a systemic problem for a long time. in various settings. what role, panelists do you think the questioning of a lawful police order plays in the escalation by police in these incidents that often lead to death, particularly for minorities? >> i don't know. i know you can provoke a fight with a lawful order if you want to. all these things are vague. that's one of the reasons why i say it's probably a good idea to have video. because it's kind of vague. how lawful was the order? what was the order?

if it's a polite -- when i was a kid, as you might figure i was a white kid, we would be hanging on the corner and a cop would come long and he reside say, why don't you guys move, and we'd move. not got arrested. nobody got hassled. nobody got continued question organize patdowns. one of the most horrifying pictures i saw was a coverage black kid being patted down by the governor of new jersey who had gone out with the state police for kicks. i mean, i think this has an imbedded nit our culture and i think it's very much worth worrying about. >> here's the thing. there is a -- during the height of the ferguson demonstrations there was a professor who wrote an essay for the "washington post," i believe and his essential argument was, don't question me. if you don't want to dish think

the headline was something to effect you don't want to get hurt, don't question me, even if you're in the right. and the thing that always -- that raised to me and i leave it to you is, we have certain constitutional rights and i believe our law professor is not here so i didn't double-check this but i believe if i'm not suspected of or caught in the commission of a crime i don't

all is just a guy working on his car and i think we have to train cops to see better, to see the dynamics of communities. i think when the adult got into automobiles that world shifted because they didn't see the way people on the ground see it. the next question, student. is there a student in line here? >> 9/11 was an isolated incident of terrorism and yet there was a strong reaction to prevent that in the future so why should these isolated incidents not have the same or at least a similar reaction? >> i have no idea. [laughter] i think again my point is and i will repeat what i said before there seems to be a scarcity of

really good statistics except we do know that african-americans are more likely to be shot and to be stopped and arrested in the first place but we don't know the gross numbers on that. but i have grill in patients with this idea that we keep stringing together all of these isolated incidents quote unquote. when you have 10 or 20 isolated incidents and seems to me you got a pattern. that seems like logic to me. [applause] >> i would just add that 9/11 was not an isolated incident. it was the biggest wants to hit this country and i think some measure of better security and better intelligence and better preparation and all of that was warranted. the problem is when it spills down into every nook and cranny of our life and we use the tools designed to combat terrorism against a bunch of kids who are doing nothing that's the problem

so i think actually both are patterns and at the intersection of those patterns that has been a particular problem. >> the next question, let's see if we can get through all of these as quickly as possible. >> any hear me? i the question. how do i explain to my children when they see ferguson and the african-american community feels it was and just put that same community goes out and loot their own community? how do i explain that to my children? >> first of all you tell them it wasn't the entire community in second while explain sometimes when people are emotionally wrought some of them will do things as is when their sports teams and championships -- [applause] when the sports teams win championships, you don't take the few idiots who overturned cars and break windows as being

indicative of the entirety of the fan base or effective of the team so i think the same standard applies in ferguson. there were a few idiots or opportunists frankly. they probably didn't give a dam about michael brown but saw a chance to break a window and get some free beer. there will always be opportunists among us but that should not invalidate the very real feelings of the people who are out there demonstrating while fully and peacefully. >> i appreciate your point. the question they have with that is they are jewish and things happen to jewish people. there are different minorities. >> probably when their ball teams when i would assume. just real quickly i received a tweet from somebody their whole thing was why was it only black people i sent them a series of white kids writing and the response was these were all ball teams in these were white kids rooting for all kinds of

reasons. this idea that only african-americans engage in civic disorder is a historic fallacy. >> hi, i have two questions. one is -- one question. >> michelle alexander wrote a book the new jim crow that goes back to the reagan era and the war on drugs and the militarization of the police through that program but also the targeting of the black community and i'm just wondering if you see because that was nationwide and governmental the way of reversing that. >> and your question is? >> a way of reversing that and the second question is. >> thank you very much. i'm sorry. >> i think michelle alexander wrote one of the most critical and urgent books and needed

books that i have ever read. i think the way to reverse it one is to, there's a movement coalescing and you have seen some of those you have seen the fruit of some of us with eric holder the attorney general rolling back some of the architecture of the war on drugs and i think there needs to be public pressure on air colder and whoever his successor will be. loretta lynch presumably to continue this. they have not called back the war on drugs which is probably intelligent of them politically but it is amounting to bed only to make sure whoever succeeds eric holder continues to do that and whoever succeeds barack obama continues to do that. >> i was thinking him that the reason why construction after the civil war didn't work was horrifying violence inflicted by white people all over the south especially in louisiana so let's think about that.

