where things might develop in different direction down those roads. and that we are essentially in front of the least ugly girl contest. we're choosing between -- we're choosing between not very nice options there. and none of them is entirely perfect. so i think in this sense whether religious freedom comes at the forefront of the issues that people need to fight for or not, yes, it might not be one of those main issues at the moment. >> all right. very good. we have a few -- on that optimistic note, let's turn to our audience. i see we have a question over here. mr. mcfarland? >> all right. my name is steve mcfarland. question. how long must egypt stay in this halfway house of religious tolerance? if religious tolerance is not going to permit individuals of

the minority faith to share their faith or to be perceived as even trying to persuade somebody else of the truth of their belief or convert or prosthelytize or say something derogatory at least by accusation blasphemic. if that is a bridge too far for religious freedom in our lifetime, is that much of a halfway house to live in long term? because i believe that the ability to share one's faith and to -- and to disagree with a majority faith and to try to persuade someone of the truth of your beliefs is the essence of religious freedom. and religious tolerance sounds more like, i tolerate what other people's dogs do on my lawn. you know, i just put up with it.

>> you shouldn't do that, steve. >> i know. you know, that's not my notion of religious freedom. comment? >> samer, would you like to take that? >> no. >> but you will? >> yes. i think that, you know, maybe i'm wrong, correct me, but i think if you, you know, look at where egypt is right now, where it's been, what the current state of things are, we will be fortunate to achieve religious tolerance. and achieve equality before the law regardless of one's faith. the struggle, right now, nor should it necessarily be, for example, regarding article 2 of the egyptian constitution. islam is the religion of state. arabic is its language. the principles of the sharia are the primary source of legislation. exactly formulated as such. is about -- and the most liberal and realistic goal one can have is to preserve the article as is.

because -- and i myself, you know, am in favor of keeping the article as is. whereas the salafis, for example, want to change the article to increase the importance of islam and the sharia by either getting rid of the principles, because the principles of the sharia are things that all of us can agree with. the social justice. equality. truth. so on. to either the sharia or the rulings of sharia so that you can have more specific rulings be the basis of law as opposed to these wonderful principles. i think if we achieve religious tolerance, you know, right now and probably for some time to come, meaning equality before the law for all, the right to practice one's faith and so on, that that will be a significant achievement. >> okay. i hear you. i would like to point out on steve's behalf, i think he would say that the standard that you said of equality before the law

is not met if one cannot share one's religious beliefs publicly. so i think we just have a disagreement over what equality before the law means and what religious freedom may mean. and the question i asked was intended to get to the utilitarian -- can it work? >> the problem is if you do this, the ability to share one's faith, if that means prosthelytizing, right, then you are in an arms race. >> it doesn't mean prosthelytizing. that's a bad word. it means sharing your faith. and trying to convince others you're right. >> you know, i don't know what the difference is. >> there isn't any. i'm just kidding. prosthelytism has a negative tone to it. >> i don't know if you agree with me. then you have an arms race essentially. you know? and that is an arms race that is bad for religious minorities, probably. right? and it's also not the kind of race that egypt should be engaged in right now, at least -- >> and so the question is,

please, you needn't answer this, the question i was posing is given that reality, i agree with you, is democracy over the long term possible until this issue is resolved or at least grappled with honestly? and i agree that it isn't. >> yeah. you know, very briefly. i don't think that, you know, it is something that, you know, radically or fundamentally impedes the ability of a liberal democracy being established in egypt. it might not be the extent that you'd like. but i think it shall. >> okay. fair enough. jillian. >> yeah. i -- you know, i -- yeah. i echo -- yeah. i pretty much echo your point. it's -- there's -- i think it should be there. but i don't think it needs to be there front and center. i think when there's other kinds of security and confidence that comes from the institutions, when the institutions are functioning in a way that people feel safe, then i think they would emerge, you know, more freedom of expression around

particular kinds of issues. where people don't have to feel that one statement is just a complete threat to their whole community. they don't have to feel panicky. i think that will be gradual. i think you can get there in some ways through the exercising and functioning of that space. >> sam? >> let me begin by a story that happened yesterday in egypt. maybe a month ago there was a schoolteacher in the south of egypt who during the school -- during the class break was sitting in the teachers lounge. and he's christian. and a conversation begins between a salafi teacher and himself that results in a religious discussion. and the salafi teacher claims -- there's no proof of that -- that the christian insulted the prophet. this automatically results in writing in the air. which results, of course, in that teacher being arrested.

the court system which is hugely dysfunctional suddenly becomes very functional. after one day of hearing the case, the whole case takes three days, one day of hearing it without anything they give him a couple of years of a sentence. the salafis don't like that fact because they think a couple of years is not enough. so they demonstrate in front of the court and won a death sentence. this is a good punishment for such an act. now, what happens actually yesterday is due to human rights organizations pressure and so on, the case goes into another hearing. an appeal of that case. and the guy can't get a lawyer. not because he doesn't have people willing to represent him. but because there are 300 other lawyers that prohibit any lawyer representing him from entering the courtroom. that's a problem. no, you will not have democracy

unless you deal with such an issue. the issue is not -- you cannot escape it within the question of equality. not the fact that can he preach christianity to others or not. but can he get a fair trial for this crime if we even consider it a crime? can he get a lawyer to defend him in that case or not? so i think it's -- it is an integral part of the story of a democratic transition. will you get it? i doubt. should you work on it exclusively, no. as a part of a larger picture that not everything of it will be perfect, not today or tomorrow or even 10 or 20 years, that's the sad story of the long process of the transition. >> okay. let's get another question. how about right here. >> thank you. my name is haro hashemi from the beckett fund.

my question about article 2 of the constitution is more about the constitutional development in these countries and the role that religion will play. taking into context just the various types of constitutional recognition of religion, turkey being a model which declares in its constitution that it's secular or pakistan that declares islamic religion of pakistan or indonesia saying it's based on the country -- that there is one god. there's also a provision for religious liberty that people have the right to practice their religion. in contrast to these arab spring countries, particularly tunisia, i'm interested whether they will recognize islam outright as the religion of the state and how you think this will reflect on religious liberties and the protection of minority religions. >> i can comment briefly.

i'm not an expert on tunisia, but i spent some weeks there this spring in january for the anniversary. one of the things that struck me, with nafta having won such a large -- 40% of the assembly, i was in a mountaintop town called lakef on the anniversary of the revolution which is one of the places that there were a lot of protests weeks before it ever got to the capital a year ago. so they were defending the grocery stores that had burnt down last year. they're making sure they don't get burnt down again. there's piles of tiring burning here and there. people are protesting. nothing has changed after a year. the most interesting thing is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in town was the nafta office. nafta in power is now panicking they're the target of things haven't really changed. another incident -- then i'll try to weave it together. another incident was that the -- there are women showing up for exams in the universities, three at a time. you're not allowed to take an exam according to the current

rules because you have to show your face. intended to be very provocative. the time i was there the salafi group also established a -- i tried to go. my friends would not take me. there's this pushing going on and these tensions between nafta and the salafis. one of the interesting things was that nafta kept saying they oppose this. they were completely against this. this isn't what they represented. they wanted to maintain it as a secular state. but the nafta minister of higher education refused to make a statement against, you know, the sort of salafi inroads and this pushing. refused to take a stand on that. that was seen as very, very troubling by secularists in the country. you're saying one thing. is this really down the road you're going to remain silent? it's something that came up in an earlier session. sometimes on the coptic issue, sometimes the lack of doing something speaks incredibly

loud. the mubarak regime's lack of intervention around all kinds of issues. attacks on university professors. attacks on cops. their silence on the issue speaks volumes. i think in tunisia everyone is holding their breath. while nafta says it's not going to push that forward there are threads of nervousness for some people that that might be coming down the road a year or two from now. again, i'm not an expert on tunisia. from my trip i thought that was an interesting point of tension. people are nervous about it. >> i think we had a question back here. we have time, unfortunately, for only one more. okay. this gentleman here. here we go. up here. sorry. >> hi. i'm richard hyde. i direct the religion consulting group.

i'm curious about other bases of identity in the countries that you're talking about. they all speak arabic. they're mostly muslim. what differentiates a tunisian from a moroccan from an algerian from an egyptian, et cetera. there must be lots of other things going on here. >> well, i mean, you know, there are unlimited differences. these are overlapping identities. the arab that the tunisian speaks is not the arabic that i speak. nor is the french in the arabic the tunisian speaks, the little french that i know. there are differences in history. there are differences in colonial history and colonial influence. there are differences, the kind of historical sediment of, for example, the morgaba regime and the attempted secularism in law, even, in tunisia is something for a quite long period of time,