>> in the last two questions in a last two minutes quickly. over here. >> this is a question directed to any panelist. i'm curious if you want to comment on any perceived correlation between the rise in police brutality and violence and the connection of veterans returning from iraq and assuming positions as police officers? >> i don't know that there is a correlation. the veterans have been returning for the last nine, 10, 12 years since the war started in 03 and this problem of brutality i don't know, get we don't know the statistics and whether it's rising or falling but we are seeing more but on the news. as far as whether it's better or worse i can't really say so i don't know if there's a correlation. >> it's an interesting question. the last question. >> i live in st. louis. during the protests and number of the police officers black

police officers were singled out for special abuse as essentially traitors to the race and also the post-dispatch in an article that a number of people in the apartment complex testified to the grand jury in support of the police officer story but were afraid to come out publicly because of retributions from their own community. what does that say about the relationship with the police? >> nothing as far as i'm concerned. you always get the loose ends and all these kinds of stories. i would want to be a black liesman in a racially tense situation because you don't even know whether you can trust your brother officers. the situation is more complicated. as leonard said it's more complicated than a simple black and white. race is a construct and we do with it what we feel like doing

with it. i think it's consequential that pressures put on people for a racial reason. do you think that only happens with black people? the pressure on a policeman to support a brother officer who has just shot somebody on it will not quite right righteous shoot, think about that. >> that's a good wrap-up. join me in thanking these wonderful panelist for a great discussion. [applause] and now they're asking me to ask you to vacate as quickly as you can unless you are here for the next session. thanks for being a great attentive audience. [inaudible conversations]

how should the west deal with russia? a munk debate debating whether

the west should engage more or less with russia when it comes to international affairs. arguing for more engaged went his veteran journalist vladimir pozner who was joined by new york university's russian studies professor stephen cohen. arguing against further engagement is a russian born political dissident and "washington post" columnist anne applebaum. the munk debate is a biannual event in toronto bringing together newsmakers and leaders to debate current issues. this is an hour and a half. ♪ >> we created colonialism. we created fascism. we created communism. >> your arguments will be totally destroyed.

>> is it possible to actually complete a sentence? >> you come back and you are rattled. >> it saves the bleeding heart from somebody else. >> they don't know what the hell to say but you have to say something. >> it makes us object in a cruel experiment and over us is a celestial dictatorship. the kind of divine north korea. >> the question is are men obsolete? the answer to this question is no i want you -- what you believe this. we are going 50/50 on this. >> we are in house of commons. so what, who cares. >> show me the word pretext. >> you can keep screaming that and it doesn't change the point. >> barack obama has systematically rebuilt the trust of the world of the security security council and other

situations. >> you must not talk to any of our allies in order to believe that. >> we are all in this of the united states can pull itself out by running a trade surplus unless we can find another planet to sell to. >> are we really prepared to say if you are successful enough we should rip you off? how dare you be so successful. >> that's a hypocritical argument that if i were chinese i would find quite annoying. [applause] ladies and gentlemen welcome. [applause] my name is rudyard griffiths and it's my privilege to organize this debate series and to once again serve as your moderator. i want to start tonight's proceedings by welcoming the north american wide television

and radio audience into this debate. everywhere from cbc radio ideas to cpac canada's public affairs channel to c-span across the continental united states. a warm hello also to our on line audience watching right now on munk debates.com. it's terrific to have you as virtual participants in tonight's proceedings. and hello to you the upper 3000 people that is filled for a thompson hall to capacity for yet another munk debate. bravo. [applause] tonight represents a milestone of sorts for the munk debates. this is our 15th semiannual event. we have been out this for seven and a half years now and our ability to bring the brightest minds, the sharpest thinkers here to toronto to debate the big issues facing the world and