is something that's quite different than what was experienced in egypt, for example. so there are, you know, there are similarities, but there are differences. these are multiple overlapping identities as identities always are. i don't know what else to say about that. >> i would add it's sort of besides comparison from country to country, of course, to me the biggest difference between countries is cuisine. but within countries, i mean, i think there's a lot of tension. so in syria, the ruling regime is alawi. the majority is excluded. in bahrain, the ruling regime is s sunni and the majority is excluded. even ones about religion sometimes aren't about the content of those religious differences so much as about historical sectarian differences. who had power, who's excluded, who's been effective training. i think those tensions underlie things in long standing ways

that then can be exposed and expressed in terms of religious differences. sometimes about religious differences. other times not religious differences at all. about other issues that map onto those different identities. paying attention to that is crucial. sometimes there are -- like the wahabis going into the zadi mosques. that's about a religious difference. it's very specific. it's also political. the alawis and the rest of syria, that's about power and repression. >> sam? >> i think that sums it up. >> all right. this brings this panel to a close. i'm delighted we had a little bit of controversy. i was worried that we were all going to agree on everything, and that's never happened before in our religious freedom conferences. so please join me in thanking our guests. [ applause ] if i might, before -- before you leave, if i could just thank a few people. there are many people who made this possible. all the good folks at the

berkeley center, its director, tom banchof. special kudos to project associate kyle vandermulen. to our master video and sound technician who's been doing these events for years, ralph sordel. if we could give them a round of applause, too. thank you for your help. most of all, thanks to you for being here today. come back and see us next thursday at our -- when we'll put america under the spotlight. hhs mandate and religious freedom. thanks for coming.

here in washington, the clinton global initiative is kicking off their fifth annual student conference this evening with a discussion on the power of public service. founding chair and 42nd president, bill clinton, will host a panel that will include former secretary of state madeleine albright. it is being hosted by george washington university. live coverage gets under way at 7:30 eastern on c-span. ronald reagan was leaving this hotel after delivering a speech to the afl-cio. regan comes out and hinckley is only 15 feet from the president.

he shoots. six shots. the first one hits jim brady, the press secretary, in the head. he falls down. the second hits a d.c. police officer, who had turned around to check on the president's progress. he gets hit in the back, falls down and screams "i'm hit!" now the path to the president is clear, wide open. hinckley has an effective range of 20 to 30 feet. he's done target practice, he can hit stationary targets 20 to 30 feet. >> march 30th, 1981, would be assassin john hinckley fires six shots. this weekend on "american artifacts" an author on the race to save a president, sunday at 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, this weekend on c-span 3. this week on "news makers" jim jordan, the ohio congressman talks about why he supports budget committee chairman paul ryan's budget which passed the house thursday. >> well, there's a lot of things good about paul's budget. the fact that particularly the

policy statements where they have incorporated ideas that have really been ideas like welfare reform, medicaid reform, sending it back to the states, where we think we can better serve the recipients. so a lot of good things in there. tax reform policy. of course it's 1,000 times better than the president's budget which never, ever, ever, ever gets to balance. the difference between paul's budget and ours is we get to balance in a reasonable period of time, in a time frame that we believe the american people thinks is common sense. five years is what it takes for ours. it takes 28 years for paul's budget to get to balance. we think that's important to show the american people here's what we really need to do. but the fact remains you can't get 218 votes for our budget. at least i don't expect to get 218 votes, unfortunately, so we do need to pass something and paul's is a lot better than the president's so we're going to support that. >> republican study committee chairman jim jordan also weighs in on campaign 2012 and speaker john boehner's performance as leader.

see the entire interview sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. live sunday on "in depth" our fathers, civility and conservative politics. your questions for author and national review senior editor richard brookheiser. right time, right place. america's first dine city. george washington on leadership and his latest on james madison. he'll take your phone calls, e-mails and tweets sunday at noon eastern. general jan allen last week said the mission there is on track and he expressed confidence in the 2014 deadline set for withdrawing combat troops for the country. general allen testified for just the second time since taking command of the war.

committee will come to order. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. the house armed services committee meets today to receive testimony from the acting undersecretary of defense for policy, dr. james miller, and the commander of the

international security and assistance force in afghanistan, general john allen. gentlemen, thank you for your distinguished service to our nation, especially during this critical moment in afghanistan. and thank you for joining us here today. the last year has been a consequential time for u.s. in afghanistan. during this time period, with the surge forces in place, united states and nato forces have conducted major operations to push back the taliban in the south of afghanistan, launched operations from afghanistan to kiln osama bin laden, and further disrupt al qaeda, trained thousands of afghan security forces so that they can secure their territory from terrorist and insurgent groups, and have returned countless numbers of civilians to school and to work. however, in the last few weeks, the impressive gains that the united states and nato were