canada would not be possible without the foresight, the generosity and the commitment of our host tonight. ladies and gentlemen please join me in appreciation for the cofounders the aurea foundation. thank you guys. [applause] let's get this debate underway and our debaters out here on this center stage. arguing for the resolution, the west should engage not isolate russia. it's a emmy award-winning journalist top rated russian tv broadcaster and best-selling author vladimir posner. his teammate tonight is a celebrated scholar of soviet and

post-soviet russia. he is a country beating editor of the "nation magazine" and he's here from new york city please welcome stephen f. cohen. [applause] one team of great debaters deserves another and arguing against the resolution be it resolved the west should engage not isolate russia is the warsaw-based pulitzer prize-winning author, and "washington post" columnist anne applebaum. [applause] anne's debating partner is a prominent russian dissident. he's the chair of the new york-based international human rights foundation and he is best known as the world's greatest

living chess player. ladies and gentlemen kerry kasparov. garry kasparov. [applause] a little predebate business to take care of. for quick items. number one power off your smartphones. we have a hashtag going tonight munk debates. you can input on what you are hearing on stage give your analysis and commentary on the debates. also we have an on line poll going that's available to people here in the audience and those of you watching on line. that url is www.munk debates.com/vote. that's going to take us through the next hour and a half with instantaneous audience reaction to the proceedings here on stage. and counting down already, the clock. this is going to keep our debate on time in our debaters on their toes.

we see this clock approaching zero. i want you to join me in a round of applause and that will move us through the evening quickly and keep us on time. let's now review how this audience here in the room voted on tonight's resolution coming into this debate. you were asked agree or disagree, should the west engaged or isolate russia? we will have those results now up on the screen. there we go. 57 agree with the motion and 43% disagree. quite close. this debate could go either way. to get a sense of how much of this room, how much public is in play right now we asked a second question. depending on what you here tonight are you open to changing your vote?

let's have those. that's a simple yes/no. 86%. this is an indecisive audience. what's going on here? 86% could go either way so debaters in this debate is very much in play. as we agreed beforehand the order of opening statements mr. vladimir pozner your six minutes starts now. >> thank you. i haven't yet started in the clock is moving. could you go back to six, please? thank you. [laughter] ladies and gentlemen i have not come here to argue russia's case. i have come here to argue the case that isolating any country is not only counterproductive but dangerous. especially when the country is as big as well become as powerful and unpredictable as russia. allow me to share with all of you it's history. when the russian empire crumbled in 1917 and the osha vicks came

to power the west refuse to recognize. first soviet russia and the soviet union. isolation and non-engagement was the word of the day and so for a decade or so of the country was cast by western media as an evil power and left to stew in its own juices. the prediction was it was inevitably fall apart that it was economically dead in the water that its people would rise up and destroy the regime. as we all know none of this happened. in 1929 the west was hit by the worst economic crisis in its history. meanwhile in 1929 the ussr announced its first five-year of economic development. over those years of isolation the soviet leadership had headed by stalin about two conduct a mass of lead bath in the country physically wiping out all political opposition and destroyed millions and millions of peasants who had refused to

adhere to the foreign system and to starve to death. millions of ukrainian farmers who would not bow to the draconian demands for week -- it was in the process of annihilating russia's most precious human resource the intelligentsia. it was in the process of creating a new human entity or so-called homeless -- the great terror of 1937 and in 1938 lay just ahead but no recognition know and engagement no interference if you will on the west part the absence of any united outcry played knows no small role in allowing the soviet system to evolve the way it did. it would be remiss of me on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the defeat of nazi germany not to mention the fact that by the end of the 1930s the west in particular great britain and france refused to engage with the ussr in an alliance against

hitler the consequence being the infamous ribbentrop packed of august 1939 were by the independent baltic states estonia latvia and lithuania were sold off to the soviet union as was part of poland. while it is true that ultimately it was the soviet union that broke the nazis back that is justified too by the likes of winston churchill and franklin delano roosevelt. it's also true the soviet union went on to occupy all the countries of eastern europe as well as some of several year. it's also true became a military superpower and we should thank our lucky stars that world war iii never happened thanks to mutually-assured destruction. the ussr fell apart not because it was isolated not because of non-engagement on the part of the west which in fact actually made us stronger.

it fell apart because the system ceased to function. it was simply not viable. and when it fell apart when gorbachev and yeltsin came to power what was the west's response? to engage in the new russia? if we dig a little bit deeper than the good old barbie, the good old arras pr pack that was put out for popular consumption of policy with this, he lost the cold war you will pay for it. just shut up and go back into your cage. you are a second rate country and we don't care about you anymore. have the west the united states first and foremost decided to engage gorbachev soviet union and yeltsin's russia engage with the same names that it engaged post-war germany and post-war italy to help create and support democratic development and institutions russia today and would be a very different country.

so in conclusion let me say this. the russia that exist today is to a large measure the results of non-engagement by the west of a policy aimed at humbling what is a nation of proud people people. i vote for engagement because i want to see change in russia change positive, both for russia and for the west. thank you. [applause] >> and apple by muir next. >> thank you very much record and thanks to this fantastic sellout audience and no thanks to who wrote the resolution that garry kasparov and i must oppose. i like the rest of you believe that engagement is a positive

thing. peace and prosperity are linked. isolation by contrast sounds negative and confrontational. myself i have long promoted engagement of eastern europe and advocated integration of eastern europe with the west and initially i believe the engagement which will work brilliantly in poland could work for russia too. alas i have now concluded after very long experience that for the moment he can. for this current russian regime as it now exists cannot be engaged. putin's russia is not just another of talk or or traditional russian dictatorship by stephen cohen will probably tell you. russia's current leaders are not simply the political rulers of the nation. they are literally the country's owners. they control all of its major companies all of its media all of its mashed -- natural wealth. during the 90s they took over the russian state using fast craft and money laundering. as a result versus one of the most unequal countries in the world 110 russians controlling

35% of the nations wealth. many those people also work in or with the kremlin. whatever you want to call the system a mafia state, feudal empire is a disaster for ordinary russians but it's also extremely dangerous for everybody else. in order to stay in power and keep this tiny group of people enriched, putin and his cronies have long needed not only to spread the system to their media neighbors but to undermine rule of law and democracy in the west as well. how does this work was putin and his henchmen badly need to keep the international financial system safe for corrupt money. to do so they bought western politicians for example the former german chancellor. when in empowered he stopped an investigation into a financial scam closely connected to putin. schroeder now works for gazprom. but his cronies have invested heavily in strategically important european companies hoping by doing so it will acquire the political influence they need to protect their dishonest schemes.

they make ample use of tax havens, thereby enriching the providers of these corruption services and depriving legitimate governments of revenue. how to stop this? only by disengaging and isolating the problem. let's get russian money out of the western financial system. a second example. the putin and his henchmen are often frustrated by multilateral institutions such as the e.u. and nato. a united e.u. energy policy would make it much more difficult for russia to use its gas pipelines as it does now to blackmail and bully its neighbors. if weren't for nato russia would find it much easier for example to take the landed of badly wants in the art. so the russian regime is invested heavily in anti-european anti-transatlantic and even fascist political movements across europe to a russian bank has lent 9 million euros to the leader of the far right in france. russia also maintained strong

political and financial links to the anti-semitic far right party and hungry and far right groups in germany italy and many other countries. what to do about this problem. we need to disengage and we need to isolate. let's get russian money out of european politics. thirdly the russian regime has invested massively in an enormous system of disinformation. television stations in multiple languages, web sites fake think tanks and a vast army of internet trolls whose work is well-documented whose efforts are designed to create chaos and confusion. this is isn't traditional propaganda. it's not about saying that rush is a great country. no when a malaysian plane was shot down by russian missile over western ukraine last summer the russian media responded with multiple absurd conspiracy theories. for example that the plane was full of dead people when it took off. but even on an ordinary day russia today the russian english-language channel is