making in afghanistan have been called into question by some, due to the actions of a rogue few. some afghan soldiers have taken up arms against isaf soldiers which could diminish trust among soldier that are supposed to be partnered. partnering is valuable and necessary. there are steps that can be taken to minimize such incidents, and that these criminal actions are relatively isolated. moreover, the horrific incident of u.s. army staff sergeant who allegedly took up arms against afghan civilians also is both isolated and a criminal act that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. these exceptional incidents are not reflective of the hundreds of thousands of u.s. soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, who

have honorably served in afghanistan, nor are they reflective of the many thousands of afghan soldiers who are being train and are helping to secure afghanistan today. additionally, i remain very concerned about the president's decision last summer to speed up withdrawal of the surge troops from afghanistan, as well as his original announcement in his speech at west point for a date certain in 2014 to withdraw all u.s. combat forces. it has made it increasingly difficult to build up trust and confidence with the afghan institutions that will ensure that the security and political gains by u.s. and nato efforts are sustained into the future. moreover, with our eyes at the exits i'm uncertain whether we will be able to achieve the key tenets of the president's strategy due to the constraints the president himself has put in place. for example, it's been reported in the media that the u.s. and afghan governments are attempting to achieve a negotiated solution with the taliban, and yet the taliban continue to operate with

impunity out of pakistan because they already know when we will be leaving, and pakistan has been unwilling or unable to address safe havens. furthermore, due to the president's decision to begin withdrawing surge forces early we increased the risk to our forces to effectively address the second part of the afghanistan campaign plan, shifting the main effort to eastern afghanistan and applying military pressure on the haqqani network, who are responsible for the most dramatic and lethal attacks in afghanistan. what's more, in the absence of sustained public opinion to support the mission in afghanistan from the white house on down, many have begun to question what we're fighting for. with friend and foe alike, knowing that the u.s. is heading for the exits, our silence is likely viewed as a preamble to retreat and in warfare when the mission becomes redeployment rather than mission success the outcome can quickly become disorderly. general allen and i have total

confidence in you and your command. the challenge in afghanistan continues to be great but i'm certain that we can achieve the united states' core, strategic objectives by resolving to provide you with a time and resources you need to be successful. i think this hearing today is extremely timely, with the american people needing to hear from you and what's really going on over there on the ground. now i look forward to your testimony and the insights into the challenges and the way forward in afghanistan. ranking member smith? >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you, general allen, dr. miller, appreciate your leadership and support. i agree with the chairman's opening remarks about the progress that has been made in afghanistan since the surge was

announced there has been considerable progress made throughout the country and i am aware that progress was made because of the bravery, leadership and considerable efforts of our troops and isaf partners. we have pushed the taliban back particularly in the south. those of us who traveled there can tangibly see the improvements, villages we're able to walk through that were major combat zones a few months before, is evidence of the hard work and progress being made. perhaps as important as the security gains, you are seeing on the district and the provincial level significant improvement in governance. one of the things i was impressed with last time i was there, i saw a great deal more u.s. aid, state department, people on the judiciary side. the base exes building blocks of governance put in place. we've made enormous progress towards giving the afghan government and people the chance to have a stable and lasting government. now, progress should not be -- should not underestimate the challenge that remains.

afghanistan is a very difficult country. it's very poor. its economy is very difficult. they have a history of well over 30 years of civil war and the insurgent groups are still present. we can't imagine we're ever going to leave a perfectly stable perfect democracy in afghanistan, but the progress has been made, and i think the thing that we can all feel good about we have a much, much better chance that when we leave there will be a stable government that will be able to stand and stop the taliban from returning to power. we must always remember that that was the goal that the president clearly stated. defeat, dismantle al qaeda and make sure they and their taliban allies can not come back. we are much further along the road to achieving that goal now than we were two years ago, due in large part to the efforts of our troops and we must thank them for that. we are not going to stay there

forever. i don't think anybody would say that we should. if we're not going to stay there forever we need a plan to leave and to leave responsibly and that's what was first put in place by the president in 2009 and then solidifies at the lisbon conference in 2010 with nato. we have what i think is a realistic plan. we cannot say, well, we're never going to leave, we're going to stay because we're fearful that if people think we're going to leave therefore gives themselves advantage. it gives them an advantage if we leave in the minds of the afghan people we're never going to leave. the effect of that, one, undermines the confidence in the karzai government, the confidence of the provincial governments because they do not like look governments that can stand on their own. they look like governments that will be forever dependent on foreign forces.