capable of reporting on the cia's invention of ebola. the point of these stories is to create a fog of disinformation so no one knows anymore what is true and what is not. how can we break through this fog and shore up our traditions of objective reporting? yes we have to disengage and isolate. let's work harder to identify russian lies and get them out of our media. you will note i haven't mentioned ukraine. that's because you can understand the recent crisis there much must understand the true nature of the russian regime i just described. for two decades now russia's maintain control of ukraine by investing in politicians companies and disinformation. put up to grade in ukraine at copycat colonial version of the political system he invented in russia and he almost succeeded. the young pro-european pro-democracy ukrainians who went out on the streets were not fighting russia as a nation. they were fighting oligarchs corruption and buddhism. how can we assist these young ukrainians? we need to disengage, to isolate

putin is russia. and to maintain sanctions on putin's cronies almost 110 people around him who control the country. we need to make putin pay a high price for invading a neighbor so he doesn't invade another one and the best way to do this is through disengagement in isolation in the sense isolate russian money isolate russian maligned russian political influence and propaganda. prevent russian violence and corruption from distorting the politics of eastern europe western europe and north america are. putinism is a danger to americans and all of us. thank you very much. [applause] >> 10 seconds on the clock and go, that was impressive. you are up next. >> unlike ms. applebaum i come

here on my first trip to canada as a patriot of american and canadian national security on the half of my family and yours. to achieve that kind of security in the world, we need a partner in the kremlin. not a frat but a partner who shares our fundamental security interests and to achieve that we must not merely engage russia we must pursue full cooperation on security and other matters with russia. that is our real reality today that national security ours and yours, mine and yours, still runs through moscow. this is an existential truth. why? in this debate i have a favor to ask of you. remember what the former united states senator daniel patrick moynihan once said. it's profound. i quote everyone is entitled to

his or her own opinions but not to his or her own facts. please keep this in mind because you are the facts. the world today is much more dangerous and less stable, less ordered than it was 25 years ago when the soviet union existed. they are more nuclear states but less control over nuclear weapons over nuclear know-how, over nuclear materials. they're more regional conflicts, more open religious hatreds more political extremism and intolerance. as a result there is more terrorism and more places. i'm making all this worse -- and making all this work the worst there is more resentment and as we know there are more environmental dangers and foreseeable shortages of the resources. here is the other fact and is not an opinion, the fact. not one of these existential dangers can be dealt with

effectively without russia's cooperation. no matter who sits in the kremlin. even after the soviet union russia remains the world's largest territorial country and one that straddles the fateful frontline between western and islamic civilization. russia still has proportionately more of the world's natural resources from energy to freshwater than any other nation and of course russia has its stockpiles of every conceivable weapon of mass distraction. whether we like it or not russia still has sympathizers partners and allies around the world even in europe and even in the western hemisphere. these are facts, not opinions. what is the alternative? our opponents say it is to isolate russia. they need to weaken, destabilize and carry out regime change, as if they could in russia.

they relied not on facts but on free fundamental fallacies based on their opinions for which there are very little if any facts. fallacy number one. in this localized world it is impossible to isolate russia. russia is too big too rich, too interconnected in today's world. russia has many options apart from the west and in the west. one example ever since several months ago president obama said it was american policy to isolate russia. the russian state under putin has signed more agreements financial political economic and military with foreign states that has russian. russia is connected. russia has other places to go. if we push them out of the west. fallacy number two isolating russia from the west will not make moscow more cooperative or compliant. instead we know what russia will do. it's doing it today. it will turn elsewhere above all

to the east, above all to china and to many other, dozens of regions and regimes that harbor resentments against the west america europe and canada and what will russia do if we isolate them? it will solve the nuclear reactors. it will sell weapons. it will give them credit. it will protect them politically with its veto. fallacy number three, when we can destabilize russia we make every danger worse and create new ones. consider for example if this policy of isolation with its sub policy of weakening moscow were to succeed what would become of russia's weapons of mass distraction if moscow's control over them diminished? think about that. think about your children. think about this kind of madness. is that what we really want?

finally what arguments do our opponents make in favor of trying to isolate russia. now that i can see. the example and inevitably ms. applebaum would mention his ukraine. it's entirely pudas ball. the west is not responsible. the first time in modern history that one side is entirely made no mistakes. leave ukraine to another debate if you wish. i want to end up by pointing out what word ukraine has cost us in terms of national security. it's losing us a security partner in the kremlin. not just putin but perhaps generations or years to come. it is splitting europe against american leadership and possibly undermining the transatlantic alliance and having plunged us into a new cold war is bring us closer to an actual war with nuclear russia than we have been since the cuban missile crisis.

these are the facts. [applause] >> garry kasparov your six minutes please. >> thank you very much. i am here in this audience not as just a neighbor of mr. cohen because we both live on the west side of new york which was not my first choice but a patriot of my country russia. i don't feel very comfortable arguing against the resolution because my dream from the early days when i was a kid traveling the road playing under the russian flag was to engage my country to make it a real factor in the promise of humanity. i knew that despite the regime that i hated russia the soviet union at that time had a huge potential. it's intellectual cultural and

national resources. and it seemed for many others for millions of my country elsewhere in the world that in 1991 our dream came true so the regime collapsed and we all remember celebrating crowds pulled down the statue and talk about purification. it was not an easy time because as you remember in yugoslavia is also collapsed and ended in a terrible civil war. russia escaped that and boris yeltsin to his wisdom and his ability to understand we needed an agreement with the former soviet republic to make sure we could move into the future. russia was i wouldn't say rewarded but it was engaged from the very beginning. what about the billions and

billions of western money as aid to support the russian economy? in 1998 during the financial collapse the loan help to russia to escape and by the end of yeltsin's rule russia was on the verge of recovery. actually the highest rise of gdp in russia was in the year 2000. and then putin comes in. that was the greatest mistake yeltsin made and where the kgb returned nine years after the collapse of the soviet union. the first thing he did was replace his long-term agenda. during these years we saw the total collapse of this people markers and are yeltsin. it was turned into a one-party dictatorship and ended up with the most unstable and dangerous form of government. the whole legacy of the regime based on his charisma and his

ability to help the propaganda machine work toward his greatness. we know from history that after running out of enemies inside the country he turns elsewhere. in 2005 i stopped playing chess and i turn to what some people would mistakenly called russian politics. you think about debates and russia has no public live debates. you think about fund-raising and elections. so i knew it was an uphill battle. in chess we have fixed rules and unpredictable results. putin's russia is exactly the opposite. [applause] and it has all happened with -- i remember with horror i looked at the pictures on russian television in 2006 was putin was

hosting g7. i never called the g8. it was always called g7 plus one. that was given to yeltsin as in the dance like a preliminary report. russia was not democracy and a great industrial power. china never made the g8 and russia did. how could we attack putin and his democratic values that we could see him being embraced and hugs by sharad. the russian propaganda machine worked to our damage and of course talking about foreign aggression i can't escape ukraine. of course ukraine undermines the authority of nato and the united states and again he was the only way for putin to go because the economy no longer offers him an excuse to stay in power forever. he is now ruler for life and everyone understands it.

in georgia in 2008 and now ukraine and let's not forget ukraine has been disarmed by the united states and the united kingdom in 1994 i forcing to -- being forced to sign a memorandum. ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world more than u.k. france and china combined. if some of those warheads were aiming at moscow today -- it would have never crossed the border. [applause] it was a signature of bill clinton which ended up either way with disarming small nuclear arms in belarus. it created an a nuclear-free fall of the soviet union but territorial integrity. if we think the crimea is locally are wrong because the message is being sent to every country of the world if you want to protect your sovereignty gets nukes. that's why you hold the ukraine tragedy it's an issue that

affects everybody on this planet. i hope eventually we will recognize it's not about isolating russia. it's about isolating putin's regime. we don't engage the virus. it needs to be contained. thank you. [applause] ..